A Surprise Package From "Ryan"

So here's a post that's loooooooong overdue:

I received a package last year that was a really nice surprise. It just showed up out of the blue, with no expectations or demands attached. I'm not going to use the sender's full name here just in case, but I want to wholeheartedly thank "Ryan," who sent me this package. It has been forever since I received this stuff, and I want to make it clear that this package did not go unremarked. THANK YOU! Let's take a look at what the incredibly kind Ryan sent to me:

I owned a copy of the Black Hole novelization as a kid. For the longest time it was the only chapter book that I owned. As a kid I had a vague idea that this was some sort of horror novel, and so while I refused to give it up and get rid of it, I also refused to actually read it. I had never seen the Disney movie, and in fact still have not ever seen this Disney movie. I am aware of it's significance as some sort of Star Wars rip-off... but beyond that I have no idea. What's cool about having this book back in my possession is the childhood memories I have of holding onto this book, DARING myself to peek inside, as if some sort of horrific creature was going to pop out and snap my face off and drag it back inside. This thing makes me feel like I'm a kid again.

Anyone who has even casually browsed this blog will already know that I am a huge lover of Choose Your Own Adventure books and their many knock-off cousins. Which-Way Books are yet another of those brand-x CYOA book series that are just as fun as the originals. And when Vampires, Spies, and Alien Beings are involved... look out!

I'm not a huge fan of 101 Dalmations, to be completely honest, but I do love Happy Meal Toys, and the toy on the left side there is one of those completely bonkers vehicles where the top and bottom of the car both have a driving character that you can flip out to play with. So these are both pretty awesome. 

Also in that little package was this set of vikings from the How To Train Your Dragon bucket of Dragons set. I love that they gave these guys the little-plastic-army-men treatment! To be totally honest here too, I already own a set of these, but I genuinely love these so much that I don't mind showcasing them on the blog as much as humanly possible. The letter Ryan included with these items made it very clear that I should not feel obligated to keep anything here if I chose not to. I will definitely make sure that anything here I don't end up keeping will go on to a good home that will appreciate them the way they should be appreciated. 

I hate to play favorites... but I saved the absolute best item for last. This Kermit car is the bomb! This thing is from the Corgi line made back in 1979 and... I mean... KERMIT! This toy is just a classic! 

Here's one final look at the great little package of stuff Ryan sent me Another grand thank-you goes out to him for sending me this package.

I'll be back soon enough with some Geeky Goodwill Goodies! Until then, Happy Hunting!

Another Trip to the Dreamcatcher Antique Mall

So, I made yet another trip to the Dreamcatcher Antiques Mall recently, and I came out with a handful of fun items:

Here's a look at the entire haul, but let's break it down piece by piece, shall we? 

First up I have this 1989 Bumblebee Transformer. He was either a part of the Pretenders line of the Legends line of that ear, according to the Transformers Wiki. Bumblebee was actually one of my favorite characters on the show as a kid. The odd characters were always my favorites on any show... it was the soldier and warriors and tough guys that didn't really appeal to me at that age. 

Here he is in car mode. Apparently all I'm missing now is the gigantic gun turret that you usually find innocuously installed on the roof of most Volkswagen Beetles. (Man, does he NEED a good cleaning)

Meet Becky. Becky is a Fisher Price Adventure Person... and a total hottie. She is a scuba diver. I get really distracted when Becky's around. Becky is also the name of my Aunt. So... that got weird fast. I absolutely LOVE the Fisher Price Adventure People line. I only owned one as a kid because they were a little bit before my time (I had the X-Ray Man figure) but I really appreciate the design and simplicity of these little folk as an adult collector. 

Next up is what I thought at first was a Hotwheels Batmobile from the Tim Burton movie... but I was mistaken. This baby is solid rubber! It was released in 1992 to support the Batman Returns movie, and was produced by Applause... you know... the guys who made all those PVC figures with the thick, rubbery paint? They did everything from the California Raisins to Sesame Street to Disney's Chip n' Dale's Rescue Rangers (can you tell I'm looking around my cave trying to think of figurines Applause produced?) To me, this just makes this thing that much cooler! The wheels are on pins and do actually roll, so this isn't just a solid hunk of rubber. Bumblebee, Becky, and the Batmobile up there all cost me just one American Dollar as a GROUP!!! They were all in a .50 cent bin but the guy at the register just grunted and charged me buy 2 get 1 free. Boy what a momentous occasion in my life! 

The star of this shot is the TSR PVC Bugbear figure standing front and center. I just wanted to include Warduke and Strongheart because they are the only other TSR toys from the 80's I own. Strongheart I bought in a grab-bag at Goodwill a long while back... and Warduke was a very recent gift from my wife's cousin's husband, who actually won him from the Garage Sale of awesome. Anyway... the Bugbear's supposed to be the star of the show here, so let's focus on him. I'm still not totally clear if the action figures and the PVC monsters were all meant to be part of the same toy line... but now that I know of their existence... I may be tracking more of these down. He was three dollars on his own. 

