Field notes from the Sep 4 weekly survey at SquishScope.

Marketplace still eating the easy kills

This week's scrape of the live registry found two clear scalps on Walmart listings:

• Nice Berg (Swirl) (MSRP about $8–12) listed at $29.99 (offer live, flagged scalped)
• Nice Ice Baby (Mini Cube) (MSRP about $3–5) listed at $20.99 (offer live, flagged scalped)

That mini cube is the uglier one. A gateway fidget at roughly 4–7× retail is how people get burned without noticing.

The rule: on Walmart or Amazon, check the "sold by" line before checkout. If it isn't Walmart itself or the official Schylling seller, you're paying a stranger's markup, or worse, buying a fake. Counterfeits are common enough that Schylling has warned about marketplace platforms. Our five-point authenticity check takes under a minute.

What's missing this week

• Gumdrop: no active offer on the surveyed Amazon listing (again). Shelves still beat the product page.
• Standard Advent Calendar: no active offer this week. In July we saw marketplace at $48.97 against a $25–35 MSRP. If you spot one at retail now, don't deliberate. December-you will pay for hesitation.
• Cool Cat Dohzee: no offer on the surveyed Amazon listing. Different animal (literally a pillow). Skip if you're here for the squish.

The Examiner's upset

Scores haven't been regraded this week, and the ranking still holds:

• Gumdrop: only perfect 10 on Feel in the whole registry (82 overall). Findable, unhyped, about $6.
• Nice Cube — Glitter & Glow: top overall at 93/100. The rare case where the hype undersells it.

Rarity is not quality. Full scores: the registry.

Buy-now, not-yet, never

• Buy now: any Advent calendar still sitting at true retail. Also Classic Nice Cube when Walmart inventory shows in-store.
• Not yet: S-tier at resale premiums. Production has been ramping; paying 3–5× for heat is how you fund someone else's vacation.
• Never: marketplace listings at multi-x retail, and anything from Temu or Alibaba that Schylling has flagged for fakes.

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