Alright, I am pretty tired of having to buy vintage Joes on Ebay or other online sites and then finding out when they arrive that they're just a hot mess in Joe form. Cracked elbows, paint wear, broken crotches, all of them carrying the MINT banner, have really discouraged me. I am at the point where I have totally given up on buying anything MOC unless I can actually hold them in my hand and inspect them first just to protect myself, which doesn't exactly give me a lot of options to buy the 80s stuff. Stuff on the pegs now? No problem. Not on the pegs now? Not gonna happen.
So, I have been looking at AFA more and more as a possibility just to insure that when I buy something MINT, it's MINT. Yes, I realize I would be taking someone ELSE'S opinion yet again that mint is mint, but it seems to be the only method out there of guaranteeing some sort of uniform quality.
The expense is a huge problem, of course. But paying X amount of money for a sure thing, in the long run, is a better investment than paying X for "meh"...repeatedly.
But I still can't pull the trigger. Do I go AFA figures or AFA carded? I've been buying figures on bad cards (not intentionally, see above) so I have been considering the send-in and let them open them option, but...I don't know - and I don't want to take the AFA's website's word for it. I'd rather hear from those of you who actually collect them and have experience with the end product.
Thoughts? Send-in and open them? Figures or carded? Buy AFA'd Joes on Ebay or right from the source?
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