Albany Comic Con : The Haul – Part III

So, we’ve seen some comics, some trading cards and some toys.  Well, today we’ll close out with a few more toys.  Action figures, to be exact.

Shockwave is mostly complete, as you can see.  When I made the purchase, everything looked to be in order.  When I got home and did some research, I found that one of the included guns does not go with this figure.  It is the same color, but the type of gun isn’t correct.  I’m sure that this was an honest mistake, and 7 dollars is fair for what I got.  The only real issue I have, is that the figure will not stay standing when I put his back pack on.  When I was a kid, I must’ve had this figure on 3 or 4 separate occasions.  Maybe it the design on his uniform, because version 2 of Storm Shadow had almost the same pattern, and I must’ve got him 3-4 times as well.

Major Bludd is the 3rd version of the figure, and was released as part of the Battle Corps line.  I found him in a $1.50 bin, but the seller(who I’ve dealt with in the past), said a dollar for him would be fine.  He has some type of harness on him, that doesn’t belong to him, but I don’t just want to chuck it.  Although the figure is stamped 1991, it was released in 1994.  I’m guessing this is just a repaint of an existing figure.  I like it though.

8 dollars for 2 Joes is a decent deal, considering that Shockwave has been on my want list for quite some time now(gotta wait ’til you find a price your comfortable with).

Trade With Action Figs & Things – Part III

This is the third, and final part of the recent trade with Action Figs & Things.

Everything in this trade was awesome, but I saved my favorite for last.

These were 2 needed additions to my old-school TMNT collection.  My focus on the line is diverted to unique characters, with little focus on Turtle variations(there are a few exceptions).  I’ve wanted to add Splinter to the collection for a while, but I always seem to find him without his robe.  For me, the robe needs to be included, in orderr to warrant a purchase.  This remedies that situation.

Triceraton is another figure that I’ve had at the top of my list, and he even came with his blaster.  This figure was released in 1990.  But the Triceraton race actually has it’s roots in the old-school TMNT comics.  So this figure has a lot going for it.

Due to limited space at the moment, Splinter will probably be the only one of the 2 to be displayed(the M.U.S.C.L.E.s and Nemesis Enforcer will be on display as well).

Thanks again Anthony!

Yard Sales #16 – Season Finale

Well, yesterday kicked off the beginning of fall.  I can’t say that I mind the change.  Although I’m going to miss the nice weather, the fall season has it’s perks.  One of them is not yard sales.  I’m sure this will be my last post about yard sales until April-May 2013.  And it’s sad, because you can really find some great stuff(for some great prices).  It’s really hit or miss when it comes to thrift stores and second hand shops(not to mention hit or miss prices…everyone is an expert 🙂 ).  But this installment yielded a very nice selection of stuff that I’m into.

We’ll start with cool, and end with coolest.

This was one of two Alfs spotted at the first sale that we stopped at.  This one and the other that I passed on were from a Burger King promotion, back in 1988.  This one had it’s tag intact(the other didn’t), so I figured it was worth the $1 asking price.  This will fit nicely with my unintentional Alf collection(we’ll have to see that one of these days).

Anything Zelda related is a must-buy in my book, as it’s my favorite video game franchise ever(I’m sure I’ve mentioned this a bunch of times)!  The best part is that the woman running the sale only wanted $1 each!  Both of these guides are for Twilight Princess.  The awesome hard cover edition is normally selling for $20-$30 dollars(or more).  And I’m sure the other(the Nintendo Power one), goes for around the same.  The thing with finds like these is, while they may be worth a little something on the secondary market, I’m not really inclined to get rid of them.

A little confession.

Twilight Princess, while I own it(for gamecube), and it’s from my favorite franchise, it’s the only Zelda game I have never played(I will work to rectify that)!

I got these at Richie Rich’s(you’ve heard about this place from me plenty of times before), so this may be consideere cheating…but I went to Richie’s while I was yard saling.  So, it counts.  These guys were hidden behind a few plush bears, but I spotted them!  They were marked at $4 each.  I countered with $1 each(they’re pretty rough).  I was told that I could take them at $2 each.  But the American Picker in me offered $3 for both.  And my deal was accepted.  Panthro appears to be okay, and his “action” works(for the most part).  Monkian’s face is roughed up badly, and his “action” does not work at all.  The villians from Thundercats seem hard to come by, and any Monkian, is better than no Monkian.

