I'd like to invest in Super Soakers...

Is there no one out there with knowledge?

>>6248261
>>6248335
give me some time to answer that. I am unashamedly massively autistic when it comes to water blasters. As far as what is going on for this season for blaster sales, I can not tell you anything for sure, except that super soakers line is fully known and is just as dissappointing as past few years IIRC. Buzz Bee water warriors is the glimmer of hope but they really did not put out any sort of press info regarding their 2017 line up so what we know they are selling is largely what we find in stores. Thus far no one found new elastic pressure gun from them which is dissappointing.

Again gonna work on a post and do more research at the 2017 lines, but feel free to fire more questions.

>>6248261
Before I rant too much, let me explain a few key things first just in case you and anyone else reading don't know. The three primary ways a water gun works
Piston: this means a simple piston pump is all that powers the stream of water. Your dollar store water pistols? Spray bottles? All Piston powered. And pretty much all the recent super soakers are sadly all Supersized piston power weapons. Instead of the trigger being the piston, the soakers use the pump for the piston which results in much more pressure then the dolalr store guns. a clear indicator a Super Soaker style gun is a piston and not anything else is if the trigger either is non functional or nonexistent.

Air Pressure: this is What the very first Super Soaker pioneered, this is why Super Soakers were Super in the first place. you pump up the gun, putting air into the water tank which applies a lot of pressure to the contents of the tank. Think of it like shaking up a bottle of soda really hard, now imagine instead of opening the bottle you punctured a hole in the top. That is what happens when you pull the trigger on Air Pressure guns, open up a valve to allow the water to escape. One downside with this is that if you have a very big water resevoir, then as you get lower you will notice a increase in the number of pumps to pressurize the tank fully

Elastic bladder/Diaphragm: Or more famously known as the game changing CPS(Constant Pressure System) of the late 90s. This fixes all the flaws in air pressure. Instead of putting air into the water tank, you are taking water out of the tank and pumping it into a second chamber. This chamber is essentially a thick rubber balloon more or less, although almost always more like a cut bike tube sealed at one end then a balloon but whatever. By pumping the water into the tube you A) Always have that same amount of pumping to acheive the max pressure. B) when firing the elastic is more or less squeezing the water out at a constant and powerful rate

>>6248345
>>6248414
I absolutely love how there's always a knowledgeable person out there for something.

>>6248414
>>6248261
Now there is tons of hybrid type stuff out there mixing and matching the 3 types, or assisting the power system with things like springs or even electronics. Most of the electronic SUper Soakers hasbro made are just Pistons that can be pumping faster then you can.

Anyway with that out of the way. Star Wars stuff. I really don't know about them. They won't have any value as a water blaster, they all appear to be piston powered. They are not very good from the replica sense, so people won't be buying them for very accurate props to cosplay with. And last I checked Star Wars merchandise is not nearly as good at retaining value as people assume it is in general

for example, those Force FX replica Lightsabers Hasbro makes. My favorite Jedi is Kit Fisto. for a couple years I kept an eye on lightsabers on amazon while my financial situation stablized and thus let me make luxury purchases again like that. Most of the Sbaers were around $70-80 for the well known models. Kit Fisto was usually hovering around $50-$70 since he was lesser known. And those sabers came out back in like 05 or so. But once the six month mark till Episode 7 was hit, bam all of a sudden I saw all those prices shoot way up and stock went way down. The only reason those sabers cost so much all of a sudden was due to the hype of the new movie generating demand.

I am sure the Super Soakers and Nerf guns and many other such products will be the same, once the hype starts dying down again, all these products will loose their value.

>>6248345
I posed this question because I saw this...
https://www.amazon.com/Nerf-Super-Soaker-Hydro-Cannon/dp/B00416OVUY/ref=sr_1_26?s=toys-and-games&ie=UTF8&qid=1490229511&sr=1-26&keywords=super+soaker

And lost my shit. Granted it was the most powerful model that Hasbro\Larami (previous) released in years, but I didn't expect to see a price of it go for that much in such after a few years considering older legacy models cost that much but probably have better performance.

