F For Fake

Lots of cool Topps books out there. Jason Goes to Hell and Jason vs Leatherface are the ones I'm always on the lookout for, and you can still pick up those great Dracula and Frankenstein/Dracula War books with the nice Mignola covers out of dollar bins all day long. My favorite title was Mars Attacks. Had a complete collection at one point...but may have sold it. I'll have to take a look!

I think it's as simple as using Adobe Acrobat. No, wait...that's "How to convert the youth to PDF". Never mind.

I'd never thought of that, that would certainly explain the absence of that figure, as you point out, it's possibly the most iconic figure in the line.

SWEEEEET, that's the all-timer right there. I remember having a hard time finding him even when he was new. There was a Lazarus at the local mall that had a toy section tucked away on the second floor behind the bedding, and in that toy section were three barrels full of carded Joes. When I managed to scratch three or four bucks together, I'd ask my folks to take me to the mall, and I'd dig around in that big for what seemed like hours, looking for figures. One time I was DETERMINED to find Snake Eyes, so I dug through every single barrel, removed every single figure, and eventually found him. He was instantly my favorite toy. Love that guy. Lost or sold him when I got older, of course. I picked one up two years ago at the local Joe show, and he's kept in a safe place now. Classic, classic, classic toy. THE GI Joe figure.

We have a budget plan for our gas and electric, so it's the same amount every month. They check the usage like twice a year and then raise or lower our cost, and average it out per month. Works well. At least my wife tells me that's what we're doing. For all I know the house is powered by geothermal and she's spending that money on purses. I really should look into this stuff, I guess.

I just listed an item this morning, and less than an hour later got the "what's your lowest?" message. I no longer have amusing answers to these messages. I told them that the item had only been up for a few minutes, so at the moment i wasn't looking to lower my price too much, but feel free to make an offer. At which point they said "Well, I just sent that because the listing says you take "Best Offer"," to which I replied "YES, the "Best Offer" is the feature that allows you to make an offer. So feel free to use it." I feel like this happens several times a week. I guess I need to set a threshold so the nutjobs will get an auto-decline and I won't have to reply to the lowballs, but these messages aren't even offers, they're just messages! IQ's have definitely been dropping across the board.

Thanks Patrick! Yeah, I couldn't resist them. I was starting to get out of toys when TMNT hit (I was about 12 or so when the toy line launched) but I DID have that very first wave of 10 figures, and a few here and there after that. I was too old to "play" with the, so to speak, but I still thought they were neat. I don't see carded figs very often anymore, I guess these are starting to dry up like the other big 80's properties. Had to have a few! And yeah, the Universal Figures are great, I love them. Wish they'd had more than just these three!

Some pickups from the LCS. Saw they'd gotten a nice collection of vintage carded TMNT figs. A lot unpunched, some a little wavy, but most priced around $15-$20 so I couldn't pass up the chance to grab a few. The Universal Monsters were the best of the lot, really love those. Also happy to have a Ray Fillet, as that brought back memories of hunting for the different shirt variants back in the day. Also picked up this Sky Patrol Skyhawk for $15. Missing the back wings (or rudders or whatever you call them) and missiles but I figured for the money it was shiny enough to bring home. Any of you guys ever cleaned up one of these chromed sky Patrol pieces before? Wonder what is best to remove smudges without being abrasive on the finish.

Update: NVM looks like they're Pretenders! I'd punched out on TF by the time this stuff came around, so I didn't recognize them.

