How to become an ELITE collector!! A guest column by Dave Brown 1-15-03 12:01am Hi everyone, As an enthusiastic fan of Star Wars for 25 years now, and as a fellow collector, I've often been asked how it is that I've been sooo lucky as far as always being able to get my hands on the latest stuff -- even before it seems to become available in the local stores... Well as a friend of Bill, and a everyone else I've met over on the PSWCS site who have been so very friendly to me, I've decided to let you guys in on my secret... my 'system' as it were... To begin with, I'll quote one of my favorite Jedi here... "In my experience, there's no such thing as luck". What I'm trying to get at here, is that I consider myself a very logical and analytical thinker... In my mind, *LUCK* should have nothing to do with your ability to nab the latest toys if you plan well enough. Sure... you *could* rely on luck. But if you relied on luck alone, then you'd be no better off then the next bounty-hunter down the street. You'd have no 'edge'... No, if you're gonna get your hands on the latest stuff... on the hot-tickets... well then you gotta do your homework... You gotta PLAN. And you have to INVEST a little. (Don't worry though, my 'system' rewards you TENFOLD for your modest investment... And not only financially, but in stature, and in prestige, and admiration amongst your peers) Anyway, I started following this program waay back in '97, when the special editions came out, (this is when I got back into the hobby again -- after I realized growing up wasn't all its cracked up to be). At first I was a bit skeptical. And I tested the system out with only a very modest investment. But when Theater-Edition Lukes began popping up, and my vintage collection began to round itself out, I really couldn't believe it. A complete probabilistic analysis of what I was nabbing, and what the odds of finding these things were told me that there was an unmistakable and positive correlation coefficient (finally a college Prob&Stats class that really pays off!) I thought I had the system figured out perfectly at that point, but in retrospect, I realize that I was cheating the system a bit. When the Episode-I toys came out. I fully expected to rake in a veritable cornucopia of toys for mere pennies on the dollar. But I didn't. This was a painful lesson, and a significant amount of fine-tuning of the model was necessary. In fact I had to make a complete re-investment about a year after Ep-I came out, because I was falling BEHIND all my friends in the great Ep-I toy hunt. Anyway, about Jan 2001, I made another 'trip', and then the system was happy... I was nabbing Holo-Sideous's, R2-B1's, and Holographic Leias out the wazoo... Earlier this year, About April, before Celebration-II, I made another 'trip', and lo-and-behold, in Indy, I met a bellhop in the elevator who was delivering Carrie Fisher's dinner, so he invited me along. And Rick McCallum and I shared a scone at Starbucks the opening morning of CII. And then I found two Jorg Sacul's in a bag in the back seat of my taxi as I left CII at the end of day 3. Not too bad for an investment of only about $30, eh? So, If you want in on this kind of action, this is all you gotta do. All it takes is THREE (3) simple steps... STEP ONE) You need to go out and buy four or five really nice (NearMint or better) figs. Aliens I found out are good. imperials are better, and villains are best (I don't know why). Avoid Luke (in any form), and for gods sake, NO JAR-JARS!!! (trust me on this one). Oh, and at least one VADER is a must ! These figures need to be all different figures; Preferably from the same toy line... And Unopened! Don't skimp here. Find some really nice figures. If they have price tags, REMOVE THEM without leaving any adhesive residue. Remember too, this is your investment material ! If you go cheap with this, then your benefits will be cheap too ! STEP TWO) Find an active volcano. STEP THREE) Just toss em in. What you're doing here is appeasing 'VULKAR' -- the almighty and most benevolent VOLCANO GOD! I know... I know... to the uneducated, this might sound a bit strange. But the math totally proves the system out ! Honest ! The almighty VULKAR will reward you for your virgin action-figure sacrifice by ensuring you a highly favorable fortuity in acquiring new toys of every kind. Trust me. You'll be amazed ! You'll find the latest wave in your local grocery store... You'll find all the exclusives in your local dollar store (and in MINT condition too). And as for foreign-only imports... you'll probably hear about some boat sinking or some plane exploding in mid-air, and then you'll either find some hermetically sealed thing washing up on the beach just as you're passing by, or else you'll see something falling from 36000 ft, only to land on your patio hammock with nary a scratch... (Voila' My 'Hong-Kong Four' checkbox was FILLED ! ) Its really kinda freaky until you get used to it. All-in-all the whole sh'bang is almost TOO SIMPLE. I will add a few more pointers, too, those of you who might want to rush out and immediately jump on board. Here are some more important points for the newbies... A) Throwing INTO the volcano crater sows better returns than merely throwing into an active lava flow. (and simply leaving the toys in the path of a new and oncoming lava breakout makes your sacrifice even more unfruitful) YUP, if you want top-notch return, You gotta climb all the way to the top! (good boots are a must). B) When referring to the almighty VULKAR in text or speech, it is important not forget to use the word "almighty". Calling the almighty VULKAR 'benevolent' is also good. He likes that. C) If the locals around your volcano have a different name for their own volcano god, then its probably a good idea to toss an extra fig for him/her too. I'm not exactly sure about this, but the correlation-coef is positive, and greater than 0.781, so it's probably a safe bet. That's about all a newbie really needs to know to jump on board right away. For those who consider themselves a little more geeky, you can do some simple radial-tilt and volcanic gas spectrometry measurements using materials you probably have right in your own kitchen. This will give you some immediate feedback as to the appeasement level of the almighty VULKAR even before you leave the mountain. (Cool... but not essential). Anyway, I just got back from a trip right before Christmas. And I already found a solitary EphontMon -- mint condition -- sitting in a Honolulu Airport kiosk, $3.97, before my return flight home. Cha-Ching!!! Coincidence you say ? LUCK you say? 'HA! You do the math !!!' DaveB (AKA Bom_Bad_Boy, Bom_Bad_Dad, Earthbound_Misfit, HyperspaceCropduster)