Recent Toy Show Score

Last Sunday was the annual toy show in Albany.  I went last year, and found some pretty good stuff(you can read about it here, here and here).

It’s a small affair, but there are plenty of deals to be had.  There were a few more vendors then there were last year, and about twice as many people in attendance.

Below are my action figure scores.  I also purchased a handful of packs of older trading cards, but that’s for another time, and another blog.

Everything you see above, cost me a total of $16!  Not a bad deal at all!

Lion-O was originally priced at $8, but I was able to get the seller down to $6.  He came with his claw shield, but it looks like one of his eyes could be burnt out.  The seller and I were unable to confirm this, which is why we agreed $6 would be fair.

Snout Spout, Sgt. Bananas and Robocop were purchased in a lot deal for a total of $5.

Snout Spout’s head is incredibly loose, and his legs are very loose at the hips, but I’ve wanted to add him to the collection for a while, so this one will be fine as a placeholder.

Robocop is from the Robocop and The Ultra Police line.  He is missing his gun, but he does have his helmet, which is missing almost all of the time.  If I can find strip caps(is that the right phrasing?), I’m sure the cap-firing action will still work.

Sgt. Bananas is in almost pristine condition, and he’s not a figure I have come across in the wild.  He’s one of the more wild looking figures, and fits my collecting focus for old-school TMNT(which is secondary characters).  The only variant Turtles I’d like at this point, are the cartoon Turtles and the Movie Star Turtles.

And lastly, we have the Cobra Viper from the 1990 G.I. Joe Sonic Fighters line.  This was a steal at $5(there was no need to haggle here), since he is complete.  Not only is he complete, but the batteries were still in the backpack, and the sounds still work!  The sounds are pretty generic, but it’s still a pretty awesome feature.  Had I known that the backpacks still worked, I would have bought the other Sonic Fighters he had(all were only $5, and they were all complete).  This came from the same seller I got Shockwave from, and this guy has great prices, and all of his figures are complete.

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).

Thundercats 2011 Tygra

This was the final figure that I needed to complete my “base set” of the new Thundercats.  Sure, there have been other figures released, as well as figures that only come with certain vehicles/accessories(I would like to get them at some point too).  But the core members are the ones that I am most interested in.

When the line was first released, and as I started to buy the figures, Tygra was plentiful.  Even as I purchased the other figures, he was no trouble to find.  But of course, when it’s the last figure I am looking for, I can’t find it!  I’m sure most, if not all, of collector’s has had them happen to them before.  But on a recent excursion to a not-so-local Wal-Mart, there were Tygra’s aplenty!  Actually, they had a good assortment of the first series.

He comes with his bolo whip and blaster.  His belt is removable, but it’s not poseable, as there is a small “peg” on the inside that attaches to a hole on his hip.

The whip is very flimsy, and the blaster is a very light weight plastic.  I think both accessories could have been made better, but the figure itself is pretty decent.  The face is a little off from how Tygra actually looks like in the show, but it’s a four inch figure, so I really can’t complain too much.  As you know, tigers’ stripes help them to “disappear” in the tall grass of the plains to stalk prey.  Well, Tygra is obviously a tiger, so his whip makes him invisible.  I also figured that it would be fitting to take shots of him in the tall grass(tall to Tygra, anyway) of my yard.

I wouldn’t say that Tygra is my least favorite character, but it just happened that he was last on my list of figures to get.  But I’m glad that I got him.  The only other figures I have besides the collection of Cats are the 2 Mumm-Ra figures in this scale(the mummy and “The Ever-Living).  I have never seen “The Ever-Living” figure on the pegs, and I have Jboypacman to thank(if I didn’t already 🙂 ) for both of those figures.

Now that I have the complete team, I can get to reviewing the Thundertank, which should be a lot of fun!

Thundercats 2011 Wilykit

But before we get to that.

Big Daddy Darth from Plastic Mayhem left a comment to my last post.

“I liked the MAXX…but I liked the Isz figures that came with him even more…lol Those damn things are creepy!”

And being that I didn’t remember to photograph him for the last post…here ya go!

(Creepy?  Yes.  Awesome?  Yes!)

This next figure is the only Thundercat from the new line, that I did not purchase at Toys R Us.  I happened to find this one at Target.  It seems that the Targets and Wal-Marts within a reasonable distance from where I live, do not have any Thundercats figures.  Yet, they are at every Toys R Us that I’ve been to.

I had to make a choice on either Wilykit here, or Tygra(I wanted to get both).

Her only accessories are her flute, and a hover board, like her brother’s.  I’m happy with this figure overall, but for some reason, there seems to be something off with her face.  It’s not that the paint or sculpt is bad, she just looks a little off from her appearance in the show, while the other figures are spot on.

Just like her brother’s, her board also has concealed fire power!

