But Shopping Mall Japan doesn't need to accept your card, because you got PayPal working...

Ahh.. that's right! I never gave that any thought at all.. maybe I'll check out an auction or two at somepoint ?
but not right now cause I only have 9p in my account!

The reason I asked is because I bumped elbows with an SMJ user a couple of days ago on a different auction, and it's one I think you'd probably be quite interested in... I don't know if this KSK bid is coming from the same person, but I have a very strong feeling that whoever is bidding on that vinyl, is fairly new to Y!JA and SMJ (most westerners wouldn't spend even half that much on the vinyl - they'd wait weeks/months until a cheaper auction came up), and I also know you happen to be very new to PayPal (the only means available for you to possibly use SMJ), plus...

If you're really so poor at the moment, then how can you make offers for things like, oh, say... Jonny's stickers?

If you say it's not you, then I'll 85% believe you, which is based on you being a nice guy who shouldn't have any reason to lie about it. The other 15% is based on the odd timing of everything, and me not knowing you quite as well as I'd like to. Now I could just be silent about these suspicions, but I'm trying to be more open about my feelings than I have been in the past, plus it's better for you to disprove any suspicions (not that you really have to) than for me to harbor them.

if you look at my offer to Jonny I did mention that it'd be next week I'd be able to buy! not now.. nah seriously Glath if it were me I'd have no reason to lie or hide the fact ? I'm quite open about what I want. remember last week I was openly offering money for LP's and stuff ?

I don't try to be suspicious of everybody (that's Tokyo Jihad's 'job'), I'm just... still a little bitter about a bid war I got into a year ago, against another SMJ user whom I know couldn't have been you. When I see a westerner not only willing to pay 12000yen (something I'm sure you'd go through with if your wallet could accommodate it at the time), but to participate in that system to get the item...

Let's just say that raises some eyebrows over the prospect of how much more I may have to pay for other Shiina Ringo auctions I pursue in the near future. I just want to know what I'm up against - that's all. If you're not the one who's been on the prowl and bidding large lately, I'm not sure yet if I should be more or less worried.

I'm not your enemy this time Glath!! besides I already sorted out a deal for a lot of her LP's which you know about full well!
to put your suspicion to rest heres where i currently stand money-wise!! I'm all out to next week. besides If I were to bid on one of these auctions I'd ask advice here first about the quality and worth of the item at hand!! no need for cloak and daggers here Glath! if I want to buy something I'll be open about it.. I have no real reason to hide such a thing do I ? quite the opposite!! I'd be taking pictures of it and bragging :lol: besides that guy has a crappy username ? I'd be called Ringo~Bingo so users here would be able to know if they should bid against me or not.


EDIT: creditcard/Paypal statements removed :ph43r: point was made well enough.

I would tell you not to post that kind of stuff in public, but...

I think you'll be okay. Attachments can only be viewed by people with activated accounts, so it's not like the text of it will come up in any Google results.

For what it's worth, I 99% believe you now, but like I said before, you really don't have to prove yourself either. The 1% comes from the possibility that you may have already made a small deposit to SMJ, so... with your "leftover" 9p, you can still place bids, win, and at least have SMJ holding the item for you, while you wait a couple of weeks to pay them in full. By then, you'd have the money, right? Maybe you want an extra KSK vinyl - there wouldn't exactly be anything wrong with that.

once is quite enough for me at this time.. besides as I said, I'd not need to hide the fact I was buying another, in fact I'd announce it so you lot would know to steer clear of that auction (you'd have no chance :wakka:) as I told you I'll get the big haul of LP's first and then after that I'll perhaps look to expanding my collection. but not right now because single auctions piss me off so much (too slow) I hate them, so much work for just one item! I'd rather buy in bulk!! also if you need/want to know anything else about me then just ask! I'm not that much of a private person if it's just about myself.

~_^

Uhh well I stuck one of Kronekodow golden cats onto the back of my cell phone :-)


I'm not sure sending these small things anyway is worth the price you'd have to pay for the shipping anyway?

Ahh!! that's broken my heart Jonny :P no big deal then, nevermind.

