Interest
Detective Conan Fan Buys Auctioned Mugs at Huge Markup
posted on by Jennifer Sherman
One Detective Conan fan may be drowning financial sorrows with two cups of coffee today. This year's 39th issue of Shogakukan's Shonen Sunday magazine offered a prize lottery for exclusive Shūichi Akai and Tōru Amuro "pair mugs." The lottery gave the mugs to 150 winners for free.
A lucky recipient of the mugs who was looking to make some cash listed the set on the Yahoo! Auctions website. After 26 bids, the auction winner purchased the mugs for 101,000 yen (about US$964). That would be an expensive but happy ending for an excited fan if the story ended there.
However, Shonen Sunday responded to the huge popularity of the mugs by offering them for sale. Anyone who wants the mugs can apply through the magazine to receive them. People just have to pay the price of the once-prized mugs plus shipping and handling. That cost is apparently 2,200 yen (about US$21). For non-mathematicians, that means the aforementioned auction winner spent about 45.91 times the offered price.
In addition to announcing the mugs for sale, Shonen Sunday unveiled special Detective Conan: The Darkest Nightmare film strips. To celebrate the film's release on home video, the magazine will give away the film strips as a free bonus item. Hopefully, the owner of the unnecessarily pricey mugs will opt to buy a magazine instead of hunting down these bits of colored paper and plastic online.
[Via Yaraon!]