My Wilykat figure’s board has trouble keeping the guns concealed, but Wilykit’s board keeps them firmly in place.  But that’s fine, because it’s the figure itself, that matters to me.

I’m sure all of you are aware that next Sunday is Easter.  Well, today I had the opportunity to see one of my favorite commercials ever!  Two times, actually!  It was the Cadbury Creme Egg commercial!  The Cadbury Creme Egg is one of my favorite candies ever!  So, like the dork that I am, I snapped a few shots of the commercial while it was on my television screen.  I know it would have been better timing to post this next weekend, but knowing me, I’d end up forgetting.  Writing about it early is much better than writng about it after the day has passed.

(How friggin’ cute is that?!)

On a side note, I still have a pack of the Eggs(the miniature variety[not the Cadbury Mini-Eggs, but mini Creme Eggs]), still in my freezer from last Easter.  I wanted to do a mini-review of them here, but I never got around to it.  I’m surprised that I didn’t even eat one over the course of the year.  But I think my mind just wanted to see how long I would be able to resist them, because as I said earlier, I really do like these.  I’m sure they’re still good, and I may as well eat them before they actually do go bad.  So, I’ll make it a point to do so, from now through Easter Sunday(maybe I’ll do the long overdue review!).

(The company’s spokes-bunny, also known as The Cadbury Bunny)

Another Great Package From Jboypacman

Howdy everyone!

I have been itching to get another post done, but I ended up catching the flu last Saturday.  I was laid up in bed sick from then until this past Wednesday.  This was the first time I have been really sick in a very long time(6 years or more).  During this time my last item from Ebay arrived(those hockey cards I briefly mentioned last post), as well as a surprise package from Jboypacman.

This was a complete surprise!  Jboy has sent a couple of packages to me in the past, but he usually lets me know before hand.  This time it was out of the blue, and was perfect, because I was sick at home.  So, getting an awesome package of toys while I was sick, made me feel somewhat better(if that makes sense).

So let’s see what was inside.

First there was a huge Hell Boy figure(he’s not my thing, but I’ll find him a good home).  One of Hell Boy’s feet was broken at the ankle(I’m guessing this happened during transit, as it was directly below where it was attached).  You’ll also see Frankenstein from The Real Ghostbusters line.  I already have this figure, but this is an upgrade compared to mine, so I swapped them out.  There is also a Snake Eyes figure(25th anniversary?), that came with tons of guns, swords, knives and even an extra head.  The extra head has Snake Eyes in his classic “knight” helmet(the one he’s currently sporting is the goggles version).  Rounding out the group is a character from Chicken Run(I believe), which is going to my friend Mike(he loves chickens).

The Ecto-1 is a welcome addition to my collection, because up until this point, there wasn’t one in the collection.  The Transformers are (I believe), Spy Changers.  I already have the Optimus Prime(my buddy Mike already took him), and I believe the translucent one is Ironhide.  I only say that because, I have a Ironhide that is the same scale, same mold and has the same transformation process, but has a drastically different color scheme.  Take a gander.

It looks like we have fraternal twins, huh?!  You might also be able to say the same for the next two.

You all have heard how much I like the new Thundercats series, and here are two figures I did not yet have.  Jboy sent both the frail mummy version of Mumm-Ra and Mumm-Ra “The Ever-Living”.  Both came with their version of Lion-O’s claw shield(one part of the show I’m not sure I like).  The mummy version came with the dagger version  of the Sword of Omens, and bad-ass Mumm-Ra came with, what looks like a variation of the full-size Sword of Omens.  I now only need Tygra and Wilykit to finish off my “Cats’ team(maybe finish the first wave, unless there’s a Grune in this scale).

Sadly, we’re almost done.  We have one more item, but it’s a doozy.  It’s my favorite item of everything that Jboy sent me.

It’s Beetlejuice!!  I can’t find any stampings(I did a quick once over so I may have missed it), but I’m sure this is the NECA release.  The detail and likeness is great, and definitely looks more high-end compared to every other figure in my collection.  Beetlejuice is in my top ten movies, so I’m really digging this figure.  I also love the miniature Handbook for the Recently Deceased(again, amazing detail).

Jboy you did it again!!  🙂

Thundercats 2011 Cheetara

I snagged this one while I was doing some Christmas shopping last month.

So far I have been pleased with the figures I have purchased from this line.  And, while I like this figure, it does have a few outstanding flaws.  And those are what makes this figure my least favorite of the ones I have bought, so far.  I’m sure you should be able to figure out one of the flaws in the following photo.

Now, can you see anything that’s not quite right?

