pk13

When I think of someone that deserves to win, one of the first people that comes to mind is youbastards. The Big Gray Bin at C2E2 was such a cool thing of him to do. He probably gave away a hundred or more figures and provided an experience where we all got to dig through a huge tub o' toys like little kids. It was something that sticks out from a weekend full of memorable experiences. And, as Zach has said before, yb is pretty much the defender of the Minimates brand here and abroad. That alone seems like more than a good enough reason to me. And to be fair, if there were a hundred of these to give out, there still wouldn't be enough to give to the people here that are worthy of winning.

I was able to get a couple of these packed last night and mailed out today. All of the rest are now packed and will be mailed out tomorrow. I'll keep the offer open for another night. If anyone else is interested, please just let me know tonight and I'll have your figures out tomorrow with all of the rest. Thanks to everyone that participated!

Thanks for the heads up, MisterMiracle. There are a couple of donation drives around me that have Friday as the cutoff so I assumed that was a nationwide thing. With that in mind, I'll amend the offer. I would suggest checking with your local Toys for Tots donation locations and seeing when they will stop taking donations of toys. If it's too late for that, if you want to make a monetary donation as Mnemosis suggests, that is more than cool as well. And if neither of those options work, I'll keep it open for anyone that will just go out and do some good in any way that they can. If you can make an extra donation to a local food bank, that's awesome. If you can drop an extra dollar or two into the next Salvation Army kettle you see, that works. If you can give an hour or a half hour of your time to a local charity, rock on. Just do a little something extra and help someone else out and I'll consider us square. There have been 10 people to participate so far and I can work up more grab bags if more people are interested. So if Toys for Tots isn't an option for you, just pick something that you would like to support and I'll get some figures sent your way. And a big thanks to everyone that's expressed interest so far!

Hello everyone. I've been reading stories here and there that Toys for Tots, the Christmas gift charity run by the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, has been a little behind in donations this year. While this charity doesn't feed the hungry or shelter the homeless, I've always felt like it was a wonderful charity that brightens the holiday season for needy children and helps alleviate some stress for parents that are going through difficult times. No matter what your circumstances are, giving a gift to your child feels like a top priority this time of year even if there are more pressing real world needs. Toys for Tots does a lot of good work in helping out with providing gifts for these families. I have several loose/mint/complete Minimates that just aren't doing me any good sitting in a tub waiting to trade. Since Toys for Tots asks for new and unopened toys, I can't donate them directly. So here is what I'm proposing: if you are interested in making a donation to your local Toys for Tots, I will send you a grab bag of 5 mystery Minimates. I've always felt like this is a very trustworthy community, so I won't ask that you send proof that you donated. This will be completely on the honor system. Please make a donation of a brand new toy that's worth at least $10. If you want to go with more, then that's awesome and please do so. If $10 is the max that you can swing, then that's great as well. If you're interested, please just send me a message indicating that you would like to participate and I'll get back to you asap. I'm not sure exactly how many I can do, so please wait to hear back from me before donating just in case I'm out of figures to send. And since I'm covering the shipping and it's a super busy time at the post office, I can really only do this for MMMV members with a U.S. mailing address. That's all there is to it... No sending me money or anything like that. I would rather spread donations out across different cities than to have everything be donated in just one. It's not a bad deal at all. A donation gets you 5 complete Minimates shipped. And all you have to do is go get a $10 toy and donate to your local Toys for Tots program. Here is a link to the donation locations finder for the U.S. www.toysfortots.org/donate/toys.aspx If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to write to me and I'll answer as soon as I can. And, since the 25th is really close, I would appreciate it if you could make your donations as soon as possible. Thanks!

Do we know where to direct CS questions to yet? I opened my sets today and Howard's leg was broken at the knee.

I opened my Secret Santa gift and was very happy to find four figures from my Wants list inside. I have no idea who my Secret Santa is, but I certainly appreciate my gift. Thanks and Merry Christmas!

Looking to trade for a Mutagen Raphael from the specialty blind bags. I have a couple K-Mart Mutagen Michelangelos as well an anything else from my trade list.

I'm thankful for Minimates because they led me here. I've met some of the best people through MMMV that I've ever encountered. That's not only among collector circles but the world at large. And then when you consider just how great the actual toys are, it's just icing on the cake.

Happy Birthday, Lurch!

Blind bags infesting the Marvel line sucks. It sure went from "no plans for Marvel blind bags" to "here's an assortment of Marvel blind bags" pretty fast.

I'll give a second recommendation for marauderinc. It's a great website.

I'm in!

I stopped by another KMart to try and finish out my set. I didn't get the Footbot, (f'ing blind bags), but do have even more doubles and triples now to trade for a Footbot. I have extras of the following in case anyone wants to trade: Foot Soldier, Kraang, Leonardo, Michelangelo x2, Raphael, & Shredder. I also have an extra Mutagen Mikey that I'll trade for the Mutagen whichever that comes with the specialty wave.

