FortMax.com Blog

Latest Happenings at FortMax.com

2008-12-17T12:13:00.001-08:00

Here are some of the latest happenings at FortMax.com...

Inventory shift towards Fortress Maximus and Scorponok items is now at about 35%. Progress has slowed down a little more than I'd like the last month or so, but its still moving along. I am thrilled that we have Brave Maximus, Fortress Maximus, and even the rare Grand Maximus in stock right now!
Hopefully time will allow to add more content to the website related to Fortress Maximus...stay tuned for that over the next couple months.
Botcon is in Pasedena, CA this year -- I had hoped to go this year, but that's a little too far to truck my stuff to I think. Maybe next year!?

Transition Update - September

2008-09-24T09:14:00.000-07:00

Now two months into our inventory transition, and here are some notes on how its going:

About 25% of our inventory is now the target items of Brave Maximus, Fortress Maximus, or Scorponok. This is moving right along schedule of transitioning about 10-15% of inventory to the target items per month.
We began a little early with having 10% (or more) off orders of 'old' inventory, starting at orders $100+. The length of this sale depends on our cash flow needs, but probably will last just 2-4 weeks yet.
The"Newer Transformers" page now has a variety of items Beast Wars or newer for 50% off!

Transition Update

2008-08-20T09:01:00.001-07:00

About one month into the transition mentioned in previous posts, and here are some notes on how its going:

About 10% of our inventory is now the target items of Brave Maximus, Fortress Maximus, or Scorponok. This percentage would be closer to 20% except several of the items brought in have sold already (which is good!)
Goal is to continue transition at a rate of about 10-15% of inventory per month if possible. Probably around mid-November will start some form of sales/clearance of the non-focus inventory...it won't be a drastic price slashing, but maybe 10% off or so.
Collection Completers page was replaced with the "Newer Transformers" page, which is selling off a large chunk of my collection that is Beast Wars or newer. Currently those are 25% off, but I'll bump that up to 30% sometime soon (and now for anyone reading this post that asks for it)

Over-all I think the transition is showing positive signs. It appears the most challenging part will be to liquidate existing inventory at a pace quick enough and at prices still good enough to financially support the transition.

Website Update

2008-07-24T09:14:00.001-07:00

As noted on the FortMax.com homepage and in the previous blog post, we are attempting to restructure the FortMax.com inventory. In line with the website name, our goal will be to migrate inventory to be mainly Fortress Maximus parts and figures. Since Scorponok is his Decepticon counterpart, we plan to carry those as well. Also will have Brave Maximus items, which are simply recolors of Fort Max (and a little more affordable). Obviously, it is difficult to get hands on a single Fortress Maximus, let alone make a whole inventory out of it, so we'll see how this goes. If it doesn't work out, I would most likely just shut the site down completely.

The Collection Completers page has been removed from the site since I don't plan on spending time looking for any items outside of what was mentioned above. If at some point I decide to sell off some of my collection, the page may be added back in for a while, but that's not in any plans (at least for the G1 and G2 stuff) unless I get really strapped for cash... maybe I'll put it back up for the Beast Wars and newer things which I'm personally not into so much and wouldn't bother replacing in my collection once sold.

As for the regular inventory we have right now, it will be available for purhcase as it has been (with just the change that you won't see much for new items except what was already mentioned). Perhaps at some point there will be a sale or clearance, but I'm not in a hurry right now and I'll need the money from existing stuff to attempt to stock Fort Maxes!

That said...if you want to make a large purchase of $1,000+ perhaps I could offer a modest 10% discount to help things along...a lot of the stuff I sell goes for 25-50% more on ebay stores, so feel free to buy things off and resell for your own profit (I don't have the time to photograph and list everything on ebay which is one of several reasons I didn't go that route).

Random thoughts

2008-05-19T13:34:00.000-07:00

Been a while since posting, so thought I should do something anyway! So here are a few of my random thoughts...