Sorry to get on your case then.
I've already been on the lookout for 3-5 specific serious bidders from Japan, and I know who they are even if the names are censored nowadays, because I've seen them from before. And they are people you don't want to get into bid wars with, because even if you outbid them, they will never let you get the last bid. Because of the super annoying auto-extends on these auctions, these people have all the time they need to change their minds about how much they're 'really' willing to spend. It's frustrating to cross paths with these people. The only joy I get out of their presence is when more than one of them compete against each other - then I get to find out for certain just how much self-control these people have with their spending 'limits'. So when I'm already afraid of them, the last thing I want is to have a super-serious westerner to worry about ontop of that.

Once again I'm sorry. I just get a little freaked out when I see other big fish enter the pond. You may think I'm big, but I'm actually more like medium, compared to some of these folks. I know how much stuff they've won. These bidders own at least as much Shiina Ringo stuff as I do, and a couple of them own a few items rarer than anything I have.

no problem Glath I see your point on this.. it was kinda the same for me 2 years ago when I was a serious Dreamcast collector on Ebay! it was always the same 4 people who were in bidding on the big items and they would keep upping their bids to get rid of me! I suspect they were in league with each other to a certain extent as they were always there and they'd stay away from certain auction that the others would bid on.. I'd just wait til we had 30 seconds left and double the current bid! (Dramcast Broadband adapter $175.00 BANG!! $400.00 Bingo wins!!) that scared them off most of the times but it was still annoying that the auctions were to an extent being controlled by these people.. I still won though :P it did cost me a lot more however :(

you don't have to worry about me coming into the pond and buying all the goods up! I've no stomach to sit on auctions that much unless it's something supremely awesome!! my last e-bay purchase was back in April ('rare *Rei & Asuka* figures by Alter' I built up a good rapport with the guy and he let me have them cheap with no hassle) I'd rather buy stuff at a decent price with an added 'finders fee' from someone who already did all that work! I don't mind paying, but I do mind waiting in unpredictable auctions.

seperate question altogether now... look Sarah, no double posts!!l

is there any simple way to make low quality MP3's sound better ? specifically Shiina's demo tapes and a few of the bootlegs. some are a little rough and it'd be good if I could make them a little better in one way or another. I know to begin with they were on tape and I'm not going to morph them into lossless but anything would help as they can sound a little grating with the volume up at a certain point!

some of the piano work on Kyouiku is also a little ear unfriendly too, when used with headphones, even good ones! I know Kyouiku was produced to sound rough so maybe that's how it is ? though Rakujitsu's intro is a tad nasty aswell on the headphones! no other piano based music struggles though, just these tracks.

I would imagine you could run some noise filters (that are either native to SoundForge, or added from CD Architect), but there's so many ways you can screw that up if you don't know what you're doing. Then after that, you cannot merely save back out to MP3, because you would be doing a lossy transcode. So you'd have to save out to WAV/AIFF or lossless. And that's not even the end of it! Then you run it off of an upsampler, through a vacuum tube pre-amplifier, and re-record the signal.

Ahh... guess I'll just lower their natrual volume a little then, maybe it'll sound a little less harsh? sounds like quite the effort for potentially negligible results.

Don't Forget Glath......:wakka::wakka::wakka:

you like this SR head, don't?
XD

:lol:I love it Lena!! it has such a multitude of uses!! next I'll print it on to a football!!! and kick it down the street!!!!

Just a few things I thought I'd point out (in blue):

The "This one doesn't look particularly pretty", refers to the items themselves, not the way you listed them out. Most of the audio cassettes are rather plain-looking, except ZCS. And 95% of the pre-release CDs are very plain-looking too. Technically Karisome Otome (DEATH JAZZ ver.) is plain-looking too, but it at least it has exclusive CD content.

