Slipping through my fingers
Part of the trouble with being on a collectors' website/group is that you find things that you never knew you wanted. And for some reason, for me, I find these things in a group auction or group buy. If it's a group buy, I'm usually too late. If it's a GA...well, I have no luck with these for in-demand items. There was the huge Pokemon lot from a moderator of the community, which the group lost (and someone else re-sold most of the lot back to the community >:( ). Then there was the clear file GA, where the seller didn't want to deal with middleman services. I think this most recent GA, however, was the most painful for me. I was hoping to get my hands on the full-size Espeon & Umbreon tote bag, but got outbid with 5 minutes to go, and everyone on the community seems to think you're a tool if you bid within the last 5 minutes, so I backed off. Unfortunately, that meant I also had to resign myself to the fact that I would probably never see this item at a reasonable price ever again. There are a couple on eBay, but the pricing on eBay for Pokemon promo items is terrible. These tote bags don't seem to go for under $100 on eBay. Even the little one is $199.
I keep swinging back and forth between being a responsible adult (not buying things, or doing the research beforehand) and impulsive OMG-want-grabby-hands! buying. Justifying the latter is often pretty easy ("I will never find this again"), although it often does pop up again, sometimes for a better price. Unfortunately, this, combined with "being a responsible adult" also means that I often don't buy the things I've wanted for some time (I've had a DX Vaporeon and the Pokemon Time Charizard plush on my "shopping list" for nearly a year...) and/or I miss out. This has happened several times with cards, various plush, and some other things, like the Sailor Moon swing keychain set (the Inner Senshi, which is getting increasingly difficult to find). The grabby-hands is really not helped by the whole collector community, either, because I keep coming across things. It also makes it easier to justify buying stuff on there, because it's usually much cheaper than eBay, Amazon, or Pokevault. The other problem is that it gives you an idea a) of how rare stuff is, and b) what reasonable prices are. I'm pretty sure that I could have bought some of the stuff I've had on my wish/want list several times over!
I keep swinging back and forth between being a responsible adult (not buying things, or doing the research beforehand) and impulsive OMG-want-grabby-hands! buying. Justifying the latter is often pretty easy ("I will never find this again"), although it often does pop up again, sometimes for a better price. Unfortunately, this, combined with "being a responsible adult" also means that I often don't buy the things I've wanted for some time (I've had a DX Vaporeon and the Pokemon Time Charizard plush on my "shopping list" for nearly a year...) and/or I miss out. This has happened several times with cards, various plush, and some other things, like the Sailor Moon swing keychain set (the Inner Senshi, which is getting increasingly difficult to find). The grabby-hands is really not helped by the whole collector community, either, because I keep coming across things. It also makes it easier to justify buying stuff on there, because it's usually much cheaper than eBay, Amazon, or Pokevault. The other problem is that it gives you an idea a) of how rare stuff is, and b) what reasonable prices are. I'm pretty sure that I could have bought some of the stuff I've had on my wish/want list several times over!