I'm still looking for the newest Transformers cartoon toys to hit the shelves, I think they are coming any day now.
If you haven't been doing it already, give some of the links a try from this blog and the main page of the website to see other Transformer related websites. You just may find something good!! (And if you do, feel free to email me the link to a good site and I may add a permanent link for it here or on our links page)
Nothing has been decided for certain, but a good chance that the FortMax.com store will go through some big changes in the next year or so. Simply put, the time spent to keep it going is not outweighing the financial benefits it provides anymore, not to mention the storage space it takes. I may end up at some point selling off the inventory or else changing the business model to one that uses less time (such as only selling high dollar items), unless I can find someone to run it for me. I don't necessarily look forward to the change, but it's probably bound to happen unless I win the lottery and can quit my day job.
I got the sense from previous posts and surveys that not too many of you are Magic card fans, but if you are, I found a trading site http://www.magictraders.com/. If you'd like to do some swapping (usually even trades), let me know!

Around the Hobby

2008-03-06T09:07:00.000-08:00

Some trends I've noticed in the last few weeks/months in the Transformers hobby arena.

Going Up -- Larger figures like Fortress Maximus, Scorponok, and Trypticon appear to have taken a healthy 25%+ rise in value over the last year. Metroplex and Omega Supreme are holding steady or up slightly. Other Headmaster figures and late G1 small vehicles seem up around 10%. Decepticon jet Thrust is also up some in value, perhaps due to not having as common of reissues around for it as the other jets. A number of accessories are up in value (or at least higher in demand), most notably guns for Series 3 and 4 figures.

A number of G2 figures are increasing in popularity and value, such as the G2 jets, Megatron, Hero Prime, and some of the smaller G2 vehicles like the water squirting ones and ones with the rotor circles.

Early Beast Wars figures look to be enjoying a rise in value and popularity, though I don't have as concrete of data on them.

Hanging Tight -- Most Autobot Cars and Decepticon jets that had seen a period of decreasing value due to reissues seem to have levelled off in price.

Not as Hot -- Most figures that have recent Knock Off's produced (see earlier Blog post for a list) have seen a little bit of a decline in price. Mirage is a good example of that, down from a high of around $85-$90 for a complete figure to $65-$75. Another example is Ratbat, that sold briskly in the past at $65 but is now a slow sale at $55 mostly due to fears from buyers on authenticity. Gnaw is a figure that has jumped in value in the last year, going from $45 all the way up to $80+, but a large influx of KO's on that figure will likely bring it back down a bit in the near future.

Perhaps you've noticed other trends, too (or even the opposite of what I've seen), feel free to post!

New TF Cartoon

2008-01-02T09:19:00.000-08:00

I'm sure many of you are more in tune with things go on than I, but just wanted to mention that there is a new Transformers Cartoon on Cartoon Network. I just happened to catch the initial 90 minute episode, and it seemed okay.

The characters resemble the Transformers Classics figures that were out in stores about a year ago... although if I remember right, the cartoon Megatron looked more like the movie Megatron. I know that a new toyline is underway, probably will hit stores shortly. I saw a prototype of Bulkhead online (who in robot mode resembles a small Omega Supreme), which I'll probably buy when it comes out. I'll likely get Starscream, too, but not sure about the rest. [For everything Beast Wars and newer, I personally just buy the figures that look cool to me - I don't have the money and space to get them all!]

KO's and Reissues

2007-12-20T06:37:00.000-08:00

I recall a few years back when one of the great Transformers collecting debates was people who were wishing for Hasbro/Takara to re-release some Transformer toys versus those who were against it. Fast forward to present day, and as most everyone knows there have been a number of figures reissued, and some that have quality knock-offs made.

It might be a case of be careful what you wish for, you just might get it! In general, I like the idea of reissues so that a new generation of kids and collectors can get into the fun of the TOYS (sometimes we forget that), without paying too high of prices for them. Unfortunately, many of the reissues at Toys 'R Us were $30+, and Japan reissues also above that mark once imported into the US, which made the cost not too different from just buying a vintage loose figure. I would have personally preferred a little more effort going into making the reissue figures/accessories different enough from the vintage ones so they wouldn't be confused (such as using slightly different color hues), but may be in the minority there. There are too many unscrupulous people out there that try to pass those off as vintage that it makes it hard for dealers and collectors to always tell them apart.

