The Vinylmation Guessing Game

No I'm not going to talk about blind boxing in this post, I want to talk about the gamble that is the best way and time to buy Park Exclusive and Limited Edition vinyls.

Let me start with Park Exclusives. Some examples of which are the 2013 Poster Art Series and the  Disney Vacation Club exclusives. There are also vinyls that fall into both the Limited Edition and Park Exclusive categories, such as the Animation #3 Dumbo set and the Park #12 Country Bear set. I, like many people, do not live close to Disney World which means I only really one option for Park Exclusives: eBay. But here's where the guessing game comes in: do I wait til my next trip and hope the vinyls I want are available? Or do I bite the bullet and pay a little more for them on eBay, but know that I have them? With Park Exclusives, there's a better chance that those vinyls will still be there on my next trip.

Which brings me on to Limited Edition vinyls. If a vinyl is both Park Exclusive and LE, there's a risk it will be sold out by my next trip. If a vinyl is LE and released online, such as Pixar #1 Crush and Squirt combo and the Park Starz #2 Bellhop Variant, then you have a bigger decision to make. Do you buy online at your convenience? Buy online at 3am when the figure's released? Or wait until your next trip to buy them at D-Street?

Maybe other collectors are better at playing the guessing game, but I suck at it! I thought Squirt and Crush would be an instant sell out, but I noticed that it was still available for a week afterwards. Maybe even longer, I didn't happen to pay attention. But I never thought Carl and Ellie would sell out within an hour and so I missed out and had to pay triple the price on the secondary market.

My next round of the guessing game is the 2013 Poster Series. I have no idea if they still sell the figures after the month has passed. Will they still have the August figures for sale in October? Or will they pull them? Or does it just depend if they sell out? Do I wait and see? Or should I just buy one from the secondary market and pay $10 more for it?

Well with the Park #12 Country Bear set, I took a look at Vinylmation blogs, forums and internet groups to gauge the popularity of the set. It seemed pretty popular and with an LE of 1,500 (so I'd guess 750 per D-Street location) I decided not to wait until October and see if any were left. I tried to look at it this way: for D-Street Orlando to sell out of 750 sets, they'd have to sell 50 sets a week. That might sound steep, but with locals buying a bunch and selling them on the secondary market - it could happen, they could sell out before I get there. They'd only need to sell 7 a day and I've seen eBay sellers listing 3 or 4 at a time. It would be just my luck and I really didn't want to risk it.

Source: DestinationVinylmation

Well this time, it looks like I lucked out. I bought a Park #12 "pre-order" for $58 shipped. It was a little more than I was hoping to pay, but then I read on Destination Vinylmation that the price point for the series had increased from Disney's advertised $39.95 to $49.95! Add $3.25 tax to the retail of $49.95 and I only ended up paying $4.80 over retail for my pre-ordered set! And I've guaranteed myself an LE set that I really, really wanted. (Seriously, ask my friends how long I've been asking for a Country Bears set and how Max, Melvin and Buff were my preferences). Plus, I've already seen this set being sold on eBay for upwards of $65 before shipping.

So how do you decide what to do with Park Exclusives and Limited Editions? Do you play the Vinylmation Guessing Game?