Contact and Links
CONTACT INFORMATION
ocelotlramajaguar AT gmail (You know what to do. Don't forget the DOT com at the end). Feel free to let me know of any questions, comment, or errors that may be present. I don't mind answering questions or discussing things regarding collecting.
Before e-mailing me, please read the FAQs page first to see if your question has already been answered.
Before e-mailing me, please read the FAQs page first to see if your question has already been answered.
HELPFUL AUCTION SITES
Contrary to popular belief, it is still possible to buy legitimate and good-quality items on eBay for a good price! You do have to be careful of bootlegs, but remember these rules of thumb: if the price is too good to be true, it probably is. If the seller is using stock pictures instead of showing the real item and refuses to show you pictures of the real item when asked, they are more than likely selling bootlegs. Be wary of sellers who are selling rare items for a low price with a large amount of stock. Also, be careful about getting ripped off. Some legitimate items can be unreasonably overpriced thanks to scalpers. For auctions, beware of shill bidding. That is unfortunately very common. Another common occurrence are snipers. I hate to say it, but it seems the only way to win rare auctions nowadays is to snipe yourself. That, or put in your max bid. That really sucks, but integrity is really hard to come by on eBay.
If you are a Pokémon collector or a collector of other Japanese franchises, then this is the place for you! Y!J is so awesome and full of authentic Japanese goodies that it will make even the most casual collector spaz out from all that there is to offer! But not so fast! Y!J is only available to use if you live in Japan AND if you are fluent in Japanese! There are a few (and by few, I mean very few) sellers who do ship internationally, but you absolutely need a credit card. Transactions are not done through Paypal and most sellers would prefer to deal with a buyer with a Japanese bank account. For those of us who do not live in Japan, what are we to do? That's where middleman services come in! These services, for a fee, bid on our behalf so we are able to use Y!J to our heart's content! Well, at least to what we can afford. So what services are out there that would allow you to fulfill and satisfy that craving for your favorite toys? Here are two that may prove to be the most satisfactory:
I know I have razzed this middleman service in the past, but I want to redact all the negative things that I have said. Yes, they are not as cheap as they used to be. The yen rate is alway -5 below the official exchange rate, so that is to be expected, but when you think about it, they have quite a lot to offer. This service is great for those who live in the US! Instead of using the Japanese yen, payment is done entirely using US currency. They have a great multiplier that multiplies your deposit by 5, so if you leave a deposit of $20, you can bid up to $100 worth of items! Really cool! Items are allowed to be paid within 14 days without penalties, and this service has a werehouse in the US that makes shipping to those in North America considerably cheaper! Their search engine is superb! Probably the best out there! SMJ does have a sniping option, but it's kind of pointless since a good 99% of Y!J auctions use automatic extention anyway, so I wouldn't bother.
One of the (minor) downsides is the fees, which aren't the worst. Usually, the more expensive the item, the higher the fees will be. They also set the yen rate -5 below the official exchange rate. However, I would say the services they provide are worth the fees, especially for the pricey items! I wouldn't just trust any middleman service with rare, expensive items, so I would say these guys are worth the price! "But if they used yen, they wouldn't have to convert the exchange rate -5 below the official rate! I'm going to a place where they use yen as the official currency so I don't have to pay extra!" Don't bother going to a place where they use yen as if they accept PayPal, you'll still be paying -5 below the official exchange rate. "But I have a credit card!" you say. Credit and debit companies always charge a 3% foreign exchange fee, so yeah, you'd still be paying more.
Another downside is, while you can make an automatic deposit, you cannot have your deposit automatically refunded if you are using PayPal. If you want your deposit refunded, you have to send SMJ an e-mail using your registered e-mail address along with a PayPal transaction ID number that was created when you paid for one of their items. While I can understand the extra security, what happens if you made a deposit and realize "Uh oh! I need my money back because something just came up!" You didn't make any purchases so you have no PayPal transaction number to show for. I don't know why, but that one part just bugs me. Of course, if you have made purchases, this isn't a problem. It's inconvenient, sure, especially since other middleman services allow you to automatically refund your deposit from your own account, but it's nothing too terrible.
Oh, one more downside: you're account has to be pretty much free of everything if you want that deposit back. It doesn't matter if you paid for your items and have no more bids or invoices to wait for. If you have items in their warehouse, you won't get a cent back until you have everything shipped to you AND you marked everything off as received. Gee, SMJ! Overkill, much? It's true anyone can flake out on shipping and they can use the deposit to pay for it, but they're the only people I know who do that. This is a problem if you want your deposit back within a certain time frame, since PayPal takes a fee from your deposit if it has been left there for more than 60 days.
