The Likely Fate of the Armory Collection??

[Sith Lord 0498]

Just received my GG collector's club newsletter and saw this link

http://www.gentlegiantltd.com/catalog/?id=WEB9004&PHPSESSID=cede18f08db16b0bdba5dfd968adc793

Apparently, Gentle Giant is importing an unspecified quantity of the Tomy mini-helmets from Japan, and they'll be available in June.

Personally, I think this is an indirect answer to our question: "When is the Armory Collection going to be released?" I guess they're not anymore. It wouldn't make sense to import a product that's so similar to one they've been developing.

It's a shame too because I suspect Gentle Giant's versions would be made of a higher quality material. Now, I'm just basing this opinion on pictures alone, but the Tomy versions do seem rather cheap compared to GG products.

[Jayspawn]

Its very dissapointing news. The TOMY helmets STINK!!! The best looking one of the Stormtrooper helmet. The Vader and C-3PO look terrible!

The prototypes I saw at Celebration III were beautiful, the detail and quality were excellent. Instead it seems that GG partnered with TOMY to make these pieces of crap!

[Sith Lord 0498]

If Gentle Giant had gone ahead with the Armory Collection and priced each one in the $15-20 range, I'd likely have bought the majority of them. It's entirely plausible that they could produce an open-ended amount of them at that price--considering the helmets are in scale with the mini-busts (Luke's helmet in the AC was the same that came w/ the Pilot mini-bust) and the busts themselves are roughly $40-50.

I agree with you, jayspawn. This is extremely disappointing news. With any luck, collectors will reject these cheap knock-offs, and Gentle Giant will finally produce the Armory Collection.

Or we could be getting ahead of ourselves, and this is Gentle Giant's way of gauging the level of interest in this type of product. The last I heard (and this was months ago), GG was still trying to find a way to properly market them. This could be their test.