Zombie's Ultimate X-COM Collection

[silencer_pl]

Spoil sport

[Space Voyager]

Oooo, some serious e-detective work going on, Z!

[Zombie]

Today I was browsing the X-COM/XCOM listings on eBay and came across a promo XCOM2 XBOX360 slip cover for a DVD case (another GameStop item). Picked that up for under $5 including shipping which was a steal. Also tossed in an offer for another item, we'll see if I get that one.

 

- Zombie

[Zombie]

Well, I got that slip cover in the mail today safe and sound. Really, it was overpacked, but kudos to the seller for ensuring it got to me undamaged.

 

I also picked up a Promo copy of XCOM:EU for the XBox 360. Been seeing these floating around for a while but they were always too pricey. Made an offer for this one and got it for rather cheap considering it was a promo-only release.

 

Finally, made an offer for a German pre-order XCOM:EU box + Vigilo Confido t-shirt and won that. Rare stuff, haven't seen this offered anywhere plus it still has the t-shirt (unworn and new). It's a size large though so it may be a little small for some people (myself included, though I'm not overweight, just tall).

 

- Zombie

[Zombie]

I also picked up a Promo copy of XCOM:EU for the XBox 360. Been seeing these floating around for a while but they were always too pricey. Made an offer for this one and got it for rather cheap considering it was a promo-only release.

 

Finally, made an offer for a German pre-order XCOM:EU box + Vigilo Confido t-shirt and won that. Rare stuff, haven't seen this offered anywhere plus it still has the t-shirt (unworn and new). It's a size large though so it may be a little small for some people (myself included, though I'm not overweight, just tall).

 

Got the promo copy of XCOM: EU in the mail last week. It has some adhesive residue on the protective plastic outer sleeve, but I can get that off with some isopropyl alcohol (not that it matters, but if you leave adhesive sit for long enough it sometimes turns into something which is harder to get off). Interestingly, it comes with an Elite Soldier Pack redemption card. Have no idea if it was ever used, but I'm glad it wasn't tossed out.

 

Firaxis games was running a sale on XCOM merchandise last week. I basically had everything they offered except for the Board Game as it was too expensive. Luckily, I still had a 10% off online coupon from purchasing the XCOM 2 Studio Gift pack back in July, so that helped out. $30 is much more reasonable.

 

Today the XCOM: EU German pre-order box came in the mail. Completely blew my mind. Perfect condition, and the box is actually thicker than I thought which was a nice surprise. The box needs to be this big to fit the t-shirt inside though. Still an awesome piece of memorabilia.

 

- Zombie

[Zombie]

There are a few more new additions to my collection.

 

First was a XCOM2 poster which was NOT Gamestop branded. Got it from a German seller so it probably was used in general game shops there, although the text is in English. Came folded but the unfolded size is A2 which is 42x59.4 cm (or 16.5x23.4 inches).

 

Next was another X-COM pin. The seller had 2, first one I lost due to someone sniping me in the final second (I even babysat the auction till the end), but let's just say I made the high bidder pay dearly for the privilege of bidding against me. The second pin I won: $8 total which was dirt cheap (came with the original baggie, but was opened). Turns out, this pin isn't as rare as I was originally told (exact nomenclature was "a few dozen" which made it sound exclusive like the t-shirts). However, the pin was also

 

given away at the European Computer Trade Show in 1995 to celebrate the release of X-Com for the Playstation 1.

 

You would think that if they were given away that there would actually be a lot of them floating around (maybe people don't want to sell them though) and more than a few dozen too. Not sure how big the European Computer Trade Show was or if the pins were given away at other shows either (I'd imagine it would cost too much to make a limited production run, and you need enough as swag for people which visit your booth so this might be a good thing to look into further, I'll let you know of any new information). Anyway, I own 5 of them now, out of the 7 times I've seen them at auction.

 

Let's see... what else? Oh yeah, I stumbled across a Polish version of XCOM:EU which I purchased almost immediately (total with shipping was ~$15). The seller was also offering a XCOM2 polish version which I declined on bidding (way too expensive at $50, though I might bite sometime). Nice thing about my copy of XCOM:EU was that it's in the original shrinkwrap and comes with a receipt.

 

Finally, picked up one of those new 2016 LootCrate XCOM 2 Chryssalids for $16 total. Yeah, I could have probably got it for a little less by waiting a few weeks, but I wanted it now, hehe.

 

So just a few additions.

