Playmates vintage checklist

[Marm O. Set]

When working with my favorite vendors, they ask me to send them a checklist of all the things I'm looking for.

I started filling out an Excel sheet describing the figures and vehicles from the 1988-1996 Playmates line but I'm finding that some of the vehicle parts are difficult to list. There are sooooo many little bits that come with most vehicles. The idea is that I can have a readily accessible Google Sheet so that my vendor friends can see my up-to-date wishlist for the vintage line. If the cell is green, I have it. Other cells are color coded to indicate their priority based on how badly I "need" it.

Is there an existing Excel list of all the vintage figures (and all their accessories), and all the vintage vehicles (and all the parts needed to make them whole)? I already searched the forums and read several threads but any promising leads had broken links or weren't quite what I was looking for.

thanks in advance for any help!

here is the first section of my list for a sample. The 1993 and 1994 sections have tons of holes:

[IMJ]

This is great, man. I keep an excel sheet in the same spirit as this simply because collecting vintage TMNT basically requires that you accept that you'll be back-filling and matching accessories to figures for completion.

I've never seen a primer or master sheet for this kind of endeavor so, like you, I scratch built my spreadsheet. I've used the TMNT museum website a lot for stuff like this. You will often find the remnants of what I couldn't identify here on the forums in the "Help Identify an Accessory" thread.

[Marm O. Set]

Originally Posted by IMJ

This is great, man. I keep an excel sheet in the same spirit as this simply because collecting vintage TMNT basically requires that you accept that you'll be back-filling and matching accessories to figures for completion.

I've never seen a primer or master sheet for this kind of endeavor so, like you, I scratch built my spreadsheet. I've used the TMNT museum website a lot for stuff like this. You will often find the remnants of what I couldn't identify here on the forums in the "Help Identify an Accessory" thread.

Thanks! How did you handle the description for all the vehicle parts?
If you can find the original instruction sheets that came with the vehicles, some of the parts have names. For instance, the orange bits on the front of the Foot Cruiser's hood are called "Ooze Blasters" and the blue things in the front bumper are called Turtle Eliminators. If I listed Ooze Blasters and Turtle Eliminators on my wish list, then nobody except for me would understand what I'm referencing.

[IMJ]

Originally Posted by Marm O. Set

Thanks! How did you handle the description for all the vehicle parts?
If you can find the original instruction sheets that came with the vehicles, some of the parts have names. For instance, the orange bits on the front of the Foot Cruiser's hood are called "Ooze Blasters" and the blue things in the front bumper are called Turtle Eliminators. If I listed Ooze Blasters and Turtle Eliminators on my wish list, then nobody except for me would understand what I'm referencing

Ya, I know exactly what you are talking about. So I resolve this by super-simplifying it.

For example, say I have a Mutatin' Michaelangelo from wave 5 of the vintage line. I'll log only the accessories that are missing so I know what to look for when I'm hunting and I'll note what's missing as "Nunchuks" instead of "newly formed Nunchuks" which is basically extraneous information. I can always look up what the missing accessory looks like, or I can even take a screen cap and throw it in the spreadsheet to help me out when identifying it.

Then, when I find the accessory, I delete the missing accessory entry from my spreadsheet and simply replace it with "Complete". Anything else just adds to the confusion and let's face it - once a toy is complete there's no need to log the accessories outside of simply stating that the figure is indeed complete.

I hope that helps.

[Marm O. Set]

Originally Posted by IMJ

Ya, I know exactly what you are talking about. So I resolve this by super-simplifying it.
...
I hope that helps.

Yeah, thanks! So I ended up doing the exact same thing for the vehicles. Its definitely much easier!

Here's the problem: I was hoping to carry the list with me when I go toy hunting so I could verify whether something is complete. This would be a ton easier if everything is listed. Maybe one of these days I'll find the time to complete the list; for now, I'll keep doing it your way haha!

thanks for the reply!

[IMJ]

Originally Posted by Marm O. Set

I was hoping to carry the list with me when I go toy hunting so I could verify whether something is complete.

There's an easy resolution to that problem - one that I've done for years now. First, if you have the infrastructure at home - like an internet capable HMS, you can store your spreadsheet there and retrieve it on command while you are out and about.

If you don't have that infrastructure set up at home, you can probably just email the spreadsheet to yourself and retrieve it as an attachment when you are out and about.

Or you can always just store the sheet on your phone's SD card, but then you'll have a lot of transferring to do between it and your computer to work your updates.

You can install Excel on your phone for free OR if you don't care about making edits when you are out and about you can convert the excel file to a PDF. PDF's are MUCH easier to read on a smaller phone screen.

Those are all pretty viable options towards making your spreadsheet accessible when you are on the go. If you don't have an internet capable HMS, I would just store it as a PDF on your phone and then make edits to it on Excel when you get home. -thumb's up-