Of course, you can just use a credit card if you hate using PayPal (don't blame ya if you do). The deposit will not be multiplied, but at least you won't have to pay a fee if your deposit is kept for more than 60 days.
There is so much more to this service! Mostly good stuff, I promise!
Click the image to learn more about SMJ's services.
One of the (minor) downsides is the fees, which aren't the worst. Usually, the more expensive the item, the higher the fees will be. They also set the yen rate -5 below the official exchange rate. However, I would say the services they provide are worth the fees, especially for the pricey items! I wouldn't just trust any middleman service with rare, expensive items, so I would say these guys are worth the price! "But if they used yen, they wouldn't have to convert the exchange rate -5 below the official rate! I'm going to a place where they use yen as the official currency so I don't have to pay extra!" Don't bother going to a place where they use yen as if they accept PayPal, you'll still be paying -5 below the official exchange rate. "But I have a credit card!" you say. Credit and debit companies always charge a 3% foreign exchange fee, so yeah, you'd still be paying more.
Another downside is, while you can make an automatic deposit, you cannot have your deposit automatically refunded if you are using PayPal. If you want your deposit refunded, you have to send SMJ an e-mail using your registered e-mail address along with a PayPal transaction ID number that was created when you paid for one of their items. While I can understand the extra security, what happens if you made a deposit and realize "Uh oh! I need my money back because something just came up!" You didn't make any purchases so you have no PayPal transaction number to show for. I don't know why, but that one part just bugs me. Of course, if you have made purchases, this isn't a problem. It's inconvenient, sure, especially since other middleman services allow you to automatically refund your deposit from your own account, but it's nothing too terrible.
Oh, one more downside: you're account has to be pretty much free of everything if you want that deposit back. It doesn't matter if you paid for your items and have no more bids or invoices to wait for. If you have items in their warehouse, you won't get a cent back until you have everything shipped to you AND you marked everything off as received. Gee, SMJ! Overkill, much? It's true anyone can flake out on shipping and they can use the deposit to pay for it, but they're the only people I know who do that. This is a problem if you want your deposit back within a certain time frame, since PayPal takes a fee from your deposit if it has been left there for more than 60 days.
Of course, you can just use a credit card if you hate using PayPal (don't blame ya if you do). The deposit will not be multiplied, but at least you won't have to pay a fee if your deposit is kept for more than 60 days.
There is so much more to this service! Mostly good stuff, I promise!
Click the image to learn more about SMJ's services.
This is a great middleman service if you are bidding somewhere between 2000-4500 yen. This is also the perfect site to use when the exchange rate is to your advantage, such as the US dollar being stronger than the Japanese yen. Unlike SMJ, Noppin only uses the yen as its form of currency. That is not necessarily a bad thing. Just check Paypal's currency converter if you want to be absolutely sure what you will be paying. Noppin only multiplies your deposit by 3, so depositing 2000 yen will only allow you to bid 6000, which isn't terrible.
One of the downsides is that the minimum you can deposit has to be 2000 yen. They also only allow 7 days for an item to be paid until penalties are enforced. The next 7 days they will prevent you from making any more bids and afterwards they start charging a 300 yen late fee everyday until you pay for your items. Their fees get a lot higher the more you bid, and I think they are higher than SMJ's, so I wouldn't use this middleman service for the more expensive items.
Besides the high fees for the more expensive items, there is another huge drawback to this service that is worth mentioning. I am talking about internal bidders. Internal bidding, as defined by entirelycliched from Pkmncollectors, is:
When another user of the same deputy service someone is using places a bid on the same auction. An easy example: if I go and place a 4000 yen bid through Noppin on an auction that is 600 yen, and someone else goes on Noppin to place a 4500 yen bid because they know my limit, they could feasibly win the item for 600 yen if no Japanese bidders or other deputies intervene."
Why does that happen? Noppin only uses one Yahoo! ID to bid (unlike SMJ that uses multiple accounts), which I think is crescent_jones or something like that. You will see it displayed as cre******** on Y!J if somebody is using their service to bid on an auction. It is not hard to spot which, unforunately, makes it really easy to use internal bidding. For those of you who use Noppin, please don't use internal bidding to win an auction. That is a douchebaggy thing to do and I advise you to please have the integrity to win auctions honestly. Either use another middleman service or don't bid at all. Just, please... don't do that.
Click the image for more information about Noppin's services.
