We made two changes today and while they sound technical they are – we believe – exciting!
We have a Produced From and a Produced To date but most of the time the Produced To date is just not known or even relevant (with more than 98% of entries not having that date). Our old filter used both and did not produce many results. We now changed it so that it takes the Produced From and that works much better!
Here are Funko Wobblers from 2003 –
Or (1) Hard Rock Cafe items that are (2) Pins, & Badges, Staff Only, made between 2004 and 2006 and (3) sorted by Date Produced –
Note, soon we enable filtering for Restaurants, Hotels etc, then Hard Rock can also be added through the Brand Filter.
We have had sorting by Reference Number but with so many different reference numbers that have letters, numbers and special characters it did not work very well (for example it would sort numbers like this 05, 1, 11, 130, 2, 25, 4, AA). We just rebuild this section and now that filter shows so much better results (for that sequence it would now sort 1, 2, 4, 5, 11, 25, 130, AA)!
Here as an example the (1) Tekno (Denmark) Subject showing (2) Model Cars (3) sorted by Reference Number –
Note. The only Ref Numbers that do not sort properly yet are where there is a combination of numbers and letters with different numbers of digits, so for example 14a will not follow 14.
We hope you like these changes. Please let us have your ideas and suggestions in the comments below.
Greetings,
I’ve a somewhat related suggestion. When searching items using Reference numbers, the search could include some “guessing”. Meaning that if you have a partial Reference number it would return all items including that part. At the moment it seems to be very strict, only accepting Reference numbers that are exactly correct.
For example: When looking for Hot Toys “Diecast” figures, the corresponding Reference number contains of the “Movie Masterpiece Series” identifier (MMSxxx) and the “MMS Diecast” identifier (Dxx). Hot Toys has multiple runs and versions of the same character, so when identifying the exact figure, in most cases you can simply use the first part of the Reference number (MMSxxx), and if you have a tendency towards some genuine nerd snobbery you may add the latter part for “Diecast” figures. …But usually the first part will suffice with all figures.
Now with the current hobbyDB item search, writing the complete Reference number (e.g. MMS530D31) will correctly return the War Machine from Avengers Endgame, but using only the Movie Masterpiece Series identifier (MMS530) will return empty.
This is problematic because many, less nerdy, users would believe that the shorter version is sufficient.
Cheers, Sasu
P.s. I’m not going to go to the similar problem of searching the Reference number MMS61 instead of MMS061, where both should return the same Italian Stallion…
Sasu, good news for you. The Side filter for Reference # does what you suggest https://www.hobbydb.com/marketplaces/hobbydb/catalog_items?filters%5Bin_collection%5D=all&filters%5Bin_wishlist%5D=all&filters%5Bon_sale%5D=all&filters%5Bref_number%5D=MMS53&order%5Bname%5D=created_at&order%5Bsort%5D=desc&page=1&q=MMS530D31&subvariants=true (but not the main search)
I have to think about the other “half” suggestion. With millions of items in a system anything that for example removes a leading 0 could result in hundreds of more results. You user could filter for Brand Hot Toys and start filter with “MMS” for Reference # and probably find the item
Thanks for making the reference number sort better – I use it all the time! And for using those (my) ‘great’ Teknos as an example! 🙂
They are great (wish I had lots of them).
One of the things i find wrong about the produced from and produced to date is that the title itself is misleading. Many items, Hot wheels are key in this, are produced as many as six months prior to the date shown. Although the item is made for a particular year and quarter the item can actually be produced months to even a year prior. This is found by referencing the date code which can be found on the base of the vehicle and even the cards themselves and is consistent with matchbox and cars, all made by mattel. This is important because many people always ask why the year of the vehicle being released does not match the date code. There is an even more specific dare code used on higher end vehicles and rlc cars that brings the date to a more specific day versus just a week within a month.
I see where you are coming from but this is tricky. 2021 new models having packaging that says 2021 on it and are considered by most to be 2021 models even if they were produced in 2020. I am not sure what we should call the label here to alert users to that fact. Suggestions (as always) are super welcome!
produced = originally sold new from / to ? That’s a bit cumbersome.
I’m not exactly sure what kind of use “produced” is meant for in different Item Types, but as I’m not able to get the info on production dates for majority of items I’m dealing with, I treat the “Produced” section dates as Release dates. Ergo, Produced = Released.
Released might be better than sold from/to because you could find old toys (NOS) in the back of toy stores (pre-internet) that had not been produced for years but they were still on sale!
Jay, Karl and Sasu, you guys have the best ideas! We changed it to your proposal –
Yup, looks about right. 😉
Note
I’ve been testing the Release Date and there may be a bug emerging. When adding a Database Item and saving it, the Released date (year) does not show up in the Item Page or in related Subject lists. After clicking Edit Database Item again and the Save, the year shows up. This may be an issue of delay, but I’ve never experienced it before.
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