 

- Zombie

[silencer_pl]

If you want Polish XCOM2 box version then just simply ask. The cheapest boxed version I can see is for 99 PLN which is ~23-25$ + shipping which might be ~10-15$. First from the shop to me and then from me to you.

[Thorondor]

A Chryssalid - yes! So sexy!

 

https://19fksc2tl6wc3kw1hb18la0p.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Loot-Gaming-December-2016-0010.jpg

 

https://19fksc2tl6wc3kw1hb18la0p.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Loot-Gaming-December-2016-0011.jpg

 

https://19fksc2tl6wc3kw1hb18la0p.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Loot-Gaming-December-2016-0012.jpg

 

https://19fksc2tl6wc3kw1hb18la0p.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Loot-Gaming-December-2016-0013.jpg

 

https://19fksc2tl6wc3kw1hb18la0p.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Loot-Gaming-December-2016-0014.jpg

 

::

 

Simply awesome addition, Zombie.

[Zombie]

If you want Polish XCOM2 box version then just simply ask. The cheapest boxed version I can see is for 99 PLN which is ~23-25$ + shipping which might be ~10-15$. First from the shop to me and then from me to you.

 

Thanks for the offer silencer. Since I know you can get it, I'm probably going to wait a little bit and see if it shows up used on eBay. If you see it on sale though, drop me a PM or post in this topic. Likewise, if you see anything else XCOM/X-COM related (like Polish game versions or promo items) and know I don't have it, by all means pick it up and we'll work something out.

 

- Zombie

[Zombie]

A Chryssalid - yes! So sexy!

 

https://19fksc2tl6wc3kw1hb18la0p.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Loot-Gaming-December-2016-0010.jpg

 

::

 

Simply awesome addition, Zombie.

 

Got this in the mail today. Honestly I thought I purchased something else as the box it came in was huge. When I opened it up, yeah, it's big. I don't think people can appreciate the size of this thing from the pictures, quite deceiving. The box is 6" tall (~15.2cm) and the figurine itself is about 4.5" (~11.5cm). Width is approximately 4" (~10.2cm). The material the figurine is constructed of isn't a hard plastic, it's more of a rubbery plastic so it has some "give" if it gets rough handled or dropped by accident. All in all, pretty impressive.

 

- Zombie

[Zombie]

Next was another X-COM pin. The seller had 2, first one I lost due to someone sniping me in the final second (I even babysat the auction till the end), but let's just say I made the high bidder pay dearly for the privilege of bidding against me. The second pin I won: $8 total which was dirt cheap (came with the original baggie, but was opened). Turns out, this pin isn't as rare as I was originally told (exact nomenclature was "a few dozen" which made it sound exclusive like the t-shirts). However, the pin was also

 

given away at the European Computer Trade Show in 1995 to celebrate the release of X-Com for the Playstation 1.

 

You would think that if they were given away that there would actually be a lot of them floating around (maybe people don't want to sell them though) and more than a few dozen too. Not sure how big the European Computer Trade Show was or if the pins were given away at other shows either (I'd imagine it would cost too much to make a limited production run, and you need enough as swag for people which visit your booth so this might be a good thing to look into further, I'll let you know of any new information). Anyway, I own 5 of them now, out of the 7 times I've seen them at auction.

 

Let's make it 6, the seller had one more pin which I was fortunate to be able to pick up for less than $30. Had a couple people bid against me which drove up the price a bit (no doubt because the auction ended on a Saturday), but I'm happy. Other than that, nothing else is new.

 

- Zombie

[Zombie]

Picked up a PC Games.exe July/August 1998 demo CD which contains X-COM: Interceptor. Never seen this one before which was interesting.

 

I decided to do a Amazon.com search for anything XCOM/X-COM related today but didn't come up with anything new. Did get a big laugh out of this page though. The X-COM logo should use a dot, not a dash. Meh, whatever.

 

- Zombie

[Thorondor]

That "special" t-shirt you found at Amazon has a shine to it in the central part of the logo that almost looks as though it was Photoshopped. Still, I like the fact they classify it as "Classic Style" in the bullet-point feature list.

 

As for the X-COM: Interceptor demo CD, Zombie, that's an unexpected radar contact alright. I'll be curious to see how much there is to it in terms of playability/content.

[silencer_pl]

I wouldn't be surprised if it contained battle simulator only.

[Zombie]

I wouldn't be surprised if it contained battle simulator only.

 

As for the X-COM: Interceptor demo CD, Zombie, that's an unexpected radar contact alright. I'll be curious to see how much there is to it in terms of playability/content.

