As *spoon* as Arch comes back from vacation Hepcat will still be Hepcat. 8 8

[Hepcat]

Here are pictures of my Aurora model kits of early U.S. military jet planes:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And here are a few model ships from my collection:

 

 

 

 

One of the very first model kits I ever built was a Graf Spee, but it was one of those really little six inch Revell model ships. So now I have not only a much bigger Aurora Graf Spee model kit with fabulous Jo Kotula box art, I have two different releases of the same kit!

 

 

It was the above German "Wolfpack" U-Boat which really lured me into building a number of military models in 1964. I mean wolfpack? Talk about cool!

 

 

I don't remember ever building a Bismarck as a kid, but I have one now!

 

[Unca Ben]

Hepster,

 

Those models are so, so cool.

Really takes me back, thanks for posting them.

 

I used to build a lot of models, mostly Aurora aircraft, as a kid. I think they were 98¢ at the time.

 

The Starfire was one of my first models.

Do you have the P-38? That was one of my favorites. My father flew those in the war.

..............

 

Model kits and Hardy Boys books, then I discovered comics.

 

There was no store close enough for me to ride my bike safely (there were two, but they were across the 520 causeway in Cocoa Beach, and crossing the 520 was "off-limits") so I was at the mercy of going with my folks.

 

That really limited my comic book buying.

 

Every time I went to the store with my parents I would bee-line to the comic rack.

I suspect Mom and Dad started making those 'quick runs to the store' without me, so I wouldn't spend all my allowance on comic books.

Edited June 11, 2013 by ucleben

[Hepcat]

Do you have the P-38? That was one of my favorites. My father flew those in the war.

 

Yes! Here's an Aurora P-38 Lightning kit from my collection with fabulous Jo Kotula box art:

 

 

The Aurora P-38 Lightning was actually the first model plane I built as a kid. My buddy Paul suggested I paint it so I did, entirely in blue with visible brush strokes. An absolutely terrible job to be sure. As a result, I never attempted to paint another model until I assembled a Mummy some four years later.

 

Here as well are a couple of pictures of my bigger and more sophisticated Monogram Lightning kit:

 

 

 

Neat that your father flew these. They're a beautiful plane.

 

Edited June 26, 2013 by Hepcat

[JazzMan]

When are you going to quit sniffing the glue and actually put some of these together?

[Sqeggs]

Hepster,

 

Those models are so, so cool.

Really takes me back, thanks for posting them.

 

I used to build a lot of models, mostly Aurora aircraft, as a kid. I think they were 98¢ at the time.

 

The Starfire was one of my first models.

 

Do you have the P-38? That was one of my favorites. My father flew those in the war.

 

Yes! Here's an Aurora P-38 Lightning kit from my collection with fabulous Jo Kotula box art:

 

 

The Aurora P-38 Lightning was actually the first model plane I built as a kid. My buddy Paul suggested I paint it so I did, entirely in blue with visible brush strokes. An absolutely terrible job to be sure. As a result, I never attempted to paint another model until I assembled a Mummy some four years later.

 

Here as well are a couple of pictures of my bigger and more sophisticated Monogram Lightning kit:

 

 

 

Neat that your father flew these. They're a beautiful plane.

 

 

Great stuff. A lot of fun to see those old kits. I, too, built a few as a kid.

[Hepcat]

When are you going to quit sniffing the glue and actually put some of these together?

 

What, and cut into my supply of sniffing glue?

 

[mrmyst]

Hep, those are pretty darn coowll.

[Hepcat]

Hep, great story, fun read. Thanks for sharing.

 

That's one chapter of the story. Here's another.

 

When it comes to trading card part of my collecting activities, I'm a completist, a set builder of the sharpest, whitest, brightest cards I can find. I'm tough on corners and toning but I'm easy on centering. I'll accept cards that are well off center so long as they are not miscut.

 

I collect them raw and unslabbed for three reasons. The first is that I've always collected cards raw ever since I was a little kid. Secondly, they're too bulky to store or even handle when slabbed. Thirdly, my grading priorities are not the same as those of the grading companies. I'm very tough on toning which they seem to ignore, but I'm easy on centering while they penalize off-center cards heavily.

 

My collection of non-sports cards ranges from the late forties to the mid-seventies - but the sets I most treasure are typically from the 1957-1965 period which coincides with those cards I remember accumulating as a kid.

