I’m not finding much in the way of deals this week, so I’m taking a look an an interesting side market of BIONICLE items this week. A while back I noticed some MOCs called “Dark Hunters” showing up on eBay. I was originally annoyed with the the listings. They just seemed to be MOCs listed for absurdly high prices and listed in such a way as to imply they were official models.

For some reason, it took me a while to put two-and-two together. These were all official characters, although not ones ever sold as a set. These MOCs were submitted to The LEGO Group for the Dark Hunters contest, where several were selected to be published as cannon characters. I think it was not until I saw a listing for the crystal climber, one of the Rahi MOCs I was familiar with, that I understood what these were.

It seems someone out there started a project to make these canonized characters easier to obtain for collectors. It will cost you though, as the typical dark hunter starts at $60.00 USD, and most are listed for over $100.00! I still think the price is a little absurd, although I can at least concede that it takes work to recreate these characters from nothing more than pictures. Very few Dark hunters had their instructions published by their creators, and even tiny details can take a lot of work to figure out. Sometimes the seller has to engineer their own internals to recreate the character as closely as possible. Then there’s the matter of part availability, and ordering from bricklink and other sources to recreate the character. To top it all off, they have to take the time to build it for you too.

BS01 has a list of Dark Hunters here if you want to familiarize yourself with these characters. If you happen to think any are worth adding to your collection, a quick search on eBay will tell you if anyone has put the time in to build and list it. You will want to look very carefully at each listing, as they will likely vary in color accuracy and construction. Make sure you read the description on each too, as the seller may be able to indicate how accurate their version is, and if it is “as-is” or comes with other guarantees.

eBay seller andrehuan-9 has a sale on their BIONICLE items, including their stock of Dark Hunters. I would not specifically endorse this seller, some of their listings are more expensive despite the sale. Although, this seller does seem open to communicate and specifically states “If you find that any parts are missing, broken, damaged, or in unacceptable condition, please message me and I will resolve the issue promptly.”