 

Back in 1998, CDs didn't exactly have a lot of room to put multiple full fledged games on them. I've never seen X-COM: Interceptor in anything but a demo (this is the same demo you can download anywhere off the internet these days - if you are interested in how much of a demo it is give it a try).

 

- Zombie

[Zombie]

Well, I feel a little bad for not updating everyone on my collection recently. There have been some acquisitions most notably:

1. February 6: X-COM: TFTD German CD version. While I do have the German CD version already, this actually came in the box for the floppy version with a big, round, white sticker on the front announcing it was the CD version. Kinda different.
   
2. February 12: XCOM 2 Iron on patch (set of 4 different styles). Another XCOM 2 Chinese made merchandiser but pretty decent quality.
   
3. March 19: Pack of 16 Gamestop XCOM 2 Promotional Box Art Sleeves... supposedly. I had to open up the package to investigate the sleeves, but I think it's actually one of those multi-sheet XCOM 2 posters you see on eBay. In other words an aftermarket creation not officially licensed by Take 2. That was a disappointment, but at least it was cheap @ $4.77.
   
4. March 26: em@il X-COM American version. I lost my copy and picked this up for a song @ $10.77. Brand new, not sealed, but how often do you see these come up for sale nowadays?
   
5. April 1: Computer Game Review and CD-ROM Entertainment "Sealed with #1 Game Disc" July 95. So I had the disc already from ages ago, but finally found it with the magazine and sealed. That's pretty rare for 1995. For $18.83 I thought that was worth it.
   
6. April 19: Hasbro Action Man Doll Red Jumpsuit Micro Prose Race Car Driver Good Condition. Not really X-COM, but MicroProse related. Talked the seller down because my research indicated the doll was not complete (missing some clothing items). It's huge: 12 inches (or 30.5cm) tall and actually better than good condition. The seller was from Israel so shipping was pretty expensive, but I got the whole thing for $25 which wasn't bad.
   
7. July 20-21: Picked up both UFO: Aftershock and Aftermath Greek versions of the game. Kinda hard to find these in other languages and the thing which sweetened the deal was free shipping from Greece. $12 for each. Again, not X-COM/XCOM, but rare and related... sorta.
   
8. August 2: XCOM Field Team Bag - Penny Arcade Expo. This was from the first XCOM ARG game announced which later became The Bureau. Super-duper rare made out of army green canvas type material with metal clasps and black printing. Talked the seller down a bit due to it being niche, and got it for $82. Maybe a little expensive, but I don't see these coming up at auction at all.
   
9. October 31: X-COM Apocalypse Magic Civilization 2 = Best Of MicroProse Strategy Bigbox. When I say bigbox, I mean BIGBOX! The thing is literally 3 inches thick (or 7.6cm). It's a miracle the three versions actually fit inside, there isn't even one millimeter of clearance. By far the highest ticket item so far this year @ $93.22. Why so expensive? It's a German version, shipping is expensive from Germany, the condition is excellent, it's complete and it's rare. I had my eye on this for at least a couple years (and possibly more if it was the same seller when I saw it 4-5 years ago) but the price never came down and no other copies showed up. When eBay ran a 20% off sale, I finally splurged. Well worth it.
   
10. November 6: "The Power of 2K" 2K Games XCOM, Bioshock Gamestop 26" x 36" Promotional Poster. Actually it's XCOM 2. Another Gamestop poster, but this is pretty rare. Picked it up for $2+$6.90 shipping.
    
11. November 7: MicroProse Vintage Crew Sweater XXL. Not actually a sweater but a sweatshirt. Yeah, I already have one from Quentin, but this is a little bit different as it's made by Fruit of the Loom. It's a little faded and there is a small discoloration spot but overall it looks fairly new. $20.99 w/free shipping is too good to pass up.
    
12. November 9: XCOM 2 Steelbook. I didn't have this yet and the price was always so high I got cold feet. But when I saw it for $20.91 including shipping, I picked it up.
    

So that's what I've been up to. Not exactly the biggest acquisition year (at least so far), but there have been some really cool and rare items in the mix.

 

Unrelated: but a fun sort of related. Let's back up a bit to October 14. I was on vacation with my dad in Tennessee to visit my brother. He doesn't drink much beer so the first thing we did when we got there was to go shopping at a local grocery store for a build-your-own-6-pack. There was actually a pretty good selection. What we setled on: bottle each of a German beer, a can each of a TN brew, a can each of another TN IPA. At the last second, I changed my mind on the last one and got this instead:

 

 

UFO beer? Hell yes! Huckleberry? Sure! Hefeweiss? Sold! It was actually pretty good even though there was only a muted huckleberry finish. Wasn't too strong at 4.8% either. Why they put a picture of blueberries on the front is beyond me, huckleberries look nothing like that. (Thumbs up please, my first two site related pictures with my "new" camera. Getting my feet wet with it).

