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In June 2008, Underground Toys - the US distributors of the Doctor Who toy range released details regarding two new exclusive figures that had been specially commissioned for San Diego Comic Convention 2008.
Limited to just 3000 per piece, the figures included an exclusive 'Time Crash' set featuring the Tenth and Fifth Doctors and an exclusive Ninth Doctor variant. The Ninth Doctor features a green shirt as worn by the Doctor in the ‘Fathers Day’ episode of Series 1, while the Tenth Doctor wears the darker shirt and tie, and the Fifth Doctor comes with the later style, Edwardian cricketers outfit together with the iconic celery stick, as worn in the one off, specially written episode, ‘Time Crash’
Each of these exclusive releases were made available to those who visited the Underground Toys or BBC Worldwide booths between 23-27th July 2008, however a limited amount of the 3000 figures were made available to selected US retailers.
Out of the two sets made available at the SDCC 2008, the ‘Time Crash’ set proved very popular both in the United States and the UK mainly due to the exclusive Fifth Doctor figure which features his iconic celery stick - a feature which was not present on the standard Classic Series figure at the time. As a result many US retailers who shipped to the UK sold out of this limited release very quickly. US retailers such as Who North America even saw their website crash within minutes of these sets being placed online!
THE UK 100 IS BORN
At the end of July 2008, Character Options made a low key announcement to a number of UK collectors who had inquired about this set and to those from the popular Doctor Who site, the 'Doctor Who Forum'.
It was announced that Character Options had commissioned a strict one off batch of just 100 'Time Crash' set exclusively for the UK market. Unlike the SDCC 2008 release, the set, also known as the ‘UK100’ would not be individually numbered nor would it contain the special US promotional Top Trumps card and sticker. Those who wished to order one of these very special sets had to call Character Options Customer Services Department during the morning of Tuesday 29th July 2008.
Priced at £12.99 + £2 Recorded Postage / £5 Special Delivery, these sets were offered to customers strictly on a one per person, first come first served basis and as result, all sets sold out the following morning, therefore making this set discontinued and very rare.
ROLL UP... ROLL UP... TIME CRASH SETS OFFERED ON eBay!
As with all collectables, limited editions (even when limited as the UK100), will always find their way on to the well known auction site eBay.
In order to cash in on this exclusive set, one collector offered their UK100 set up for sale on eBay on the 31st July 2008 and just days later, it sold for a grand total of £190 + P&P on 3rd August 2008.
Following suit, more collectors also sacrificed their set in order to gain a hefty profit and other UK100 sets have been appearing on eBay. These sets have been selling since for anything between £190 to £250!
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