 

The first cards to which I was exposed were the 1956 Hit Stars. My older sister had brought a few home. She was looking for Yul Brynner, a search doomed to frustration since there was no Yul Brynner card in the set. The first cards I ever owned were four 1958-59 Topps hockey cards which I gathered off the street one December day in 1958. The first three were Detroit Red Wings, but the last was a Chicago Blackhawk. When I saw that big Indian head on the red uniform, I knew that was my favourite team - even though I couldn't read the name yet!

 

 

I admired the 1959 baseball cards in the schoolyard, but the first cards I ever bought were the 1959 CFL cards like this one I have today:

 

 

These first few cards to which I was exposed left a lifelong imprint upon me. I ended up collecting the CFL, hockey and baseball cards most years thereafter until I graduated from grade eight in 1965.

 

I was well aware of the various non-sport sets such as You'll Die Laughing, Funny Valentines, TV Westerns and Flags of the World that O-Pee-Chee was marketing in my corner of London, Ontario at the time (the Flags were probably remainders from 1956 that OPC had decided to redistribute), but the first non-sport cards I collected in a big way were the 1961 Leaf Spook Stories. The 1962 Civil War News cards came next.

 

The summer of 1963 was when I went big time, however. One of my buddies Anthony proposed that we pool our efforts and collections and just collect any card we could get our hands on. This was initially to his benefit because the 1963 baseball cards I had lying around dwarfed his meager stock. Nonetheless, over the ensuing two years Anthony and I amassed close to 4500 different cards. Needless to say, sheer numbers as opposed to condition was our defining priority.

 

Strangely enough though, we succeeded in gathering up most of the sports cards issued in our neck of the woods back to the 1960-1961 hockey cards. But any cards older than these were very tough to find and we only had a very few examples from even sets as large as the 1960 baseball. In fact, coming across any pre-1961 cards in the schoolyard was such an uncommon occurrence that it seemed to be an almost magical event. And even today I feel the same sense of wonder, the same sense of magic, perusing the pre-1961 cards that I have even if they number in the hundreds and fill a binder!

 

Among the cards we managed to acquire was a wild but very curious one called "Hairy Fiend" which we got in a generic pack while trick or treating on Halloween. We'd never encountered any of this set before and somehow just weren't bright enough to read the caption on the back that would have identified the set. Nonetheless, it became our favourite card.

 

When I went off to boarding school in grade nine, I just turned my half interest in the cards we'd accumulated over to Anthony who was a grade behind me. Bad mistake. Within six months or so he too lost interest in the cards which were approaching 6500 in number at the time and gave them to Billy, the snot-nosed kid across the street. Anthony's thinking was that Billy would carry the torch so to speak and continue to build on the collection. To Anthony's horror and dismay though, Billy went and scrambled the cards in front of his eyes! That's right, he tossed the contents of the whole box up into the air just to watch every other little kid on the street scramble to get as many as he could! Anthony still grouses about that to this very day some 47 years later.

 

I also collected the premium coins that were issued in jelly desserts and potato chips up until I graduated from grade school. The plastic Shirriff/Salada hockey coins, the Shirriff plastic baseball coins, the Jell-O/Hostess Airplane Wheels, the Krun-Chee Warships and the Humpty Dumpty CFL coins were the ones that drew my most avid interest - and dimes.

 

But you know the memory of these cards never left me. I'd often think back to my collecting days and wish I still had my cards even when I was in my late teens but I thought that there was no way I could ever reassemble what I'd had as a kid. Then came an article in the "Canadian Magazine" Saturday supplement to the newspaper. It featured Angelo Savelli of Hamilton, who was described as the world's biggest card collector. Angelo had evidently started buying sports cards in 1948 and never stopped. The article filled me with an incredible longing for the cards I'd once had, cards that I thought were now lost in the mists of time.

 

Flash forward a few years to 1979. I had finished university and had been working in Toronto for a couple of years. I discovered that the big city had four comic shops. Two of them carried old gum cards as well! The first sets I bought at the comic shops were Man from UNCLE, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and the first two Funny Valentine sets. Shortly thereafter I discovered that the main comic shop in Hamilton also carried cards. When the proprietor Paul pulled out NM (or so I thought at the time) sets of the 1959, 1960, 1963 and 1964 CFL cards, I could not reach for my wallet quickly enough! Prizes beyond belief! As was the Civil War News set he had and the You'll Die Laughing set I picked up a few weeks later at a comic show.

