When buying toys for either myself or resell, I follow the tenants of John Patrick a professional gambler. John Patrick’s tenants were knowledge, money management and discipline. With the knowledge is observation. Observation is watching and learning. Recently my observation skills help answered in a question Laurie had. She was watching an interview of Peter Jackson. At one point Peter Jackson was shown holding a King Kong armature. Laurie like myself knew of one King Kong armature in existence. It is in the posession of Bob Burns and she knew that Bob would not give it or sell it. She told me of the armature and I was able to see the interview. When I saw the King Kong armature something did not look right. There was big screw onthe right side. I have seen the one that Bob Burns had several times so I started a search on the internet. I soon discovered that the one Peter Jackson had was bought in November 2009 at a Christie’s Auction. This King Kong armature was 22 inches and was used in the New York Sequence where the one Bob owns is 18 inches was used in the Skull Island sequence.
In the toys I do the same thing. I will see an item at toy show or be shown it by a collector. This information will be store until it is needed.