Halloween Countdown Day 2: A Trip to the Hands of Hope Thrift Shop

So a month or so back I went into a thrift store in Bangor, ME that I've only gone inside once or twice in the past, because it's one of those places that makes my skin crawl as soon as I go in. It smells awful and you feel dirty just walking inside. I wanted to see what was in there though, because I was doing a BIG THRIFT day and I was hitting ALL the places. The store in question? The "Hands of Hope Thrift Store" I wasn't expecting to find much... 

But honestly, I was shocked at what I did end up finding.

First up was this awesome Disney's Haunted Mansion pop-up book! I fully expected this thing to be WRECKED as most pop-up books I find secondhand are. To my surprise and delight it was in great shape! I have never been on the Haunted Mansion ride as I have never visited a Disney theme park in my life. But the idea is just so cool... it's on my bucket list. For now though, I will have to content myself with this thing. There are only a few pages, so I went ahead and photographed the whole thing for your enjoyment. 

It is a little difficult to convey the complete sense of "pop-up" in these photographs, but trust me, these things jump right at you. 

The one major damaged bit of the book is the turn-wheel that makes Madame Leota (A hologram! the back cover proudly exclaims!) fly around. IT still sort of works... but it gets lost and starts drifting off the page and out of the book, and then out the door to steal your car. Most of the pull tabs on the pages transform portraits from normal looking folks into zombified ghouls and ghastly fiends. 

 
The dining hall flies tall and proud from the book in an impressive display. The pull tabs on this page cause revelers to dance a ghostly waltz, creep out from under rugs, and blow out candles on cakes (and heads from Jesters)

Arguably the most genuinely terrifying image in the book is the Bride in the attic, accompanied by this fellow in his trunk.

Overall this is an awesome, Halloween-y good time, with all kinds of thrills and surprises. 

Next up I foudn the entire 4 issues of IDW's Weekly World News Comic book. I LOVE WWN crap. I didn't even KNOW there was a comic series based on the characters introduced in the now defunct "news" paper that saw the birth of Bat Boy. The writing is pretty terrible, focusing on a crotchety old man who I think was a featured skeptic in the paper itself. But those covers! It was worth it just for those alone. 

Next up was THIS beauty! I have a lot of affection for the Return to Oz movie of 1985. A lot of people hate it, but I love it for its sheer insanity. The Wizard of Oz universe has never been a sacred cow to me, so reimagining it in various ways only makes it that much more interesting to me.

Not Halloween-y enough? Remember these guys? The Wheelers were pants-soilingly terrifying to me as a kid. 

And Mombi was absolute nightmare fuel. Between her headless body and gallery of switchable heads this chick was just off the hook. I kind of want to recreate this as a Halloween Haunt some year. Like... the whole terrifying movie actually. From the electro-shock therapy to the deadly desert to the gnome king.

I am not a huge fan of the Black Cauldron Disney film. I love the books by Lloyd Alexander way too much for that. I seriously think of the Prydain Chronicles as being on the same level at the Narnia books, the Wrinkle In Time Series, and the Lord of the Rings as far as epic fantasy series  go. The Disney movie sort of misses that point on several levels and cheapens the whole affair. But there is a part of me that holds this book in a certain place in my heart. Mainly for being a Disney movie that has the likes of this guy in it:

The Horned King! He's a poor man's Sauron, sure, and honestly, Lloyd Alexander cribbed this sort of villain and more from the Lord of the Rings... but I don't notice it whilst reading the books. There were alos a whole host of these guys: 

Gah! An army of the undead! 

From this point on I have a hard time justifying any kind of link between my purchases and Halloween. I suppose these books could be considered... nah. They're sci-fi and fantasy at best. One of them, The Three Wishes, is a young-reader CYOA book, and the other, Be An Interplanetary Spy: The Star Crystal, is from a series published by the same company where instead of choosing options in the book, you have to solve various puzzles to get to the end, and solving them wrong means death. I read through the Star Crystal as soon as I got it home, and while it wasn't AMAZING, it was pretty fun. 

Yet another series put out by the same company as Choose Your Own Adventure, The Time Machine series is pretty much just another series of CYOA books with a historical, time-travelling theme. The three I found were Wild West Rider, Civil War Secret Agent, and American Revolutionary. I didn't even know these books existed before I found them at Hands of Hope! 