One of the downsides is that the minimum you can deposit has to be 2000 yen. They also only allow 7 days for an item to be paid until penalties are enforced. The next 7 days they will prevent you from making any more bids and afterwards they start charging a 300 yen late fee everyday until you pay for your items. Their fees get a lot higher the more you bid, and I think they are higher than SMJ's, so I wouldn't use this middleman service for the more expensive items.
Besides the high fees for the more expensive items, there is another huge drawback to this service that is worth mentioning. I am talking about internal bidders. Internal bidding, as defined by entirelycliched from Pkmncollectors, is:
When another user of the same deputy service someone is using places a bid on the same auction. An easy example: if I go and place a 4000 yen bid through Noppin on an auction that is 600 yen, and someone else goes on Noppin to place a 4500 yen bid because they know my limit, they could feasibly win the item for 600 yen if no Japanese bidders or other deputies intervene."
Why does that happen? Noppin only uses one Yahoo! ID to bid (unlike SMJ that uses multiple accounts), which I think is crescent_jones or something like that. You will see it displayed as cre******** on Y!J if somebody is using their service to bid on an auction. It is not hard to spot which, unforunately, makes it really easy to use internal bidding. For those of you who use Noppin, please don't use internal bidding to win an auction. That is a douchebaggy thing to do and I advise you to please have the integrity to win auctions honestly. Either use another middleman service or don't bid at all. Just, please... don't do that.
Click the image for more information about Noppin's services.
**All in all, the most important thing to remember is that there is no perfect middleman service. I advise you to do your research on what would work best for you. You may find Noppin to be an enjoyable experience or SMJ to be horrendous. Hell, you may find both middleman services to be terrible and decide to go with FromJapan! I personally found FromJapan to be pure BS, so from my experiences, I wouldn't recommend them.
By the way, these are not endorsements. I am merely expressing my opinions and situations, but experiences vary! I am not at liberty to tell you what is the perfect middleman service because there isn't one.
What I can tell you is to be careful when using a middleman service. You may think you are getting an item cheap, but the fees can really add things up. Be prepared to spend no less than $18 for items that were only 500 yen. One of my problems with bidding on stuff from Y!J, regardless of what middleman service you use, is the hidden fees. Yahoo! Japan users are not obligated to mention how much shipping is going to be or any other fees they decide to tag along. Also, like eBay, shill bidding is very common, especially against middleman services. Yahoo! Japan sellers are not ignorant to middleman services, and some of them even take advantage of that fact by artificially increasing bids knowing certain middleman service policies. That means more money for middleman services, too, so don't expect them to do anything about it. It's pretty crappy, but still, you do what you have to do to get those rare gems you really want, right?
Also, some middleman services are blocked from certain auctions. Why? I don't know. Draw your own conclusions about that one. That's why it's best to have two or three middleman services to go to just in case.
By the way, these are not endorsements. I am merely expressing my opinions and situations, but experiences vary! I am not at liberty to tell you what is the perfect middleman service because there isn't one.
What I can tell you is to be careful when using a middleman service. You may think you are getting an item cheap, but the fees can really add things up. Be prepared to spend no less than $18 for items that were only 500 yen. One of my problems with bidding on stuff from Y!J, regardless of what middleman service you use, is the hidden fees. Yahoo! Japan users are not obligated to mention how much shipping is going to be or any other fees they decide to tag along. Also, like eBay, shill bidding is very common, especially against middleman services. Yahoo! Japan sellers are not ignorant to middleman services, and some of them even take advantage of that fact by artificially increasing bids knowing certain middleman service policies. That means more money for middleman services, too, so don't expect them to do anything about it. It's pretty crappy, but still, you do what you have to do to get those rare gems you really want, right?
Also, some middleman services are blocked from certain auctions. Why? I don't know. Draw your own conclusions about that one. That's why it's best to have two or three middleman services to go to just in case.
HELPFUL ONLINE STORES
Okay, auction sites are good and all, but is there anything else out there that will help with your endeavors? Something more straight foward and does not require competing? The answer is yes! Now I will show you some reputable sites I frequently buy from that only require an account and a shopping basket!
NOTE: Some of these sites and sellers may only ship within the US. Please make sure a site delivers internationally by reading the site's shipping policies or FAQ.
NOTE: Some of these sites and sellers may only ship within the US. Please make sure a site delivers internationally by reading the site's shipping policies or FAQ.
