Count Zero

awe man, that is a good one too!

i like that one too

i've been wanting this little book for a long time... it's full of really corny monster jokes. it's really great!

i found it in a bag of gumball prizes this morning at a flea market... all the prizes were 4 for a $1

i found these little beauties buried in a bag of gumball charms...

4 for a $1

after that, i had to go dig up this baby too

i had to go watch it, what a great episode - it definetly does look like that creature!

here's a fun one

i am still curious about this reference as well...

you see, there is a hand written company name on the side of the stamp...

however, it is not the name of the company that the artist claims he made the stamp for.

i appreciate the mystery behind the item, it truly is a marvelous piece of monster memorabilia.

an opportunity to purchase a very unique stamp from 1977 presented itself to me... and I of course jumped at this without question. the person I purchased it from bought it at a thrift store in a large lot of stamps and unfortunately did not know anything else about it...

i was mesmerized by the stamp the moment I saw it, I desperately needed to find out who made it and why - did is serve a special purpose? what was the story behind it?

so my search began... after a couple weeks of surfing the internet and making phone calls, i finally caught a break. I found a name!... a name that belonged to the founder of the stamp company in the 70s.

after several failed attempts, i finally managed to make contact with him via email and was able to inquire more or less "what do you know about this stamp?"

his reply: "the design is the phantom of the opera as portrayed by silent film horror star Lon Cheney. this was from the Golden Age of the company when we had many artist friends giving us images for our catalog"

he also provided me with the name of the artist in question and suggested that I contact him via facebook... i however have never had a facebook... so, after a day or so I was able to make contact via his website. I asked the same question: "what can you tell me about this stamp?"

his reply: "I have been an admirer of the work of LON CHANEY SR., THE MAN OF A THOUSAND FACES for many years and when I established my own rubber stamp company, back in the 80s, I knew I had to create some stamps of him for the collection. The one you have is one of about four depicting Chaney in various makeups"

this only left me with more questions... because the the stamp in my possession is clearly marked 1977...and.. and it just seems way more special than just that... but anyhow, it was fun playing detective - even though I couldn't track the stamp back to warren publishing... famous monsters or something like that

so, I decided to memorialize the stamp by using its image on the monster fan club note books

Found this a few weeks ago at the Volo Antique Mall here in Northern Illinois (for those who know it). The greatest thing about finding this book is that it was in an area I usually avoid in this antique mall. That area always has sheet music/dishware/furniture. But on this day there was a large group that forced me to go the long way around. I started to walk around and then I found this.

 

great find!

i know! im certainly no expert and i am always finding new items i didn't even know about - that is almost as exciting for me as finding items like these out in the wild. believe me, ive been schooled the hard way on a lot of this stuff...

anyhow, here are some more premiums from my collection

k tnx

no problem, hope it was helpful. the color ones are definetly repros.

also, beware of the b/w ones - the way I can tell them apart in photographs is by the small writing on the back. most sellers will hopefully tell you though if you ask.

about 2-4 weeks back a seller had a green set with b/w images on them. I had never seen them before - they looked dated... a really nice lot

yeah, there are a lot of repros out there.

this is what you want to look for along the back of the pin...

"Universal pictures co. Inc. mfg. by elwar ltd.. Nyc. n.y.-printed in u.s.a."

pictured above are the real deal

FM postcard

here's a promo card

a recent pickup

dr paul bearer was and still is a very popular horror host around these parts

holy guacamole, the local post office was amazing in helping track down the packages.

turns out that due to the holiday on Monday mail got crazy backed up and they had to utilize delivery drivers that were unfamiliar with the routes - for whatever reason at the end of the day someone just scanned them as "delivered" when in fact they were sitting on a shelf to be delivered the next day. The guy I talked to said that most drivers had pulled 14hr shifts on Tuesday due to the amount of overflow from the holiday.

in the end - im thankful that they arrived unscathed

pretty positive these two items are second gen - post Warren leaving FM

which lands them somewhere in the revival era of the early 90s-00s after Ferry took over

ive never seen another button like this one - purchased it along with a membership card from the original owner