And finally, I brought home this Vampire the Masquerade players guide... which I already own. But it was only five dollars, and I have an idea of where this might be headed, so I snapped it up. All of the items you see here cost me just a hair under 9 dollars. There were two other items that I'm not revealing because I bought them as a surprise gift for a friend, and those brought my total up to 15 dollars. 

That's all I have for today kids! I'll be back soon with more Geeky Goodwill Goodies! Until then, Happy Hunting. 

Another Trip to Dream Catchers

I recently made another trip into the Dream Catcher Antique Mall in Ellsworth, ME. And this time I found a handful of great old books, and a fun action figure find! I brought my handful of stuff up to the desk and the guy looks at what I have and just says:

"...Eh... Ten bucks for everything there."

I was prettyy happy because at least two of the items I had were marked at 4 dollars apiece. The other three things had no price, but I had assumed they would be priced similarly... so pretty much everything you see in this post cost me 2 bucks. I literally smiled, handed over a ten dollar bill, thanked the man, and took all this stuff home with me.

Ah. I finally found the second part of this novelization trilogy. It's been driving me nuts for a while now that I only have the first and third parts... and once I got this home I was able to slide this book in between those two on the shelf and let out a satisfied sigh. THIS is the reason why I collect stuff people. Just the rote lining up of things that need to be ordered and in complete sets. Aaaaand... because I like the stuff sometimes? I definitely love the first trilogy, and as I've mentioned recently, I'm getting a strange kick out of collecting movie novelizations now that I've found so many of them at Goodwill. 

Whoah... What? Little Golden Books? Whaaaaaaat? Yep. I'm sure regular visitors will already be annoyingly familiar with the fact that I collect these. What makes these ones particularly special though? This is a first edition Walt Disney's Davy Crockett: King of the Wild Frontier! printed back in 1955 this book has that nice, brownish-gold ink on the gilded spine. I mean, it's not like it's worth much. I think the most it's going for on eBay is about 20 dollars. But still! This is a classic! And the older I find these books, the better. 

Here is a first edition Walt Disney's Donald Duck's Christmas Tree LGB from 1954! What I find really interesting is that Donald is chosen to replace Mickey Mouse, who co-starred in the original animated version of the tale "Pluto's Christmas Tree" two years prior. Nowhere can I seem to find any reference as to WHY that is. Donald is usually portrayed as the Chipmunks' nemesis... and Pluto is always depicted as Mickey's dog... so this is just all very confusing to me. 

I don't know if you are familiar at all with this fairy tale (which is admittedly a Christian parable more than anything... but it reads like a fairy tale) by John Ruskin, but it was one of my favorite stories to have read to me by my grandmother as a little boy. I found this copy that was published in 1932 by McLoughlin Brothers Inc. marked for 4 dollars (but remember I paid 10 for EVERYTHING you see here... so I really got it for 2!) It's pretty much a kind of boy-Cinderella story where a boy named Gluck is being used as a house-keeping slave by his two evil older brothers. Gluck meets a mysterious magical benefactor in the King of the Golden river, who gives Gluck magical instructions on how to gain access to Treasure Valley. Of course, the evil older brothers find out, try to follow the instructions in their own crooked evil ways, fail tests of their moral fiber, and each in their turn are transformed into black stones for their troubles. Gluck wins out in the end, and all thanks to the magic of the King of the Golden River, and his own pure heart. Also, the illustrations by G. A. Davis are super cool, and just seeing them took me back to my childhood. I'd only ever seen this story printed in anthologies of other fairy tales, so finding it published in a single-story format was extremely exciting for me! 

My belt buckle has a big K on it!

I think the absolute BEST find of this particular trip was this Michael Knight action figure from 1982! (Sorry for the terrible pictures... he seemed to be really difficult for me to photograph...)

So sad.

Michael is articulated to pretty much just do ONE thing, and that is sit in a big plastic KITT car and drive around. Sigh. Unfortunately... there was no KITT to be found at the Dream Catcher Antique Mall. So... Michael will just have to go without. 

You're... mocking me, aren't you.

Until I remembered this! I found this KITT at Wal-Mart on clearance down from 4.97 to 3.50! It's... well, it's not quite what Michael needs to make him feel complete... but It makes ME happy!

This was a pretty great handful of items for me to bring home for only 10 dollars! Overall, this was a great trip to the Dream Catcher Antique Mall as well, and I've already spotted some other, more expensive items that I may be picking up in the future if they're still there.

Well, that's it for me folks! I'll be back with some Geeky Goodwill Goodies in the near future, so in the meantime, Happy Hunting!

Goodwill Quick Stop 08-09-2013 Toys! Comics! Cool Stuff Galore!

On my way home from work on Friday I decided to stop in to Goodwill for one of my patented "quick-stops" this means I breeze through the departments I'm most likely to find something good without really digging much. I hit the toy department, scan the books, and look at the case at the front of the store. 

