If you are like a majority of the collectors out there, you have had a difficult time getting your hands on The Vintage Collection’s Din Djarin with Child figure from Wal*Mart. This figure was put up for presale in the Fall of 2020 and sold out within minutes. Then in mid-January, a majority of these pre-sales were abruptly canceled by Wal*Mart. A day later this figure was reoffered online but this time as a bundle with an exclusive pin of The Child.

Now ironically, those who re-ordered this figure in January, received it before those lucky few who ordered it back in October and never had their order canceled.

Upon receipt of the new version with pin, many and dare we say most collectors did not receive the exclusive pin with their Mandalorian. While typical action figure collectors are not also pin/button collectors and due to the fact that this figure was difficult to obtain, most did not pay much mind to this oversight. The frustration and struggle to get this Wal*Mart exclusive was so intense that the missing item was vastly ignored.

 

There were some who noticed the incomplete order and contacted Wal*Mart customer service about it. As the item was, sold out for a second time, Wal*Mart’s ability to replace the pin was not an option. As we have found from our own experience and from listening to collectors online, mileage varies greatly when asking Wal*Mart to refund or reduce the price of these incomplete orders. We were initially offered an $.88 refund for the missing pin. After a few minutes more of conversation, we were provided a $3.54 refund on our $26 order. Others who contacted the mega-retailer received full refunds for the missing pin.

Despite the issue of inconsistent refunds, the question does arise, where are all of these unfulfilled pins, and why were they offered and then not sent to those who ordered in January?

As a completist collector of the Star Wars 3 3/4″, we quickly turned to eBay, and thanks to our fellow collector and sleuth Jay McDowell, we started to see that there were multiple sellers on eBay that had 50+ of these pins online the day they figure was released in mid-January.

Now there are a few things that are interesting about these sellers and their pins. The one featured above is located out of New York, which also happens to be the location of the Wal*Marts e-commerce warehouse distribution center. There are also sellers in North Carolina who have multiple pins which is another location of a DC.

In addition, all of these sellers with larger amounts of product are selling pins that have the same WASP inventory tracking bar code and packaging as the ones included with Wal*Mart’s orders.

Now we are not accusing any of these sellers directly of wrongdoing in this manner but there are a lot of questions surrounding this issue of missing pins.

  • Did Wal*Mart accidentally sell their pins to some buyers in bulk?
  • Did folks in Wal*Mart distribution centers pocket large amounts of these pins to sell on eBay?
  • Did the vendor Wal*Mart or Hasbro used for these pins, not make good on their order as they sold them elsewhere?
  • Did Wal*Mart canceling orders have anything to do with the lack of pin product to ship to consumers?

We could go on and on but as neither Wal*Mart’s customer service line nor Hasbro could explain the circumstance surrounding any of the issues with this Vintage Collection toy, we are left to speculate on our own.

So at the end of the day, we paid the following for our figure with pin ordered in January:

  • $17.68 MSRP
  • $2.41 tax
  • $5.99 shipping
  • $3.54 refund
  • $5.99 Pin on eBay
  • $.61 tax on pin
    • Total: $29.14

Oh, and did we mention Wal*Mart shipped our Mando in a baggie with no bubble wrap or protection inside but that is a whole other bag of worms…

Until next time,

May the Figures be with you!