what are your collecting pet peeves?

[palitoy]

Mine is the Ebay Global Shipping Program and the soulless, heartless clueless people who are in this program!

Ooof, good one. That has pretty much ruined Ebay for me. I'm buying easily 75% less.

[Mr.Marion]

Emotionally immature and or sociopath collectors.

Collecting brings out the child in all of us and not always in a good way.

[huedell]

Pet peeves---I'm sure there's a lot more than of the top of my head here---but, I'd say:
1) The whole "Mint On Card/Boxed" toy part of the collecting genre-----seems like a lot of dilution of the possibilities of enjoying the original toy inside the packaging to me----and, I can't really understand why it is that for those that like to look at the toys in their packaging, just like they were on "their childhood toystore shelves" that repro boxes, cards, etc aren't the norm to package those toys, rather than the smaller portion of the hobby than it appears to me.
....which leads me to:
2) Any "Anti-reproduction item" movement----reproduction parts are simply, godsends. I "get" that the "anti-repro" people want to support the integrity of the original toy, but it just seems to be too limiting for my tastes (to me, the "general vibe of the toy" is the toy). And, unfortunately, I wish I could simply ignore those that speak out and otherwise lash out at repros. But I speak out because I don't want to see the collectors that SUPPORT repros be limited because of the paranoia and general distaste the "anti-repro" peeps have, an attitude that can discourage (and otherwise shame) those that manufacture reproduction items.
I've had knock-down drag out debates with anti-repro collectors that claim not to put the bulk of a toy's value in it's MONETARY value, and destructive aspect of the repros being their devaluing the market price. And, they are likely telling the truth (I'd like to believe that, anyway). They're probably just irked because repros make things more "confusing" as far as collecting goes---well, that's part of the "thrill of the hunt" I suppose.
3) Those that are overly anti-EBay----I don't care how lame EBay can be---it's how I found most of my wonderful collection, so I hate to see it totally vilified by some.

[Gorn Captain]

Finally getting that 12" Mego Buck you always wanted. It looks great on the Ebay photo, and the seller says "in great condition". Then you get it, and it's all moldy, both the figure and the box. Because it's so close now, you (stupidly) try and clean it, it all goes bad, and you end up with a disaster that you can't return anyway...

Finally winning a Ghost of Captain Kidd on Ebay. You win it cheaply. So cheaply, that the figure "goes missing in the post". Yeah, right. The seller refunds your $20 lightning quick. Because "that's the kind of guy he is..."

When you try and sell something, potential buyers point out a tiny bit of damage like a small dent on the box (with a microscope), and say that it is now worth only 20% of its value.
If it no longer has a box, it's apparently completely worthless.
I've come to hate the whole "boxed" thing.
I propose we make a deal: I keep the toy, and they can keep the supermint (empty) box. Apparently, that is all that matters. Staring at an empty but pristine box.

[Gorn Captain]

Mine is the Ebay Global Shipping Program and the soulless, heartless clueless people who are in this program!

Yep, I hardly ever buy Ebay stuff anymore. This was the last straw.

[RickD]

Graded toys (AFA, etc)

spending thousands of dollars because the opinion of another graded the item an 85 vs an 80??

Not sure how collectors come up with their prices for graded toys.

[superherocrazy]

I have two major pet peeves. The first one deals with individuals who contact an ebay seller, after an auction has ended, offering more money then the item sold and having the seller make up some **** and bull story about why the item is no longer available. I won a carded Kresge Shazam a few months back with a buy it now price of $125.00, paid right away, got a confirmation from the seller it was being shipped, only to get a refund a day later. The item had been relisted with a higher buy it now price and sold within seconds. When I contacted the seller about honoring my auction win I was told the item had been lost. Even when I confronted them with the item being relisted and sold for the higher price, they stuck to their guns and said it had been lost. I got no help from ebay in the matter and to this day I'm still ****ed on what happened.

My second pet peeve are the sellers who don't know the proper way to package an item for shipment. I've had items thrown directly in a box with no wrapping and just a couple of air pillows, items placed in a box with nothing at all for protection and carded mego figures mailed in plain yellow padded envelopes, which were bent to hell by the time they arrived. I've had to return several items over the past year because they pretty much destroyed because of little or no packing. The biggest disappointment was the boxed Green Arrow car and loose Green Arrow figure that I won and because of poor packing, along with help from the post office, the figure was lost along with the arrows for the car and the Green Arrow car box was destroyed. A said day I'll never forget as collector!

[pmwasson]

Dust! Its everywhere!

[Confessional]

<GRRRR!> I'll second the lazy sellers/poor packers…

C'mon, you're selling as a business or at the very least a hobby. Then you take your sweet non-customer, non-attentive, non-empathetic service time and use little or no packing materials, which are often re-used/recycled with a lack of inspection… bubbles popped, old dangling tape, dirt and debris! Weak, water stained, filthy rattling boxes filled with Walmart plastic bags… thanks, thanks a lot.

Also must mention the scalpers who are still diving into the TRU after all these years and buying up the short-packed, exclusive or overtly popular items only to run home and post them on eBay for a significant shady mark-up. I can't imagine that life, lived. *Pity comes to mind.

[superherocrazy]

I just thought of another one. The obscene buyers premiums that auctioneers now charge. The average premium I've been seeing is 20% which has to be factored in the price I'm willing to pay for an item. A lot of items haven't found it's way into my collection because of this unfair added fee.

[PNGwynne]

My peeves?

* Modern plastic
*Shoddy repro stuff. I'm all for repros & custom fodder, but good ones...
*Disingenuous Ebay sellers. Or pathological liars. Sometimes, both concurrently. I have a GIJ Terron story I could spin into a blog.

[Toy Timelord]

Smoke.

Most of the items I'm bringing in right now are from a collector whose husband was a heavy smoker. While a lot of the items were bagged for protection, we are talking decades of smoke. A plastic bag can do only so much.

[4NDR01D]

The stuff I want costs too much money.
And after almost a decade of collecting toys (which is still noob territory compared to a lot of you guys) I'm nowhere near "finished".
And I just don't know how much more money I can pump into this hobby when I have a toddler to buy for, and other things I like (furniture, house stuff, my car, my pets etc)

[Evel KMego]

Biggest pet peeve is receiving an item from Ebay that has a major flaw that was never mentioned in the description by the seller. Yeah, that 5 inch litho tear on the back might have been something you could of mentioned!

Second, the whole graded movement. Totally over-inflates the prices.

[torgospizza]

Not a toy collecting issue, but books are often coming out way, way too big to either conveniently read or store. Dark Horse's Hal Foster Tarzan books are like two feet long and weigh almost eight pounds. For something I really love like Foster's work and I'll keep forever, I can part with $75 or whatever, but for that much they should just attach legs to it so we could use them as coffee tables. It's getting absurd, how large they are--I'm passing on things that would otherwise be instant purchases due to this.