2014 Yard Sale Finds #2

Even though I hit the sales on Sunday, I was still able to find a little bit of everything.  But, by having to work Saturdays, I’m sure that I missed a few things.  But my wife will be keeping an eye out for me on the Saturdays she is able to hit the sales.  With that being said, let’s take a look at the goods.

First of all, I haven’t seen this movie in more than 20 years, and I’m not even sure I liked it.  But it has a few things going for it; it’s directed by Ron Howard(Richie Cunningham), it features Steve Guttenberg(Officer Carey Mahoney), and it’s from the eighties. But there will be no loss even if I absolutely hate it(which I’m sure I won’t), since it was free(it was in a free box, and it is in great cosmetic condition).

And what would yard sales be without a few fast food toys?  The Pokémon Game Boy toy is from 2000,and it only ran me 50 cents.  I’m, not sure if I want to keep it sealed, as I am a bit curious as to what toy it actually is.  The cat and dog on the pull-back couch is a Taco Bell toy from 1995.  There aren’t too many Taco Bell-centric toys I can think of, but this one is pretty cool looking, and, to me, fits the mid-nineties perfectly.  I found it in an antique gallery, and even though it was marked at 75 cents, they had it in the “Bargain Basement”, so it came to a total of 41 cents!  Money well spent!!  🙂

I did see quite a few decent figures, but the prices weren’t exactly yard-sale-priced, and a lot of the sellers didn’t want to move on the prices.  But I did come away with a few decent scores.  Beetlejuice was bundled with a PS1 game(which we’ll get to later), for $4, which would mean he cost me $2.  I found Ugnaught(Star Wars figure in the center), in a bin of Matchbox cars for 50 cents.  I will never refuse a vintage Star Wars figure for 50 cents, and it’s the icing on the cake when it’s a figure that I don’t already own.  Twitch, from Toy Story 3, was bundled with a PS 1 game as well(and these were 2 totally different sales), and only cost me 25 cents.  I don’t know if it’s bootleg, but this one’s got 2 right hands.  The only marking I’ve located is on the lower back, and it just says Disney/Pixar, with “China” under it.

Both of the boxes you see above a full of early-nineties hockey cards.  They were in a shed at a gift shop type place, and I was chatting up one of the proprietors ,and happened to mention that I saw the boxes of cards in there.  He said that he would only need a dollar or 2 to take them all, as they had been there for years.  For $1.08, I came away with what you see above.  The Garbage Pail Kids were a bonus, as I only found them while I was taking pictures.  The autographed card is of Radek Bonk, who was a pretty high pick in his draft class, but didn’t have too much of an impact in the NHL.  I’ll always remember him just because of Bonk’s Adventure.  🙂

As you can see, with the exception of the Dark Knight comic, the other 2 are in pretty rough shape.  The lady selling them wanted $2 each, and most of what she had was in horrible condition.  Now, condition isn’t a huge deal, if the price is right.  But there is no way I would pay close to $2 per issue for these comics in this condition.  I countered with 2 for $1, and she just said that she would rather not.  I re-countered with 3 for $2, and she still said she’d rather not .  At this point I told her that I was not interested paying any more than my final offer of $2 for the 3 comics.  Shortly before I left her sale, she found me, and said that her boyfriend would do the 3 for $2.  It’s just ridiculous what people value certain things.

And as you may have guessed, these are the 2 different PS1 game I bundled with the action figures we saw earlier.  I have never played either, but both look like they could be fun to play.  If we break it down with what I bundled them with, we’re looking at a total of $2.75 for the games, and a grand total of $5 for the games and 2 figures.

Not a bad haul, and definitely a good time.  And to think, the season has only really just begun.  There is a weekly flea market/swap meet that happens every Sunday close to where I live, that I plan on hitting up in the next few weeks.  I have high hopes for this, as deals are usually a-plenty, but we’ll see.

 

2014 Yard Sale Finds #1

Now that the warm weather seems like it’s here to stay for the most part, yard sale season is finally upon us.

Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t have been able to hit the sales yesterday, as I usually work Saturdays for my current schedule.  But, I have additional training this week, and my job needed me to come in on Tuesday, which is one of my days off.  So, being that I have to go in on my day off, I got to have yesterday off instead.  That ended up working well, since there were quite a few sales, and the rain decided to hold off.

And now, on to the goods!

This is a cool M&M’s piece, and if it had not been free, I would not have given it a second glance.  But the key word here is “free”.  I dig Red and Yellow, and I’ve always thought old-school 3-D glasses were cool looking.  They’re not the typical red/blue, rather being red/green, but that is something I can forgive.

The box was pretty dirty, but as you can see, it cleaned up quite nicely!

When I saw this, I had absolutely no idea what it was.  But it’s from 1985, and the box art is fantastic!  And there was no way I could pass this up for 75 cents!

I don’t know if it’s complete, and being that it’s going directly into storage, it’ll probably be some time before I can come to that conclusion.  In the event that it is missing pieces, I’ll still have a very 80’s box to display.