Also in other news, I just bought these out in one auction, a moment ago:

Attachment 1733Attachment 1734Attachment 1735

Those are all factory-sealed, and it was seemingly expensive (15000yen Minimum/BuyItNow), but from a deputy service standpoint, I would have had to pay a lot more for the items separately - so I'm not going to flinch at the price too much, even if for me, it still is a lot of money. Makes a little more sense than paying 12000yen for a KSK vinyl anyhow. :P

Note: combined auctions of at least this many (semi-)old sealed Ringo/Jihen items, are extremely uncommon. I happened to catch this one, 13 hours after it showed up, with 4+ days remaining. There could very well be other ones I never saw, because they may have disappeared even more quickly.

15.000 yen (£70.00) seems pretty good for all that stuff seeing as they are all factory sealed!! you'll probaly be able to get a lot more for them in the future ? I find it hard to understand the real value of things cause it's my Dad's money :lol: like if some guy was selling that on E-bay for £150.00 I'd probaly think 'bargain' and snap it up!! it's probaly a lot more satisfying getting stuff for a good price when you've personally earned that money and understand it's real value ?? for me at the moment it's just 'numbers' on a screen to play about with.. I suppose I'll have to wait until I'm older before I can fully grasp such a thing ? though I am getting a little more wise about throwing the cash about!!

I feel fairly good about my job because I've held it for nearly 3 years now, and I'm making significantly more money than when I started. I also just recently got business cards with my name on them (something I've wanted for awhile). Earning the money it takes to win the auctions is only half the satisfaction though - the other half is finding the items no matter how obscurely some of them are listed, and participating in the auction as early or as late as possible (depending upon which timing will shut out the most competitors).

A lot of Shiina Ringo fans sneer at the volatile nature of auction sites, and I'm not gonna say they are right or wrong to feel that way - I'll just say I got involved with online auctions at a fairly young age, and I've since then got most of the dynamics down to a science, so I embrace the drama when I've won something and for less than my competitors think I should have paid (the 90% prevailent outcome), instead of fear the drama. During none of the auctions I've lost, have I ever felt like the seller should have paid even more than they did, because whenever anything has ever been 'unfair', it has always been slanted toward my benefit. It's not to say I'm one of those losers who bids a low maximum on every auction they find, knowing that at least a couple of those auctions are bound to go unnoticed - I'm at least one step up from that.

I place one medium-high bid on each item I want, and at the last minute. I expect to win nearly everything I bid on because I'm not short-term cheap. I 'snipe' auctions not because I expect each one to close for cheap - I snipe auctions knowing that statistically, some of them are bound to close for cheap, and I'll never know which ones until they are over. So the average price I pay, ends up somewhere around medium-low, but I know I can't win everything I want at that average unless I'm actually serious enough to pay at least medium-high, because that's actually how much it's going to take to win some auctions, but I'll never know which ones until they have ended. And that's why I'm not afraid of most competing bidders.

I'm completely comfortable with eBay - I've manually placed bids on the zeroth-remaining second, on dozens of auctions, but most of the time I try to aim for the last three seconds. There is nothing sleazy about sniping, because if it turns out that my bid isn't high enough to win, it's because someone else's bid was already higher, and now I have no time to change my mind and bid any higher. On the otherhand, if my original bid is higher than anyone else's original bid, then nobody else has any time left to change their mind either. This has played out in my favor, far more often than not. I know some of these people must hate me because they were willing to pay $20, and I won something for $21, but the fact was, I was actually willing to pay $35, and they'll never know that. I'm not stupid enough to bid early, so their perceived value of the item could mutate based on seeing my higher bid. I'm not going to give them a time window to place a maximum bid of $21, oh OOPS, turns out that's not enough to get ahead... Let's try $22... Oh, OOPS! Let's try $23! THAT shit actually makes my blood BOIL. People who do that against me (if I allow them to), are either not going to win, but only raise the price that I have to pay, or, they win because they have no self-control, and now they have to pay more than anyone should. Even if I could laugh at them for that, I'd get more longterm satisfaction out of actually winning the item for $21 than letting someone else have it for $36, even if they are paying too much.

