Thursday, January 27, 2011

Rant: The issue with 'Vintage'

Vintage gear: it's awesome.. but somewhat.. TOO precious.
Yesterday I had the best time, hitting two pool party/BBQ's for Australia day; as part of the fun we had some pretty crazy water fights with several water blasters that definitely were a huge hit at both parties. Now, naturally I couldn't expect anyone else to bring water blasters (mainly because most of my friends who are my age just don't spend their money on that sorta thing) so of course they all had to use mine. The thing is, just because they ARE grown ups doesn't mean they necessarily know how to treat toys any better than kids- in fact they're more likely to mishandle them and/or gawk at the prices of them if they had to replace them on the event of damage.

Sure enough, every water fight results in gear damage- In the past few years I've watched my Water Warriors Pulse Strike's nozzle come off, the pump neck pop out, my Pulse Blaster's neck get jammed; my Super Soaker Triple Shot lose air pressure and my beloved Flashflood's trigger spring finally snap. Every blaster gains a few more scuff marks on the plastic and are subjected to newbies looking for the "best gun" but not knowing how to use them properly. But that's ok if they're current ones that can be replaced... which leads me to the topic of the rant for today; what if they CAN'T be replaced? Yup, I'm talking about those ever awesome vintage blasters we all go after...what really IS the point if you can't play with them?


In the past it's always pretty painful to watch people rough handle my gear- watching a girl (doesn't matter she's hawt in bikini!) struggle with the pumping mechanism and almost bending it in half, or throwing a blaster against the pool side, scratching the paint/plastic and leaving it looking.. as they would say "played with".

Sooo.. this year, I ended up leaving many of my prized water blasters at home, especially my vintage CPS series blasters which was kind of sad because I really wanted to use them, but was mindful of the issue with replacing/repairing them should they get damaged. Even a broken Flashflood is painful, so I basically brought with me mid range- nothing special- gear. Which was probably the best decision..

And that's the big issue I have with older/discontinued/vintage stuff. They may be awesome, they may be better than current stuff, but you can't replace them if they get da broke. I was sitting on eBay eyeing off a vintage 1996 king-of-the-hill Super Soaker CPS 2000 and was soo tempted.. but then I thought "when/where am I ACTUALLY ever going to get to crack that puppy out?"  In turn, to those of you who're lucky enough to own a vintage Nerf Crossbow- how many of you throw it around and let your mates have a go, knowing full well it's worth over 200 bucks?

Thoughts? Anyone else have this dilemma?

10 comments:

  1. Yeah I don't like letting guys who don't know what they're doing touch my blasters. Last time I did, they broke it. Wasn't even my friend. They just picked it up when I went into the pool and started mucking with it.

    Never again.

    Maybe if Neil's crew ever got into supersoakers, you might be able to go show off how awesome your vintage blaster is. Just keep the water gun to yourself =)

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  2. That's pretty much it, we're the ones that care about waterguns/nerf guns, they don't.
    It's just not within their interests.

    But hey, who knows, you might get them into it, then they'll start paying attention, then you can break out the heavy machinery...=D

    I felt bad enough sharing my $12.50 WaterWarriors Sphinx at a recent BBQ... but then I think I'm a little OCD...

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  3. everytime one of my friends is uing my nerf longstrike i cringe with fear that it will break...nerf longstrike is my favorite nerf blaster

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  4. There's a reason I bought a second generation Longshot; my first generation one now sits on a shelf as a display piece. I'm also considering picking up a new Recon to be able to set aside my first generation one with the extending plunger.

    This is also why I personally haven't been able to justify purchasing a CPS 2000. Again, I miss mine like all heck, but the fact is that I would never use it. I gotta hand it to my friend, he never seems to have a problem buying and using CPS-series blasters whenever he can. Although he's never been so much attached to the collector's value of something as I have.

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  5. I do believe toys are there to be played with; I've never been a "mint in box" collector and don't even buy for the purposes of resale or what it's worth. I wanna play with them; What stings though is the cost to replace them when others break them.

    A lot of my friends who come around to my place often want to bring their kids over because "they'd love these toys", and that makes me cringe a little too..

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  6. thats so true! i hate people i dont know or im rufly related to just seeing a gun and picking it up. ESPECIALLY with my flash flood.

    but still pocket, GET THE CPS 2000!!!! THIS MAY BE YOURE LAST CHANCE!!!!!!!

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  7. I'm imagining a whole bunch of people surrounding me in a circle while I sit at my laptop eyeing off the eBay listing, with everyone pumping their fists and chanting

    "C P S.. C P S... C P S"

    :P

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  8. Nerf Blaster ReviewsJanuary 28, 2011 at 10:36 AM

    I NEVER bring anything that has to be pumped up a certain amount of times. @Pocket, I might have a bid war with you, 'cause I'm going after it, too! :)

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  9. My friends' little brothers are always such a pain in the ass with my guns!

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  10. You just need to know how to repair them properly, in such a way that they can be repaired again.

    I own a CPS 3000, and the little plastic valve on the rubber tube broke. What I did was to go metal on this thing and put copper valves and a female connector on the receiver (with matching threads on them). Works like a charm now, and will do so in the future (until the "Ship-of-Theseus-paradox kicks in).

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