First, Cheetara’s staff isn’t anywhere near straight.  We had this same problem with Lion-O’s Sword of Omens.  Also, from the knee down, her legs seem to made of the same material as the staff.  This makes her legs bow out to the sides, making her stance seem a bit awkward.  Those are my only gripes with this figure.  There is another issue, but it doesn’t bother me as much as the first 2.  Her hair is molded to her back, rendering her neck immobile.  Meaning she can only look forward.  While the figure is very accurate looking show-wise, it falls short because of the aforementioned reasons.

While this may be my least favorite figure in the line so far, I’m happy to be one step closer to having the full team.

Speaking of which…

2011 Panthro

So, I held off this long with my latest review for the new Thundercats figures.

Today’s entry is Panthro.

These figures typically run for $7.99(this example ran me $8.99), and you’re getting a figure that’s in scale with the Marvel Universe figures.  But these figures come with accessories.  Panthro comes with 2 pairs of nunchuks.  One is a pair that can be used for action poses.  And the other is a pair that you can attach to his back, to complete the look of them being stored when not in use.

The new nunchuks aren’t as iconic as the original blue and red ‘chuks, but the handles retain the the basic design of the originals.  There was just something about the red and blue handles that spoke to me(which may explain why I like old-school blue and red 3-D glasses).

I plan on getting the rest of the “Cats” in the near future, but here’s my team so far.

Speak Up!

With the last few posts, I have noticed that my numbers have been down.  The only reason I can think why this is , is that you guys don’t like the new Thundercats.  While that sucks if that’s the case, I would like to write stuff that also interests my readers.  I will warn you that my next post will most likely be another Thundercats figure.  But, I will try to hold off on that.  What would you guys like to read about(stuff that I normally write about anyway)?

Maybe some old-school video games?

 

Another Package From Jboypacman, and Wilykat

A few days ago, I received another care package from Jboypacman.  And if you have ever gotten a package from Jboy, you know that it’s going to be awesome!

I was only expecting the Double Dragon figures, but Jboy always sends some extras.  I seem to be getting a lot of toys these days, and sometimes I get stuff that doesn’t fit my collecting habits.  So I will be contacting some of you guys, to share the wealth.

Besides the Garbage Pail Kids cards and the MOTU mini-comic, here’s what else I will be keeping for my personal collection.

First up, we have Snake Eyes, from the 25th Anniversary line of G.I. Joe.  He is the first loose figure from this line fro me.  I have Storm Shadow(v1), and Cobra Commander(helmet), from this line, but they’re still MOC.  Next to him, we have Billy Lee and Jimmy Lee of Double Dragon fame.  I know there was a horrible movie based on Double Dragon, but I think these figures tied into a short lived animated series.  Anything based on video games from my childhood(especially toys), is a win in my book!  If past failures are any indication, I bet the cartoon sucked.  And rounding out the group of keepers is Dirtbag from the old-school Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles line.  It sucks that I have to type that out.  But in my mind, TMNT refers to the Turtles post-2000.  He is the latest addition to my ever-growing collection of the original line.  This is a most welcome addition, as I’m trying to avoid getting all the variations of the Turtles themselves.  Dirtbag is in the category of my current focus for this collection.  I have a few ideas of who I want to send the extras to, and I’ll get ahold of you guys soon.

Today my wife and I celebrated our1 year wedding anniversary.  But we wanted to go out for our anniversary.  So we went out Friday night, because a Friday is a lot more fun than a Sunday.  We went to Red Lobster, and guess what?  A Toys R Us was on the way.

In my last post, I raved about the new Thundercats line.  Well, on Friday night, I picked a few more up.

Here’s the first of them.

In my last post I told you that these 4 inch figures retailed for $7.99.  And while that’s true, you will notice a $8.99 price tag on the Wilykay above.  This is because I bought this from a Toys R Us Express in the mall.  If you are familiar withTRU Express, you know that these stores usually occupy the space that KB Toys used to.  Now, my guess would be that the prices are a little higher in the Express stores, because they have smaller amounts of inventory, and most people hit the stand alone stores.

I first saw this toy at The Toy Museum, and knew I had to add it to the collection.  I do plan on getting the complete set, but I’ll have to get one or two at a time, whenever I have a little extra cash.  But after reading Dan’s review, and checking out the photos, I knew he would be one of the first figures that I would purchase.

The only articulation is in his neck and shoulders.  Which isn’t too bad, considering that the originals had no articulation(the ones that came with Tyrga and Cheetarah).  I know that there were versions of Wilykat and Wilykit that were sold individually, that had more posability, but I never saw or knew of them in my youth.

Again, the likeness to the cartoon is great, and the accessories, while limited, are sufficient.  His board has hidden guns and, what looks to be a scissor-like apperatus in the front.  Also included, are two claw-type weapons.  I have to say that I am quite pleased with the line thus far.  I can say with certainty, that we will be seeing more of these guys in the future.

And here’s the team so far.