Normally, old-school Thundercats figures would be the find of the day.  But that was not the case this time around.

Oh no.  I found these guys!

Germs!  I hardly remember these guys, and I’ve seen them on a bunch of sites, but I’m having a hard time recalling if I actually owned any!  They seem right up my alley, and I immediately knew what they were when I saw them on a table ten feet away from me.  For 50 cents each, there was no way I was leaving them behind.

On the right is “Huppahickasilia”; “Commonly known as the hiccup”*.  And on the left we have “Sweatystinkiosis”; “Commonly known as body odor”*.  These are very fun, and quite nice looking to the eye.  It’ll be a fat chance before I find any of these again!

When I took them out of their test tubes(I’d take a guess that these are often missing), they felt(and smelled like ), they were brand new.  Taking a look at what the going rate for some of these, I’d say they were a pretty sweet find!  But as always, I’m not interested in getting rid of them!

What a great way to send off the 2012 season!

* – information obtained from The Dork Dimension.

Yard Sale Finds #15

I had high expectations for yard sales for the past couple of weeks.  And while I have found some things, there hasn’t been much that has interested me.  On top of that, some people are asking for too much for a lot of things.  This past weekend, I found a handful of things.  The weekend before, I hardly found anything.  So I lumped both weekends together, to make a more robust post.

First we’ll start with some reading material.

I am nowhere near as into wresting as I was back in the day.  I stopped watching somwhere back in 2002.  It seemed like it was more of a soap opera more than anything else.  I liked to watch it for the matches, and it seems like there’s too much dialogue, and plots to actually give you that consistantly.  But Hulk Hogan has been a favorite of mine since I was like 5 years old.  And from what I’ve read in the past, wresting biographies are a decent read.  This book has a cover price of $26!  But I got it for 25 cents.  So even if it’s horrible, I won’t be kicking myself for buying it.  The Guiness Book of World Records, is a bit dated since it’s the 2004 edition(not to mention it’s the paperback).  But it’s always a good book to flip though, making it perfect bathroom reading.  And for 25 cents, it was hard to resist.

Everything above set me back $3.75.  The Game Cube games were a mere $1 each.  Which was refreshing, because you have people these days, trying to sell the crappiest PS2 games for $5 or more.  The same people were also selling Wii games for $3 each(these people had great prices for everything), but there wasn’t anything I was interested in.  Bloodsport was still in the factory shrinkwrap, and was sold to me for $1.50.  I bought it at “The World’s Biggest Yard Sale”(it really wasn’t), from a seller who had probably more than 1000 DVDs(some brand new, and some used).  I didn’t stick around for too long to check everything out, as people were all up on this great deal.  The Pee-Wee’s Playhouse tape was 25 cents at a sale we stopped at later in the day.  It’s one of the original VHS releases from 1988.  The funny thing is that I found a brand new VCR head cleaner(still sealed with the FYE price tag in tact), which comes in handy, since I do have a small collection of VHS tapes.

Pretty much the only toys I saw were either newer toys from properties that were from somwhere in the last 10 years, or they were of the fast food variety.  So it was slim pickin’s.

Although her nose seems to be chewed off, there was no way I could turn down this Cheetarah figure for 50 cents.  She was my last fing of the day, and I almost didn’t see her!  I’m happy if I could find figures from the eighties, as they are getting harder and harder to find in the wild.  My old-school Thundercats collection is lacking, so I’ll take what I can find.  And lastly, I found a Micro Machine for 25 cents.  Unlike my last yard sale post, this one is an official Micro Machine by Galoob.  I checked on that before I inquired about it.  I probably still would have bought it even if it “wasn’t the real thing!”.

And that’s it.  I did pick up a few new things that I plan on reviewing this week.  I know I was MIA in July for the most part, but I would like to rectify that.  I have the urge to write more, and I have some stuff that I want to write about(a winning combination).

One of My All-Time Favorite Figures

This here is Fat Frenchy.  He was part of the Refrigerator Rejects, from the Food Fighters line.  While not as wildly popular as many other 80s toy lines, they are some of the coolest and most interesting looking toys from best decade for action figures.  I would love to get more from this line, or actually, get the complete line.  I scored this guy on the Bay about 4 years ago, for like, $3.00.  Expect to pay no less than 10 bucks most of the time.  The figures came with guns and back packs(like G.I. Joe), which mine is sadly missing(alhough he is now holding that sweet Lamb of God guitar pick).  Fat Frenchy is one of my favorites because I love the idea of anthropomorphic food.  And this was the one and only Food Fighter I owned when I was a kid.

