Aphasia said:I doubt most people here are buying AOW statues for their resell value.
I posted a few pictures of my 1/6 Guts that I received. Your box size will vary depending on the size of the statue, but it's not really a downside. Throw that sucker up in the attic. You'll usually find photos of an unboxing in various AOW threads. I'd look there too.
http://www.skullknight.net/forum/index.php?topic=11864.75
You've kinda gotta look at AOW products like purchasing a lithograph print. It's expensive, usually in limited edition and low run but quite different in terms of quality when it comes to anything else on the market. I wish they would cut their prices in half though, they'd probably sell twice as many statues.
and that's the thing....they COULD cut their prices, but keep feeding us lines about cost of labor, materials, the strength of the yen, etc. We can see companies both big and small offering larger statues at lower prices. Yes, AoW does a great job with packaging, QC and paint applications (and sometimes, great sculptures), but their prices go way beyond that, even with the small edition sizes. Before they dropped to these low hundred editions, their prices were still getting way too high.
I know a lot of you guys here are more Japan going-ons savvy, but as far as I can tell, the Japanese yen had a pretty great 2010. I don't see the weakness here. It definitely beat the hell out of the US dollar. My 62000 yen in 2007 was roughly $500 and today it would cost me like $750. Our dollar dove and the yen soared. I've read it was actually a 15-year high for the yen. Not sure the legitimacy of it having only taken a glance online, but I wouldn't be surprised.
This statue really is great. Just look at those pictures. $1000 give or take plus s/h great? Hell no