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.

Prized Possessions and the “Tip of the Iceberg”

This week’s assignment from The League is “Prized Possessions”.  Brian asked us, “What is the one item in your collection you would save if your house was being swallowed by a sink hole, carried off in a tornado, and then swept away in a flood.”

It was a pretty quick decision.

I believe I bought this from a Toys R Us back in 1999.  When I was a kid in the eighties, I would’ve killed for the original(it was diecast, ya know).  But, I only owned the green lion, and my brother owned the red lion(the black lion is my personal favorite).  I happened to hit up the Toys R Us in White Plains on pay day, and there were 3 of these on the shelf.  It was the 5 lions, the five pilots and the “Blazing Sword” and shield.  A pretty good deal for the $29.99 asking price.  I didn’t even flinch…I wanted this!  While waiting for the train to go back home, I opened up the package and began to assemble it.

The box it came in is long gone, as I wasn’t the dork collector I am today.  One of the horns on the robot form’s head is missing, as is it’s spring-loaded missile on the back and one of the “wings” is also absent.  The only other thing missing is Pidge(the mini pilot for the green lion).  But it’s mine, and it’s also one of the toys that’s been in my collection the longest.

Check out what Colbey couldn’t leave behind over at Random Toy Reviews.

Shawn from Branded in the Eighties chooses to save a cuddley(sp?) friend.

Jon from Doubledumbassonyou picks a figure I never even knew existed(but it’s awesome!).

And, I went to a toy show today!  It was a small affair, but I did manage to get a few deals.  I want to spread them out over the next week(this gives me a few posts), so I’ll just show you guys the smaller stuff today.

These ALF figures were given away in Wendy’s kids meals sometime back in 1990(that’s what they’re stamped).  I’m a fan olf ALF, and for 50 cents each, I grabbed all 3.  They’re based on the short-lived animated show(that I liked, and the toy line is something I’d like to find a few of), but these look like they’re more specifically from ALF Tales(which were poplular fairy tales that featured ALF in the title roles(I have ALF Tales on dvd, and I can’t believe I haven’t watched it yet!  I’ll have to get on that).

And in the same box, I also found these.

Also, 50 cents each.  Any E.T. toy for fifty cents is a deal in my opinion, plus these are my favorite representations of the lovable alien.  The Happy Meal Koopa Paratroopa was in a line of toys given away in Happy Meals at McDonald’s back in 1990(check out a commercial for it here).  Just like the other one in my collection, it is missing the tube and bulb required to make it hop.  There are loads of these guys in the games, so I don’t mind owning 2 of them(they’re my favorite old school Super Mario enemies anyway).  The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle candy dispenser is made by Topps, but this piece is missing the bottom cover, so I don’t have a date for you.  But I would assume that it’s from around 1989-1990.  I remember buying tons of this candy back in the day, and it’s something I have never came across for sale, and at the price I paid, I’m happy.

I also managed to score a SNES game at a very nice price.

There was a kid there selling a Super Nintendo and 6 Super Nintendo games.  So I asked how much the games were.  He said that they were all $10, but Aladdin was $3!  I already own the other 5 games that were there, and this one usually sells for $10 or more.  It’s a fun platformer, and it’s from Capcom, so it’s also very visually appealing as well.

The best is yet to come.  I have a few really awesome toys we’ll see in the coming days(quite possibly tomorrow).

Yard Sale Finds #6

So, it’s been a week and a half since my last post.  For the Memorial Day weekend, my wife and I, along with a few friends decided to go camping.  It was nice to get away from civilization for a few days.  Upon my return, I just didn’t have the motivation(or any content really), to write.  While I do have lots of stuff I could write about, there just wasn’t anything new that was jumping at me for coverage.  But this weekend reinvigorated me with new finds and additions.  Not to mention that my blog here turned 1 this past May 31!

While we were camping, I was hoping to run across some wildlife.  There wasn’t much aside from your run of the mill birds and insects(too many), but I did have the pleasure of meeting of one wild acquaintance.

What you see in my hands above is an Eastern red-spotted salamander(or newt).  I found Newton here(that’s what I named him), walking across the forest floor after a brief rain shower.  These guys are not very fast and they’re extremely docile.

Fast forward to yesterday.  As I’ve mentioned recently, there are village wide garage sales starting to take place on the weekends.  This weekend was Richmondville Days.  This village wide sales happen around the same time every year, and Richmondville Days is the one I look forward to the most.  In past years, I have usually made my best finds here.  And this year did not disappoint.

It’s Gizmo!  He was a steal at 25 cents, and will make a great companion to the Mohawk I scored last year.