Yahoo! Japan Auctions can get very scary for someone like me, because most auctions have auto-extended durations, whenever anyone places a bid during the 'final' 5 minutes. This means if more than one person is watching an auction until the very end, they can keep leapfrogging over each other's new maximum bids, as many times as they feel like. Fortunately for me, most of the nonBuyItNow auctions I'm interested in, do not have competing bidders dedicated enough to watch the auction during its last minutes. So even if they potentially can counter my snipe, most of the time they don't, and I still get a lot of bargains. I have experimented with bidding during the very middle of an auction and just letting it be, and let me tell you, Japanese bidders are just as impulsive as the humans throughout the rest of the world, so I don't fool around with them anymore. But those 3-5 super-serious bidders I was referencing before - they will actively watch the last few minutes of any auction they bid on, and they will re-bid as many times as it takes to stay ahead. But they mainly go after the super-duper rares, so I'm mostly left alone in my conquest for the super non-duper rares.

But to get back on-topic, this is what the ZCS audio cassettes look like:

they look really nice!!! I want them too :(

though there are probaly better things to get ? I'm really keen to get all the issues of the RAT magazine/paper!!! do full sets ever come up on SMJ? (I'd battle for them)

I don't like the sound of the auto-extend on the auction, it's stupid and kinda defeats the purpouse of the auction having a set time at all!! it sounds like it robs the fun and urgency from most sales ? like if you don't bid within the alloted time then tough!! that's what an auction is meant to be like!! that would drive me mad if I encountered it. I'd just bid so high that no one could mess up the sale.

I've seen one-auction complete sets of RAT show up nearly a dozen times. Either they debut for 4500-6000yen and don't quite attract any bids, or they open for 1000-2000yen, and get actual bids all the way up to 3300-3900yen. I've been mostly steering clear of that, because I've discovered a secret:

It is more economical to win auctions that feature nothing but multiples of the same one issue of RAT, because those don't get a lot of competition. So that has been my protocol, and I'm just waiting for multiples to show up, for the one or two issues of RAT I don't have yet. That could be awhile. You will sooner find another whole set packaged together on Y!JA, than I will ever complete any set(s) of my own.

I'll keep my eyes open for a full set every other day or so and hope to get lucky!! your method while more economical would literally kill me with all the waiting :(

I'll hope for the full set turning up then just strike high and quick instead of any protracted auctions! I don't know where you get the patience to sit through all those auctions Glath ? (I'd go mad)

if you do happen to come across a full set auction, please mention it here if I myself have not said anything, or if you don't plan to buy..

One reason I don't try to go after entire sets of RAT packaged together, is because new issues gradually get released.

Take this one, for example:

Though they get released every so often I'd still like to get the first 12 then pick up 13 & 14 as they came out (I'm not exactly sure how many issues are out are that was just for examples sake) still we'll see what happens I guess ? if they don't all come up maybe I'll have no option but to get them a bit at a time!

all I seem to do is complain about the lack of direct availabilty on this stuff :lol: give it a week or so when I'm cashed up again and I'll see if I can go through a few auctions ? I guess persisting in this kinda stuff is the mark of a real Shiina Ringo fan eh ? cash alone is not enough.. it needs effort! gah!! it's garbage living so far away in Scotland, it's all mail order and auctions!! :( that's reality I suppose. maybe in time I'll be as tempered as you when it comes to all this stuff ? than again knowing my personality, I probaly wont.

what is the ultimate Shiina rarity/colelctable out there ? I was thinking about the usual CD/LP/DVD/Tickets/ect but there must be something out there that is the Holy Grail of Shiina memrobilia ?? personally I'd like a photo taken with her!!! but what does everyone else think would be the ultimate Shiina prize ? (apart from her herself) :lol:

Maybe her Vivienne armor rings or... HER MOLE! :whacko: lol

I don't want that!!!!!! :lol:

If it's first press, you won't turn it down! First press anything, is win according to some unwritten rule. Like first press sausage, first press underwear or why not first press orange juice.

Anyways I got my first press Shouso Strip the other week at 1000 yen.

lol... I'd say her mole would be the ultimate collectors item. Freaky, but probably true.