This is THE community to go to for any Pokémon merchandise fan! Full of wonderful people who are more than happy to help in your collection endeavors, I encourage anybody who loves Pokémon toys to join! Items are sold by members with sales permission, but that's not all! Auctions are sometimes held for rare gems, and depending on what you own and how reputable you are, you can also trade! Membership is moderated, but as long as you follow the rules in joining, it shouldn't be a problem to become a member! Once you are a member, remember the most important rule: have fun!
The store of Gin, aka Denkimouse, the founder of Pkmncollectors! Gin makes it a business to do store runs so those of us who do not live in Japan can get the best quality Pokémon goods! She always makes sure to get you the best items with little to no blemishes! Her shipping prices are very reasonable but you need to let her know how you want your items packed, otherwise she is going to ship them the best way she feels is safe enough. I really wouldn't worry. I have never, since my time buying from her, had any problems.
One of the best sites for non-Japanese nationals to buy authentic Japanese Pokémon goods! The owner, Brian, is an incredibly nice guy who is willing to give discounts with every purchase and is also known to offer wonderful deals and promotions. Many of his goods are decently priced and he has plenty of rare items available! Shipping can be pretty high, but it is done with the best of care! Pokémon fans will not be wronged! First-rate store run by a first-rate guy!
While not a Pokémon-centric site, Japan Video Games has plenty to offer! It is not unusual to run across older items that are out of stock in well-known stores. But that's not all! Probably the best thing about this site is that they offer points for every purchase you make! The more expensive the item, the more points you get, and those points in turn become discounts on purchases! That's pretty awesome! Those points never disappear so you can rack them up until you feel you want to redeem them!
He is the go-to guy on eBay! He also has his own online store! I go to him not only for Pokémon items since he also offers a wide variety of anime and video game character items that would make any collector happy! Service is top-notch and those in the US can expect to get their items in a week or earlier!
This site offers direct imports of Japanese items without having to deal with the high fees of middleman services and other import stores! There is, of course, a couple of downsides. One of them is that almost everything that is two months old or older is out of stock or backordered. That is not too terrible since they can bring back high-demand items into stock, but if you're impatient like me, then you're better off going someplace else to buy your knick-knacks. They also don't carry everything ever made (you will not be finding Pokémon Center, Banpresto or 7-Eleven lottery items here), but they do carry big brand name items such as Bandai and Tomy, and that's good enough for a lot of people. Overall, this site is better used for pre-ordering items. You'll be lucky to find any item that is not out of stock or backordered.
Like HobbyLink Japan, this site saves you the trouble of importing through a middleman service. AmiAmi is excellent if you really want to save money on big named items, and they also allow you to have items held while you are waiting for pre-orders to be released, which saves you a lot in the end. However, this site is massively popular with certain DX products, and pre-orders can sell out FAST. Orders over a certain amount can only be shipped through insured SAL or EMS, and those are not cheap options. Yet despite that, they are still cheaper than middleman services and most import stores. Go figure. Probably the least desirable thing about this site is when you place a pre-order, you cannot cancel it, unless you want them to ban you from future purchases. You are obligated to go through with the purchase once you place a pre-order, so be careful about that. If you saved for an item and pre-ordered it, be sure not to spend that money until your pre-order comes in. Believe me. You don't want to be banned from this place. Their prices are just too good!
This place is heaven for those who love comic book, video game, and movie characters! They are known to sell quality items, but their prices reflect the kind of quality you get! Some figures and statues can run as high as $900 or more! For an extra fee, they are willing to get you the best conditioned item in their werehouse if available! I love my figures with the least amount of paint blemishes and other factory mistakes, so that's great for me! Shipping can be high, but remember that they make sure to secure your packages as safe as possible. You can rest easy knowing the likelihood of items getting damaged in transit is very low.
If you are like me and don't live within an hour's drive to a local Disney store, fear not! They have an online store that can take care of that. Here you'll find everything you'd expect to find in a Disney Store and more! Sometimes items that are only available at Disney theme parks can be purchased here. Really cool! They also ship internationally, but the countries they ship to are limited. Make sure you check to see what countries they ship to before you buy.
GREAT COLLECTION NEWS SITES
It should be noticed by now that I am not a news site. All information that I know of is from information revealed by websites where they act as de facto news sites. I am just a collector who made this website to share what I have in my collection. Where do I go to to get information on new releases? Here are the sites that I found the most helpful.
- Pokeshopper- The number 1 place for Pokémon merchandise news
- Rockman Corner- Everything Mega Man-related can be found here, from games to apps to toys
- HobbyDB- I go here to see what is new for Disney releases
- Previews World ToyChest- A great site for any toy collector, regardless of what you collect