I’m not a huge Star Wars collector, but I do love me some sweet Star Wars toys.  On the left is a Stormtrooper Burger King toy from 2005 I found for a quarter.  There’s a button on the back, that when pushed, emits a light through the bottom of an Imperial logo.  It’s hard to explain, so I took a picture of it, just for you guys.

To the right is J’Quille(any relation to Shaq? 🙂 ).  From what it says on his card, he was in Return of the Jedi, and was sent to assassinate Jabba the Hutt.  But his plans “were rendered moot when Jabba was killed during the Rebels’ rescue mission at the Pit of Carkoon”.  I remember Jabba’s Sail Barge, but I don’t recall this fella(like I said I’m far from a die-hard fan).  But all of the different species in the Star Wars films look so friggin’ cool!  The lady I bought this from had about a dozen carded figures, and were selling them for 2 dollars each!  Hindsight tells me that I probably should of bought them all.  The only one I regret not buying is Rappertunie.

I picked up these three NES games for a total of $6.00.  Ghost Lion looks to be the best deal, as this game normally sells in the 20 dollar range.  I passed on the games I already have, except for Karnov, which was pretty beat up.  It’s always nice to add to the video game collection(especially NES and SNES), for a small sum.

Starting from the left we have a “Fright Features” Winston Zeddmore(his action works great), a four pack of miniature Ninja Turtles, Rahzar and Skeletor.  With the exception of  Skeletor, I bought this lot for $3.00 from this one old couple who always have great figures every year.  And Skeletor only ran me $1.50.

I found all of these fast food toys in a “free” box.  There’s 4 different BK TMNT toys, a Plankton toy(from BK as well), and a Furby(BK).  There were a ton of others that I had no interest in.

Ending the post with free fast food toys seemed pretty lame to me.  So here’s an added bonus.

All of these came from my friend Gary.  I found the ALF on the right under his porch about a week and a half ago and he said I could have it.  He gave me the other Alf and Darkwing Duck yesterday.

I also found a new soda yesterday(I found it when I was getting a couple of bottles of Pitch Black), that I’ll review tomorrow evening.

Toy Display Update

A while back, you guys saw when I first got a book case to display some of my collection in my bedroom.  Well, since then I have accumulated a ton of toys, and a couple of days ago I added some of them to the display.  Here’s what is now on display.

Of course, some stuff had to be switched around, but I don’t think I had to take anything down to accomplish this.  Click here to see what the display looked like when it first went up.

It’s great to be back!!

Wow!  It feels like I’ve been gone forever.  I don’t have a specific idea to go in depth about, but a few of you made some suggestion as to what you would like to hear about upon my return.  The 3 suggestions were toys, video games and something Christmassy(maybe catoons another time Bobby).

First up…toys.  During my absence, I did aquire a few things to add to the collection.  The first is the large plush ALF(officially licensed), my buddy Clark traded to me.  I also managed to find a Transformers Animated Voyager Class Skywarp(review coming soon) for the low price of $12.99 at Marshall’s.  And lastly, my step brother bought me Cybertonian Bumblebee as a Christmas gift(review coming soon as well…as soon as I figure out how to transform the friggin’ thing).

Next up, we have video games.  Jboypacman suggested that I discuss some of my video game interests.  Well, three letters define my favorite video games…N.E.S.  That’s not saying that I don’t play other systems though.  I still play SNES, gameboy, Gamecube and PS2(as well as a few PS1 games).  I just prefer the old school games.  I would love to get a Sega Master System or a Turbo Grafx 16 or even a Wii.  I collect Nintendo games for all of their systems, up to the Gamecube, but primarily for the NES.  Here are a few pics of my growing NES collection.

And lastly, Bobby suggeted cartoons and something Christmassy.  And while I don’t have anything cartoon related to post, it is Christmas time, so I decided to post a picture of our little Christmas tree.  I want to get a few Christmas related posts up, so I’ll see what I can do.  If you’re a fan of Christmas, I reccomend you check out the Advent Calendar over at X-entertainment, I promise, you won’t regret it.  I’ll see you guys in a few days(when I have something else to write about).

New toy display

Well, my computer is out of commission for the moment, so I’m posting this on the Clarkinator’s computer.  Recently, I got a bookshelf to display my loose toys in my bedroom.  The funny thing is, is that it was my wife’s idea.  Now, there are mostly MIB figures and such in “The Vault”.  Without further adieu, toys.

There’s the beast in all it’s glory!

Here’s a shelf by shelf breakdown

On top, we have my boxed N64, boxed Starfox 64 as well as a few random pieces.  You should know what the other stuff is(if you don’t, just ask).  If you look closely you’ll notice Superchicken!