Food you can play with.  🙂

Yard Sale Finds #9

Before we get to what I was able to find at the sales this weekend, I want to share my thoughts on the latest Transformers movie.  For what it is, it’s a good movie.  I have realized that movies cater to the masses, and everything evolves and changes as time goes by.  If this helps get the newer generations into the property, that’s cool.  Of course it’s not exactly what I wanted to see, but I’m happy it’s come as far as it has.  It was entertaining and that’s the bottom line.  I could be selfish and go into how I would have made it the perfect movie, but that would only be my opinion.

Now that that’s over with, let’s get to what I was able to find on this past weekend’s excursion.

We left for the sales this weekend a lot later than usual (12:15pm).  This may have been a factor in why little caught my attention.  The best deals are to be had early in the morning.  But I did manage to score a few deals.

I bought the vhs tape, hoping that there might some old commercials on it.  I haven’t been able to screen it yet, so I don’t know if it was a valid purchase.  But it was only 25 cents, so it was worth a shot.  The Rubik’s Cube was a good deal at a quarter as well, being that it’s not in the greatest condition(but it’s an original).  The Halloween II dvd is in pristine condition and was a steal for $1.00.

Here we have a Muppet Babies growth chart(1991) and the February 1987 issue of Radio Electronics.  I am saving the growth chart for when we have a child of our own, and it was free!  The magazine was a dime.  There is an ad that I want to share for a later post, and than I want to donate it to a site that can appreciate it.  Here’s a full size shot of the growth chart(it’s pretty cool).

The items that you have just seen are the least interesting of what I was able to find.  Now you’ll see the stuff that I was more than happy to take home.

Each of these guides cost me a quarter each.  There was a stack of them that also included Animal Crossing and a few Star Wars games.  They were all either Nintendo Power or Official Prima Strategy Guides.  I have only played Super Mario Sunshine once, but you can never go wrong with Mario(i’ll get the game someday).  Wind Waker is my second favorite Zelda game(i know a lot of hard core gamers hate this game, but I love it).  I have beaten the game numerous times, but this will help me finish it 100%(getting all of the figurines is hard as hell!).

Each of these games cost only $1.00 each!  I bought Defcon 5 at the same sale I bought Halloween II at.  It doesn’t have the instruction manual, but it’s my first”tall box” PS1 game, and it only ran me a buck!  I found the 3 SNES games in a box of SNES games, but all of the games were sports games.  The 3 I bought(while still in the sports genre), were ones I needed and were the best of the lot.  At this sale, I also found Pokemon Red for Game Boy Color, and the guy running the sale gave it to me for free.  I tried to play it when I got home, and it instantly powers off when you try to turn it on.  If anybody knows why this would happen, please let me know.

And lastly…here’s the toys I was able to score.

From left to right we have a Burger King Capitol Critters toy from 1992(remember that show?).  I believe this is Max at the Jefferson Memorial.  Then we have Breakfightin’ Raphael from 1989, but his Wacky Action doesn’t work.  The Jawa is a Burger king toy from 2005.  Reptar has a sparking action(that works).  I don’t know where this specific Reptar came from, but he’s really cool(Brian also found him about a week ago).  The Stegosaurus has 2 things going for him.  1)- Dinosaurs are awesome and 2)- He glows in the dark.  Each of these items ran me a quarter a piece.

The Jawa has this neat feature.

Kind of creepy, huh?

And lastly, we have this.

I haven’t been able to identify the vehicle, which is stamped 1988.  The figure which is stamped 1991, is Bushido(version 2), who is from the Shadow Ninjas line.  Although he’s stamped 1991, this figure was actually released in 1994.  These figures had a cool gimmick that was a great gimmick in the eighties and early-to-mid nineties.  From yojoe.com….”When exposed to water and light, the figure’s color would change.”

Well, that’s all this time around.  Not too bad considering how late we left.

And before you go, I have a little poll for you guys.

You guys know that Transformers is one of my favorite lines, right?  Well, over the past couple of months, I have accumulated a handful of carded figures from various lines(around 4 or 5), and plan on reviewing them all eventually.  My question is…which would you like to see?  I will not give their names, but I will give you a choice of different lines(please see below).

