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What is the rarest playmates figure?


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#81 Morgan

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Posted 30 October 2017 - 06:57 PM

A minty, unopened DS9 station model sold for $80.88 + $11.15 shipping recently.

 

That's a good bit of dough for a vehicle, reconfirming a healthy amount of demand for some vehicles (but not for others). Loose DS9 stations continue to trade in the $40 range with shipping, and almost all invite a lot of bids.



#82 Morgan

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Posted 22 December 2017 - 06:55 PM

Tapestry Picard #1081, Yesterday's Yar #776 and Projections Barclay #969 all walk into a bar on eBay, and bring $432.00 + $14.95 shipping after 31 frantic bids.

 

This is a pretty good way to buy them, $144.00 each if you want to divide the three up this way w/out shipping. Strong prices for all three, don't usually see all in a bunch like this.

 

The manufacturer got tons of crap back in the day for cheating collectors out of these super-limited figures, but now the feeling is that there weren't enough of them. Thankfully, we have all these weird Canadian, UK and Australian packaging variants. There are far more Tapestry Picards out there than some of these foreign items (!).

 

However long this link lasts: https://www.ebay.com...353.m1438.l2649



#83 Morgan

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Posted 22 August 2018 - 01:17 PM

Here's something ridiculously rare, even though it never quite gets the spotlight: Canadian-market Ambassador Spock on 7th season TNG card. How many of these do you think are still in the package? I'm betting it is  magnitudes less than Tapestry Picard and that whole bunch. Is there even a hundred out there? Even I don't have one of these.

 

This one recently sold as a lot with 8 other Canadian-carded 6th season TNG figures, which also included Lore on 6th season card.

 

These things are just stupendously rare. I think this is the first photo of such a figure I've seen. One unconfirmed item remains Beverly on 6th season card with pog.

 

9vjuk6.jpg
 



#84 dathon18

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Posted 27 October 2018 - 11:43 PM

Here's something ridiculously rare, even though it never quite gets the spotlight: Canadian-market Ambassador Spock on 7th season TNG card. How many of these do you think are still in the package? I'm betting it is  magnitudes less than Tapestry Picard and that whole bunch. Is there even a hundred out there? Even I don't have one of these.

 

This one recently sold as a lot with 8 other Canadian-carded 6th season TNG figures, which also included Lore on 6th season card.

 

These things are just stupendously rare. I think this is the first photo of such a figure I've seen. One unconfirmed item remains Beverly on 6th season card with pog.

 

9vjuk6.jpg
 

 

 

There is also a Guinan carded this way, and YES, there is a Dr Crusher. I have never laid eyes on one personally, but do have a pic of one. It is the only pic that I've ever seen of one, and have never seen one at auction, so apparently they're super rare. As you mentioned, the 1701's... not so rare. Some of these Canadian variants however, do seem to be much more scarce! Fred K.



#85 Morgan

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Posted 28 October 2018 - 03:53 PM

Oh dang, you should post the Crusher here if you can. That's... mythical. I've never even seen a photo of one.

 

Yeah, the Guinan on this card comes up for sale a couple of times a year. I don't think I have one though.



#86 Morgan

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Posted 17 November 2018 - 05:37 PM

Thanks to dathon18 for this Crusher on 7th season on Canadian card photo. It's hard to tell how many were made on this card, but I would imagine it would have to be around 1,000, right? It could well be less -- it's strange why we don't see more of them.

 

It's believed that Canada got these 2nd release figures on 7th season cards in quite different quantities, which explains why some like Lore and Guinan are easier to find than others. It doesn't look like any one of these were produced in quantities in excess of 10,000 max -- there just aren't enough of any one of those on the market to create the impression that more than that number were produced.

 

bev-500.jpg



#87 Morgan

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Posted 01 February 2019 - 02:28 PM

I'm pretty sure I'm never gonna get this lucky again, but I picked up this figure last week just on Canadian eBay -- just out of the blue -- with a small batch of other figures. The Prophets were smiling on me that day.

 

Well, at least we know that there was more than one or two, hahah! This one has foot number 30926.

 

It's hard to tell how many are still out there in their boxes -- it has to be well below 50 examples, right? Otherwise there would be more photos out there on the internet, I feel. Or at least there would be more on eBay. 

 

[img]https://i.postimg.cc/GtmWXqm0/bev-500.jpg[/img]



#88 VulcanFanatic

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Posted 01 February 2019 - 04:08 PM

Congrats! This figure didn't seem particularly rare in the 90's when it was released but who knows now? I opened a couple of these myself.

#89 Morgan

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Posted 01 February 2019 - 04:12 PM

Thanks! With this one it's mostly the Canadian 7th season card that matters -- production is estimated to be in the very very low thousands for Crusher with pog on 7th season card. I'm sure unopened 1701 Tapestry Picards easily, easily outnumber this variant.

 

I would have paid.... about as much for this one as a 1701 Tapestry Picard MIB for this one had I not gotten lucky. This is the only one I've seen in real life.

 

I'm sure that, like, 5 years will go by before I see one for sale again.



#90 dathon18

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Posted 03 February 2019 - 04:00 PM

I'm pretty sure I'm never gonna get this lucky again, but I picked up this figure last week just on Canadian eBay -- just out of the blue -- with a small batch of other figures. The Prophets were smiling on me that day.

 

Well, at least we know that there was more than one or two, hahah! This one has foot number 30926.

 

It's hard to tell how many are still out there in their boxes -- it has to be well below 50 examples, right? Otherwise there would be more photos out there on the internet, I feel. Or at least there would be more on eBay. 

