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Yamato toys SALE! at HLJ. Also, any review on the quality of the b


blacklotus

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Quite a good selection for sale:

http://www.hlj.com/scripts/hljsalepage2/?C...andstr=7wfatgm8

p.s. I'm not in anyway affiliated with HLJ. I just happened to buy stuff from them. And they were the 1st online shop I ever buy stuff thru the internet from. So far, I'm happy with their services.

And my request: Is there any review on the black 25th Anniversary YF19, especially on the quality of the toy (e.g. loose joints, exploding shoulders, etc) ? I do like the color scheme quite a lot, and this would be the 1st Valk I'm buying in a long long time. So all comments are welcome. Thanks. ^_^

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Yeah baby! Just got a Destroid Defender (35% off) and the CM'S Limited Mugen (70% off) from them. Very tempted by their 1/60 V2 VF-1's (but I'm got too many VF-1's already).

I don't own the 25th YF19 but I got the beige version and it's been all good for me. The design's not the most flush or sturdy of the newer 1/60 Mac+'s but if you treat it with care (along with a bit of luck) then it's still a great toy to own.

Edit: Yup, shipping is kinda the luck-of-the-draw when it comes to custom fees. HLJ prints out the full receipt; here in Canada, our customs officers randomly checks the products. So while the lower labeled eBay stuff never gets fees, I actually got away with no fees for more than 50% of my purchases from HLJ (oops... I hope I didn't just jinx my current order by stating so).

Edited by D_Unit
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Good prices if you're a local. The shipping for overseas folks is gonna suck a bit though!

Okay, flipping back and fort and contemplating, I've reached a decision to purchased the follwoing:

1. Super Strike parts (1 Case)

2. Destroid Defender (1 Case)

3. VF-1S Strke Valk H Ichijo

4. Q-Rau Max

Yo Q, buying in bulk like that you'll probably end up paying about $10 shipped per piece. With the savings altogether you can't go wrong. If we only knew then what we know now, we all would have held out.

Edited by MacrossMan
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Man I hope it's not the shoulder hinge issue run?!

I hope not either and wasn't aware that there was a run with shoulder issues. I was under the impression that the big problems with the shoulders were with the Roy VF-1S. How bad of an issue are we potentially talking about? I can probably still cancel the order at this point.

Edited by wintermute
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Okay, flipping back and fort and contemplating, I've reached a decision to purchased the follwoing:

1. Super Strike parts (1 Case)

2. Destroid Defender (1 Case)

3. VF-1S Strke Valk H Ichijo

4. Q-Rau Max

Sorry for the noob question, how many come to a case? Are you looking to resell?

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Wintermute; from the looks of the pics of the broken should tabs, it still appears to move and transform just fine. Its just crack part that is disturbing. So far, we have herd of the VF-1S Fokker with the shoulder crack. I was just saying that I hope the others don't suffer.

As for the Destroids, I have not plan to sell them as they are for my army building project to display. There's 4 pieces in a case for the Destroids and 6 pieces for the Strike Fast packs.

Edited by Agent-GHQ
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Actually, at the kind of prices they are selling for right now, it really begs the question of whether yamato is really over-pricing these toys.... I mean, if the prices were right, there should have been (i presume) so much left-over stock for clearance..... and at the levels it is clearing for, I mean, I'm sure they don"t price it below cost, so the mark-up up can be as much as 100%?

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I hope not either and wasn't aware that there was a run with shoulder issues. I was under the impression that the big problems with the shoulders were with the Roy VF-1S. How bad of an issue are we potentially talking about? I can probably still cancel the order at this point.
Bad enough that the entire arm can fall off. If you catch the crack early, the super glue trick could fix it(letting super glue seep into the crack, and while it dries, constantly move the hinge so that the glue does not fuse the pin to the hinge). Yamato's band-aid to this problem was to use a pin with no knurling(knurling on pre-VF-1MAX releases was one 1 side of the pin). So VF-1S Focker to VF-1D have knurling on 1 side of the pin, however the breakages from the VF-1A Hikaru onward are nowhere near as prevalent as the Focker breakages. A few Hikaru 1A breakages, even less 1J, and so far, none reported on the VF-1D. No breakages reported so far on the VF-1 Max's.
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Actually, at the kind of prices they are selling for right now, it really begs the question of whether yamato is really over-pricing these toys.... I mean, if the prices were right, there should have been (i presume) so much left-over stock for clearance..... and at the levels it is clearing for, I mean, I'm sure they don"t price it below cost, so the mark-up up can be as much as 100%?

I've never sold toys, and I don't ask the guys who sell me toys, but I know from other retail experience for luxury or not everyday goods that 100% is a pretty common mark-up.

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Yea I live in Vancouver too... Hoping my next shipments will arrive duty free. So far I've had good luck though.

I share your pain. But at least you live in Vancover where the customs department is. I live in Saskatchewan so when your's just has cleared Vancover customs (and probably gets delivered the next day.....) I am waiting an extra 4-5 days for it to get through Vancover, Richmond (for some reason), Regina and then where I live, Yorkton..... :mellow: I really hate living in the middle of a geographically large country sometimes.

Anyways enough of me being a sourpuss, I only ever paid duty on the first couple of items I ordered from HLJ in 2007-08. Since then I have never paid duty and I have ordered from HLJ, Overdrive, Angolz, and Hobby Search.

Oh and FYI Overdrive's current sale beats HLJ (pricewise) on some of these sales items although I think HLJs EMS shipping is still cheaper.