 

When I bought the first edition of Chris Benjamin's Non-Sport Price Guide in the mid-eighties, I realized that the "Hairy Fiend" card we'd had twenty years before belonged to the notorious Mars Attacks set.

 

I've never stopped collecting. I now have a fabulous collection of non-sports, CFL and hockey cards and I've even made inroads into baseball cards from the 1954-1965 period as well. I've also amassed one of the better collections around of those premium coins to which I referred earlier e.g. Shirriff hockey and baseball, Warships, etc.

 

I used to feel an incredible sense of longing whenever I saw the type of old variety store at which I used to buy my cards and comics as a kid. No more though. My collection now of most cards is so far beyond what I dreamed of having as a kid that I've shed that sense of loss.

 

I eventually met Angelo Savelli in the mid-eighties at a collectibles show in Toronto where he had set up to sell card and he's now a friend of mine. It was at the big annual Toronto Sportcard and Memorabilia Expo in 2002 or so where I saved one of his binders full of expensive hockey cards from the thirties and forties from a thief. I noticed that a tall young fellow at the other end of Angie's table had scooped up what appeared to be one of Angie's binders and walked off briskly down the aisle. Angie himself was on the other side of the table and was in no position to give chase (besides I'm a lot fleeter of foot than Angie is nowadays) so I set off after the fellow myself. I caught him before he got to the door of the hall and said "Excuse me, but is that your binder?" Much to my surprise, the fellow just said no and shoved the binder into my hands. While I stood there gawking for a second or two, he swiftly made his exit through the door. Oh well. I'm not in the business of apprehending thieves anyway, but I'd managed the most important detail which was getting Angie's binder back for him.

 

Since Angie sold almost all his cards other than the hockey and CFL around the turn of the century and I've accumulated so many cards myself in the last thirty years, I no longer envy Angie for his cards. How the circle turns!

 

But you know I still don't have a NM "Hairy Fiend" card.

 

 

[Unca Ben]

You have some very cool collections, Hep.

 

Thanks for sharing them, and the stories!

[Hepcat]

I had a card collecting epiphany around 1992. I'd been pecking away since 1980 at reassembling the cards and coins I'd either had or just admired but missed out on as a kid.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was so busy going after the cards I really liked that were issued from about the mid-fifties to the late-sixties that I hadn't made any effort to stay current with any of the hockey cards issued after 1972-73 though. My thinking was to just fill in the more recent stuff at some future date. It was plentiful enough that I figured it wouldn't present much of a problem when I finally got around to it.

 

But with the explosion in cards in general and sportscards in particular that occurred after 1990, I came to the realization that I could never have everything. It was then that I decided to take another leaf from the book I had as a kid. I'd collect only the hockey cards I liked! There was no reason to even go after something from every year.

 

I had four or five sets from the late seventies and early eighties that were still in bricks. I'd never bothered to unwrap them from their cellophane wrap and put them into sheets. When I asked myself why, the answer was clear. I didn't care for the cards. One of the reasons was that I had no nostalgia for these cards since I didn't remember them from the schoolyard. But then again the 1971-72 O-Pee-Chee cards also came out well after my time yet I really liked them. I realized that beginning in the 1973-74 year a fundamental change occurred in hockey cards. They'd gone from a player's picture superimposed on some type of art background to photographed action shots! Well I didn't like the action shots. They weren't like the hockey cards I collected as a kid.

 

Accordingly, I took the four or five bricks to Sports Connection on Eglinton Avenue in Toronto and sold them for a good price. One of the bricks was the 1979-80 Wayne Gretzky rookie card set although the Wayne Gretzky card was so badly cut that it could hardly be classified as even VG. Ironically I'd bought all the bricks some twelve years previously at Comics Unlimited on Keewatin Strret before they moved to Eglinton Avenue and became Sports Connection!

 

Moreover I didn't have to concern myself with filling in the 1969-70 O-Pee-Chee set which I thought was plain ugly either. I just took the dozen or so 1969-70 hockey cards I had out of their sheets and put them with my traders.

