Opening 4 Flashfire Booster Packs

Hi all!

Welcome back to another blog post, this one being a Pokemon booster pack opening!
I'm still in China, so as usual these are booster packs I found in Hong Kong at a good price of 30 HKD (i.e. £2.50).

This time round I found some XY Flashfire booster packs! It was my first time opening up any boosters from this set, so I was pretty excited.

Enough chit-chat, wanna see what I got? Check out my opening video on my youtube channel; here.

OR

Scroll bellow to see pictures of what I ended up pulling.

Out of four packets I got two rare cards, the dynamic Lopunny and the sour looking Qwilfish.

My holo is a Carbink. The holographic pattern is not very obvious on the card due to the picture's dark background as well as the sleeve. It looks good though.

And an Ultra Rare Full Art Kangaskhan-EX! So glad to have gotten this one!

I'm not going to rant on in this post, I'm just glad to have gotten these cool new cards. Out of 4 packs I got a really good ratio, a holo and an ultra rare? Thanks Hong Kong! You're booster packs have been giving me great pulls all these months!

Anyways, that's the end of this post and of any future booster pack openings in China. Next time I do a Pokemon related update it is hopefully when I'm back in the U.K. Once there I'll start the next series of Pokemon TCG Opening Adventures. I'm excited and I hope y'all are too.

This doesn't mean I'll (completely) neglect this blog until then though. I have at the very least one more post to make. 

So hang around! Till next time.

The Terrible Tyrant - Schleich's Tyrannosaurus Rex.

Hi all!

The Amateur Collector here with a none-Pokémon related update!
"*GASP* Blasphemy!" I hear you cry. Calm down calm down, I'll have an update for that up soon.

For today, I want to show off my first Schleich dinosaur toy (as far as I'm aware). Of course I had to start with the king of kings, the Tyrannosaurus Rex.

I bought this toy in a regular toy store that was part of a sort of supermarket/mall hybrid in Guangzhou. It was quite expensive, about 200 RMB, that's about £18 roughly. This figure is available in most countries, generally around that price range. In the UK it goes for between £16-£20, so it's not like I got "ripped off" by because it was an important item or anything.

This T-Rex is from a collection known as "World of History" by Schleich. This is the 2012 sculpt. There is in fact 2014 sculpt out at the moment which looks more or less the same except for a few tweeks and a recolour.

The 2014 re-sculpt is of a light green colour, whereas this one is a dark green - which I personally prefer and why I chose it over the new one. In having said that though, there appears to be some other recolours going around on the market that look pretty sweet. I have not seen them myself but I'll link you to some pictures of them via the Dinotoyblog: The light green version, the gold version and the red stripy version. (Heads up: the two last links lead to the Dinotoyblog forum, you might need to scroll down the thread a little to find the images).

Now, lets take a closer look at this guy!

First thing's first. This guy is pudgy. I get the impression his body has been compacted slightly, perhaps to help with balance. The toy does have a big head and I can tell that the feet have been made bigger to help with the balancing, so who knows, maybe the rest of the body had to be modified for this reason too. It's not an issue to be honest, but it is obvious when you compare it to the more long, streamlined looking iterations of this animal in today's toys and media.

The paint job looks cool, it's not a dreary brown or grey, but it's not a vibrant explosion of colours either. A simple dark green, with yellow spots (for some reason), browns and yellow highlights. As a mentioned above, not as exciting as some of the recolours but in my opinion a lot better than the light green version.

Along with the stocky look and yellow spots they decided to give it a collection of very odd spots starting bellow the eyes, circling them almost and ending on its forehead. Why they did this when there is no evidence to suggest the T-rex had anything like this in real life I don't know. Maybe it's to highlight the scowl it seems to have.

For some reason they decided to give it an explosion of acne around the face and neck. Dino puberty? 

On the subject of accuracy; there is quite a bit wrong with this fella. I am by no stretch of the imagination a paleontologist - not even an amateur -  but I do know that this guy's hands are facing the wrong way. They should be facing inwards. There's also a distinct lack of feathers of any kind. 

These are not actually criticisms that bug me in any large way, the toy is just going by what the mainstream idea of what a dinosaur looks like. There are probably thousands of other inaccuracies that I can't identify that no one aside from an expert would really care about.

The toy itself is made of a hard plastic. It is not posable in anyway except for its mouth, that can open and shut. It's a toy that is clearly designed to look good and allow a kids imagination to do all the actual moving with. From my point of view as a collector, I have no problems with this. Its static pose makes it look more natural, like a moment caught on picture. It means it also lacks any visible seams, aside from the one connecting the neck and head/movable jaw.

Despite its pudgy build and unexciting colour pallet, I do overall like it. Its sculpt it very detailed, especially that mouth! (just look at its tongue), the paint is well applied and it stands upright perfectly well by itself. It's not the most accurate or dynamic of rex toys out there, but it's a cool addition to any collection. Unless you really don't like chicken feet, then avoid this one at all costs!

That's this little look at my first Schleich dino over, hope you enjoyed it! I'll try to update more often with more random collectables and Pokemon TCG stuff, of course.

Cya round!

Kinder surprises me with Kinder Bueno - Year of the Horse Collectable Keychains!

Hi all!

The Amateur Collector here bringing you some interesting collectables from Asia!
Five months ago it was Spring Festival here in China (more commonly known as Chinese New Year in the Western world), and with it all sorts of stores, products and services had promotions going on for the Year of the Horse. One that caught my eye was by Kinder Bueno.