The first shelf is the Transformers/robots shelf.  A mix of Transformers, Rock Lords, Battle Beasts, Voltron and Rokkon from MOTU.

Going down one shelf, we have the TMNT shelf.  This shelf is exclusively dedicated to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, except for the picture of Penny, remembered from Pee-Wee’s Playhouse.  The picture of Penny is actually cut out from the box of the talking Pee Wee I traded to my brother a couple years ago.

The third shelf is for my wife and I’s wedding memorabilia.

The third shelf of toys is a mix up of lots of great lines.

Here you will see Marvel super heroes from different lines, M.U.S.C.L.E. men, Thunder Cats, Ghostbusters, G.I. Joe and many other toy lines.  See how many different ones you can name.

The bottom shelf is stuff that I couldn’t fit on other shelves, or just didn’t belong on them.  I know this is blurry, so, below are a few shots from different angles(of all the shelves).

Well, there you have it.  My new toy display.  That’s not all the toys I own, but it is a nice chunk of them.  Others are stored away, the ones still in their package are still in “The Vault” and I’m certain that I’m not done with the collection yet(far from it).  So, what do you guys think?  Was it worth the wait?  Please share your thought in the comments.  You can even comment on what your favorite piece is.  And later in the day these pictures were taken, I acquired a big ALF plush from The Clakinator, in exchange for an E.T. that I had.  He is now seated on the shelf on the right side of the N64.  Pictures of him will surface at another time.

Yard sale finds #3

My most recent yard saling adventure was yesterday.  Everytime I decide to go, I think about the possibilities.  The possibilities of finding the ultimate bargain.  You know, a box of Transformers, for ten bucks.  Something to that effect.  Well, that did not happen on my most recent excursion.  But I did manage to buy some pretty cool stuff, without spending a lot of cash.  I’ll just cut to the chase, and show you the loot.

The first sale I hit up yielded this guy.  An excellent value at only ten cents.

I don’t know about you.  But I loved the Beetlejuice cartoon.  I remember when these came with a Burger King kid’s meal, and I thought they were pretty sweet back then!  There’s no action or posability, but they’re nice to look at.  The toys had one character from the show on one side and a different character on the reverse.  This particular one has Beetlejuice as a snake charmer on one side.

And a sand worm on the reverse.

The next handful of items were found at a single sale.  Up first.  Coming in at fifty cents, we have……

An old school Pepsi can.  I believe this is from the late eighties or early ninties.  The ingredients include high fructose corn syrup.  So whenever they made the switch from sugar.  One thing that is absent from this can, as opposed to cans of today, is the nutritional information that is on almost every food package.  Simpler times.

Every item in the next photo was in a bag for a whopping total of fifty cents!

The brightly colored Batman Beyond figure was what brought my attention to this merry group figures.  He is sadly missing one of the two detachable wings that clip onto his shoulders.  The newer version of Skeletor made up for that though.  Then, there’s Shaggy from Scooby-Doo, who will get sold, as well as the two guys on the left(I have no idea who they are.  If you can help me, let me know).

The next two items were bought for laughs as well as the nostalgia.

I have never seen this particular Robin Hood movie, and I was not a fan of 90210, although I know a lot of the characters.  One of my favorite things about this purchase is, the Kay Bee price sticker.  It’s a nice reminder of my favorite toy store.  The price tag has the 90210 cards marked for 79 cents.  I scored both packs for just a buck!  These could make for a review in the future.

And the final item(it was the first thing I saw) from this stop is…

This was my favorite find from this sale.  I remember all different bears made just like ALF here.  You squeeze his shoulders and his arms open up to clip him onto something(rear view mirrors were popular).  I have never seen an ALF version though.  He was in a Ziploc bag and  he’s as soft as the day he was bought.  I would rather have this guy than the fifty cents I traded for him.

Next, we stopped at a used furniture and gift establishment.  This place isn’t too far from home and we’ve passed it hundreds of times.  Yet, this would be our first time to set foot in the joint.  There was way more furniture than gifts.  There is a silver lining to this.  Here it is.

This is a McDonald’s mug from 1995.  Didn’t McDonald’s promote some 3 patty burger for this movie?  I think, if you bought any size Extra Value Meal, you had the option to buy one of the however many for a nominal fee.  I could of had the other four mugs that were displayed with this one for three more dollars, but decided against it.  Three of the remaining four were Robin ones, and the last on was a Riddler one that was smaller than this one(maybe part of another set?).

The last sale we hit up yielded a lone item.  But a sweet item.  At just a dime, well worth it.