Krang shouldn't be too hard. You would feel for a thin figure, (which would eliminate 8 of a full strip of 12), then feel for the extra brain piece. There isn't anything else like that in any of the other packages.

To be fair, it wasn't a case of all three missing everything. There was one clear stand missing, one manhole cover stand missing, and one Leo sword missing. Not a huge deal, but cautioning others so they're aware. The manhole cover stands are a really nice touch. They look great. I forgot to mention that the keychain attachment is different than the ones used for the AFX promos from a few years ago. The promos had a metal ring that attached around the neck peg. The Turtles have a thin, (but strong), cord that connects the keychain part to the figure and is much less intrusive as far as head movement goes. It was a nice upgrade, in my opinion.

They were at the store I found them. They had a TMNT endcap with the strip of blind bags on the corner of it.

I decided to check out my KMart and see what they had. They had a strip of 11, (only 1 missing). I decided to say screw it and try out the blind bag sucker purchase. I bought all 11 and still don't have a full set. I can confirm that cdubya was correct in the case/strip breakdown: there are one of every figure with doubles of Leo, Raph, and Mikey with only 1 Don. The Mutagen figure is actually Mikey and not the Raph that is listed on the package. The one I was missing was the Footbot. I have 3 useless Turtles if anyone wants to trade. The UPC codes are all the same and don't offer any help to people trying to find a specific figure. The "feel" method is pretty easy to figure out which ones are the Turtles so that can narrow it down a little. From there, it's pretty obvious to find the back of the Turtle through the bag. Mikey has his nunchucks on his back, (like the SDCC Promo), so you can feel the small gap between them pretty clearly. If you have a full strip, then you can at least narrow it down to 3 packages that way. If all you are looking for is the Mutagen Mikey, then you can take your chances on opening those one at a time and if you get lucky with the first, just return the unopened ones. One last thing, and this is kind of weak, I had missing weapons and stands in three of the packs I opened.

I would like to participate again.

Has anyone ever backed the same project twice? Is that even possible? I would like to get a couple of each promo and didn't know if using a different kickstarter account would work if it's from the same Amazon payments account.

Thanks everyone!

I finally opened up my Birthday Elephant present today. I have to say that whoever sent me all of this great stuff just absolutely crushed it! I not only received some great Minimates and Lego Simpsons, but a cool looking book, an automatic top 3 favorite t-shirt of all time, and a gigantic laugh. After cutting throught the tape and removing some packing materials, I was greeted by a swarm of *PLASTIC* bugs.... I'm still a little gun shy after The Antpocalypse so my initial reaction was to recoil. But then I genuinely cracked the hell up. Here are some pictures of my haul: Seriously, how awesome is that shirt?!? I'm very grateful to the person that drew my name this year. This was an incredibly cool gift to open up, after the shock, of course!!! As for guesses as to who drew my name, I'm going to guess Zombie Shakespeare first. The zombie related book and the AD reference are my biggest clues. If I'm right, then a sincere thanks to ZS! And if I'm wrong, then I'll have a sincere thanks for the next guess on my list!

Wave 60 revealed: http://marvelousnews.com/index.php?catid=296&itemid=18153

That GB promo is nice.

This, this, and this. Most of the comic shops I visit have stopped carrying Minimates because of the variant pack. They sell one complete set and then the rest of the customers get their set elsewhere. That leaves them with several unsold packs that they might be able to move if there's an army builder or good alternate look. Not a big deal for one wave but it becomes a problem after multiple waves begin to stockpile and gather dust. Making all cases custom cases would solve that problem.

I hear you on Hasbro. I used to collect ML, MU, and some Joes and SW as well. But the constant state of chaos caused by their awful distribution, case assortments, etc... completely took the fun out of collecting. The unnecessary hassle of not being able to give a company my money for their product without making 15 or more unsuccessful toy runs overshadowed the actual product by a good margin. It was a blessing in disguise though. Giving up Hasbro and selling off all of those figures is what I funded Minimates purchasing with. A definite upgrade. I used to feel like "earning" my toys through constant store trips was essential but I've come to value my time more. Even though I do a good bit of driving week to week and could easily stop by a ton of TRUs and comic shops now. I love the fact that I can place an order through Luke and then the only thing I have to worry about is the release date getting pushed back or the product being cancelled and not making it to market. That takes the stress of wasted time/gas/money off the table and allows me to just focus on the toys themselves instead of the toys being a smaller part of the equation. Granted, I do miss the rush of finding the hot new thing every now and then. And finding things in store does guard against the occasional bad paint app. And getting the C2E2 promo straight from the source certainly added a cool factor beyond overpaying for one on eBay. But overall, the rare rush and almost constant letdown of shopping in stores took it's toll on my collecting hobby.