The Perfect Grade

A/N: Depending on where you’ve been cruising on the ‘net, you may or may not recognize the contents of this post. The author of the older post and the author of this post? One and the same, I promise! 🙂

With that said, here’s my first collectibles-related post featuring one of my favorite collectibles of all time to celebrate the official ‘opening’ of CollectiCopia.

It was the summer of 2000 – August to be exact – when I came across this particular item on eBay.

At the time, I hadn’t had a clear idea of what exactly I was looking for, but I knew I wanted to add something personally meaningful to my collectibles collection to commemorate my love for a video game that both rocked my world and opened my eyes to the possibilities of dreams.

When I saw a picture similar to this one:

I knew I had found my treasure.

A replica of Squall Leonhart’s Griever pendant and necklace? HECK yeah!

To give a little background, there were two replica versions of Squall Leonhart’s Griever necklace released at the time. One version consisted of the necklace and pendant crafted from a mixture of high quality metals while the other version was crafted from sterling silver and was available only through a boxed set called the Perfect Grade Necklace Set which had a limited run of 10,000 pieces.

As I’m something of a jewelry buff – that is, I know and love my jewelry – and with my taste for heavy sterling silver pieces, the sterling silver version of the replica was – not surprisingly – right down my alley and it didn’t take me a second glance to know that I had found what I hadn’t known I had been looking for.

I’m sure this will come as a surprise to some people, but believe it or not… during the time of the release, places like eBay and Yahoo Japan were flooded with replicas. When I say ‘flooded’, I mean you could type out certain keywords and be assured that you would find at least a few pieces up for sale on the market and that the pieces available were all legit.

That said, while the market was flooded with these replicas, I took the opportunity to do a little comparison shopping. The replica didn’t come cheap regardless of which version it was and as it was an import-only item, a lot of vendors took the chance to either outright jack the price up as high as the demand would allow or charge out the nose for shipping and handling.

I debated between using eBay or a deputy shopping service and after some negotiations with a reputed seller who, at the time, was one of the very few North American sellers who was doing importing, I placed an order for one of the 10,000 boxed sets.

A few anxious days later and my Perfect Grade Necklace Set arrived on my doorstep.

The rest, as everyone says, is history and a story for another time. 😉

So here’s to you, my strong and silent forever-king of collectibles!

You were one of my first main collection items and a part of my rite of passage into adulthood and nearly 11 – YES, 11 spelled eleven! – years later, you still hold the place as being my number one.

Because your beauty is in how you have endured, persevered, and held out from day one and how you will continue to shine like the star that you are.

Glow baby, glow.