First loot EVER and some questions...
Greetings, a few days ago, I received my first figure ever: Alter's Mitsuru Kirijo. I managed to pick this up at an online store called nihonju, (was surprised to see it still in stock) at a price lower than what was available at the few North American retailers which still had it.
Being new to this, I was wondering: what condition should I expect things to arrive in? I know that through overseas shipping things may not always arrive in pristine condition, but what level of damage is acceptable? I actually thought this item was very well packaged. The outer cardboard box was in perfect condition, and the figure's box itself was wrapped in taped bubble wrap (two layers), as well as a few pieces of heavy paper. However, after carefully tearing away at all the packaging, I noticed there were a few defects on the box itself.
Mitsuru escapes unscathed, after spending a week in customs hell.
The fact that this was packaged so well makes me suspect that this item was shipped in this condition... and might possibly be used? Do manufacturers seal their figures in any particular way? If not (this one seems to be sealed with regular scotch tape), how does one tell whether they're actually receiving a brand new figure, or a well cared for used figure?
I noticed the bottom of the box has been double taped. The first layer of tape has been cut through. Should I be worried about this, or am I just paranoid?
It does seem to be in suspect condition. I've been collecting figures for years, and the double tape on the bottom in particular is a sure sign that the figure has been opened.
It could've been a display model, or possibly been returned by another costumer.
I suppose how much this matters to you personally is up to you. If you planned on opening it and putting it display (and the figure itself is mint), then you might not care. But for my money, I'd probably stay away from that retailer for now.
Use your intuition and figure it out. If it's possible that the box can be opened by opening just one strip of tape, then my intuition would tell me it was probably a display model. However, at the same time, you shouldn't be worried about it being a bootleg or not. Alter's Kirijo has no suspicions, and there are no bootlegs of that particular figure. Authenticity isn't in question. It's more the quality of the figure. But usually display models are kept in the best of conditions, in a nicely organized cabinet of some sort.
You should inspect the quality of the figure, and from there make a conclusion. If it is damaged, then you should contact the seller. If not, you shouldn't worry about it. (They probably won't care if you complained anyways.)
Actually, I had a similar situation a week ago. I bought a monitor, and, it was opened. To me, it was screaming "USED USED USED" even though the seller advertised it as new. I did some research afterwards, and did find out that it was in fact used, but in the end, it didn't show any signs of being a defective product. The casing was clean, and it worked fine. I could've complained about it to the seller, but when the product you receive is in good condition, usually they don't give a damn, and they'll just shoo you off, like you're nothing.
At any rate, congrats on that acquisition! It's an Alter! :D Best figure company imo.
Maybe you are right in the figure's case, but when talking about electronics it does matters how much the item was used, specially monitors and LCD displays that are in display, they have a life range of some thousands of hours 20,000- 60,000 hrs approx, they could develop stuck pixels and start to wash out colors with the past of time, we don't know how many hrs a day they were used non-stop!!! Sorry for being a geek freak :P
LOL. I love geek freaks. :D They're full of info. And you're right. I don't know how long it may have been used. But from what I'm seeing, the pixels aren't dead yet (Thank God for that one) and the colors are vibrant. It's just the audio that's getting on my nerves. IT has a bit of distortion in it. In the end, i'll probably be using external speakers, but it still bothers me you know?
Don't worry too much for the sound, monitor speakers use to be really lame anyway, but if you start hearing weird noises or distortion you better worry for the overall performance of the display. :P luck pal
I bet she was used...
Ah.....was going to make a joke, but better not say it.
Wow... when I read yunamon's comment I never even thought of it that way.
Those are signs of a used figure, MARI0 and Cascade share the same opinion as mine, if you really don't want used products stop buying from them, but if your fine with the price and planned to display the figure and throw right away the box is fine though. I haven't received any of my figures with double tapes even the bootlegs... and yeah, I buy bootlegs from time to time (I'll use them later for my gunpla painting training XD). And maybe the chances you get another opened figure from them are low, maybe though :P
Me personally I wouldn't care I usually take my figure's out and if it was in good nick then it wouldnt phase me one bit, if I were a box collector I might be quite annoyed at this. Having a look some retailers may have even opened the box to show someone the figure or even check to see if it was damaged may have just been opened and poped straight back in the box.
After hearing of this website from you and I checked to see if I could get one and at 5800JPY for the figure just be glad you were so lucky to get this cheap even if it is slightly used as long as everything checks out fine be glad cause I would gladly have paid that much for the figure even in the condition you received it..
I've never really had any doubts on the authenticity of the item, just whether it had been new/used. The official response I got from the distributor was that he cleaned the box a bit too hard, broke 3 separate seals on the bottom, and had to re-tape them. I find this answer to be full of BS, but I guess there really is nothing I can do about it.
After opening up the figure, it looks like there are a few defects (slight chip/cut mark on one of her bangs, small paint splotches on her left arm/in her hair), which might be why she was returned/was still in stock after all this time. I'm still blown away at how much better she looks outside of the box.
Overall, I guess I'm pretty happy with this purchase. This ended up costing only ~2/3 the price I was initially going to pay (found, after sifting through 15 pages worth of google search results!). I do hope that this is an isolated case, and that distributors have a bit more integrity in general.
If you're happy then it's good. I did stay away from that retailer from now on though.
Enjoy your figure! I hope that you will get some more later on. ^ ^