New Gentle Giant Thing bust!

For Christmas, I got a $50 Visa gift card.  I was stunned to learn that you had to pay for these things - the card cost a total of $54.95 after the money was loaded onto it.  I realize that Visa has to make something from selling these cards to make it worth their while, but wow!  Next Christmas, let's split the difference and you can give me $52.50 in cash and we can both walk away a winner.

Anyway, I used this $50 to buy something of great importance and didn't just blow it all on a frivolous purchase.  That's right, I added to my Thing statue/bust collection with the recently released Gentle Giant Thing bust.  I thought I'd show off a bunch of pictures of it here for all to see.

This is, all around, a very spiffy item.  There are plenty of good Thing statues out there, but there have been some subpar ones as well, and I'm happy to say that this is one of the nicer ones that I have.  The proportions are right, the face looks good, and the Thing looks like he's ready to clobber, which I think is a prerequisite for any good Thing product.  The box looks great, too.

Sometimes I wonder just how many Thing collectors there are in the world.  Statues aren't for everyone, and spending money on merchandise doesn't measure fandom, but for there to be only 400 of these statues in the world is surprising.  The fact that I found one fairly easily, brand new and for less than the standard retail price is interesting.  I'm glad, of course, that I can find things easily enough, but it does make me curious as to what the market size is for something like this, even more so when it comes to the huge 1:1 scale Sideshow busts that retail for $500 or more.

I'm so glad they put him in blue shorts.  I like the Future Foundation costumes well enough, but the classic blue is best in my opinion.

This is a great addition to the collection.  Below is a picture of some of my Thing stuff with this new statue included - not necessarily how I want it displayed right now, but it'll do until I make some (a lot ) of room.  I've got a plan.  I think.  And oh, hey, look!  There's a Rhinox statue in the mix.  A worthy addition.