The highs and lows of estate sales! So this morning I stopped by an estate sale that I'd already visited a couple of weeks ago, as this weekend everything is 50% off. I was returning primarily to check out the Mega Force stuff I'd see last time. When I arrived, they announced that they'd found a bunch of toys in the attic since last time that were all new today. As you might expect, I was pretty stoked. I dash into the house, careful to not knock over the senior citizens (apparently most people my age are at work at 8am on a Friday, and normally I would be too, but I took a long weekend vacation) and when I entered bedroom, I found four shelves packed with action figures. I was sure I'd just made my dream score! However, when I actually got to the shelves, and saw the contents, my heart sank. Oh sure, there were tons of carded figures, but I hope you like Kevin Costner's Robin Hood, Stargate, and Robin Williams Hook! Man alive, what a kick in the pants! i found a single small tub that appeared to have Transformers, and determined to salvage the morning, I grabbed it. Asked how much they wanted. I offered $20, he wanted $25, fine. I didn't dig through it, figured I'd take a flyer. I did end up picking up this Mega Force Thorhammer, which is pretty cool. They have a more or less complete set of boxed Mega Force stuff, but their original prices were around $55, so even at 50% off, I hesitated. I'd feel better if they were all around $15-$20 a pop. I paid $15 for this one, which looks like a good buy. I may go back tomorrow and make an offer on everything that's left. They are prettt neat. Now that I'm home and digging through my $25 TF box, I'm not thrilled, but not totally disheartened. Most everything has broken parts and/or missing pieces. I'll still make money on them, but there's no home run. The hardhead Ninja Turtles were a fun find. TL;dr: toys! Gah!

I remember buying the first issue off of the stands. I didn't know anything about the Black Knight other than I thought the costume looked cool. I remember being disappointed because the book was so dull, and I'd spent $1.50 on it, which seemed high at the time for a Marvel, though I could be misremembering that part.

The hunt is pretty much always the best part!

My experience is that "restoration" in the form of stickers, decals, and cleaning, are generally ok with toy collectors. In fact, most of the collectors I know would rather have a clean vehicle with new decals than a crusty old vehicle with yellowed stickers. Stickers are stickers, and most people don't really care. Of course, SOME do. There are always exceptions, and I'm sure there are many collectors who only want vintage stickers. But again, I'd say that the majority that I've interacted with simply don't care if decals and stickers are originals. But with actual REPAIRS, like gluing something in place, that's really going to be a case by case basis, depending on the nature and extent of the damage. Does the item maintain the same range of motion with the repaired part? How glaring is the repair? Is it ugly? One way in which toys differ from comics (at least in regard to Joes) is that you can restore a toy with parts from various other donor toys, and this is fairly common practice; whereas "marrying" pages or a cover in a comic, or creating a "frankenbook", is generally frowned upon. Comic fans seem to prefer all original parts. Toy collectors don't seem as particular as long as it's all there and it looks cool. (Again, there are exceptions.) However, the biggest obstacle with repairing these pieces is that a lot of the time, it just can't really be done in an efficient and aesthetically pleasing way. This stuff was manufactured from cheap plastic, and was never meant to last. You may be able to glue some stuff, but for the most part you're better off just looking for a replacement part or an entirely new vehicle, because repairs can be difficult on brittle, degraded plastic.

People have harped on Kirby's dialogue for years, but I can't imagine any other voice coupled with that art. Stan and Jack were Stan and Jack, but Jack on his own was JACK, and his writing was singular. I'm re-reading the New Gods Omnibus right now (I used to have the individual hardcovers, now I have the enormous all-in-one omni) and I can't imagine the wording being any other way. Kirby's dialogue only heightens the unreality of his work. They're fairy tales, they're mythology, they're something bigger than the superhero books he'd been working on previously. Marvel made their mark by taking the superhero and making them relatable. But New Gods and the 70's work that followed, wasn't the same thing. This was high drama, told on a cosmic scale. Sure, no one "really talks like that," but that was never the point with those books. As for Eternals, I have a soft spot in my heart for them. Somewhere around the advent of eBay (mid/late 90's, I suppose) I was gobbling up complete sets of Kirby's 70's books on the cheap. You could get complete runs, in nice shape, of Eternals, Devil Dino, Machine Man, 2001, etc for PRACTICALLY NOTHING, shipped right to your door. What a great time! Wish I'd held onto them, but I sold them when they printed collected editions, as I assumed the original books would never be of value. Of that 70's Marvel run, Eternals was definitely my favorite. It's a little clunky, sure, but there's still so much energy. The 80's Kirby stuff is a little sad, but with Eternals (and Black Panther and Inhumans and the aforementioned books) Kirby was still working a full strength. The books were not as inspired as Fourth World and 60's Marvels, but they still have a lot of OOMPH.