Judging from a small Pepsi logo and a small Universal Studios Monsters logo, I would surmise that this is a collector’s cup from Taco Bell from sometime in the ninties.  It displays the Monsters in a different light by showing The Mummy playfully giving The Wolfman a noogie.  Since I first laid eyes on it, it has definitely upped my Halloween spirit.  Well that’s the latest haul, and it may be the final of the season.  But who knows?

Trading Cards

For today’s post, I wanted to talk about something a little different, but I’m sure many have indulged in.  Just as there was toys and comic books for cartoons and movies, there were trading cards.  For me, collecting comics and trading cards went hand in hand.  Sure, I collected baseball cards in the beginning, but then I found non-sports trading cards.  Just as there were kids trading their Pokemon cards at school 10 years ago, I remember trading Marvel Universe trading cards before class.

These things were all the rage in my school.  Even if you weren’t into comics, you collected these cards.  For me though, these were an awesome addition to the comics I was reading and collecting.  There were cards of characters you knew and ones for those that you weren’t familiar with.  But with these cards, they added something every kid pined for.  Randomly inserted into these packs were 5 different hologram cards for kids to collect.  I think on average, there were 2-3 holograms per box.  I learned a trick to finding the holograms before you bought a pack from a kid a grade above me.  These packs were made of plastic.  If you scratched a small hole on the front of the pack, you would see if that pack had a hologram(all of the hologram cards manufactured were the first cards in the packs that contained them).  Of couse, store owners and employees realised this and had to place them closer to the registers.  To get around this, I found out another way to find out which packs had those precious hologram cards.  If you placed 2 packs side by side, you could tell which packs had holograms by finding which packs were just a bit taller compared to the other packs(hologram cards were just a bit thicker than ordinary cards).

Here are two sealed packs from 1991.  Sorry, I’m not going to open them today.

And these are the cards

As you can see, there were a few different sub-sets.  We have Super Heroes, Super Villains, Rookies, Famous Battles and some cheesy Spider-Man interview cards(not pictured).  On the back of each card it gave you some stats, such as, their real name(if known), their height and weight, as well as the comic book they first appeared in and their win/loss record.  On the bottom of the card backs there were little trivia blurbs, titled, “Did you know?”.

I bought countless packs of these and eventually completed the set and had each of the 5 holograms.  Of course, alot of wheelin’ and dealin’ went on.  For some reason, it seemed that the card of Quasar was the most difficult to obtain, and he’s like a D-list character!  This was the first of many wildly successful comic book trading card series

Of course comic books weren’t the only cards that got the trading card treatment.  If you’re around the same age as me(31), I’m sure you remember Nintendo being a way of life for a good chunk of years.  There was merchandise for everything Nintendo.  Games, magazines, sheet sets, stationary and toys.  In 1989 our good freinds at Topps, put Nintendo GamePack trading/scratch and win cards on the market.  There were one of three Nintendo characters on the wrappers.  There was Mario(of course), Princess Peach and Link.

Here is an unopened pack with Link on the wrapper.

And here are the cards.

The idea behind these cards was the same idea of scrtch-off lottery tickets.  On the back of the card, they showed you all of the possible icons you would uncover by scratching the different spots on the front, and their meaning.  Your objective was the same as the game that the card represented.  There were six different games represented, with a total of 10 different cards for each game.  The games represented are, Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros.2, The Legend of Zelda, The Adventure of Link, Punch-Out!! and Double Dragon.  In addition to the 3 trading cards cards you got in every pack you also got 2 stickers.  On the back of these stickers there were “Top Secret Tips”. Most of these so-called ‘tips”, were bullshit!  Almost every kid on earth knew them already!  Maybe I’ll show you some examples in a future post.  The cards were pretty much useless after you scratched them, but that didn’t stop me from buying a whole lotta them!

The last set of cards we’ll revisit are cards that I went absolutely nuts for in the 3rd grade.  I present to you…ALF trading cards.

In 1987 our friends at Topps(seriously, is there a property they didn’t make cards after?), unleashed ALF trading cards to the masses.  As you can tell from the picture above, the cards must have been successful, as they released a 2nd series.  In each of these packs, you got 5 cards, 1 sticker and 1 stick of Topps’ famously stale gum(do not eat!).  I remember trading my regular cards and stickers for the “Bouillabaseball” cards.  These cards were cartoon drawings of different Melmacians that played on various bouillabaseball teams.  I have no idea how they came about, but I loved them.  They had a weirdness about them that totally spoke to me.

Here’s a few of the cards and stickers you could have got.

And there you have it!  A few of the many trading cards marketed to the kids we all once were.  I wouldn’t say that I won’t do a similar post in the future, as I have a huge selection in my personal collection.  I hope you had fun on this trip back in time.  And with the famous line from Jerry Springer…”‘Until next time America”.