Snoova's Toy Tales: ADVENTURES IN TOY COLLECTING, PART I

    I mentioned in the first post, the introduction, of what a fun ride it was getting back into collecting and how I might need to make a separate post on it…  So here it is….

    I started checking out of toys about 1988.  My main interest was music and playing drums, so that was at the forefront of my attention.  Rather than sell it in a rummage sale or give it away like many were doing, I packed up all my Joes and Transformers in boxes and stored them away. 

    The G.I. Joe toy line was like the “last man standing” of all the toys my friends and I used to buy.  Star Wars, M.A.S.K. and so on were all fading out or were long gone.  Every now and then I would wander down the toy aisle to see where they were taking the line.  I remember working at a grocery store and they had that tiny “toy section”.  You know, where they would have the same 2 Hot Wheels sitting there forever?  Well, they had the lone Joe figure, Topside, sitting on the pegs.  I used to wander by it and have to resist the urge to pick it up and read the file card!

    Years later, I’m out of high school, playing in a rock band in a town an hour from my house and working at Target.  One of my best friends, Bobby (aka Deathwish), whom used to collect Joes with me, just got his first house.  As he’s giving me the tour he tells me they have announced new Star Wars movies and that he was going to collect Star Wars again.  He even had a whole room he was dedicating to his collection!

    Soon after, my sister asks me to keep an eye out for the “black” Storm figure from X-Men.  Her boyfriend (my future brother-in-law), Doug, was looking for it and couldn’t find it anywhere.  He collected Marvel and Batman stuff… Bobby’s going back after Star Wars… Okay, fine, I’m going to complete my Joe collection!  Let the adventure begin...

    It would be too embarrassing to buy action figures in my hometown, right? Luckily my band practiced an hour away and I don’t know anyone there.  So I start checking all the stores in that area.  Keep in mind, this is a time when many stores let toys sit on the shelves gathering dust for a long time.  So I’m looking for the oldest toys I can find in effort to fill that gap where I stopped collecting.  One of the first discoveries I made was at an old Venture store.

    As I walked down the toy aisle, what do I see but a single Python Conquest gathering dust.  That thing came out in 1989 and had been sitting there for about four years!  I snatched it up and headed off to band practice.  I remember throwing my jacket on top of it because I was worried my bandmates would give me a hard time if they saw it.  All through practice though, I kept thinking about opening it up and putting it together!!!


    Another time, Bobby stops by my house one day and says “here, I got this for you” and hands me a Sky Patrol Sky Shark sealed in the package.  It looked brand new!?!?  I asked where he got it and he said there was a hardware store in Paris, Illinois that had old G.I. Joe stuff and had put it all on clearance.  I told him to give me directions there because I had to check it out.

    So, the next day or so, I head out on my lonesome for a roadtrip with the destination of Paris, Il.  If I had ever been there before, I didn't recall.  The store was called Pools and was on the edge of town.  To any country music fans, this is the hometown of Brett Eldredge.  Though, I’m not sure how old he was in 1993.

    Anyways, after a long drive I arrived at my destination.  It was just as Bobby said, there was a whole endcap filled with clearance Joe figures and vehicles.  The figures from 1993 had a different style than the more classic looking 80’s figure, so it was like stepping back in time.  This stuff had been sitting in the store a long time and they finally decided they wanted to get rid of it.  I got a few things.  One purchase I was especially happy with was Sub-Zero.  Unfortunately, the “collector” mindset had been creeping in and since the package was in such great shape, I couldn’t bring myself to open it!

    Another time, driving through a little town about 30 minutes from my house, I eyeball the one little department store in the area called Pamida.  I decided to stop in and see what they had. 

    Walking in, I started to have my doubts.  But I found a small toy section and they did not have much at all.  On the top shelf, however, I found the Overlord with the Dictator.  Boom, it was now mine!

    Around 1993, things seemed to be heating up in the toy collecting world.  My friends and I weren’t the only ones.  Now I’m finding toy magazines and shops that specialized in selling vintage toys.  Lucky for me though, the interest in G.I. Joe was relatively low…  There was a shop called “Toon Town” that was really on the hunt for all things Star Wars as well as Spawn and Batman.

    The guy running the place loved when Bobby and I walked in...  Correction, he loved when Bobby walked in because they were big on Star Wars and Bobby was after Star Wars.  The guy kinda loathed me because I was after G.I. Joe which they didn’t care about.  They had loose Joes simply dumped in a box by the door, as if they were inviting someone to just pick up the box and walk out with them.  Rummaging through, however, I found two Night Force figures - Lightfoot and Spearhead.  Two rare figures I believe I got like a $1 apiece!

    A few years later, in 1995, I’m at a Target in Springfield, Illinois and in a dumpy clearance area, I found the Air Commando - Cobra Air Devil (sorry, for the blurry picture, it was all I had of him on hand).  The package was jacked up, but the figure and glider were fine.  When I went to buy it, it didn’t even scan.  I told them it was from the clearance area, so they were like - ”This thing is so old it doesn’t even come up in our system.  I don’t know… five dollars?”  Ok! Fine by me!!!

    And so on it went…  As I said, it was such a fun hunt for those toys I had missed out on.  All these little off-the-radar places having maybe one item, but it was one that I wanted.  So funny that it seemed worthless to everyone else but it was priceless to me!!  Unfortunately, it would be highly unlikely to ever see something like that happen these days.

    The best story of a toy find, however, is not something I got for MY collection… but of something I steered someone else to find for theirs!  It was when Bobby was in the beginning phases of his hunt for Star Wars.  We were talking on the phone one day and he was trying to figure out where he could find the stuff he was looking for and a thought hit me.  I was like, “hey, it’s a long shot, but a couple years back, I was in that old Sporting Goods shop downtown.  Down in their basement they had a seriously outdated toy section and last time I was there, I saw a Star Wars “Bespin World” Micro Collection set." 

    This is the diecast set that had ALL 3 of the Bespin sections in one package and with all the figures.  On that note, he drove down there and sure enough - they still had it!!!  The box was a bit beat-up but everything inside was just fine!!  This came out in like 1982 maybe???  And when he bought it, it was 1993…?  Eleven years it sat there?  That's crazy!!!

    Again, it is highly unlikely that something like this would happen these days. Even in 1993, people were starting to key into the worth of some of those toys. These days everyone wants to be ahead of the game.  I was lucky in the way that no one was interested in the older Joe stuff at the time!  The toy collecting journey continued.  These were just some of the highlights.  I have already thought of some other stories...  Maybe I'll have to write a Part II...?