If someone has a comprehensive re-issue list, please post it or post a link to it. Most were re-issued at least in two ways - the Takara Japanese reissue and the Hasbro US reissue. Here is a partial list:

Astrotrain
Blitzwing
Bluestreak
Dirge
Galvatron
Grapple
Hot Rod
Hound
Inferno
Insecticons - Kickback, Shrapnel, Bombshell
Ironhide
Jazz
Kup (with Wheelie)
Megatron
Minicars - Cosmos, Powerglide, Bumblebee, Gears, Huffer, Warpath
Optimus Prime
Powermaster Optimus Prime (in the version with the extra trailer)
Perceptor
Predaking
Prowl
Ramjet (limited number)
Ratchet
Sideswipe
Sixshot
Skywarp
Soundwave (with Laserbeak &/or Ravage)
Starscream
Targetmaster Kup with Recoil
Targetmaster HotRod
Thundercracker
Tracks
Ultra Magnus
(Note: Also Brawn, Bumblebee, and Cliffjumper, but made as Keychains)

Along with the line of official re-issues, as you are likely aware, there are a number of higher quality knock-offs for sale MISB (Mint in Sealed Boxes). I've struggled a little bit personally on if to buy any of them or not -- on one hand, I probably should have them so I can be better aware of how to distinguish them from authentics, but on the other hand I don't want to financially support what is going on by buying any of those. Some of these are being made in variant colors or clear, which is sort of neat (but again, I hesitate to give them money if this isn't licensed). If anyone has more information on what these are all about, feel free to post it or post a link to a site with info. I am aware of at least the following KO reissues (not counting the ones that are obviously cheap knockoffs):

Bumblebee
Cosmos
Frenzy
Gnaw
Hubcap
Laserbeak
Metroplex
Mirage
Optimus Prime
Powerglide
Ratbat
Ravage
Rumble
Seaspray
Slag
Sludge
Swoop
Warpath
(un-honorable mention - a variety of KO instruction booklets are surfacing, as well)

Transformer Variations

2007-11-21T13:12:00.000-08:00

For those of you out there interested in variations of G1 Transformers, visit Fred's Workshop at http://www.geocities.com/futuristgroup/tfs.html. The site has been around a long time, established as one of the best resources on identifying variations within figures. Granted, the website layout and design could use some work, but he does have a lot of good information. It also contains information to help distinguish original figures from knock-offs and re-issues, which definitely comes in handy!

Personally, I don't have the time, interest or energy to analyze every figure that comes in stock to see which specific molding variation it is...but we do point out major variations of figures when possible (such as rubber wheels versus plastic wheels versions, for example). Browse his site, you'll be surprised at what you learn.

New Inventory

2007-11-14T07:17:00.000-08:00

We expect to have a lot of items to be added over the next week or two -- enough new things that I won't be able to get them all added right away! I currently have a box with about 20-30 figures to be posted and 100+ accessories that I'm trying to get through today and tomorrow. A large assortment of G2 items is expected to arrive on Friday (11/16) and be posted over the weekend. More mid-G1 items to arrive early next week hopefully.

Thanks to everyone who purchased items during our sale a couple weeks ago!! The response was good enough to pay off some bills without dipping into savings, as well as help me continue to afford to pick up some new inventory. So though inventory might be a little bit low right now after the sale, I think the new items coming in over the next week or two should spice things up again. Stay tuned to the website's "Latest Arrivals" page to see what has been added. Example pieces to come include Piranacon, G2 Devastator, G2 Bruticus, G2 Superion (maybe... Slingshot will likely be broke), Spike for Fortress Maximus, Snapdragon, Triggerhappy, Hardhead, Ratbat, Crosshairs, and many other figures and accessories.

If you want first dibs on any of the new inventory, feel free to post here or email me at order@fortmax.com with things you are looking for -- if it saves me the trouble of posting it on the site, all the better!

What's Your Favorite?

2007-10-11T08:35:00.000-07:00

Since I don't have much to rant about right now, and no exciting new products in stores (yet) to review, I thought I'd post what is probably a common message board topic - rank your favorites! Below I'll post my fav lists, please do post yours, too!

