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).

Reminiscing With Old Comic Book Ads #2

This past weekend, there was a little(and I do mean little), comic convention at the local SUNY college.  There were a handful of vendors, and lots of people playing Magic The Gathering.  There was a Batman coloring contest, for which they only suplied you with crayons to color him with.  I of course went with the old-school blue and gray look, that he sported in Super Friends.  I had only $5 to spend, so I had to spend it wisely.  So, I went ahead and checked out the $1 boxes, and found 5 comics that I thought were worth picking up.  Four out of the five ended up being New Mutants comics.  But were her to talk about the ads contained within.

Above is the cover for The New Mutants #100, which, as you can see, was the final issue of the series.  The characters you see in The New Mutants are the members who ended up making X-Force.  Even though the cover is done by Rob Liefeld(ugh), it’s still very memorable to me.  This issue hit stands a few months before I turned 12, so this was a time when I was heavily into comics.

On the inside cover, we have an ad for Double Dragon III for the Nintendo Entertainment System.  While I presently own all 3 Double Dragon games for the NES, I only had and played the first one when I was a kid.  This ad had me believing that this was a can’t-miss game.  It’s okay, but it’s not the blockbuster my younger self thought it would be.

Now this was a game I had and played!  In my opinion, I find this to be the second best Mega Man game on the NES(with Mega Man 2 being the best).  This was a can’t miss series in the NES’s heyday.  The comics of this era are peppered with NES ads(which is awesome), and this was one of the better ones.  Some of the other ads had insae scenes depicted, which made the games seem a lot cooler than they actually were.

This is an ad I remember seeing a lot of!  I never got into playing Dungeons and Dragons, but believe me, this was an ad that peaked my interest every time I laid eye upon it.  Looking at it now, it still has me interested.

Here’s an ad for one of the hardest Nintendo games ever!  I have never played this game, even to this very day.  I definitely wouldn’t mind adding it to my collection, but I don’t think it would get played very often.   But wait there’s more!

This Silver Surfer contest gave you a chance to win you very own “Customized Silver Surfer Jet-Ski”.  I wonder if anyone really won this, and if it still exists.  Hell, I’d like to see what the Silver Surfer watches look like.  You had to send in a photo of your high score to enter, and you could enter as many times as you wanted.  I would really like to see the high scores that won prizes.

This is another one I remember seeing a lot of!  I’m pretty sure I bought a few 3 Musketeers bars because of ads like this.  I mean, c’mon, reading comics and eating candy go perfectly together(as long as none of the said candy ends up on the comic).

Is it any surprise that the las ad in this comic is another ad for an NES game?  This is by far, my favorite ad in this comic.  Nintendo and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were 2 of my biggest childhood vices, and this put both together.  Yes, there was an NES Turtles game before this one, but this was the game to have!  I just love how the arcade cabinet is dripping with retromutagen ooze.  So many things to like in this one.

There were only 3 ads I did not cover(not including ads for subscriptions).  2 Were for baseball cards, and another was for a sci-fi book club.  But let’s not forget that I bought four other comics.  And I plan on covering the ads from those as well.  There will be a little variety, as the comics range from 1982-1989.

A Great Weekend

I had a fantastic weekend!  Quite a few additions have been made since Friday.  We got our tax refund this past Wednesday, and most of it was put to good use(paid off our cars).  This was actually perfect timing.  Since January, the “Battle in Space” Rodimus and Cyclonus were the only toys that I bought.  So this past weekend I got to have a little fun.  Today I will detail the haul that I got from non-retail establishments.  Tomorrow I will detail the my findings from retail establishments.

My wife and I had a movie gift card that we still had from Christmas.  We knew we were going to Albany to go shopping, so we figured we would go see the movie “Paul”(it was quite funny and I would recommend seeing it).  My acquisitions from Friday were all retail, so you’ll have to wait until tomorrow to see them.

We’ll start off with the package from Ebay that I received yesterday(the first of a few that I won).

The California Raisins sticker album with ten packs of stickers included!  I’ve actually been looking to find one of these for quite a while now.  I’m not going to say too much about it right now, as I plan on doing a full review of this later this week(I’ve already taken all of the pictures for the post).  I love The California Raisins, and I have a special place in my heart for this sticker album.

We hit up a few local, thrift store-type places yesterday, and got a few good deals.

The first place we stopped at was Richie Rich’s Place.  I’ve wrote about a find or two from this place before, and he always gives us good deals.  We’ll start with the movies that we got.

These movies ran us 3 bucks a piece, for a grand total of 27 dollars!  We got Caddyshack, Cobra, The Shawshank Redemption, Texas Chainsaw Massacre – The Beginning, The Karate Kid, Beyond the Law(one of Charlie Sheen’s best movies), Kick-Ass, Dirty Love and Halloween II(Rob Zombie).  I had some of these at some point, but they either got lost or I got rid of them for some reason.  I know a lot of people didn’t care for the Halloween remakes, but I thought they were good for what they were.  Caddyshack was still sealed.

Next are a couple of SNES games that I found at Richie’s as well.

Cool Spot is a game that was on my “to get” list.  It’s a great fun game.  I think the graphics are vibrant and colorful, and generally fun.  It’s your run-of-the-mill platformer with “Spot” from one of 7-Up’s old ad campaigns.  I love advertising mascots, and Spot was one of the better ones(in my top 3, with The California Raisins and Domino’s “Noid”).  The second game is King of Dragons.  It’s not a game that I see often, and it’s by Capcom, so it should be decent.  Cool Spot was marked at $6 and King of Dragons was marked at $8.  I got both of them for $12.  These will go into my collection, but for fun, I looked up current selling prices for these on Ebay, and I think I did quite well.  Two Buy-it-Now auctions for Cool Spot were $9.99 + $3.99 shipping, and $15.00 + free shipping.  King of the Dragons had listings for $23.95 + $2.95 shipping, and $34.00 + $4.99 shipping.  Pretty good deal if I do say so myself!

Next I hit up the “Red Barn”, which I have wrote about in a previous post as well.  I ended up spending less than 2 dollars here, but found a few cool items.

First is this guy that I found for a quarter.

When I bought this, I thought it was John Candy form the “Camp Candy” cartoon.  But I think this guy is from a more recent show, who’s name I can’t recall.  But at 25 cents, I can’t say it was a waste of money.

This next item I bought for my wife.

When my wife was younger, she loved these Troll dolls.  This guy was 25 cents, while all the others were $2.  There are hundreds of different Trolls out there.  When my wife was younger, she would twist her troll’s hair like it is in the photo, and if her dad saw it, he would shake it up and blow on the hair, thus “messing it up”.  She would then twist it’s hair back to the way she originally had it.  This guy is dressed up as a pizza chef, and looks adorable.

Last up, for a dollar we have…

Mig-29 Soviet Fighter for the NES.  This is an unlicensed game released by Camerica.  Camerica’s games have gold or silver casings, their labels are upside down and have dipswitches on the reverse side of the cart(to be able to play in different situations).  I only have one other Camerica game(Ultimate Stuntman), and the only cosmetic difference between the 2, is that Ultimate Stuntman’s casing is gold.  As with the SNES games, I researched Ebay to see current selling trends.  Two Buy-it-Now’s were, $5.95 + $2.99 shipping, and $5.94 + $2.99 shipping.  Not bad, not bad.

That’s all for today.  Tomorrow I’ll post my retail findings.  I will also have another “finds” post later this week because…before I started typing this today, one of my friend’s stopped by and gave me a big tackle box full of figures and accessories(I have to sort through a lot of stuff), and another video game.  See y’all tomorrow!!!