But thats not what he said....

So glad I only wanted a Gandalf out of this horrid set.

stopped by Target on my way home from work the last two days and bought some packs, got all three exclusives, some orcs, Grinnah, Gandalf, and Bilbo. Now I don't have to buy any more from Target.

Has anyone pulled anything other than a common or an exclusive from these packs?

The whole "you can't increase demand" thing is bunk. Here's why.

Let's say you have a player base of 8 people. There are three stores in the area that have one CTD apiece. All 8 people want the Hobbit pieces. You buy out all three stores in the area.

In this case, the demand is increased because the supply is further limited from "normal" levels. The casual or emphatic demand becomes something more akin to a feeding frenzy.

See the release of the PS3 for another example.

And, incidentally, Uberman is right. Someone here DID try to say that Target wouldn't be carrying any more.

Like this:

My gf brought home a whole sealed display box from target and said "I know you were talking about these but couldn't find any. I wasn't sure how many you wanted, so I just got the whole box."


Ah, she's a keeper.

She sure sounds like it. Just a warning...while she's your girlfriend, she's still technically in the "courting" phase. They're really nice in that phase. I'm in the 8 years of marriage phase where it's now, "Are you down in the basement playing with your toys...I mean "collectible figurines" (insert major eye roll) again? You said you were going to clean out the garage tonight."

Enjoy it while it lasts.

You got me. Why would I possibly do it my way instead of taking your suggestion? Oh, wait.

1) Yeah, Orcs are going fairly cheap on eBay. But here's the problem with your foolproof plan: most of them are singles. I just checked... there's one page of Swordsmen on the 'Bay, and most auctions are for one figure - going for $2 or $3. Now, add shipping for each single with different sellers - again, most charge $2 to $3. So what does the math tell you? These figures cost $4 to $5 total - and I have to wait for shipping too. Sounds great! Or I could just drive to a few Targets on my day off and get a whole bunch for $3, instantly. Could I possibly find a few auctions that are worthwhile? Sure. Is it worth it to pore through them all, hoping to get lucky? No. Nobody's listing twenty Orcs for a buck each, with combined shipping. They never do with generics, not until the set is old and gray.

2) Another nice side effect of buying Target cases is that I have a whole mess of Gandalfs, Bilbos, and Thorins to give to my home-game friends. Those three are pretty much the only figures they want from this set anyway, barring Galadriel/Elrond. In case you haven't looked, they aren't even worth selling, they return a buck or two.

Sorry. My way still makes more sense.

Well, you convinced me. You're like a regular ####in' Santa Claus.

Time to let these threads die so we can all get back to real business: finding rules loopholes.

Your way makes no sense. Your way is to buy out product and then warn people that they should hurry and get theirs because they're hard to get. That's like going around, kicking everyone in the nuts and then saying "You should really all wear nut-protectors...the world is a dangerous place."

...wow, nothing against anything anyone said, but the shear amount of posts on this thread has somehow informed the system to send me 50 emails telling me there are new posts to this specific thread. Why does it feel the need to send so many?

After that happens I then turn off the subscription to the thread, but why so many?

It's a glitch in the system that pops up occasionally. There's a thread over in the forum feedback sub forum if you want to pop over there and mention it.

Well, for sure, when I started the thread,

my only intention was to share that the 3 missing Dwarves were indeed retail exclusives, which I did not know had already been shared on the dial list.

Of course, the discussion turned from the pros and cons of retail exclusives, to how players and speculators may or may not take advantage of these exclusives.

I don't need these 3 missing Dwarves as much as I still need Elrond, but I would like to complete the set (minus chases).

I still wish they had made a boxed set, and then a lot of these issues would be taken care of. Even non-blind 3-packs like Jonah Hex I do believe would still sell easily at Target.

By the way, have you seen the Lego Minecraft sets and how well they're selling on eBay? If you're gonna speculate and flip, that might be one area to look at! Ha ha!

bump............

Well, this tactic isn't working on me because I could give two pennies about the Hobbits.

Almost the exact same thing with me. I was at Target today and saw they had about ten to twelve of them left, so I bought six. I pulled all three exclusive dwarfs, plus common Bilbo, Grinnah, and Dwalin. So far these are the only six I've got from the Hobbit set.