However I am eying the Han Solo model because it looks good and seems to be popular in the Cosplay Community according to it's Amazon reviews...

>>6248417
There is always someone with an unhealthy knowledge base on something, and I just happen to be that way with the history of Super Soakers. Those are my childhood and I take that seriously.

>>6248261
Fortunately there is stuff on the shelves worth getting, but again no one is completely postive yet if what is on the shelves now is all that will be on the shelves for rest of 2017. Buzz Bee toys in particular.

this is probably going to just be me rambling on a tnagent too much and I apologize, but I feel it is worth pointing out why the Soaker market sucks so much these days. towards the end of the 90s, Larami keeps making bigger and badder looking and crazier water guns, especially those in the CPS series. I am talking about stuff like the Monster X and XL. However this revealed something about the market and consumers, see mom and dad were the ones buying the guns, you rarely had teenagers with income interested in them back then. Now Mom and Dad don't reallty get how awesome the big expensive guns are, to them it is just a waste of money spending $50+ on a gun that shoots water. So they didn't sell as fast. Now they are sitting on shelves which is normally not as big an issue unless the product is there for over a year, but water guns are not year round, they sit on Seasonal shelves. So these massive guns took up huge amounts of shelf space meant for the christmas season products. needless to say retailers order much less of the bigger guns.

This results in a considerable downsizing of water guns in general. And then Larami has to sell off the super soaker IP. Hasbro buys it and at first things are pretty ok. Sure not as good as they use to be but maybe one CPS a year or so. Then they start putting out guns that used the various super soaker patents less and less and less. The final CPS style Super Soaker was hydro cannon in 2011, before that was 2007. It took untill 2013 for us to finaly know for sure why hasbro didnt want to make actual Super Soaker

again i apologize for all my rambling, but I ain't stopping.

>>6248466
remember that Amazxon sellers have very noticable mark up for out of stock elsewhere, and in general hard to find items. I guarentee you if those same sellers had stock of the old popular CPS guns, some of them wouyld be marked $300-$500.

>>6248481
Now in 2013 John Lonnie, the man who invented Super Soaker, sues Hasbro. It comes out that they were underpaying him in royalties ever since they bought the IPs from him. They had to pay him every time they made a gun that had the old super soaker aesthetics as well as technology. It was a sizable amount they short changed him too. It goes without saying that after that court case nothing came out with air pressure or CPS.

Now during those years Buzz Bee was trying to target the audience who wanted powerful soakers, this allowed them to become more then just some third party generic knock off. They made CPS style guns by using a diaphragm instead of a full bladder. Unfortunately a few years before Hasbro was sued by Lonnie, they attacked Buzz Bee for copyright infringement. Buzz Bee stopped making those guns.

Now two years ago Hasbro did not renew the rights to the patents and it expired and Buzz Bee immediately released a small sample release of a diaphragm blaster in Canada only to test the waters.

Last year, nbow that the patent was fully expired, Buzz Bee the cheeky bastards, released a FULL bladder CPS style gun. So there is now again hope for beefy water blasters.

Next post I will finally truly answer your question.

>>6248519
So Last year Buzz Bee released a full market release of the first full Bladder gun in years. Gargantua, for about $15. for that price it is definitely a good gun and far superior to anything else Hasbro had and has out. Unfortunately it's bladder IS very small and I have yet to get around to figuring out if I can easily mod it to a bigger bladder capacity without cutting up pipes. The bladder chamber is pressed directly against the resevoir and I haven't checked how big the bladder itself is.

This year Buzz Bee has not made a new Bladder or Diaphragm yet, and not sure if they are rereleasing the gargantua for this year. Considering walmart has them priced at $25 and sold out online doesn't look good.