Yeah, they definitely didn't build these things to last. I broke my Snow Cat launcher when I was a kid, almost as soon as I got it out of the box! I've got two now, one that is completely assembled, and another in storage that I need to track down a canopy and windshield wiper to complete. I have an unbroken missile launcher for that one, but it is currently sitting on a piece of foam so the tabs won't break off. Some day I'll assemble it, and I'll sweat bullets while doing so. My first Joe vehicle ever was the Rattler, and man, that was a great Xmas! I had that thing for years, and never had any issue with anything breaking. Of course, my original is long gone When I bought this shell and started assembling the one I have now, the landing gear and the canopy for the turret gun were the hardest and most expensive pieces to track down. The advice I got on the landing gear, which I heeded, was to decide when assembling if I wanted them up or down, and then leave them that way. I had to take the belly of the plane apart to get the broken pegs out from the original landing gear, so when I placed the new ones, I placed them down, and have left them down. I'm going to get one of those acrylic stands for display, because as you said, the struts break so easily, they can't support the weight of the plane. Right now I have the plane resting on a couple of blocks so the weight is on the wings, and the wheels aren't supporting anything. That will do until I get my stand. So it should be ok for a while, hopefully. Moray is a lovely piece, but yeah, too many little tabs that can snap, and that missile launcher contraption is a nightmare. I went through three shells and a couple of launcher trays before I finally got an assembled piece where everything worked. Now that it's done, I won't be opening and closing it, I'll just let it sit on display. The Fang was my second Joe vehicle overall, LOVED that thing as a kid. Picked one up in that boxed lot at the estate sale, and remarkably the rotor is just fine, and it was otherwise complete. Of course, the red cage around the motor was broken/missing, so it'll take a while to track one of those down, but I am patient! I will take a look at my Ferret, I wasn't aware of the issue, thanks for the heads up!

Thanks bud! I'm happy to finally have those two projects wrapped at long last. Now I have to find something new to put together...

Gotta love yellow covers!

Way to roll with it. You'll do well here!

Oh, I absolutely believe it, that whole missile launcher contraption is a real pain in the butt, so many little pieces that break so easily. Glad you were able to get it open without breaking it, it sounds like! The launcher was my main hang-up. Once I'd finally gathered all of the parts, I assembled the ship, only to find that the little tabs that hold the missile launcher in place were apparently broken at the tips, so the launcher tray wouldn't stay in place, meaning you basically couldn't open it with the plunger without the whole thing falling apart. So then I just had to wait until I could find a shell at a price I wanted to pay. Took a while, but it's done!

You’re right, I think I may go ahead and pick up a repro just to have something for display. I know if I hadn’t lucked into the lens I’ve got, I wouldn’t have paid the crazy money they command.

The sacred lens, waiting for its time in the spotlight (that’s a pun, y’all.)

I’ve got it actually, just too scared of losing it to put it on display! One of my best friends has been collecting and trading for so long, he has tons of extra parts, so he gave me one back when I first started putting it together. Since it’s just sitting on a shelf right now I’m keeping the lens in storage. If I ever put it in an enclosed shelf (it’s too long to fit a Detolf) I’ll pop it in there!

Finally got around to putting the new stickers on my Moray and Rattler. Took about two and three years to complete them, lots of trading and parts digging, but they're now complete and I'm quite satisfied!

Thanks Patrick, I love em! It's sending me down a dangerous eBay path, I'm afraid. Feeling that toy fever coming over me!

I didn't have the van, but I definitely had the bike and the racing team set. Going down a rabbit hole now researching these figures, I might have something new to collect! Fortunately it looks like they're not too expensive.