Got first press Sounan and Gips in the mail today! Now I await my orders of everything that doesn't have first presses. And then I shall continue my hunt for everything else (mostly DVDs).

here's my CD's, here's my DVD's, here's my rare magazines, here's my MOLE!!!!!!! :ph43r: it just doesn't seem right ?

But it'd be like on a little red silk pillow behind glass and lasers and guards and booby traps and stuff.

At least that's how I imagine it would be stored.

(lol @ your use of that head bingo)

if you were so hardcore for the mole then why not take it that bit further and have it grafted on to your own face!!!!!!!!

remember that her mole is what gives her rawk-pawaa, then if you're a real hardcore fan, and you have her mole, you have to go to a live... find a way to stay in the 1st row and THREW IT right in that place on SR's face that instantly the jazz-lady in your front will spin and spin until her million-dollars dress and her straight hair got messed and she'll pick her guitar and SCREEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAMMMM loud with her nasal voice becoming again our dearest sadistic-princess-rawk-queen *o*

I can imagine trying to launch a mole at her during a live gig!!! :lol:

I love the interpretation of what I think is the Dynamite outfit.

You'd have to like load the mole in a sniper rifle.... yes that would work!

it is the Dynamite out dress (probaly) and Uki is sporting his 'Just Can't help it' topknot!!!!! but would a mole actually float long enough ????

It'd probably be magnetized to her face.. longing to return to it's rightful place.

~Magnetic Mole~

out on DVD (in our dreams)

any ringohan members here see the sweet cloth towel they made and sent out as the saezuri greeting this year? they have a whole page about how it was manufactured inside the fanclub area. pretty sweet. I really dig the new 10th logo...I hope they use it on more things. It is basically a red apple but the outline of the apple is the 0 in the 10th logo and the the 1 is the little stem coming out with th being the leaf hanging off it.

How about an Ichimatsu edition Starplayer? I will get my hands on one of those one day.

as far as I'm concerned, the holy grail of Shiina artifacts would be the KZK demos. I'm sure they exist.

I've seen them (not long before you became a fan) and didn't have the money for it at the time, so I know they are out there, but I haven't seen one in nearly a year. You'd better get in line, because if we engage in a bid war, it's going to get ugly (for whoever wins - I am not automatically assuming it would be me). :P

You ain't kidding man, cause I know we aren't the only people out there willing to drop a mint on one either.

I can already imagine it being mounted somewhere nice and conspicuous so I can brag :D :P .

I'd have a dummy holding it! made to look like Ringo!!

then again that sounds a little frightening :ph43r:

I'd play it after replacing the bridge humbucker with a P90. : \

That's a totally awesome idea! It could be put right at the front door.

Then, it could double as a trophy and as an anti theft device, scaring away any potential robbers. For an extra measure, you could make the dummy do the Identity scream if the alarm goes off.

Does anyone know if this is legit ? I was going to buy it but not sure if it's a poster or a hard plastic thing ? I'm wary cause it's Taiwan and not Tokyo!

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Shiina-Ringo-W...713.m153.l1262

Looks pretty legit to me, I've seen a few of them floating around. They seem to have a good run of good feedback (no negatives in the last 12 months).
I'd say it's real.

do you know what it actually is ? I thought it was hard plastic but I'm not sure ?

Well, promo display sounds like plastic yes.
But the whole thing also looks/reminds me of the most recent edition of RAT, which, afaik, is in paper.
Other than that... I'm clueless :o

I just went ahead and bought it!! I also got an Angela Aki one too! $50.00 for the pair was not expensive so if they turn up and are fake/rubbish I'll just let them fly out the window!

If it's cardboard then I'd say you got a fair deal. If it's semi-glossy paper with an extra sheet of plastic wrapped around it from the seller, then you got ripped off, not because it's 'fake' or anything, but because sometimes stacks of as many as ten of the same paper mini-poster, show up on Yahoo! Japan Auctions for between 1000-2000yen. It's the older paper mini-posters like KSK, where you can only find one per auction nowadays, and even then it's still cheaper than what that eBay seller was charging for something more recent.

