Damaged Roberta Figure – A Curse and Blessing

So I didn’t pre-order the New Line Roberta because her price was high and I didn’t have the New Line Revy to match. I’d love Roberta but every time I looked at her I’d think of the two Revy figures I let get away (Alter and New Line). I only felt I could justify the pricetag on Roberta if I had the matching Revy (obsessive completionist much?), their two poses seemed like they’d compliment each other well. Well a re-release of the New Line Revy was announced a month after Roberta came into stock everywhere! On a lot of figures if you don’t have a figure at that point then you’re f***ed on finding one in stock. I happened to get a sweet bonus and tax return this spring so I decided she would be my splurge and I’d save the rest. I began my search for Roberta and found her in stock at only two sites BeNippon and CDJapan. I had used BeNippon in the past on harder to find figures and been pleased with their service but not their prices. For Roberta it was going to cost like $80 to ship, on top of the full figure price, AND on top of that they charge a 4.5% fee for using a credit card. They would allow a bank payment but the way it’s setup it’s cheaper to go with taking the 4.5% credit card fee.

I had never used CDJapan before but I had great things about it from Hina and decided to take a chance on them. She was still pretty darn expensive but at least she was a chunk cheaper there. Well on the TL forums a few Roberta figures were reported as arriving broken from various stores. One poor soul had a Roberta figure with a broken sash, broken fingers, and scratches on the figure from all the broken parts floating around. Naturally I became a bit anxious about my Roberta on her way. I hadn’t planned on opening her up right away since I was a few days from moving, but the Roberta accidents fellow forum members experienced made me decide to check to be sure. And lo and behold her left leg was broken right off!

Since there is a little hole on the leg I assumed there was a pin that was suposed to be there that fell out, but I couldn’t find it. A few others had that issue too and it’s suspected that there was never a pin there to begin with since they couldn’t find it either and the holes don’t line up exactly, so TL was kind enough to send me a pin to fix her with (even though I wasn’t able to buy the figure from them). In the meantime I contacted CDJapan with images and was asking if anything could be done, they offered to send me another free of charge and said they’d open her and add extra packaging. Turns out the last one they had in stock was also broken so they just refunded me ALL MY MONEY including shipping! They said they have been having issues with the combination of poor design and poor packaging on that Roberta.

So I have a broken BUT free Roberta figure! I consider this a blessing. I have confidence in my ability to fix her well since the break is such a simple and easily hidden one. Especially since the owner of TL gave me the pins I need and advice on the best way to fix her. Were this a $50 figure I’d consider it a curse but for a $145 figure shipped from Japan I consider it a blessing because that’s HUGE savings on a high quality figure (besides how easily her leg breaks off). ALSO no making fun of me for spending that amount on a figure… 🙂 I looove Black Lagoon and all the characters in it quite a bit. It’s an amazing series filled with strong and scary women. Oh man when Roberta unleashed at the bar and was chasing down the crew it was SO BADA$$! I get excited just thinking about it.

Did I save the money that I saved on the Roberta? Uuummm…maybe so…maybe not…mind your own business! LOL these two Pullip cuties cost like $60 less then just Roberta shipped. I got them with the money I had set aside for Roberta. The dark haired one really reminds me of Nana.

Would you take a broken figure if it was free? Or would you rather have a figure and box in pristine condition for retail price?

PS – I still don’t have a computer at home…I always thought getting internet would always be the #1 priority in my life but all these other more basic needs keep getting in my way! Darn basement flooded, fridge needed cleaning, and don’t even get me started on all the boring shopping I had to do.