 

But if I didn't have to collect any hockey cards I didn't like, I was still free to collect any I actually liked. But I could use a rifle shot approach on certain subsets and insert sets. I didn't necessarily have to collect all the other cards in that set if I considered them to be cruddy looking. If I bought one card from some certain subset though, I had to collect all the others in that subset. I've always considered going after only certain players like some fanboy to be too much like being a groupie. It's cards I collect, not hockey players.

 

The 1993-94 Fleer Ultra Wave of the Future inserts may have been the first post-1990 hockey cards I added to my collection. Over the years I've amassed three binders of hockey cards from the nineties that appeal to me. Included in these are complete sets of the Leaf Limited and Fleer Metal cards, and almost all the 1997-98 Skybox Metal Universe minus the half dozen Super Powers inserts I still don't have. These all have gaudy enough backgrounds of artwork to strongly appeal to me.

 

It was back in 2004 that I stumbled upon what's become the main thrust of my modern hockey card collecting efforts. I was delighted to see Pacific issuing a set of cards for the AHL in 2004. Imagine that, players who aren't paid $millions and actually play hockey as opposed to striking for higher wages! While looking to fill in the last few Gold Parallels and Jersey cards from this Pacific AHL set at a Hamilton Bulldogs game at the Copps Coliseum, I chanced upon a 2003-04 Titanium Patch Ryan Miller card. It was the one below with a portion of a white number against red backing:

 

 

I was enthralled by the card! I hesitated about a minute before buying it though because I knew by buying the one card I'd be opening a real can of worms. After all, I'd need to buy all the others in the set and even defining what constituted a set would be a problem. Well I've been accumulating whatever different 2003-04 Titanium cards I can find at "reasonable" prices for the last nine years. Here's a scan of a sheet of some of the more limited Parallels from my collection:

 

 

Then I decided the 2003-04 Black Diamond cards were cool enough looking to collect as well. But each of the 198 cards in the set also have Green, Red and Clarity Parallels and the Clarity Parallels are serial numbered to only ten! I've accumulated only a dozen of the Clarities but I have dozens of the Green and Red Parallels:

 

 

 

Then of course there's the Jersey cards.... I'll never finish the "set", but the fun they say is in the chase....

 

Nonetheless, I've filled five binders full of these 21st century hockey card sets.

 

Nor have I put aside my vintage card collecting either. I'm still pecking away at upgrading the last few hockey cards I want from the 1957 to 1965 period and driving myself crazy doing so. The 1964-65 Tall Boys have been a bit of a problem. So have the 1963-64 York Peanut Butter cards. I like the backs to be a bright white!

 

And of course the Chex cards, Weekend Magazine photos and Bee Hives still beckon.... I love them all!

 

[Unca Ben]

 

[Hepcat]

Here I am practicing my Halloween shadow terror on Scruffy the little terrier down the street:

 

 

 

[mintcollector]

Do you have any cool Halloween collectibles?

 

 

[Hepcat]

No, sadly no.

 

While I'd love to have a Halloween themed room or even cabinet with items such as Beistle decorations, Collegeville and Ben Cooper masks and costumes. Gurley candles and assorted Halloween blow molds, a cat can't have everything and at present I do no more than admire the collections of others at a distance:

 

 

 

 

 

 

I do, however, have a couple SPP monster wallets as well as a whole bunch of vintage Aurora monster model kits:

 

 

 

 

Edited June 25, 2013 by Hepcat

[mintcollector]

A lot of vintage decorations can be hard to find due to the fact that were made of paper. Halloween postcards are awesome as are the plastic toy decorations from times past..

 

 

[Hepcat]

Here I am chatting up Zita, the waitress at Grandma's Diner, while Cowboy digs into the Jungle Cat Breakfast special:

 

 

 

 

[Hepcat]

Here are scans of some more really cool comics from my collection:

 

 

 

 

 

 

42

 

 

 

 

38

 

 

2

 

 

1 Northland

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[comicwiz]

Nice! (thumbs u

[Hepcat]

Here's Deuce posing with my vintage Bozo gumball machine:

 

 

 

 

And here's my other vintage gumball machine which I've actually repainted:

 

 

Edited July 13, 2013 by Hepcat

[Hepcat]

and I got stuck hawking..seeds..embossed Christmas cards..for way less cool swag than that!

 

From these comic book ads?

 

 

 

I've always wondered how easy this stuff was for a kid to sell. How did it go for you? Did you make much money and/or earn cool prizes selling them? Were the cards easier to sell than the seeds? Where did you live at the time?