And having the Kay-Bee price tag, with Kay-Bee’s trademark markdown jusst adds to the awesomeness!

Anyone who has followed me through the years knows that I am a Garfield fan, especially in the glassware arena.

Typically, I’ll come across McDonald’s glasses, but this juice container is so much cooler.  The plastic lid had a few tears on the sides, but the container is in great shape.  I can’t believe that this only cost me 50 cents!  I will have to make sure that I have some lemonade out of this container this summer.

I would love to get one of the new generation Furby’s, but I really don’t see myself paying upwards of $50 for one.  This first generation one is the one that I will always associate the name “Furby”, with.  The lady selling it wanted $2 for it, but I asked if she would do $1 for it, since I didn’t know if it worked.  She said that she didn’t know if it worked either, and that $1 was fair.  I will make it a point to test it out before this weekend is over.

I didn’t realize until I got home, that this book has a torn page, and a handful of pages with small blotches/stains on them.  But it’s a book about the Goonies that I have never seen before, and the seller only wanted $1 for it.  I flipped through it today, and it’s basically the movie in book form.  Although there seems to be some shots from the movie taken at different angles.  To me, the cover alone is worth more than the $1 I paid for it.

We came about one sale that had more than a dozen long boxes filled with comics all for $1 each.  I didn’t have all day to sift through the boxes(which I totally would’ve, by the way), so I only came away with the gem you see above.  The nineties were littered with gimmick covers, but the silver foil totally fit Silver Surfer’s 50th issue.  I’m not sure of the value of it on today’s market, but I don’t think it’s the $10 tag you see at the bottom.  I almost walked away with a Punisher War Journal #1, but it had water damage, and there was obvious black mold on the backside of the backing board.  So, I had to take a pass on that one.

This Mario Kart figure was actually my first find of the day.  I don’t have any additional info on it at the moment, but at 25 cents it was an easy purchase.

This Wario from Mario Kart is a quite a bit different than the one that preceded it.  This one is actually motorized, the front wheels turn, and it came with a few power-ups from the games.  I’m not sure how it works, or if it’s even complete, but it’s Nintendo related, and it only ran me 50 cents.  And I actually came across it completely by accident.  I was looking at a wooden toy chest, and decided to open it up to inspect the condition of the inside.  I opened it  and noticed what you see above, among a handful of other toys.  I asked if the toys inside were for sale, which they were, and made the deal shortly after.

The 3 games above were got from 3 different sales, but only cost me $1 apiece.  Kill Switch and Namco Museum are complete, and Orphen is missing it’s manual.  Namco Museum is my favorite of the lot, as I am a huge fan of old-school gaming.

And lastly, I found these Burger King Beetlejuice toys for 25 cents each.  A short time before I found these, another seller wanted $3 for each of the ones he had.  Out of the 4 above, I am positive that I need 2 of them towards my set.  I know that I already have 2 of the second one from the left, but not sure if I have the first one on the left.  Either way, this is a set I should be close to completing, and I’m happy with the prices I paid for them.

They need a little cleaning, and they’ll look pretty good.  If anyone else is collecting these, remember that the Jaques one is available for sale/trade.

7 (actually 11), Cool Things in My Tackle Box

My tackle box is your normal everyday tackle box, except that I do not use it for storing fishing gear.  While I do like to occasionally go fishing, I do not have any of my own tackle, or pole for that matter.

You see, I use this tackle box to store many great things.

Today, we will see some of these fascinating items.

This little chili pepper bandito comes from the once popular “Homies” line.  I will admit that there was a time when I spent a lot of quarters collecting these.  I have since gotten rid of many of them, but still have about 5 that I really like, and this guy is a the top of that small list.  Not only is it an anthropomorphic chili pepper with a shotgun, he also has his own built in display of sand and a cactus.  I can’t believe that I plopped down 50 cents for each of the other figures I had, but I have no regrets when it comes to this one.

Now, I know it may seem weird to see Pokémon on my blog here, but I have no problem with stating that I do like the early years of the franchise.  I am familiar with about the first 300 or so that came out, and I was really into the Game Boy games up until the Gold and Silver versions.  Blastoise would have to be my favorite of them all.  A huge tortoise with water cannons protruding from his shell just screams awesome!  This is a burger King toy from around 2000 or so.  I can’t remember exactly how it came into my possession, but out of the ones I did buy from BK this was not one of them.  I have had it since around that time, but there was at least one previous owner.

This token should need no explanation as to why I am highlighting it.  First off, I has Pac-Man on it, and secondly it represents an era that has a lot of meaning to many, myself included.  While arcades aren’t completely extinct, most of the ones in business these days, just don’t capture the same feeling.  Many of them are filled with ticket/prize winning games, and you’re lucky if you can find 1 or 2 classic games in the place.  I don’t know what arcade this particular token came from.  My wife brought it home with some foreign coins that were with her change, and I quickly claimed it.