However there is a new bladder blaster put out by another company. Adventure Force Super Storm. I do not have one myself, most reviews done on it are not yet intensive due to the cold weather. But it seems it has an even smaller bladder then the Gargantua which shortens the already short shot time even more. But it should still pack a sting for the first second.

Also this is not a Bladder gun, but this year Buzz Bee released a promizing looking Piston powered gun. Called the drench force. Advertised to have a range of 50feet which is insane even for a CPS gun let alone piston. Again no one has been able to prove this due to cold weather yet. It acheives this claim by having a massive piston pump. It is very similar to some of those 'water cannons' except with a resevoir.

So those are the best options at this period of time. I am still keeping an eye out for unexpected releases, but it gets less and less likely.

>>6248345
I had to original green/yellow/orange Super Soaker as a kid, and would love to buy one for nostalgic reasons.

Is there anything to look out for when buying something that old? Were there any reissues?

OP Here

>>6248551
TY for the history lesson. Now I know what to look for... It's sad that what's being released sucks...

>>6248604

The full history of SS 50 can be found here.
http://nerfpedialegacy.wikia.com/wiki/Super_Soaker_50:_10th_Anniversary_Edition#Super_Soaker_50:_10th_Anniversary_Edition

Don't buy Gen 7 period! I had one and it broke after one use. The build for it was crap and felt like a cheap Chinese knowckoff.

>>6248604
The Super Soaker 50 had a re release for the 20th anniversary back around 09 or 10. I know little about it's specs compared to others myself, but I don't doubt OP. It desfinitely was not 100% the original reissued, it had definite changes made, the most notable toi my knowledge being making the resevoir non removable and adding a fill cap.

It also marked the final Super Soaker before the brand became a part of the Nerf brand.

When looking for old soakers, if you follow the modding soaker community and read through tons of archived posts you can find that just about every soaker has had someone post dissasembly and ideas if not how tos on how to replace or fix parts. So my personal opinion is if you really want an old blaster don't be afraid to get it if broken as long as the price is VERY low, and work on fixing it. PVC pipes and other plumbing supplies really all you need for the most part.

I recommend you keep an eye open at yard sales for CPS 2000, the very first CPS and most likely the very best one. It was extremely powerful, and while they did not get any serious legal cases thrown at them, they did take 2 years (96-98) before they released the next CPS guns and they were noticably weaker. Still very powerful guns, it's like saying silver is less valuable then gold, it's still amazing to have. Just less amazing.

All CPS guns will be at a greater chance of degradation then non bladder using guns, due to the use of the rubber bladders.


And don't expect to have these things resell for a fortune. The people willing to pay a lot of money for these things are also VERY well informed and often will not pay over $100 for most blasters because they know the proper values and where to get cheaper.

>>6248642
It does suck, but again, we are seeing the market beginning to become competitive in terms of performance. Now it is up to us the consumers to speak and vote with our wallets. It is possible Buzz Bee did not put out another Bladder powered blaster because they feel there is not yet enough desire for them. No one really knew what is up, that awesome stuff is starting to exist again. Tell others 'hey check this out!' My younger brother and his friends got a taste of the gargantua last year, and shoulda seen the look on their faces when they felt that initial sting of the blast on their bare feet(sandals). They were friggin high school seniors and had no idea a water gun could be that powerful, let alone that was a fraction of what they use to be like. I hear a couple of them eventually bought their own Gargantuas as well, and my youngest brother spent vacation souvenir money on own of his one as well.

a shame none of the really popular Nerf Youtubers really cover this stuff, I bet they could get sales and interest up. And if no name third parties start getting really puopular like that Adventure Force due to using bladders, mybe Hasbro will get back into the game. Imagine a true return to a CPS gun with the same effort they put behing Nerf guns like the Mastodon.

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>>6248345
What an interesting and nostalgic thread. Thanks for taking the time to share your knowledge with us dude, sincerely.