My Top 17 Toy Acquisitions of 2017!

#17 Pinkie Cooper

I love weird dolls, and it doesn’t get much weirder than Pinkie Cooper and her friends. Three dollars with dog heads and furry ear hair with soft vinyl legs and inset eyes, they’re weird weird weird but somehow, at the same time, LUDICROUSLY charming. It turned out to be cheaper to buy all three in an auction than to pick up my favourite one, and I have not been able to stop playing with them ever since!

#16 Transformers Rescue Bots Sequoia

Sequoia is super cute, a little orange bear that turns into an axe. Everyone knows I love minibots AND animal transformers, and Sequoia’s bright orange plastic and cute little face charms me so much.

#15 Animal Jam Fancy Fox Princess Castle Den

When these Animal Jam toys first came out, I was impressed. They had an excellent stylization that was so cute and charming, and these playsets were GREAT. I loved how they had real depth with their walls and floors and really great play value. When Toys R Us decided to clearance their entire stock for 75% off, it was time to start picking them up.

#14 Tenth Anniversary Transmutate

This Transmutate was sold as a build a figure in pieces. When you purchased another tenth anniversary beast wars figure, you would get a leg, or an arm or the head to this toy, making them really difficult to find complete, and certain pieces are really expensive, and it’s really uncommon to see ANY sell for less than fifteen dollars. Luckily, I managed to pick this one up in an estate sale and my god is it brilliant in person! Currently the only canonically nonbinary Transformer, I’m so happy to cross this one off my list.

#13 Iron Factory’s Pink Assassin

I’ve been waiting for Iron Factory’s third party legion scale Arcee since the day she was announced. Or, at least, since the day I got my Windblade. Because that Windblade blew me away! What a fantastic toy! I LOVE Iron Factory’s legion scale figures and I always pick them up when I can.

#12 Impossible Toys MC-09 Wasper

I was at Retrocon in Philadelphia this year, wandering about on the last day, trying to stretch my legs during the final hours of the convention. I’d already thoroughly picked over the toys available and hadn’t picked up very much- or at least, I’d thought I’d been thorough. Walking through an aisle I noticed a familiar face that made me turn back around on a dime. TFA Wasp!!! I couldn’t believe it. No one had told me that Impossible Toys had made a third party Wasp!!! Not only that, but the vendor had Glypher, the third party Glyph as well, and cut me a deal for both. This has been my number one wanted third party toy for YEARS!!!

#11 Valvotron

Valvotron is a mail-in exclusive transformer released this year alongisde Transformers 5. He’s ugly. Oh my god, he’s so ugly. And his name is TERRIBLE, because valve is a silly fandom term for certain naughty bits, making his name very…. dirty. You could only get him by buying synthetic valvoline oil and mailing in for him. I managed to pick him up at TFcon, and I’m probably the only person on earth who actually wants this monstrosity.

#10 Transformers 2001 Botcon exclusive Glyph

Glyph is a tiny blue minibot keychain that was given out for free to Botcon attendees in 2001. She’s SUCH a pretty little toy and despite her low value, one of my all-time favourite convention exclusives! I was so happy to pick her up for a bargain online.

#9 Kidrobot Mysterion

This is the really really huge one, and it’s just SO NICE in person! The Fractured But Whole might have underwhelmed, but this toy certainly didn’t.

#8 G3 Styling Size Rarity the Unicorn

G3 My Little Pony didn’t have as many unicorns as earlier or later generations, but they were just as elegant. Rarity has always been my favourite, a pink pony with a bunch of different pretty hair colours, and the styling size rarity is absolutely MASSIVE! Imagine my surprise when I picked her up at the punk rock flea market for a dollar!

#7 Luna Motthews

This year I’ve slowly begun picking up a few Monster High dolls here and there, and the real kickstarter was when I stopped in a Once Upon a Child as a little reward for completing a particularly difficult doctor appointment that day, and found someone had sold them so many display-quality dolls that the doll bin was bursting and spilling! The dolls were mostly 3-5 dollars apiece and had all their accessories and were in excellent condition, and some of them were REALLY uncommon! I managed to convince myself only to pick up my favourites instead of the whole bin like an adult, but Luna Motthews, daughter of the Mothman, is definitely my favourite and a pickup I’ve wanted to make for awhile.

#6 g3 MLP: Pumpkin Tart

I love holiday exclusive ponies, and of them, my favourite is almost definitely Pumpkin Tart! She’s a bright orange and purple pony with a cutie patootie purple kitten and moon cutie mark, and a sweet little black bow tied ribbon on her neck and I just absolutely adore Pumpkin Tart.

#5 Ever After High Dragonrider Apple and Braeburn

I couldn’t contain myself when I went to an outdoor show and the couple next to us was selling a Dragonrider Apple and Braeburn for just 20 dollars! Braeburn is MASSIVE and sculpted with love, and all of the Dragon Games dolls are just so gorgeously designed. I just wish they’d made more dragonrider dolls!

#4 G1 Trypticon

I LOVE my trippy. Alphonse picked up a particularly large lot of retro toys that needed… a lot of love, and me and him spent hours on the floor of the bathroom scrubbing and cleaning and fixing them back up to display quality. As a reward for my hard work, he let me keep the Trypticon from the lot, and he’s been sitting on my desk keeping me company ever since.

#3 2005 Botcon Exclusive Flamewar

Flamewar is gorgeous. She’s famous. This toy is legendary, and JUST as legendarily rare! I’ve only ever seen one person sell her in person, ever, and thanks to an amazing birthday present from my wonderful uncle Terry who loves and appreciates me, I am BLESSED to own this veritable MUSEUM PIECE of a toy!!!!

#2 Tempest Shadow European Magazine Figure

The My Little Pony movie was AWESOME. And Tempest Shadow absolutely stole the show! The second I walked out of the theatre I KNEW I needed to own all the Tempest merch. The hardest item to get, as usual, was going to be the European MLP magazine exclusive figure- but thanks to the generosity of a friend and a convenient birthday, my beautiful shiny girl is in my collection. <3

#1 2005 E-Hobby Exclusive Rosanna

Everybody has different opinions on which transformers are good and which are bad, but I feel confident we can all agree that Kiss Players is not just bad, but the worst. But Rosanna? How could I resist that cutie! She’s pink and she’s perfect and after a long time, she’s MINE!

About Nate Schoonover 19 Articles
Everyone's favourite art loving, toy collecting nonbinary idiot.