Top G1 Figures:
1.Fortress Maximus - Obvious top choice, huge guy with lots of playability and features
2. Sky Lynx - My biggest TF purchase as a kid, I had to choose between him and Metroplex. One of my worst days as a kid was when I discovered my mom accidentally stepped on it and broke one of his shuttle panels (I glued it, but it was never the same!)
3. Scourge - Its unique boat/plane style is neat, and love the wings in robot mode
4. Soundwave - Best cartoon voice, tough guy robot mode, and fun to hide the cassettes inside
5. Motormaster/Menasor - The closest I came as a kid to having a full merge group set, I had 4 of the 5 Stunticons. Motormaster was sometimes used as my Optimus Prime when playing (as I didn't have one until I traded for a friend's back in the day). Bruticus looks cooler, but Menasor wins out in the sentimental department.
(Sky Lynx and Motormaster were the only two listed above that I owned as kid. I didn't know anyone else back then that owned a Fort Max. A friend of mine lost his Soundwave at a baseball game when we were playing. Sigh, the memories...)

Post G1 Figures:
(Subject to change, but at top of my mind right now)
1. Red Dragon Megatron
2. Titanium Scourge
3. RID Scourge
4. Unicron (robot mode only, hate the planet mode)
5. Alternators Shockwave

Vintage Star Wars Figures:
1. Luke Jedi - my favorite toy as a kid, he could kick butt!
2. Biker Scout - another sad experience as a kid where I was playing catch throwing him to a friend back and forth over a fence and his head broke
3. Boba Fett - Colorful figure and could fly
4. Emperor's Guards - Red is my favorite color, and they seemed tough without having to do anything
5. Yoda - Small yet detailed
(The first 4 above I owned as a kid, Yoda my brother had)

Post-G1 Figures

2007-09-29T07:40:00.000-07:00

Two brief items on this post:

#1 - We are aware that the website was working slow for the last couple weeks. I think those issues (on our website host's end) have been resolved, and things are moving quicker right now. If you still experience any problems with the website, please email info@fortmax.com or post a message here and we'll look into it.

#2 - As you may or may not know, we have a growing selection of post-G1 Transformers on the Collection Completers page for sale. So if you have post-G1 collection holes, give it a look! More figures from the past 7-10 years are still sitting in boxes here to be added as time allows.

2007 Botcon Exlcusives

2007-09-14T11:28:00.000-07:00

A question for any Transformer fan out there with the answers -- Why are this year's Botcon exclusives selling for so much? How much did it cost originally to obtain the exclusives? I would have expected that this year's Botcon to have had more people attending than normal, thus more of this year's exclusives made than for past years (being easier to obtain and therefore not be too expensive). Just curious.

Go Figure

2007-09-13T12:20:00.000-07:00

Two unrelated items on the "Go Figure" topic this week...

#1 Transformers Card Game
Just a few days after posting my rating on not buying the Transformers Card Game, I broke down and bought a pack anyway. I figured what the heck, why not take a look. One pack won't hurt. Who knows if I'll find reason to change my mind on this, too, but in short I didn't care for the game. Unless I missed something, it seems to be little more than glorified rock, paper, scissors. The put-together figures were a little nicer than I expected, but I never bothered going through the trouble of 'transforming' them back and forth during the game. So that's that, I bought one pack and don't have interest in getting more unless they happen to make some of G1 characters (and even then I'd probably just assemble the vehicles and put on a shelf or something). Go figure.

#2 Verbal Commitments
This is just a chance to vent a little bit...twice this week I had people tell me that the figures they had for sale were mine, only to come back to me a day later and tell me they sold to someone else who offered 2-3% higher than I did. The part about getting 'outbid' on items is frustrating enough, especially when it is a measely amount. But what does get my goat is when someone says "okay, they're yours at $xx" and then looks to see if anyone will pay a little bit more yet, and then breaks the agreement. Go figure - if I sold things at higher prices perhaps this wouldn't happen as much, but I'd rather not have to do that! I have no problem with folks getting multiple quotes on things, in fact I think that is a smart thing to do, but don't try to make people do bidding wars back and forth against each other and definitely don't give someone a reason to think a deal is done, unless it is. Oh well, thanks for letting me blow off a little steam :-)

To buy or not to buy...

