gashapon and the cosmic balance

Remember when you were little you could walk into any grocery store and there'd be those capsule machines you could stick a quarter or two in and twist that handle to get one of whatever was advertised on the front. And the advert would suggest you "collect them all" even tho there was no way in hell your parents would give you that many quarters to empty the machine in search of the one you were missing to get the whole set of figurines or stickers or whatever?

Well, capsules are an insanely big business in Japan. They're called "gashapon" and you can get capsules of just about anything - up to and including novelty sex toys and womens' phone numbers! But let's not go there...
Now and again, I'll either mail order (or buy them as a treat to myself on a trip over in Toronto) complete sets of vinyl figures for bargain-basement prices of only about $50 for a set of 10. Fifty is too much you say? Let's not forget that gashapon are in a class all their own... they're like little action figures... almost. The sculpt is amazingly detailed for such a tiny little 3-inch-tall person. And in the case of my Macross minis, they have a sentimental value.

Anyway, the local shop in town usually stocks several series of blind-packaged minis. And the sucker that I am, I will usually throw one into my basket while buying my weekly fix of comics. And despite my loyalty for doing so, the Universe has seen fit to mock me at every turn... I always manage to get duplicates in the set within the first 2 or 3 purchases. See my record:

Classic Transformers "mini statues": I bought 2 boxes - they bother turn out to be Rumble (the guy who turned into a cassette tape).

SD Transformers "cute figures": I bought 2 - the first was Starscream, the second was Optimus Prime. The third was ...you guessed it - Starscream again.

Street Fighter "Chun-Li and Cammy in a various fighting poses": I bought two from the first series. As luck would have it, I managed one of each of the characters. I bought a third from the repaint series to make sure I couldn't possibly get a duplicate... out of the 4 remaining sculpts I could've found... I got a duplicate of one of the sculpts I already had. Sheesh.

The Cosmic balance is at work tho...
In 4 boxes Macross, thus far I've found 4 different minis from the set. Meaning the last of the 5 will be naturally difficult to get. I could however bypass luck and order this one.
...But that'd be cheating, wouldn't it? Actually I have an even better cheat. I seem to recall seeing the missing piece on display at the shop. I think I'll just ask the shop keep if I can buy the display sample right off his shelf. :P