Kinder is famous for its Kinder Surprise line of chocolates; a chocolate egg with a small collectable toy in it, with several to collect. But surprisingly it was their Kinder Bueno line that had a collectable promotion going on for Chinese New Year. In the supermarket I came across boxes with Bueno bars in them and a horse keychain titled... well I'm not too sure, sadly my Chinese character reading is very limited (feel free to comment below what the box says if you know!)

Anyway, here is a picture of some of the keychains (two out the box and one still in packaging):

The right hand horse is "乱码“ (luanma), which according to online dictionaries is a 'disorganised coding of text'. It's also a play on words, with "luanma" sounding like (乱马) which I think means "Confused Horse" or "Messy Horse", which is why it has all this jumbled writing on it as well as a look of confusion on its face.

 The one on the left hand side is "二维码" (erweima) which is a 2-D code, with the "码/马" play on words also being used here.

The one in the box is named “神马” (shenma) which I would translates roughly as "Holy Horse" or "Divine Horse", but according to nciku 神 could as well be "immortal", "god", "absolute", or more (I guess that explains why it has a halo in the picture below!)

The back of the box showing all the keychains to be collected.

Currently I own four of these, the only one I'm currently missing is the 'merry-go-round' horse (i.e. the pink one). The store didn't have this one in stock and I couldn't find any other stores that had this promotion going on. It's been months now and these collectables are discontinued, Spring Festival has been over for a while now after all! My only other hope to get my hands on that pink one is either through ebay or via someone on here. If anyone knows where I can find the missing keychain or has one to sell or trade let me know! Contact me either through my blog here or on my youtube account The Amateur Collector. 

I find these keychains adorable, highly stylised and highly collectable (just look at how unique each one is from one another) and just an overall a good idea for a promotion - not to mention they came with delicious Kinder Bueno! Well done Kinder!

Keep tuned folks, I have more dinosaur, collectable and Pokémon related stuff to show!

Till next time!

I'm back! And I've brought company (miniature movable 3-D Dino puzzle)

Hi all!

I'm back after a long leave of absence, and with a few collectables to make up for that.

Before I start sharing a few cool collectables I've acquired recently, I'd like to explain why I was gone for so long. Although I mentioned in my last post that I was not going to be able to come on often if at all, I never gave much details as to why other than "I'm going to be abroad". Well, I am abroad and working. specifically as a teacher in Guangzhou, China.

You may or may not know this, but Youtube, Blogger and various other video, blog and social sites in China are blocked. This is the main reason I was not able to maintain any blog or video updates. That as well as the fact that Pokémon merchandise is not sold out here, at least not legally and unlikely in English. So that made any Pokémon TCG Opening Adventuring plans impossible.
On the plus side, I have a VPN so I'll now be able to access certain websites including youtube/blogger, and I'm in Guangzhou - the manufacturing heart of the world. If there is one place to randomly come across cheap collectables this is the place. In having said that though, Geekdom is even more niche out here than in most other countries (which is saying something cause lets face it, it's very niche even in West despite growing mainstream acceptance) so don't expect that many updates.

Anyways, enough babbling and back to collecting. Here is the first collectable I bought in China; a 3-D dinosaur puzzle!!

This is a puzzle I found in a small quirky store in Shenzhen's Children's Palace mall. There were several different puzzles to get including Tyrannosaurus, a gorilla, a rhino, a Xenomorph from Alien, some zombies from an app game I've never played (sorry totally blanking on the title), etc. I opted to go for a Triceratops. This little brute (now named Lil' Dude) cost me 25 RMB, that roughly £2.50 which isn't bad at all. I'm not in a position to translate the name of this product right now, but I can at least spot a "Vv Life" (I'll more into this as I buy more of these puzzles.)

As you can see from the image on the packaging it's not just a 3-D puzzle, but a kinetic one at that! It walks! 

Now let me admit, I'm rubbish at complicated puzzles and this was not made easy by the small parts and a very, very tiny little basic instruction manual. The manual was literally the size of one of those supermarket receipts you get at the checkout till.

So many incy wincy peaces!

After about an hour of squinting at the manual and putting everything together I finally finished and ended up with this handsome fella:

 
(sorry for the poor picture quality)

Handsome fella indeed, but there is a catch. He can't walk properly. For what ever reason the little motor doesn't get the dinosaur moving, no matter how much you wind it up. It's a real shame, but considering I got this for such a low price (I bet this would cost twice the amount back in the UK) I can't complain too much.

Overall I'm happy with this guy and hope to continue the collection. I think I'll focus on the 3-D dinosaurs first, then the animals and work my way up to the Xenomorph.

Well I'll end this here. Glad to be back and hope to make more of an appearance. Till next time!

Blog Start!

Hi all!

I'm the Amateur Collector and this is my blog.
I'm a self confessed geek and have an interest in most things related to fandom. This includes but is not limited to games, sci-fi, animation, toys and collectables, comics and more.

I'm just an average person in real life with little time and disposable income. But I decided despite of that I should still follow my hobbies and interests, even if I only get to delve into them from time to time. And so, I have started to this blog to chronicle and share in my (albeit slowly) growing collection of stuff, and I have a little project to start this going which I'll post in my next blog update- straight after this one!

For now, don't hesitate to follow if you're interested in geek-related paraphernalia and are curious to see what kind of things I'll be putting up!

Till next time!