After all the deputy service fees kick in, it's only a little cheaper to buy individual paper mini-posters from Yahoo! Japan Auctions than from eBay, but if you can find several mini-posters in one Y!JA listing, then don't even bother with eBay. It's an overrated source of Ringo/Jihen 'rarities'. Everytime you think you're getting a 'deal' there, combined multiples of it are changing hands at Yahoo! Japan Auctions for half the price.

I'm not sure what it is ? I assumed they were of better quality than posters or flyers cause he has a category for them and these were in a whole seperate category of their own! 'Promo/Display' so I'm hoping that they are cardboard or plastic ? ahh it's no big loss either way I just felt like taking a shot on them.

Well, it may not worry you too much, but feeding a fake seller with $50.00 will only make him continue to believe there are people who fall for/buy these things.
That would be enough motive for me *not* to buy it x)

the worry is not so much the fake, but as Glath put it that it'll likely be genuine but just not what I think it may be. instead of being cardboard it may just be a standard poster wrapped in plastic ? we'll have to wait and see.

if it's fake crap I'll give him awful feedback and I'll setup a fake account and buy like a hundred items and not respond!!

Well, yes, but he also said that if it was just a simple glossy-paper, you could get some of those a lot cheaper through YJA, which the eBay seller might know (so he's raising the price on purpose).
Then again, it *could* be the right stuff, soo... :P

And that fake account thing sounds like fun, you should do it either way xD

Even though I have Paypal, SMJ would not let me join because my account was unverified (not linked to a bank account) they called my Dad yesterday and told him that (who then told me) so I've no avenue for posters/memrobilia except ebay. (which = near nothing)

The Duesenberg Starplayer has come up for auction!! not sure if it's the same one as hers ? I know nothing about Gitaaaas

http://59.157.181.124/cgi-bin/b.cgi?g70029269

Oh well.. (I never noticed that)

My Shiina & Angela promo displays arrived today!! they are really good! not a flimsy poster as I feared but of a seriously heavy quality card! they even have a pull out at the back to stand them up (like an expensive photo) but I'm not gonna do that (I'll keep it pristine) these are really good and are well worth the money spent. I know the pics suck but I'm using a sup par camera.

Ooh Angela ~<3

thank you :)

I was constantly moving all my Shiina/Jihen stuff about and was never happy with where it ended up! at one point it was all in a safe!! :lol: and then I had it in a plastic box that kept getting bumped about which made me worry for the discs!! then it struck me to put them in my little wooden chest of drawers!! I think they look good in there and are easy to get to and very safe from bumps and knocks! :) that little set of drawers is deceptive!! I never thought it would all fit in there!
Attachment 2187
man I'll have to replace Heisei cause it's getting all worn at the sides :( keep the next one in it's shrink wrap I think! same for JCHI & a few of the other paper ones.

Well if you're going to sell used stuff 8D.
Btw, I cut only one part of my shrink wrap on Heisei and the sides are still getting very slightly damaged so I don't think it would help that much =(

I just bought a big Zazen Xstasy poster off ebay!! I hope it really is mint condition like he says.
The guy I bought the Watasii to Hoden promo cardboard display off of is selling another if anybody wants one ?
He also had a Heisei one that I just snapped up!
I also just bought a Muzai Moratorium score book!
I also picked up the Kyouiku score book!
I also got a Shoso Strip score book!
They also had an Adult score book! I bagged that too.. all I need now is KZK's & one or two more.

(oh!! I'll be bankrupt by the weeks end) God bless Paypal and it's ability to let you buy from anywhere!

I had no plans whatsoever to buy anything when I woke up today ? (I should be saving) I always go crazy like this when it comes to shopping :( I should stay away from the shops.

You got bent over on the prices for those scorebooks, duder. If you wanted them I could've gotten them for you much cheaper... MM was only $21, SS was $29, and Kyouiku was $29 at the Hirakatashi music shop.

I don't care about the prices maou, I'm just glad I was able to get them all at once in one easy Paypal transaction!! I've no patience for waiting or third party's so I'll gladly over-pay to expedite the process.

besides another 10/20/30 dollars is hardly being "bent over" when I have no way of getting that stuff over here at all!! and even when import stuff does make it to U.K shops the prices really are extreme (usually double)

They're available at HMV and Amazon...

yup, but they'll ship with FedEx and I'll get one of their damn customs/duty invoices and end up paying a whole lot more!! I'm more than happy with this.

