Collecting Diary 2005-03-20 Part 2

The expected... and the unexpected

Darth Tater was originally scheduled (according to Amazon.com) to be released on my birthday, March 15th. As the day came and went, his release date was pushed back to April, and then removed from the site. The Dark Lord of the Taters' was showing up on eBay, but his store release date was clouded by the Dark Side.
Tonight at Toys R Us I went to the preschool area hoping to find an early Jedi Force Boga, when Tamara squealed. (One of the great traits of a wife who shares your collecting interests.) Right behind me was a shelf of Darth Taters. We picked up two... one to keep and one to play with.

I belong to an Australian mail group called the 'Collector's Guild'. A couple of weeks ago a Guild member reported finding three Star Wars kites. He wasn't a broad-enough collector to pick them up and his details on them were kind of sketchy from his memory. Ever since then I've been watching the spring sections during my hunts. Tonight it paid off. Tamara (again!) spied a Darth Vader 'figure kite' while I was checking out the water guns. It's a large kite (34''x33'') and rang up at $9.99. It was manufactured by 'The Kite Factory', and if this follows the Australian example, I have at least 2 more kites to find. The search continues...