 

- Zombie

[Thorondor]

Someone has been keeping busy!

 

It's actually not quantity that counts so much, but quality, and you seem to have that well covered with the rare items in there, Zombie.

 

But that UFO beer takes the cake. What were the odds of you bumping into a bottle of those on vacation?

 

There's even a UFO embossed in the glass.

 

Now you owe it to yourself to get the rest...

[Zombie]

Someone has been keeping busy!

 

It's actually not quantity that counts so much, but quality, and you seem to have that well covered with the rare items in there, Zombie.

 

And diversity too, a bit of everything. My acquisition "routine" has changed a bit of the years. Recently it is more of a: let's scour ebay for a few weeks, buy what I can, then take a couple months off, rather than I'll look at ebay everyday for a little bit. It could be a case of getting frustrated at seeing the same old items for sale week after week with no new listings. Another reason is that I basically have most of everything listed now except for XCOM2 stuff. But then along comes a rare item like the xcom field bag and that makes it fun again.

 

But it's not just nose to the ebay grindstone anymore either. A big part of acquisitions is research into determining what's out there. If you know something exists, but can't find it on ebay then you may need to look elsewhere like amazon or do some more google searches.

 

But that UFO beer takes the cake. What were the odds of you bumping into a bottle of those on vacation?

 

There's even a UFO embossed in the glass.

 

Now you owe it to yourself to get the rest...

 

I'm really not interested in the can packs to be honest. Cans usually impart a bad taste to beer - I'd much rather drink it from a bottle and preferably a brown bottle. The only issue with these micro brews is shelf life. There are so many micro brews to pick from these days that some will take a very long time to sell. Not only that, but living in Wisconsin is a hindrance as there are tons of regional and local micro brews around, which doesn't leave a lot of shelf space for stuff from around the country. Luckily, UFO beer comes in brown bottles too so it should have a better shelf life. I might just pick up a plain UFO Hefeweiss next time I'm in the area of the city here where it's sold (and not a lot of places carry it either).

 

- Zombie

[Zombie]

Just popping in to say I've been collecting now for 11 years. Looking back, it was an interesting time. The XCOM franchise hadn't been announced yet so the market was a flood of strictly X-COM material and people were willing to sell. It was a great time to start my collection as game versions were easy to find. Price was the limiting factor though. Domestic versions were quite reasonable and so was the UK. Germany on the other hand was quite expensive. And Italy? That was like gold, if you could even find it.

 

Then the subprime mortgage crisis hit and the market tanked. Wallets tightened, staycations were popular and people looked into their closets to see what they could sell for some cash. That's when I swooped in. I was very lucky to purchase a bunch of rare MicroProse/X-COM stuff from SkyrangerGames late 2009/early 2010. Posters, pins. mugs, t-shirts, strategy guides... the whole 9 yards. It wasn't cheap, but I had some help due to very generous donations from Slaughter and Thorondor (thanks guys)! At that time, Microsoft Bing was offering cashbacks for eBay items purchased through them, so I took full advantage of that too.

 

After the release of XCOM there was a period of time where people started posting X-COM stuff again. Collecting was fun. Then the glut of XCOM merchandise flooded the market and collecting was a chore due to eBay searches not recognizing the "-" in X-COM. It did give me an opportunity to see what was out there for XCOM though. After the initial craze subsided, things started to normalize again. Prices came down and I was able to acquire a lot of cool merchandise.

 

In November 2014 my searches revealed a X·COM (notice the dot) pin. I purchased that and found out the seller was Quentin Chaney - same guy SkyrangerGames acquired their items from. He still had a bunch of cool and rare (and may I also add: historic) X-COM and MicroProse items. After a lot of emails back and forth I was eventually able to secure all of the X-COM things that I found interesting in one big lot in early 2015. In a second lot I picked up a bunch of very cool items, some of which I haven't even added to the site yet. (I will eventually, promise)!