I managed to get the Limited Edition Shouso Strip from ebay for just £10 that includes insured postage!! can someone who has the limited version look at the link and tell me if there is anything missing or whatnot ?

here

You're missing the Obi. It's grey, IIRC.

awww :( still it was a great price so I'm not so upset about that!! thanks for letting me know Zarya!

No problem! Limited edition SS are usually easy to find, they come up regularly on Ebay and they're not too expensive (7-10$). I've got one that came with a sticker of the Ltd edition cover art! (pink overload), but the obi has a corner cut - I think it was used as a proof of purchase for a promotion or something.

WOW!! my score books arrived today! I thought they were plain old boring musician books but they have lots of great pictures too!! I will try and scan the lot but the design of the book makes that a difficult thing without extreme bending or plain destruction!! (I will try)

Either you have ogre hands, or those books are smaller than I thought.

The Kabuki-cho and the first Dynamite photo are the best.

This is great, hopefully you can make a copy of all the scores. But I can't really demand that if you would be destroying your books in the process.

Thanks Glath! :(
they measure 10 x 7 inches (the books not my hands)

I tried to safely scan the pics but unless I trash my books it's not gonna happen!! I did get these out of it though! I'm not happy with Honnou as you can see the page slightly curve at the right but if I leaned any more the page was gonna come away!!

I haven't been able to find the KSK book at any stores. :( I have the MM, SS, Kyouiku, and Adult books as well. I'm not going to buy the Variety score unless Bingo wants me to purchase it for him. After looking through them, I'd say Tsumi to Batsu is the hardest song to play on guitar and Gibs is the easiest.

I don't want the Variety book! but I do want the KZK & ZCS books!!

I'll pick up copies for you if I can find them. Do you want the B-sides book?

If you find them it could be a few weeks to a month until I could pay you! are you ok with that ? also I can only do PayPal.
(I'll have the B-sides too!)

I don't care when you pay me. I just got $2000 from the school so I'm set for a couple of months.

My Limited Edition Shouso Strip turned up today! all seems to be in good unscratched condition,f I were a normal person I could be happy but the lack of obi really taints the joy for me :( I already arranged a brand new sealed replacement so this at least is a good preview of the set.
Attachment 2237

My Heisei Fuuzoku cardboard promo thing just arrived, it's in unused pristine condition \o/ I love these things, pity I only have 2 of them :( I would love to have her whole discography's worth of cardboard promos but they don't actually seem to exist? (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong though)
Attachment 2240
Those creases and stuff are just the plastic wrapping, the card is actually perfect when took out the wrap.

My Adult Pour Homme + DVD arrived today! from the picture I seen I thought it came in a weak little slipcase, but it actually comes in an awesome box!!
Attachment 2275
Fantastic!! :)

The wonders of paper and plastic :hmph:

Oh my god... You don´t know how much I envy you! The only Shiina stuff I have are the Heisei Fuzoku CD/DVDs... AND NOTHING MORE! :( Well, there´s the MoRA packs and the Watashi´s CD/DVD, but those are on the way to get in my hands. I was thinking that with that I could live in peace... But after seeing this thread, I wont stop until I get all the Shiina/Tokyo Jihen material I can get my hands on. Too bad I won´t be able to get those first-press editions already out of stock (those Electric Mole, Shouso Strip and Adult frist-press look really nice...). And too bad I can´t order from CDJapan because they don´t accept my credit card...:( I want the singles...

But I will manage to buy as much stuff as I can... My impulsive buyer is now wide awake, thanks to you guys! xD

Anyone else bought the Pour Homme perfume　from the 10th anniversary shows? Anyone care to tell me what it smells like if you've opened it, since I'm not to keen to open it XD

Uhmmm... I just bought a KZK vinyl... on ebay.... O____O

Ended up being like USD$115 (which is a hell of a lot of money because of the exchange rate).

