3A Blind Cowboy: First Thoughts on a Late and Broken Toy
Yesterday I picked up the Blind Cowboy set (first mentioned here) from FedEx. One of the last of my 3A orders that I was waiting on, I was kinda excited to see this because every photo online made the 12-inch scale action figure and horse statue set look amazing. And this is one Gina was also excited to see — she’s a horse fan to the point that we own a horse — so I was really looking forward to a new large piece for the collection in the living room.
Well, unfortunately the toy arrived both late — even after the promise on the 3A forums that “we wont miss the shipping date, well benny promises at least!” — and it arrived broken. As we removed each piece from the box I snapped some pics; click through to see all of the shots I took with my phone as we unboxed the toy.
LATE: According to the Bambaland product page “This is a pre-order for November 2011” which simply did not happen.
Box and Poster
Beautiful and massive. This is an incredible package and a box that, even though it is giant, just begs to be kept. Very thick cardboard, great art and design, and about the best quality I could have asked for, the first look when you open the shipping carton tells you that a lot of love and effort went into the packaging design. And as you can see in the photo, the included poster showcases the great box art in a large size. Everything about the box and poster is fantastic.
Internal Packaging
Layers and layers of custom-cut foam. Impressive and exactly what I want to see when a buy a $270 toy and statue set. The care taken to protect each and every piece made me very happy as I removed the layers and revealed each piece in the box. Excellent job!
Cowboy Action Figure
That trademark 3A oil field smell slaps you in the face like a crowded Hong Kong street, but other than the smell the few moments I spent posing and looking at the 12-inch scale action figure didn’t reveal any flaws. The layers of cloth clothing, the wire in the brim of his hat, and the weapons holstered to his side all look great. As usual the arms were twisted wrong inside his clothes, but a couple of turns and everything was properly aligned and ready to go. My first thoughts on the Blind Cowboy boil down to: Cool.
Horse Statue
They really put care into packing the horse; I had to ask Gina for help removing the horse from the foam because it’s really heavy and the foam was packed tight around it. And once you get the horse out and standing it’s a tough, durable statue that looks even better than the Blind Cowboy. Fantastic work and better than I had hoped . . .
Broken
Crap. As I was taking one last look inside the box I uncovered a broken stirrup; yes, one piece of the horse statue was obviously broken and, as you can see in the photo below, broken in a way that makes the piece unusable. Frustrating, but not nearly as frustrating that is was not broken in shipping: digging through the box I cannot find the missing piece anywhere. This leads me to think the part was packed at the factory broken. It’s either that, or the piece vanished into thin air.
Breaking in shipping would have been understandable and not at all 3A’s fault. The strength of the box combined with the layers of neatly cut foam shows to me that 3A did everything that they could to protect the toy on its way from China to the US. But for the broken to be nowhere in the box demonstrates to me that there’s a problem somewhere in the process; I know factory conditions in China are questionable at times, but the whole reason for QC is to make sure that items are at least packed correctly.
I am quite disgusted with how this $270 toy and statue combination turned out for two reasons:
- It was late, after the promises that it would ship on time.
- It arrived broken.
And it is only the second point that completely makes me even think of the first point. By this time we all expect 3A — no matter what they tell us — to ship products late. But getting yet another defective product from them is just rubbing salt in the wound that is my many experiences with the company.
Wow, that blows. I try not to get too frustrated by it, because 3A makes some of my favorite toys, and they have replaced everything that’s ever had a problem for me no questions asked, but some shit like this just gets old. I had a similar experience recently with my Ankou EX having two right arms.
i love when a good website posts real issues with 3A products. i love them, but as mentioned, the shipping and QC problems sink people’s hope for a gorgeous and playable figure or figures. sad.
are you going to make a new stirrup or repair it? it seems like a fixable item, easier to fix than a hollow vinyl ball socket. i hope you get closure.
@TheMarkSewell – Two rights arms? That had to seriously suck. Did they have you ship the toy back for a replacement?
@rupert_valero – Thanks for the support! I’ve e-mailed 3A customer service and we’ll see what happens. If they don’t do anything I may be able to fake a new stirrup for the horse.
No, they just mailed me a new arm. I actually was able to fix the first backwards arm since the arm sculpts are symmetrical from left to right and there’s a seam in the sculpt where the upper arm becomes the shoulder. I just cut it at that seam and turned the arm around. But I wanted them to send me a new arm anyway just on principle since this thing is a freaking $170 toy.
@TheMarkSewell – When I had a Bertie arrive with a broken finger they wanted me to ship the piece back before they would send me one that wasn’t broken.
And yeah, at $170 you should expect to get what you ordered and not a defective toy.
I know people who have had the same thing happen, but I’ve thankfully never had them ask me to send something back. This is my fourth time dealing with 3A customer service over something like this–the other three times were me just having hamhands twice and one other time getting a fucked up toy, in that case a Heavy Bramble with the one knee totally stuck with paint to the point that I couldn’t even scrape away at it with a knife enough to get it to move–and every time they just sent me a replacement part.