 

Which brings us up to today. Over the weekend I started work on a project I wanted to do for a very long time: update the Promotional Items page. It was just getting too long to admin. Uploaded pictures or scans were arranged by the site software by upload date, not where they were found in the page. So trying to find a pic was getting difficult. Plus a lot of the previous functionality was lost due to site software updates or new HTML5 encoding. So I'm currently moving stuff out of the page into separate promotional item pages for each game. So far, I have Interceptor, em@il, Enforcer, and Alliance promotional item pages up. Tomorrow I'll probably work on the Apocalypse page. In the mean time, the current Promotional Items page will stay the way it is until the moving is complete. Stay tuned!

 

- Zombie

[Zombie]

The Apocalypse Promotional Items page is up now! UFO:EU and TFTD will be on the way soon. Can't wait to clean up the main Promo Items page when those are done. Oh, and I'll be creating a menu at the top of each separate page to make navigating the collection easier. After that's done then it'll be on to XCOM, The Bureau and XCOM 2.

 

- Zombie

[Zombie]

Just put the finishing touches on the UFO: Enemy Unknown & X-COM: UFO Defense Promotional Items page! I was hoping to get TFTD done today also, but plumb ran out of time. I saved the TFTD pictures on the main promotional items page for later use so at least that is done. Should be able to get that up tomorrow.

 

A couple new acquisitions to report. The first one (and this is BIG!): I purchased an em@il X-COM T-shirt today! This shirt is super rare and I found it in new condition too. Best part? The price: $29.99+$6.99 shipping. I didn't really expect to ever find one of these shirts as my research into it never turned up any other copies besides Drew Northcott's. I'm assuming it was a limited production run of a few dozen shirts to give out to the people who worked on the game and any higher-ups in MicroProse. It's doubtful anymore than that exist, so to find one brand new is like hitting the lottery!

 

The second item I picked up today was the new XCOM 2: War of the Chosen - The Elder’s Call Limited Framed Print from the Firaxis Online store. It's 15x24", signed by four devs and is limited to a run of 85 copies. Rare? Not super rare or anything, but once they are gone, trying to find one for sale at a decent price would be tough. The price? "If you have to ask, you probably can't afford it" as the old saying goes. $199.99 is crazy expensive, but I had a little help with a donation to cover more than half so it fell within my realm of funds.

 

- Zombie

[Zombie]

Ok, I finally was able to get the TFTD Promotional Items page up tonight. The site was acting really slow for some reason, so I think I'll work on some finishing touches and a menu bar for each new promotional items page tomorrow. Then it's on to XCOM:EU, The Bureau and XCOM 2. Slow but sure, it's coming together.

 

- Zombie

[Zombie]

Today I added some more information for the two non-Production Crew shirts in TFTD and a link to the forums for my TFTD Test Disk Discussion. I also cleaned up some of the other promo item pages. So in other words, not too much. I was, however, able to figure out html anchors in our site software so now I can link directly to the X-COM: UFO Defense section in the UFO:EU promo items page for example. I tested this out on the main Promotional Items page menu bar and it indeed works. So that's the good news. With that, I should be able to construct a working menu bar and add that to each page tomorrow. If I have time, I'll try to remove the specific X-COM game promo items from the main promo items page as well as the images. That should free up a bit more space at least.

 

- Zombie

[silencer_pl]

Finally doing the admin work?

[Zombie]

Finally doing the admin work?

 

Yes. Been out of practice for a while but I'm getting better with the site software now. The biggest issue is trying to figure out how to get it to play nice with HTML5. There's nothing wrong with the software, if I had server access to edit CSS files and such it would probably be easier. Whatever I can't figure out will just have to stay unformatted. That's my credo around here: function over form.

 

Well, I added menus to all the promotional item pages today. I created anchors for MicroProse and MicroProse (Other) so those sections can be found easier. As a temporary fix, I also anchored XCOM to the main promotional items page until I can move that stuff out into separate pages (might get to that this weekend). All the X-COM material has been removed from the page as well. So I got some work done at least. By the way: I had to split the menu into two lines: the top for X-COM items and the second for MicroProse and XCOM items.

 

Some of my time recently has been going into google searches for XCOM items I may have missed (or forgotten about). Heck, I just located a couple auction images on my computer for an XCOM:EU item I found but wasn't able to purchase. XCOM:EU, The Bureau and XCOM 2 are a little unrepresented and I'd like to flesh those out as time permits.

 

Oh, I almost forgot, I got that limited XCOM 2 signed print today. I'm too afraid to open the box tonight though, so I may do that this weekend. It's stupid that when you order the print you automatically get a "I heart Firaxis" sticker. Like I really need another one of those. Thing is, you can't remove it from the order. Here's the stupid part: it is shipped separately from the print. Imagine all the wasted postage. Geez.

 

- Zombie