I also got two ROCKIN' ON JAPAN's from the same seller (the nurse photoshoot, and the booby photoshoot with the strawberry).

They were also selling all Tokyo Jihen vinyls and the Heisei Fuuzoku vinyl. I need the ADULT VIDEO OST and Gunjyou Biyori/Sounan vinyls but I just couldn't afford it at the moment. :(

*wonders if anyone else from EMF was in the bidding war*

Nothing slips past my radar, you know. That was an obscurely-listed auction, too. Nobody inputting the proper spelling on artist name, was going to find it.

The second-highest bidder on KSK, coming in during the final 10 seconds - was me. So the final price was basically my maximum bid. I don't know how much higher your own maximum bid was beyond that, but you had to be pretty fucking serious to beat me, so I won't complain. It feels good to win something that rare though, doesn't it?

Without today's auctions, I have one incomplete set that is short of a KSK and an Adult Video Soundtrack. That hole has existed in my collection for nearly a year now. I'm not trying to complete a bunch more sets - just trying to fill in the hole that was already there.

But if I wasn't going to win KSK this time, then Gunjou Biyori / Sounan is one of the other Big Three, and even if I don't need it for completing a set - I have a friend who wants it, so I can give that to them without breaking one of my sets.

That's a lot of cash just for the one vinyl :o what kind of condition did you get it in, brand new/used? also are you willing to pay that kind of price again to collect the others that you are missing? prices are so high these days never mind the weakened currencies on top of that! it's a tough time to be collecting at the moment.:(

Still, as Glath says it does feel good to pick up something rare regardless of the cash output to get it.

I saw those auctions!! I was contemplating bidding on the magazines when I first saw those auctions, but since I'm pretty broke these days, I decided against it. I'm happy though that the winner is an EMF member!

I already have all three of the separate magazines that seller was auctioning off. After my experiences with Shopping Mall Japan, I don't get too excited about single issues of Rockin' On Japan for $10 (plus international shipping). Those eBay prices comes out to around the same total I spent on getting individual issues from Yahoo! Japan Auctions, and that was far too much of a drain.

Batch magazine auctions are the cheapest way to go, and they never happen on eBay. Even the shipment 'savings' you get from winning several separate magazine auctions from the same eBay seller, are nothing compared to getting 25 issues across two auctions/sellers for $150 after all the fees. Some people would much rather have all of that instead of a KSK LP - if they had to choose between the two.

I was going to be broke, but somehow I managed to postpone my batch of Blankey Jet City CDs from CD Japan, to ship out in the middle of January instead of the middle of December. I'm hoping the yen will get under control by then, and even if it doesn't, my finances will be in much better shape from the massive overtime I'm putting in this month. This frees up a lot of my money this month for things like Christmas presents for the family, or comfortably participating in bid wars against other EMFers whom I don't know at the time to be EMFers. If I couldn't have pushed back my CD Japan order, I would have left those auctions alone, and announced their existence to this community. With all the things I give away, I'm not as greedy as the people who don't know me might think, but if more competing bidders are going to make it any harder for me to patch a hole I've had with one incomplete LP set for a year, why make things any harder on myself by telling everyone about the auction?

Ah, I knew there would be some people waiting in the shadows! I thought it was strange that no one had bidded before the last like 10 seconds.

I think my final bid was USD$120. Though I had USD$150 ready to go. Because I am insane. The KZK vinyl is like the item I've most wanted for, like, ever. So I think it's worth it.

I've spent that much on vinyls before... some rare Sigur Ros ones... Me so crazy!

Attachment 2522

I've wanted one of these for years, and now I finally secured one. I think there's only a dozen or two of these in existence, and none of them are outside of Japan (yet). Between this and the Yuuhatsu Orgasm VHS, I've taken care of the two most elite rares I've always wanted.

Next highest goal: an unused Honnou poster!

That's pretty much the best Christmas present a Shiina fan could possibly hope for.

I'm dying of jealousy at you Glath. :(:lol::hmph:

I feel so... un-fan-like...

What is that, Glath? ._.