This whole pile of books only cost me 7 dollars even though it should have cost me 12. I can't remember what the deal was they had going, but it involved free books included in your purchase, so somehow that knocked my cost almost in half. I did NOT complain. I am glad I gave Hands of Hope another chance, even though it still smelled pretty awful and the toys all gave me the extreme willies. It was sort of like going through a Thrift-store themed Haunted House all in and of itself... so I'll probably wait a while to go again. 

That's all I have for tonight kiddos! Be sure to click on the Cryptkeeper Badge (The Creature from the Black Lagoon) in the sidebar to check out all the other participants in this year's Countdown to Halloween! I won't be doing full posts every night like this, but I will be featuring some fantastic Halloween Kids' books that I've found at Goodwill between the meatier posts. I'll be back soon with more Gruesome Goodwill Goodies! Until then, Happy Haunting! 

Hake's Shopping Spree (Redux)

So the topic this week for the League is a pretty fun one:

Go on a fictional shopping spree at Hake’s current auction #209 

to make your collection a little more amazing.

This is not the first time the League has gone shopping at Hake's, but it's my first time taking a look around. Let's see what they've got to set my mouth a-drooling shall we?

Oooh... check out this 1982 Indiana Jones action figure from Kenner! Sweet pete that's a fine looking item! I am a huge Indiana Jones fan, and would love to own this fine piece of nostalgic memorabilia. 

I have never seen or read a single thing to do with Astro Boy. But I love the simplistic design and iconic look of the character, and I own more than a couple of toys based on the character already. This die-cast metal and plastic action figure from the 70's is AMAZING. 

These two DC playsets come as a packaged deal. From 1966, these were Sears exclusive sets. With villains like The Key, Brainstorm, and Mouse Man facing off against icons like Batman and the Joker, who can go wrong? Look at those vehicles! Look at that robot!!!

This button is from 1966 and is a "satirical anti-war button". I would happily pin this into the ceiling of my car, with all my other buttons.  

A "Life-sized" bust of Jack-Skellington? Yes please. The Nightmare Before Christmas is one of my all-time favorite films, and Jack Skellington is a one of the essential Halloween Spirits in my mind. 

Love the look and feel of these old Buck Rogers pop-up adventures. Look at the color! Look at the creatures! Awesome. Completely awesome. I have a reproduction greeting card of this cover somewhere in my collection, but would love to own the original pop-up book!

I don't know what it is about this Frank Buck's Adventurer's Club Black Leopard Head ring but I find it whimsical and bad-ass at the same time. WANT. I guess the fact that it's from an old radio show sponsored by Pepsodent should deter me... but it does not. 

Actually, I think I want to start a collection of vintage, collectible, promotional rings. This Captain Marvel Rocket Raider Compass ring is pure sex. Look at it. I want to buy ten of these awesome old-style rings and wear them like the Mandarin. 

Okay, so I won't dedicate ALL the rest of this post to just rings... but I had to squeeze this last one in. IT'S A SIREN!!! A Rocket Space Patrol Siren Ring to be exact. 

This set of Nightmare Before Christmas: Lock, Shock, and Barrel masks are amazing, and would look stunning hanging on my wall. 

This psychedelic eye-in-a-flower PEZ dispensor will top off my purchase, thank you very much. It is too twisted to pass up on, as I am a PEZ nut. 

So... now let's see what the other members of the League got in their "Hake-Takes":

- Shezcrafti dreams of the crap she'd buy if she wasn't broke. 

- Shawn Robare of Branded in the 80's wants to face the Infaceables... 

- The Trash Man over at POP POP! It's Trash Culture wants a Mecha Gorilla that I actually considered putting on my list as well. 

- G.I. Jigsaw makes some excellent choices in his first-ever League post! Welcome to the League!

Well, that's it for me... for now... but I'll be back very soon with some Genuine Geeky Goodwill Goodies! A whole flood of stuff should be on its way once I get motivated enough to post it. 

So Finally, My Trip to Bangor a While Back...

So just a while back I talked about my most recent trip to the Brewer, ME Goodwill. That had a couple of nice finds. I like getting out of the local store from time to time and seeing what shows up at other stores in the hour radius around my home.

But then that same weekend, I actually went to the Bangor Goodwill, and I found the following loot:

Little Golden Books! There were actually a TON of Little Golden Books I was tempted to bring home... but I didn't want to spend 20+ dollars on a bunch of them that I wasn't really sure I actually wanted. I ended up paring down to a couple of Sesame Street books (always a must-have), some Disney and Looney Tunes books, and some oldies but goodies I remember from when I was a kid. All of the Golden Books (and similar ilk) were .99 cents apiece.

