A Sobering Black Series Store Report

After a day of errands (Bass Pro counts as an errand), I stopped into a Toys R Us store in a densely populated area of Massachusetts.  It was 6 PM.  I wasn’t expecting to find anything this late in the day on a weekend.  I was just stopping in for intel.  If the Black Series had hit, I might see some tell tale signs such as peg space or perhaps a leftover of one of the less desirable figures. 

As I turned down the action figure aisle, I saw the narrow Black Series cards staring at me.  I quickly started looking over them and found the ones that interested me (Padmé, Luke and Vader).  Then the sheer number of figures on the peg took me by surprise.  Did they actually get two cases on their first shipment?  I counted and there were exactly twelve.  I thought that maybe that was coincidence and they did get two cases and just happened to sell of the best 12.  Surely there would be a telltale sign of this such as three Biggs figures or two Luke figures. 

I laid everything out and it was exactly one case of wave 1 of the Black Series:

1x Padmé Amidala
1x Clone Trooper Sergeant
1x Luke Skywalker
1x Clone Pilot
2x Darth Vader
2x Biker Scout
2x Anakin Skywalker
2x Biggs Darklighter

An entire new case of Star Wars had been sitting all day on a Saturday without a single figure sold.  This is unheard of in this region.  When any new case of Star Wars figures makes it’s first appearance in a store, some of it usually gets gobbled up immediately.  Even the first shipments of the dreaded Phantom Menace wave from 2012 had some immediate sellers.  But the first shipment of the Black Series in this region sat for nearly 8 hours without a single sale.  Not a good early indication.