Hey pin pals,
I notice the Lookouts set is out of stock in the Penny Arcade store, but it's still displayed there. I thought this was an evergreen set like the core, and haven't a clue if it's been out of stock for five minutes or five months. Anyone know how long it's been gone, and if it's ever coming back, or should I start looking trades?
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It might be gone forever? Some sets have gone away and came back, though it's possible they're holding some stock to "de-fodder" their status.
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I kinda love the idea of "value packs" of pins - basically tradables in bulk (I'm going to need at least 26 pins this year to trade for staff set 2 and 3 which... requires a bulk purchase). Not that Lookouts was junk, but it provided good value for trading fodder.
It would be interesting to have a basics value set that changed every year so that you wouldn't run into there being 500 lookout kids sitting on the staff tables. It could also function as a fun introductory set for new pin users, to set them up for trades.
Also curious whether the original 6 pin set re-released at $45 would be unworkable.
I think a whole new 6 Set would be better. Having a "fodder" Set really helps for those Staff trades, and when the fodder Set is discontinued it becomes tradebait for new people.
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"Helps" for staff trades by making those trades pretty boring for us you mean? Personally I much prefer when there is no obvious trade fodder PAX after PAX like that and I get a wider variety of pins in trade.
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I just meant from a financial perspective. If Blind Boxes are the cheapest way to get fodder, you will see plenty of different stuff. That's why I'm ok with a Blind Box Set at some point (pre-requisites being high print run and no year variants) because having stuff like that helps ease the wallet-pains.
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However, as long as the core sets continue to sit at $30 and almost all of the third party exhibitors choose to price their individual pins at $15, you're going to get 97% core set and lookouts at the event. As someone who doesn't have a ridiculous amount of expendable wealth, I'm going to go for the cheap trade every time since I don't have the luxury of making it rain on the tables. Maybe if exhibitors lowered their pricing to $10 (or even lower... thank you so much, Prime 2013 Behemoth), then you'll actually start to see a wide variety. If situations like South this year happen continue to happen (what was it, only one exhibitor had demo-obtainable pins and everything else was $15 or higher?), then, you know. Logo pin paradise.
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I think I bought... 5 or 6 lookouts sets in total ever, which included 1 for me and 1 for Qumaden, so only 3 or 4 sets made their way back which wasn't too crazy as some others paying out the ass for a double digit amount of sets. And for the record, I was sick of buying lookout sets, but it did make getting the staff sets more affordable.
I do like seeing people looking for them now though, not that they're rare by any means, but they deserve love because it's a nice looking set.
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Of course, variety in the staff trades is nice, but from a monetary standpoint it's a no brainer that people will want to maximise their return by trading away a <$10 pin from a set they don't want, as compared to a $15+ vendor pin (though we don't really get these at PAX Aus at the moment anyway). Conversely, I really did enjoy when, at Aus 2013, I traded a staffer for one of the early Prime pins that they brought from the US as their own fodder from that con, which I then made a cool trade with later on.
It's clear that I'm not quite sure what I support. Having a collection of low price pins to make staff trades with is good, because staff have to take any pin they're given (though that makes their trade experience less exciting). But, those pins are then filtered back into the community (though blind boxes etc.) as semi-worthless until they're retired and new collectors have the chance to get hold of them.
I think I'm just bitter that everything is so expensive.
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I don't think lookouts need to continue to be THE 'fodder' pin, however, having pins at a slightly lower pp balanced out with pins that are more expensive and limited tends to be the common trends among pin trading programs.