 

30nd8co.jpg
 

 

WOW! Good job Morgan! It looks like I need to pay a visit to Ebay Canada from time to time! It looks to be in great condition too. Great find my friend! Fred K.



#91 Morgan

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Posted 17 February 2019 - 07:05 PM

We need an en banc collector ruling on the rarity of this 7th season Canadian Vorgon with pog.

 

This like the second or third one that I've seen, and the 2nd release card Vorgon with pog is literally the price of a Big Mac these days on The Ebays. But what about this one? Do we think this is rarer than, say, Ambassador Spock with pog on 7th season Canadian?

 

I think it's safe to say that it's rarer than Guinan and Lore -- those seem to be the most common 7th season Canadian pog figures. But that's not in dispute.

 

What do we think, where does this rank?

 

 

s-l500.jpg



#92 Morgan

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Posted 27 October 2019 - 05:42 PM

Here's Dathon with pog, one of which went for $500 at the door in late 2019, allegedly. Only the UK and Australia got these.

 

Back in the day Dathon and Vorgon with pog value were not differentiated all that much -- I recall that both were offered at $200 a piece -- but now the situation is quite different. Vorgon with pog is very locatable, given some time, while Dathon does not appear for sale all that often.

 

 

daton-pog-600wide.jpg



#93 Morgan

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Posted 21 April 2020 - 11:23 AM

This figure may not be among the first that collectors think about when they do a round-up of the rarest figures, but for a long time Ambassador Spock on 7th season Canadian card has been very tough to find.

 

Are there even 100 of these out there? That's doubtful, to be honest, given how infrequently they trade. But if you think about it, this figure is now far rarer than the Sarek and Troi with pogs on Canadian card. Those were scalped early on, and a lot of them stayed in the package. But not this one, because there wasn't really any buzz about it, and only a few thousand are thought to have been made. 

 

Out of the Canadian 7th season carded figures, this one is perhaps the second toughest to find after 2nd release Crusher with pog, of which even a good photo did not exist until like last year.

 

 

spock.jpg



#94 Morgan

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Posted 01 June 2020 - 05:35 PM

Here's one of the rarer Canadian variants: Dax in duty uniform on the Canadian first-release card. This was one of two variants released in Canada -- the other was this Dax with a pog on TNG 7th season card.

 

So there were a total of 4 versions of this Dax figure for various markets:

 

1. debut release DS9 card, no pog: Australia
2. second release DS9 card, with pog: U.S.
3. TNG 7th season card, with pog:  Canada.

4. debut release DS9 card, no pog: Canada 

 

 

This one is that fourth global variant. This one is actually the more common one out of the Canadian variants. The Dax with pog on 7th season TNG card is rarer, and is not even all that frequently seen.

 

 

dax-cad.jpg



#95 Morgan

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Posted 14 June 2020 - 03:14 PM

Here's a bit of trivia: Red Data was listed in the Christmas 1994 JC Penney catalog as "Commander Data in Dress Uniform." The picture showed him properly, but he wasn't listed properly. So you had to somehow figure out that he was in fact a rare exclusive, despite the name, and order the four figures for $22.99.
 
Somehow, collectors did get notice of this figure and ordered it, which is why you rarely see them out of the package. But without the internet, or easy communication, it was super difficult to even get advanced notice for something like this unless you were scanning Christmas catalogs in the hope of seeing some exclusive. What it required was calling Pmates directly to find out just where he was -- in a JC Penney catalog -- but calling JC Penney directly did not always result in finding out this info. Some people called JC Penney at the time to confirm they had him, and the company would know nothing about it. (But you also had to know to call JC Penney in the first place, for which you needed the catalog or to call Pmates first).
 
But here another issue: Just how many regular customers bought these four figures versus collectors? This was a strange way of buying figures in the first place, I would surmise, and if customers didn't buy enough of them, what would have happened with the rest? I think at some point the catalog would have run out of them, or put them on the pegs. 
 
Incidentally, about a year ago I bought Red Data with two other figures from this group of four (minus Wesley) for pretty close to the original catalog price. Prior to that, I only had two Canadian-market Red Datas. So in 2019 I bought Red Data with two other figures in the most ridiculous way possible.
 
The JC Penney catalog also offered four "Generations" figures at the time, but I don't know just which ones they were. 
 
penney.jpg


#96 Morgan

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Posted 25 February 2023 - 10:54 AM

Here's another recent appearance of Ambassador Spock with pog on 7th season Canadian card. I see these about once every couple of years or so. This one is considered to be the second rarest among the Canadian releases on 7th season cards, after the analogous Beverly with pog.

 

The numbers of these left on card aren't huge -- much fewer than something like Red Data or the 1701 figures I'd say. These just weren't preserved at the time and weren't really talked about back in the 1990s. And when it came to Canadian-carded figures, everyone was focused on Sarek and Lwaxana. So a number of these sailed under the radar.

 

 

spock-2023.jpg



#97 Morgan

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Posted 18 March 2023 - 08:03 AM

Here are a couple of close views of the Tri-fold Borg backer card. As we know, these were hastily made as a promotional item for industry execs, so this was a straight-up Borg figure solely on a new card, with art from the TNG-era cube.

 

We don't usually see the separated cards separately, but this one was damaged. And, it also appears that a lot of these were not glued awesomely to the cards either, aka the Theater Luke problem.

 

 

 

trifold-1.jpg

 

 

 

One interesting thing here is that there is no mention of PM toys, or any other kind of consumer warnings, barcodes etc. That's because this was a batch-made item via a special order, and not for retail.

 

 

trifold-2.jpg






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