1)- Transformers: Dark of the Moon

2)- Transformers Animated

3)- Transformers Generations

4)-Transformers Universe

5)- Transformers: Hunt for the Decepticons

Some of these have been stewing for a little while, while others have been picked up recently.  Maybe I’ll do them back to back until I review all 5 of them.  If that’s the case, list the order in which you’d like to see them in.  Maybe a Transformers Week is in the cards?

A Look into One of My Non-Sports Trading Card Albums

I’ve shown you some of my favorite non-sports trading cards before.  Tonight I’m going to keep the theme, but add a little twist to it.  Instead of showing some single cards in top loaders, we’ll see full 9 card pages from one of my albums.  I’ll cover a good range, but have tons more for future follow ups.

I’m pretty sure that I started collecting trading card before I started to get into collecting comics.  It started with getting some albums full of baseball cards from my older brother and step brother.  The eighties and early nineties were a great time for non-sports trading cards.  This was before companies started adding chaser cards with their various gimmicks.  Most non-sports cards were a regular set of cards and a set of stickers.  Topps had tons of licenses for all the popular properties.  And if you bought a pack of cards manufactured by Topps during this time, you also got the requisite stick of their famous now stale gum.  When the cards were new, the gum was a nice bonus.  But now the gum would be old and stale(trust me, this stuff went bad years ago.Do not eat it).  You can see a picture of this gum from one of my other card related posts here and here.

Here is the album we’ll be peaking into today.

There’s not a single Pokemon card in here!  That’s not to say that I don’t like Pokemon, because I actually do.  They remind me of Battle Beasts in a round about way.  I got into them when the craze started, and got this binder pretty cheap(and it’s officially licensed).  The Gameboy games were what really got me into the lore.  It’s not too bad, give it a chance!  But we’re not here to talk about Pokemon, I just wanted to explain the album choice.

First up…

We have a sampling of my Punisher cards.  The Punisher has been my favorite Marvel character ever since I started collecting comics.  I especially like the old school prismatic sticker(I’ve had this for a long time).  Some of these were found in packs, while others were found in binders in card shops and conventions.

Here we have some stickers from Topps’ Nintendo Game Packs from 1990.  I’ve talked about the cards in a previous post, and briefly mentioned the stickers.  Some of these stickers are pretty ridiculous, but they’re fitting of the time period.  While I’m missing 4 cards from the set, I do have the complete set of stickers.  On the reverse side, they have “Top Secret Tips”.  And I stand by my assessment that they’re bullshit!  Not only did every kid know the tips, but a lot of them were the lamest ones!  I’ll even give you proof with a scan from the backs of the above stickers.

While the tips suck, I love the design!  Any time I think of a spy, that’s exactly what I would imagine.

Aaaaaahhhhhhhh!!!!  One of my favorite shows and toy lines of all time!  These are Pee-Wee’s Playhouse trading cards.  They have 1988 Herman Toys printed on them, and I would guess that’s when they were released.  I never saw these when they originally came out, and I don’t feel like finding the wrapper to find out, so we’ll assume that they were released in ’88.  These were something special.  Topps went a different route with this set than they did with any of their other licenses.  These were sold in “Fun Packs”.  Fun Packs we’re more like a trading card goodie bag.  You get cards, temporary tattoos, stickers and a lenticular card in every pack!  You can usually find loose packs on Ebay for as low as $1.50 a pack(although most will overcharge for them, so shop around).

These are some of the cards for the custom comic art from Mallrats(I guess these would be considered a sub-set).  If you’ve seen the movie, these were shown during the end credits.  When I worked at Tower Video, we got all types of cool stuff.  As soon as these hit the shelf, I bought the whole box(with a very nice employee discount)!  I thought that I made a complete set, and gave away all of my doubles.  But, I made a mistake, and my set is one card short of being complete.  😦

These are the first series of trading cards based on The Simpsons.  Released in 1990 by, you guessed it…Topps.  These were released around the time Simpsons-mania started.  The animation is rough compared to the polished look of The Simpsons today.  And that’s part of the charm!  The earlier episodes had a bit of a different feel to them compared to a bulk of the series.

I just have one last card to show you tonight.  This is just an awesome card from one of the most memorable scenes from any movie, period!  I’m thinking of using it for my banner.  What do you think?