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Bad enough that the entire arm can fall off. If you catch the crack early, the super glue trick could fix it(letting super glue seep into the crack, and while it dries, constantly move the hinge so that the glue does not fuse the pin to the hinge). Yamato's band-aid to this problem was to use a pin with no knurling(knurling on pre-VF-1MAX releases was one 1 side of the pin). So VF-1S Focker to VF-1D have knurling on 1 side of the pin, however the breakages from the VF-1A Hikaru onward are nowhere near as prevalent as the Focker breakages. A few Hikaru 1A breakages, even less 1J, and so far, none reported on the VF-1D. No breakages reported so far on the VF-1 Max's.

You know my Roy's arms have been cracked for a while but have yet to actually break off.......still glad I got the replacement arms from Overdrive. Also my VF-1D and VF-1J show no signs of cracking. I guess it's like the initial run of everything nowadays fight of that urge cause your probably going to be their Ginny pig. Even the company I work for can be guilty of this.

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I still waiting for that backordered VF-1D but I did decided to get a VF-1S Hikaru but since the one with Strike parts is back ordered I had to make two separate orders of the VF-1S and parts

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I still waiting for that backordered VF-1D but I did decided to get a VF-1S Hikaru but since the one with Strike parts is back ordered I had to make two separate orders of the VF-1S and parts

the sale does not really apply to the Strike-VF1S single-package. unless, of course, it was also previously listed as part of the sale prior to today ala the Defender.

so now we really have to buy 'em separately (parts + valk).

at any rate, the separate-package is a bit cheaper overall, but we'll have to see how much shipping-costs for it (sal and ems).

Edited by treatment
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sale is going quick, EMS shipping kinda kills it, wonder what SAL would've cost me. I think EMS cost me $64 for two valks and a fast pack.

But it should be here by the end of the week, so I can't complain too much.

:lol:

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sale is going quick, EMS shipping kinda kills it, wonder what SAL would've cost me. I think EMS cost me $64 for two valks and a fast pack.

But it should be here by the end of the week, so I can't complain too much.

:lol:

Glad to see items getting sold out quickly after I posted this thread. It shows the items on sale are actually hot, but the original prices make people think twice before buying them, especially in this New Age of Austerity. (I got that term off BBC news today. :lol: )

If I remember correctly, EMS costs twice as much as SAL shipping for me. I live in Singapore. But it's been a while since I shipped via SAL because shipping takes at least 6x as long (2 days via EMS vs 12 days or more via SAL)

On top of that, SAL shipping is not insured, so if the parcel goes missing, it's my loss. :huh: And I cannot track SAL shipping, unlike EMS. So the extra S$30 I pay for EMS shipping for a 3kg parcel is fine by me. If I really want to save serious money, I'll stop this hobby of collecting toys. :lol:

Ordered that black YF19 after all. I guess it'll come with the "faults" of the anime series YF-19. But if I leave it in fighter mode, it should be ok. ^_^

Edited by blacklotus
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Argh! I purposely bought my items separately so one can be shipped EMS (the only option) and the other one SAL. I got an email yesterday that they lumped them together (I emailed back but got no response for over a day now). The extra shipping's bad enough but now that extra large container's sure to be check by customs. At least the prices were good (and the $CDN is relatively higher). Oh the irony!

Edited by D_Unit
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HLJ does have a shipping quote on each product page and price table in this link, so you can kinda figure how much is going to cost you.

I actually trust using SAL with HLJ :p. I don't know about the bigger boxes but the box they sent my item in was pretty damn sturdy compared to everything else I recieve elsewhere. I don't think anything can get damaged in there...

Edited by shiroikaze
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What the frack! My default shpping was set to SAL and it ended up shipping as EMS and cost me 21,400 yen!!! Why are they going against SAL shipping? I'm disapponited!!!

YMT00080 Super & Strike Parts for VF-1 6 2,850 17,100

YMT00085 VF-1S Strike Valkyrie Hikaru Ichijo with Super & Strike Parts 1 8,320 8,320

YMT00111 Battle Suit Queadluun-Rau Maximilian Jenius 1 5,880 5,880

YMT09026 Destroid Defender 4 6,370 25,480

Merchandise Total: 56,780

Shipping Charge: 21,400

Total: 78,180

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What the frack! My default shpping was set to SAL and it ended up shipping as EMS and cost me 21,400 yen!!! Why are they going against SAL shipping? I'm disapponited!!!

YMT00080 Super & Strike Parts for VF-1 6 2,850 17,100

YMT00085 VF-1S Strike Valkyrie Hikaru Ichijo with Super & Strike Parts 1 8,320 8,320

YMT00111 Battle Suit Queadluun-Rau Maximilian Jenius 1 5,880 5,880

YMT09026 Destroid Defender 4 6,370 25,480

Merchandise Total: 56,780

Shipping Charge: 21,400

Total: 78,180

SAL (Small Packet) Shipping is specially for small boxes, so up till a certain sized box, the price will be equivalent to EMS if not more expensive so HLJ automatically upgrades you to EMS. The only way for you to get affordable SAL shipping for all those items above is, order each big one seperately and only after they process completely for each prior item, which might be impossible due to sales prices.

I should know better since I got a hefty shipping bill when i went on a HLJ sales binge one time long ago. :lol:

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Guest sh002

once the total cost goes over a certain limit, the default shipping becomes ems. yes and ems sometimes becomes a ridiculous amount. i'm happy when only a few items ship at once and they are sent through sal which is cheaper but takes a little longer. my last order was sent through ems and i think it costed more than one of my items.

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I just got an email back from them. They're now sending SAL in 2 boxes. The shipping's only 2,860 vs. 4,980 (original EMS + SAL) vs. 6,400 (bundled EMS). I guess they thought I was a cheapskate after reading my email and decided to send the big, expensive, and heavy Mugen under SAL too?!?

I'm glad in a way that I'm saving on the shipping but now I'm also kinda nervous about the safety of the Mugen.

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