A problem I have (among countless others) is that I am not above getting a knockoff product, but if I know that a legitimate version of it exists, I’m going to want the official thing.
As my blet collection continued to grow, at one point, I picked up a Ring of Honor tag team blet, because I had an Amazon gift card that I had no idea what the fuck to use it on, and when one of my friends suggested putting it towards a blet, I countered with that all the blets available on Amazon were mostly all Pakistani knockoffs. But then I went down the rabbit hole of double-checking, and lo-and-behold, there was some merchant selling official, Figures Toy Company replicas of Ring of Honor tag team blets, and with the gift card, it knocked it down to a far more reasonable price that I was willing to bite on.
But with a ROH tag blet in my collection, naturally I would want a ROH World championship blet. However, little did I know that the version that I wanted, official versions of it were not only no longer produced, but the ones that existed were now considered somewhat of collectors items, because there was some sort of legal background involving designer and distributor fighting over rights and royalties, with it ultimately ending with the ceasing of production of the blets, and Ring of Honor being forced to redesign the World title in order to produce replicas.
Naturally, the things that I want are the ones that end up being rare and expensive. Sure, I could’ve paid under $150 and gotten one of the countless reproductions made in Pakistan; all three of my New Japan IWGP blets are, but I justify those because official replicas are upwards of $2,000 and only like 1,000 are ever produced in typical Japanese short-selling. But the thing is, I knew that official ROH World titles were out there and occasionally available on the secondary, and I had hoped to get my hands on one.
Worst part is, on two separate occasions, I went to ROH shows, once in Baltimore, and once in Dallas, and I saw the blet available at the merch stands. But I’m rarely in the mood to plunk down $300 on the spot, so I passed in both instances, so it’s almost karmic that I would eventually be in this position later on down the road.
A little while back, I found an eBay listing for a ROH World championship. The buy it now on it was $600, which was appalling, but not something I wasn’t willing to go to, seeing as how I had a nice little cache of blet money saved up from doing surveys for the last year. But in true Danny fashion, I decided to test the waters of the Make Offer button, and in fairly quick succession, made two, probably insultingly low-ball offers, seeing if I could get the guy to ultimately bite when I went up to $500. But before I could get to that point, someone actually swooped in and did the buy it now for $600, and I wasn’t sure whether to be relieved that I didn’t have to drop $600 on it, or feel sad that I missed out on an opportunity to get what I was now referring to as my Unicorn Blet.
Afterward, I went through this state of feeling conflicted in the sense that I was ready to burn $500, but because I didn’t, I wanted to do something frivolous alternatively with this money. I reached out to social media to get some suggestions, and ask about investing, and I wasn’t getting any really appealing ideas, and I was actually leaning towards investing it into like Bitcoin or some other cryptocurrency, to see if I could make a decent return on it. But also in true Danny fashion, I never pulled the trigger on it, and just moved on with my life, with $500 still in my possession.
However, that brings us to the current, where I got an eBay alert, and it turns out that my Unicorn blet was once again on the market. Buy it now: $650. Clearly, this seller had done a little research and saw that someone had successfully unloaded it for $600, so why not try and make a little extra coin on it? I felt dread once again, knowing that I would be unable to ignore my Unicorn blet a second time, and wondered if I could actually avoid spending $650 for something I missed out twice on in the past for half that.
But then, I saw the seller’s location, and it turned out that they were less than an hour away from me. Furthermore, I had just sold something on eBay a week prior, and was made privy to all the changes eBay had made in the selling department, namely the gargantuan slice of the pie they take from all sales now, to upwards of like 20%.
So I came up with an idea, and reached out to the seller privately, and proposed an in-person cash sale, since I explained that I was also in Georgia, and not too far from his location. I offered up a price that was 15-20% of $650, and explained that such a number was taking into consideration the cut eBay would take, the price of shipping of an eleven pound blet, and rounding it up to the nearest $50 increment, so that we could both benefit in the sense that I could save some money, and he could make more through me, than if anyone were to pull the trigger online.
And fortunately for me, the guy liked my offer, and a deal was made. A 20 minute drive and a meeting in a very public neutral area, and I finally got my unicorn blet. Sure, I’m $500 poorer for the pursuit, but this was still coming from my blet money well, which was specifically designed for these kinds of frivolous purchases, but in classic Danny fashion, pulling the trigger on any large purchases is always a head case for me.
But in the end, I have my Unicorn blet; a very expensive indulgence for something that I’ll eventually just hang on the wall and just look at from time to time, but whatever it’s #21 in my collection, and it makes me happy all the same.