I think this would work great for an anti-meth poster.  Dontcha think?  🙂

1988 California Raisins Sticker Album

I was searching for this for a long time.

Back when I was a kid, sticker albums were a decent alternative for the times we didn’t get toys.  They were pretty cheap, so it was pretty easy to sucker your parents into buying you one when you knew that a toy might be out of the question.  Why blow a chance to get something, right?  Most of the time stores would sell the albums right along side packs of the stickers.  But there were also times you could find an album pre-packaged along with packs of the corresponding stickers.  I got this one pre-packaged with the sticker packs.

I had this specific album 2 times growing up, but I only remember the second one coming pre-packaged.  Panini was the company that usually put these stickers and albums on the market, but Diamond produced this one.  The stickers available were of the claymation Raisins as well as their cartoon counterparts.  These raisins were a hot property during the latter stages of the eighties.

The ten packs yielded only 3 doubles, and I still have a long way to go to complete the book.  I took my time and tried to put them in as straight as possible.  Some of the stickers didn’t match up when you had 2 or 4 stickers to complete a scene.  But I guess that’s expected from something like this, considering the time it came out.  Not only did you get to have fun collecting the stickers for this album, but the whole inside of the book is all in 3-D!

The book comes with 2 “Slide-O-Scopes”, rather than the traditional 3-D glasses.  It works by sliding the cover over the red and then the blue, and vice versa.  It works well enough.

Here, on the inside back cover, we have an ad for the Diamond Collector’s Club.  Here you could order the stickers you needed to complete your collection.  Let’s face it, you’d have to buy a shit-load of stickers to complete one of these albums, so this was a much easier and cheaper alternative.  The funny thing is, is that they would only process orders for 10 or 20 stickers ONLY.  10 stickers for $1.00 or 20 stickers for $2.00 + a $1.00 handling charge.  Man, times have changed!

I’ll leave you with a few additional photos.

Jboypacman is the Epitome of Awesome!!

Today, I was expecting a package from Ebay, and was pleasantly surprised to also find a package from Jboypacman(see his blogs here and here).  I originally planned on doing a quick post of the little item from Ebay, but the contents of the box Jboy sent, totally eclipses it!  I was expecting the package…I just wasn’t expecting a toy lot of this size.  I’ll let the following photo do the talking.

So much awesome was packed into that box!  I broke it up into a few pictures, so we can get a better look at my Christmas in March.  We’ll start with Lt. Ripley(with face hugger) from Kenner’s 1992 Aliens line, Iron Man from Hasbro’s Marvel Universe line, a T-700 from the Terminator:Salvation line and Dr. Claw and MAD Cat from Tiger’s 1992 Inspector Gadget line.

And that’s just the beginning!  As you know, I’m a huge TMNT fan, and Jboy sent me not only a Raph PEZ dispenser, but he also sent 4 Turtle figures.  Three of which I didn’t have!!  We have Wacky Action Michaelangelo, 1988 Raphael(hard head), one that I believe is a Wacky Action Leonardo(I thought he was the only one without a Wacky Action figure, but I could be wrong), and a Leonardo figure(with arm action at the press of a button) from 2004.  Looks like I’ll be ordering more pizza.  🙂

But, wait there’s more!  He sent 4 sweet Transformers!  First, There’s Electrostatic Soundwave, with Ratbat.  Then there’s Decepticon Bludgeon(I just bought one this past weekend!  Now I’ll have one MIB).  Standing next to Decepticon Bludgoen(damn copyrights), is Tracks(1984 Takara).  And lastly we have Snapdragon, who is a 1987 Headmaster(missing his nebulan component, Krunk).  He also sent a Thor comic book that I forgot to photograph.

As I said when I opened the package, WOW!  Thanks again Jboy!  You put a big smile on this big kid’s face!  🙂

On a closing note, here’s what I got from Ebay.

It’s Cool Cat from the Puppetland Band, you may remember from Pee Wee’s Playhouse!  I would like to get Chicky Baby and Dirty Dog as well.  These guys don’t come up loose, often.  Pee Wee’s Playhouse is one of my absolute favorite toy lines, which explains why I paid $4.69 + shipping for this little guy(I wasn’t losing this time!).

I still have a bunch more stuff to talk about this week(as well as some packages on the way).  I’ll get another post up in a few days.  With the exception Cool Cat, Tracks is my favorite addition to the collection.  Which figure is your favorite?