2007-09-05T08:16:00.000-07:00

As I browse around stores, both online and physical, I'm often encountering the difficult question of should I buy something or not (in this context, speaking mainly of collectibles/games/toys). From time to time in this blog I'll post some analysis of random items that I thought long and hard about. For starters, I'm going to use this basic criteria for making a decision, each on a 0-10 scale:

Investment Value: 0-Expect to not resell for much, 5- could resell near cost, 10-could double money or more
Affordablility Factor: 0 - Very expensive, 5 - fair price, 10 - real cheap
Playability/Fun Factor: 0 - Can't do anything but look at it, 5 - fun at times, 10 - lots of use
Sentimental Value: 0 - None, 5 - Some, 10 - Big Time!
Size Factor: 0 - Takes up a LOT of space, 5 - Takes some space, 10 - virtual, takes up no space

Time will tell what the 'breakpoint' would be for making a buy/no-buy decision, but my guess is an item would have to tally up 25+ points and not have any 0's. Perhaps Affordablity should be weighted heavier, but for now we'll leave as is.

Item #1: Lego Imperial Destroyer
This is an impressive sized lego set, with roughly 1300 pieces. At retail of $99, it isn't an outrageous price but not cheap, either. My ratings on it are:

Investment value: 4 - Once opened it would lose some value, but not drastic
Affordability factor: 3.5 - Not bad, but for me I rarely dump over $50 on new toys
Fun factor: 3 - Sort of fun to build, can maybe play with a bit with the kids, but probably too fragile to use much
Sentimental value: 7 - Anything relating to old-school Star Wars or TF's would probably rate at least a 5 for me. Cool looking ship, that I wish had a regular toy version!
Size factor: 3 - Big enough that I don't know where I would be able to display it assembled
TOTAL: 20.5

Not quite a good enough score where I would drop the money for it, but close enough where I check to see if it is on sale every once in a while! Speaking of which, Toys R Us had on clearance a couple of these where the figures were stolen. After clearance and sale pricing, it was $56 + tax. Perhaps if I had more cash in hand, I would pull the trigger, but the rating is quite over the mark yet:

Investment value: 4.5 - Could probably resell near purchase price, no figs hurts value some
Affordability factor: 6 - Again, I rarely dump over $50 on new toys, but not a bad deal
Fun factor: 2.5 - Missing mini-figs hurts the fun a touch, though I have some of them already
Sentimental value: 6.5 - I liked the little mouse robot!
Size factor: 3 - Still is big
TOTAL: 22.5 - close, but not close enough yet

Item #2: Transformers CCG
I've played Magic: TG card game off and on since about the time it came out, and enjoy it quite a bit. The trouble is usually how to find enough time to play it. So now comes out the Transformers collectible card game, which has of course caught my eye. Here is the breakdown on my thoughts on it:
Investment value: 2 - Too early to determine, but it seems like opened singles don't have much value.
Affordability factor: 4 - Okay, but $4 per pack seems a bit high
Fun factor: 2 - I like the concept, but without playing I don't know for sure. Also would have to find the time and people to play, which would not be easy.
Sentimental value: 3 - It gets some marks for being Transformers, but since it isn't G1 then
it doesn't get as high of a score for me
Size factor: 8 - Not much space at all, just another box in the closet
TOTAL: 19

The size factor inflated the score even, but still not high enough for me to drop the coin on it. Perhaps if I found some cheap singles I'd buy a few to give it a look, but otherwise I'll pass for now!

Feel free to post your own scores for items you've thought about buying -- whether from FortMax.com or elsewhere! In a few days I'll post a couple items that I did decide to buy.

Can you identify this item?

2007-08-24T09:06:00.000-07:00

Update note: This item has been identified as Brakedown GTS from the Cybertron line. Thanks!
*******************************
I'm stumped on identifying a Transformers item...it is copyright 2004, and is a blue funny-car style vehicle, with two big wheels in the back and small wheels under the vehicle in front. Head is gray, kind of looks like Bluestreak's head, and arms are gary. It has an Autobot logo on it. I'll offer $2 store credit to the first person who can identify it for me! TFU.info is a good resource to identify items, but I didn't find it there. If you know of other thorough reference websites for the newer toys, please let me know!

While I don't intend to make it a sizeable portion of inventory, I do have on hand some random figures from the past 10 years that I am sorting through from Beast Wars, RID, Armada, Energon, etc.. The first of each item I have will get put on the Collection Completers page, and then any duplicates will get posted into regular inventory.

On an unrelated note, there was a good post asking about foreign figures. The person is correct that it hasn't been an area of focus thus far -- a few items can be found on the Collection Completers page, but that's pretty much it. I'll keep an extra eye out for items and see what I can do, but they simply don't come around as often as US figures (of course), and when found it typically is an international transaction which is both riskier and expensive, therefore making it difficult to obtain most items without charging an arm and a leg for them.

