Today I have a new review for you sort of, maybe it should be called an unboxing or actually and extended unboxing, but it’s still a review I guess. Geek Fuel is a new company that makes geek or nerdy themed mystery boxes that you can get delivered to your door every month for a low price. I say low price because I figured out an estimated cost of the items in the box and it’s about three times more than the actual cost you’ll pay for the box from Geek Fuel if you bought everything separately. Right there you’re getting an excellent value overall I think, but let’s take a closer look at everything so you can get a better idea of the stuff you can get in one of these mystery boxes from Geeks Fuel.

 

Specifications and Features

 

As a side note here, yes the box looks great, but I’m not sure that the whole bright red color scheme is the best, it sort of screams ‘steal me please’ and then it kind of says right there what’s in the box so everyone knows. If you’ve paid attention the news you’ll see it’s very common for packages to be stolen from people’s houses these days. Yes I understand the idea of the red box to make it stand out, but I personally would prefer a nice plain brown box myself.

 

When you open the box you’re greeted with some literature  and then on the top flap is some social stuff along with the Geek Fuel logo and slogan.

 

 

Included in the box you’ll find a mini Geek Fuel magazine, advertisement for Kitchen Fuel and a summary card that tells you everything that comes in the box.

  

 

The first thing is a Geek Fuel sticker of their mascot, the little robot like creature. The sticker is about 4 inches high and about 3 1/4 inches wide at it’s widest point. It’s vinyl and it’s hard to tell from the picture but the red parts do have a metallic look to them. It’s a nice quality sticker that I will be happily putting on my car.

 

Next up is the limited edition and hand numbered Geek Fuel T-Shirt. This isn’t some cheap Chinese T-Shirt, it’s a Hanes Tagless brand, so right there it’s a good shirt in my opinion. The T-shirt is nice and heavy and you can get it in several sizes, I got XL because I like my stuff a bit big, especially in the winter as I do like wearing thermal shirts under my clothes.

 

 

Next up is a Lord of the Rings themed poster from a company called Kitchen Overlord and I have to admit this is my least favorite item in the box as I just don’t care for goofy stuff like this, but that’s just me. The poster is a recipe for making Eye of Sauron themed snacks which do sound interesting and yummy.

 

  

 

 

Next up is Valiant Comics Armor Hunters #1 comic. The comic does come packaged in a protective plastic bag with cardboard backing to keep it safe in your collection.  It’s hard to tell from the picture but the comic does have a foil style cover and it is embossed. Yes I did open it up and read it and it seem like a decent series and I’d like to find out what happens next…

 

Next up we have something video game themed, a Mega Bloks Halo figure from the Alpha series.

 

 

In the box I got the Covenant Brute figure but it’s random so I think you can get any of the Alpha Series in the box. It’s only eight pieces including the stand so it was very simple to put together and yes there are basic directions included as well.

 

 

You have to put him together and you’ll find it’s a partial camouflaged version of the Brute.

  

 

 

Up next is everyone’s favorite I think, a Pez dispenser with candy, but this one is Star Wars themed and I got C-3PO. Yes I know by opening it I totally devalued the collectability of it but my nine year old loves Pez and he saw it as I was opening the box and just had to have the candy, I kept the dispenser though…

  

  

  

 

 

The little red velvet bag is next and inside of that you’ll find The Princess Bride The Brute Squad Playing Cards Deck which is from a company called Albino Dragon. I thought it was kind of funny that I got this in the box as Amazon recently had  a sale on The Princess Bride blu-ray and I bought it and watched it just a few days before these cards arrived.

 

 

I should note these are Bicycle brand playing card so they’re not some cheap cards you’re getting. The backs of the cards are The Princess Bride themed with a mirror image on top and bottom. Included are all the common cards along with two additional ones, The Princess Bride cast of characters card and a scene from the movie card which I see I didn’t get a picture of.

 

The cards are fairly stiff but they are very well waxed, they just slipped right out of my hands a few times actually, after some use though the wax should wear down and they won’t be as slippery. The cards overall though are high quality and should last for many years I would expect.

 

All of the face cards feature comic versions of the characters in the film.

  

  

 

The regular playing cards look good as well, but they just resemble standard cards.

 

 

Lastly there are the two Joker cards included:

 

Geek Fuel says that you’ll get at least $40 worth of stuff so I was curious as to how much it might cost to buy everything so I did a little research.

The poster is from a company called Kitchen Overlord and it costs $10 plus shipping from their Etsy store.

-Couldn’t find exact one though I got in the box, the background was different other than that it was the same it looks to me. So about $10 seems to be right and an average for Star Wars themed new

 

The Princess Bride – The Brute Squad Playing Cards Deck – $14.99 but this deck is on sale right now for $9.99

These are actually from a company called Albino Dragon which makes all sorts of gaming products.

On Amazon it doesn’t say if it’s the foil edition like I received and I’m not sure if it comes with the bag and backing either, but we’ll go with $12 as a guesstimate.

Quality printed T-Shirts can easily cost $15 to $20
For example I got the QMX Fighting Elves Firefly T-Shirt from Amazon which cost me $20, so that’s about right, I’d say $20 for the T-Shirt.

It’s also a limited and hand numbered shirt so which does add some value I would expect but I’m not including that in the pricing as that kind of value is hard to really determine.

 

The Geek Fuel sticker was the hardest to price really, but it is nice and seems good quality so I’d have to say about $3 maybe as a rough guess.

 

So if we add everything up (rounding things a bit):

$10 + $9 + $10 + $10 + $12 + $20 + $3 = $74

$74 is well over $40 I‘d say, and that’s a low figure I think really as I didn’t include the shipping cost in some of the prices as it wasn’t plainly listed.

If you or I would have bought this box it would have cost $23.90 shipped, so I think getting about $75 worth of stuff is worth paying about $24.

I should also note that’s the single box price, the more you subscribe to the lower the initial price gets. So, for example, if you subscribe for one year you’ll pay $19.90 per box shipped and even get three extra mystery items.

You can also take into account that a lot of these things might become more valuable over time, if you don’t open them of course , so that’s something you might want to take into account as well.

 

Conclusion

I’m sure the first question everyone would ask about a mystery box is ‘Is it worth it?’ and I have to say YES, very much so.

The figure of $74 I came up with for the overall cost of the items is just a rough estimate and I think that’s a bit low honestly. Even at that price it’s hard to argue with the fact that you’re getting items worth approximately three times what you’re paying for, that’s a very good value I think.

The prices are very reasonable for what you get and the more you subscribe to the more you’ll get like extra bonus items on top of the monthly boxes.

The bonus here of course is that everything is geek or nerdy themed, we’ve got Star Wars, Halo, The Princess Bride and Lord of the Rings all right there in one box. There’s also number one comic, a T-Shirt and a cool little sticker too and I for one would be very happy getting something like this every month in my mailbox.

The Geek Fuel Monthly Mystery Box is one of those things that I would love to be getting every month, it would certainly make me look forward too getting mail again.

The Geek Fuel motto is ‘Join the revolution against stale mail’ and I think they’ve vey much achieved that, it’s much better than getting bills that’s for sure.

The bottom line here is that yes, Geek Fuel boxes are very much worth the price and I think any geeky, sci-fi, fantasy or gaming fan would be more than happy to see one of these waiting for them in their mailbox.

 

Pros:
+Well worth the cost
+Lots of cool stuff included
+Great presentation
+Inexpensive for what all you get

Cons:
-Bright red, thief attracting box

 

Grading	Scores Out of 10
Overall
Design / Aesthetic
Value / Price
Performance / Usage

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