Of particular note, were these three. The Raggedy Ann book I had as a little boy and I loved it. I think I remember having both the Benji and Wizard of OZ books as well, but how cool is it that Benji has a LGB? The one that really stands out of the three was the Wizard of OZ book, which looks like it was actually manufactured incorrectly. As you can see from the picture above on the right, the back cover was attached upside down. I don't think it makes it worth money or anything, I just thought it was really weird and interesting. 

I was particularly excited to find this little piece of history: It's not a Little Golden Book but a similar concept: It's a Rand McNally Elf Book from 1956: Sergeant Preston and REX. The best way to describe the condition? Beat up. It's been written on a bit, and the price tage took off some of the foil spine-cover... grrr... but it's still a great little treasure from days gone by. 

Just some random YA books here. The Island of Time is a CYOA book from 1991. I like the concept behind sort of rebooting Tom Swift (he's a Jr.) as a daredevil modern day inventor/adventurer... And Tentacles is the second in a series of books about Cryptozoologists I've been meaning to read. All three of these books were .99 cents as well. 

The cover of this "Grimm's Ghost Stories" is pretty darn creepy. I LOVE IT.

Saw a bunch of pretty cool old comic books while I was there... but boy, if Goodwill has one really weak-spot price-wise it has to be comic books. They seem to think people can't just go buy old cruddy comic books for .50 cents apiece anywhere else. 

The ones for sale at the Bangor store were all 1.99 apiece! So, sadly, even though there were a bunch of kind of semi-cool old books I thought about picking up... I only ended up leaving with the 2 pictured here. These 2 just called out to me to buy them. I don't care if those books were worth a FORTUNE (I'm telling myself) I just wasn't paying that much.  

QUIK BUNNY COMIC BOOK!

So Quik Bunny and Grimm's Ghost Stories made it home.

Yes. I paid 2 dollars for a comic book about the Quik Bunny. Spider-Man does make a guest appearance. 

All right, we're officially past the books (Mostly. I have one more to share later) and into the toy department. THIS set of four toys was in a grab-bag together and was only priced .99 cetns! The Jetson's Toys are Wendy's premiums from 1989. 

The Evil Queen from the 1993 run of Snow White Happy Meal toys is EXCELLENT. She has an old lady up her skirt. I wish everyone in the world had this feature.

Not necessarily an old lady I guess. We could keep plumbers down there, or tax accountants... or whomever. You have to admit this toy is cool as heck though. I keep mine in Queen mode right now, but the old witch is sure to rear her ugly head sooner than later. 

Up next is a grab-bag of die-cast cars I found for 7.99 on regular price... but because it was the half-off color, I got it for 3.99. You'll notice some of the Tail-Spin vehicles in there (which I already had) and some Barney and Baby-Bop cars in there too... And a Minnie Mouse... But the real reason I picked up this bag was for these:

From 1984, the four pull-back cars are in slightly rough shape, but still fun. There were 3 of the Big Mac cars included, one missing a tire. And the really cool part is, I have vague memories of actually owning some of these when I was a little boy. I think these were the exact sort of toys that were pulled back, let go of, and promptly lost forever under my Grandmother's stove. The dragster on the left is from 1993, from Hotwheels. I love this car. It's got a bit of paint wear... but it just looks so money baby. I paid under a dollar for each of these guys (since I did not really want the other cars in the bag).

Finally... there was one last find I made that day that REALLY had me excited. And here it IS:

A copy of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back Pop-Up Book from 1980! I paid .99 cents! I thought this book was a genuinely exciting find that left me hopefully digging for the other 2 books for the next 20 minutes. To no avail. But still... Yay! The genuine "pop-ups" are actually kind of scarce in this book, including only the title page with Luke on a tauntaun, and then a ship flying past Cloud City later in the book. The rest of the book is of the interactive "pull here" or "slide tab" variety. But they're all fun! A favorite of mine is Luke retrieving his light-saber in the wampa's ice cave. I took shots of every single spread in the book (and two of Dagobah because it's pretty cool to see both versions of the pages). I'm not going to comment on them. I'll just let them speak for themselves. 

That's it for me tonight folks! I'll be back soon with more Geeky Goodwill Goodies! Until then, Happy Hunting!