One final item I'll mention is regarding our website photos -- I'm slowly working on getting quality photos up that show complete figures for reference, and weed out some of the blurry and incomplete figure photos. I know the ideal would be to have actual pics of each item, but unfortunately that isn't within my time budget. When needed, I can do photos of specific figures on request, if you're willing to wait until a weekend for me to do it.

Poll Comments

2007-08-15T09:52:00.001-07:00

Obviously it wasn't a scientific poll, and pretty low sample rate, but the vote is split between keeping things as is, and increasing G1 inventory. I am surprised that nobody voted for increasing the post-G2 inventory...perhaps anyone that collects those has already moved on to somewhere else?

Tough to say for sure how this will impact things to come (again, since it was a pretty low vote count), but at least for now I'll hold off on spending money on just big dollar items, and try to continue bringing in as much variety of G1 things as possible.

On a related tangent...I've tried taking want lists from people at times in the past, but with minimal success. Perhaps we could try to add a feature to allow everyone to post/update their want lists at the site, though I don't know if they would want to go through the trouble of maintaining it. That's one area where I'd like to find a way to improve the site, anyway. I'm willing to spend more to get in specific pieces -- as long as I know I have quick takers for them!

Quantity vs. Quality vs. Price

2007-08-08T12:00:00.000-07:00

Let your thoughts be known! Post your comments or respond to the poll on the left....if you had trouble posting a comment before, I fixed that now so you don't have to login to anything.

As FortMax.com evolves, the question comes up of how to be as successful as possible and keep customers happy. The general operating philosophy to this point has been to offer as many G1 / G2 TF's figures as possible, at a price better than other sellers that carry any sizable ongoing inventory. The Gobots and Star Wars items are similar strategy, though they are not as much of a focus at this time.

Knowing we can't all have our cake and eat it, too (if so, I'd be making piles of money, but that's not the case!), I'd be curious to know your opinion on the following options:

1) You would prefer to keep FortMax.com basically as is, in terms of selection and price level
2) You would be willing to pay more per item, if the G1/G2/Gobots/StarWars selection was larger and you could find more of what you want at one time
3) You would like to see more high dollar or boxed/carded items, even if it meant that over-all selection was smaller
4) You would prefer to see increased inventory of post-G2 Transformers items (Beast Wars, Armada, etc.)
5) You have some other preference

Transformers Market in 2007

2007-08-07T11:55:00.000-07:00

It has been an interesting year thus far in the realm of Transformers collectibles! Prices of items have increased notably in the market, with a sustained increase value of 25% or more on many G1/G2 items, especially for accessories of any figures that have not (yet?) been reissued. A surge of interest definitely has taken place over the last couple months, thanks to the Transformers movie (which made more money than what most people would have guessed a year ago). Typically summer time is slow business at FortMax.com, but not this year. What remains to be seen is if this influx of new interest and collectors will continue, or if it will die back down after the movie hype is gone.

While I like to see things worth more and not less, it definitely has presented challenges for getting new inventory in at an affordable price, too!

Its fun to see some of the G1 items represented back at stores, such as the little Robot Heroes figures that display nice... or good for my youngest to play with while watching my old-school Transformer tapes (he can watch the tapes, but the DVDs are off limits!).

The Titanium figures that run around $15 each are great concepts for non-cheapo toys at a reasonable price, that both transform and have a little personality. However, they do seem to fall apart at the joints a little too easily (I have Soundwave, Scourge, and Rodimus). The Titanium figures at the $6 range have some nice detail, but just a little too small for the price -- with the Robot Heroes I get two for that price and have more fun with them, anyway.
In addtion to getting the Robot Heroes, I've purchased a handful of the movie toys -- Bumblebee, Baricade, Brawl/Devastator, Blackout, a cell phone guy, and some MP3 player thing that looks like Laserbeak. The detail on these figures were nice, however it's just a little too hard to get the cars transformed back into vehicles and hold their form.

With all of the above said, there is a side of me that's a little bummed to see our niche hobby turned more mainstream. Perhaps that's just because re-issued items devalue the originals some, but I think its more than just a money thing...

Hey, I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on any of the above. Also, if you don't mind sharing where else you buy TF's online (besides ebay), please post links for those!