Marshall  Bravestarr.  This was a decent cartoon and toy line.  The idea was cool, and the toys were a bigger the many of the action figures of the 80s.  I would like to get his cowboy hat to give him the right look, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen the hat by itself on the secondary market.  Most, if not all of the figures came with Kerium, which is another accessory that I would like to get my hands on.  And a shout-out to Anthony for getting this over to me in a trade we did a while back.

these are not your everyday Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles action figures.  What you see in the above photo, are miniatures, which I believe came in Mighty Max scale playsets.  they came into my possession in a TMNT lot I purchased on Ebay some years back.  I also have a few of the miniature vehicles as well, and I must say that for their size, they have some pretty decent detail.

The above figure is from the Star Wars Galactic Heroes line, and I did not know this until I did some research for this post.  It was given to me years ago with a lot of other toys, and I hung onto it because I thought it was an awesome looking bug man.  This is a Geonosian Warrior from the Battle of Geonosis set.  This would be from Episode II, which I haven’t seen since it was in theatres, which would explain why I had no clue to what it was.  So while I thought it was a cool looking figure, having it be from Star Wars is just a bonus.

And lastly, we have this old California Raisin Fan Club membership form.  This came with a Raisin figure that I believe came as a premium in boxes of Kellogg’s Raisin Bran back in 1989.  I found the sealed baggie with the Raisin(playing up right bass), and this form at a second hand shop for 5o cents.  I know there are people who would think I’m crazy for opening it, but how else was I supposed to see this form in it’s entirety, or display the Raisin on my shelf without opening it.  The figure itself is a little bigger than the others I have seen(and have), and I don’t think it was available through any other means.

There’s lots of other cool things in the tackle box, but I wanted to highlight a few of the things I thought needed a bit of showcasing, but didn’t justify individual posts.

Last weekend I went to a toy show, and I will get to posting my haul, most likely, in my next post.  But if you want to see a preview of almost everything I scored, check me out on Instagram(jasonvorhee91).  I post very often on Instagram, as it’s very easy and not very time-consuming.  It’s a fun alternative, and I’ve met a lot of very cool, like-minded individuals since I’ve joined.

Thrift Store Finds #1

Hey all!

I know it’s been a while since my last post, but I think I’m back in the swing of things.

As you may know, back in September I became a father.  My daughter takes precedence over everything, and most of my free time is devoted to other things(mostly television).  I have been checking in on some of your blogs, and that made me miss writing.  I have another post almost ready to go, and I have a handful of figures I’d like to get to reviewing.  I am frequently on Instagram(Jasonvorhees91), though.

Most of my second hand pick-ups come from yard sales, but since it’s winter time, we don’t have any of those on the east coast this time of year.  There are quite a few thrift stores in a 40 mile radius of my house, and recently, I have found a few deals that I couldn’t pass up.

This Metal Pac is from the Disney series “Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures”, that seems to have a Wii U game of the same name.  This figure is one in a series that you could get by reserving the game at Target.  This is what I gleaned from reading the package.  For .49 cents, there was no way I was passing it up!  Even though it’s new-school Pac-Man, it’s still Pac-Man nonetheless.

I don’t know too much about this Raphael figure other than the mechanism that locks him into place to do a flip is broken.  It’s a TMNT figure I didn’t have, and I love how much he looks like the old-school comic version  of the Turtles.  I bundled him with everything else below for a total of $1.47, so he cost mere cents!

These Marvel trading cards were the precursor for the Marvel Universe cards we came to know and love in the early nineties(of which I have a few sealed packs of).  They’re from 2 different sets, and I wish I could’ve found more.  The artwork looks great, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen Thing portrayed quite the way he is on that card.

I am a hockey fan(NY Rangers), and used to actively collect hockey cards for years.  While I still have a collection of sports and non-sports trading cards, I don’t buy many cards on a regular basis.  But I do buy a few packs and some select singles here and there.  The card of Tom Simpson is a card from the long-defunct WHL.  I didn’t have any cards from the WHL prior to this, so I figured “Why not?”.  The Batman card is from the 1966 set.  Batman is one of my top 2 favorite comic characters, and I couldn’t pass up this card for the price I got it for(remember everything except Pac-Man came to a combined $1.47).  It also has the distinction of being the oldest card in my collection.

 A Burger King tray liner from 1991!  I have no special association with this particular promotion, but I love all things from the eighties and early nineties.  I have never seen any fast food tray liners in the wild, and I’m not sure many people(I can think of 1 or 2) would be interested in such things.  What I really like about this is the old Burger King Kid’s Club logo.

And lastly, a McDonald’s tray liner from 1991.  This one trumps the BK one in my opinion, for 2 reasons; 1.) – It is for the long running Hot Wheels/Barbie Happy Meal(one of my favorites as a kid).  2.) – It actually has coupons for the “real” toys.

I’m not sure about this specific promotion, but in the eighties, the Hot Wheels we got in our Happy Meals were made of die-cast metal.  Whereas during the last 15 or so years, the cars are mostly made of plastic.

You can bet that I will checking the local thrifts more frequently, and digging up more treasures in the near future.  🙂