GOODWILL GEEK TIP #765: Always check the glass case or cases near the register. You NEVER know what they're going to stick in that case... sometimes its all just old costume jewelry but it could be old game cartridges, or steak knives, or vintage action figures, or sex how-to books, or anything they think may be valuable and/or dangerous for kids to get their hands on for whatever reason. Some of it may be obvious, but some of it will probably have you scratching your head. 

In the many glass cases of the Goodwills I frequent I have found: a bag of Masters of the Universe action figures, a bag of McDonalds vintage Happy Meal Cars, a can of Duff Beer from the Simpsons that turned out to house one-sixth of a dice game... the list goes on, but I will not. In fact, two of my quick-stop finds in this post were out of the glass cases by the registers! ALWAYS CHECK THE CASE

For instance, I found is set of 1991 Archie toy cars from Burger King in the case. I'm not a huge Archie fan, but this was a cool set, and I do enjoy have icons of different sorts in my collection. Plus the cars are all very cool. 

I love that the "big 4" of the Archies are all represented here, and that each has a distinct looking automobile that seems to match their personalities. Archie in his old-fashioned fun-loving jalopy, Betty in her classic Cadillac, Veronica in her suped up sports car, and Jug-Head in something that says Volkswagen to me, but I really don't know for cars... so feel free to enlighten me.

 

They have General Motors markings on the bottoms in addition to the Burger King and Archie stuff so I am led to believe these are genuine car models. I never liked them much as a kid but as an adult I'm becoming a sucker for any kind of old-school Fast Food premium with a famous character driving a toy car.

I paid 1.99 for each of these, making the set just under 8 bucks, and less than that with my discount card... but I still had this twinge of feeling like I was over-paying. I really fell in love with them though so I went ahead and brought them home. 

The next item I found was sitting in with the board games and puzzles in the toy department. It's a 2001 Dexter's Laboratory Coloforms playset! I've read enough blog posts from fellow bloggers to know how much fun Colorforms can be, so I snapped these up for .99 cents without hesitation. I was worried that when I got them home some of the pieces might be missing or damaged...

But I was relieved to discover that was not the case! All 32 Colorform Pieces were present, whole, and accounted for! They still stick to the background included like magic too! I was kind of disappointed by the selection of Colorform pieces to play with, as I know there were more crazy events and experiments that could have been represented rather than say... a loose lightbulb or a grandafather clock. I find it hard to believe kids would have had much to "play" with this set. But I still love that it reminds me of my childhood, and the Colorforms I had back then. They feel just the same. And I'm a big Dexter's fan so I can't complain. 

Kicking around loose on the shelf is yet another Dexter item, and I can only assume he was shucked from a grab-bag (This happens a lot. People pop open grab-bags and leave the contents strewn everywhere. It drives me insane) because he had no price tag so they just charged me .99 cents for him. The weirdest thing about him? He's a Subway Kid's Meal toy! I never thought Subway had anything worth bothering with in their kid's meals! This was of course from 2001 so it's been like, 12 years... they've probably had quite a few hits and misses in that time. 

Here's Dexter in his new home with some other fellows. I sort of see Dexter either teaming up with or facing off against Inspector Gadget. It just feels right. 

I cannot explain why I bought this book. It is a Perry Mason mystery/crime novel. It is "The Case of the Mythical Monkeys" I think... I think that the image of the monkeys and the title... juxtaposed with the hot "ready-and-waiting" red-headed bombshell... just got me. I will never read this book, just to be clear. I could easily just tear off the cover, frame it, and hang it on the wall. I won't do that because it causes me physical pain to deface books in such a manner... but I need to display this awesome piece of ridiculousness SOMEHOW. I only paid .99 cents for it, so I don't feel TOO guilty.

And of course, I can never leave a Choose Your Own Adventure book behind if I spot it. This one is particularly old, and is only #4 in the series. "Space and Beyond"" looks a little silly to be honest, based off the illustrations alone. The hero of the story has a chin that is larger than the rest of his head. I got this for .99 cents. 

And last but not least I found a parcel of comic books in the glass case up front! At first I sighed because the pack was 9.99 and I'm SO tired of Goodwill over-pricing old comic books... and then when I asked to see the pack and realized it contained sixteen issues of Power-pack... and THREE of them were Inferno tie-ins... I decided I would buy! That's like .63 cents per issue, and I'm okay with that. Not only that, but if you look above, there's a guest appearance by Nightcrawler and I suspect the Morlocks. 

I've never really followed Power Pack. I think I have a couple of loose issues somewhere in my collection (none of the ones I picked up here). I know a little bit about the characters and their powers, and some of their history That's only because I used to make it my business to know anyone and everyone in the Marvel Universe. But I've never really read any stories. These will be my first official foray into Power Pack territory. Hey look! The New Mutants guest star in one of these too!

Here's a three-issue story-arc featuring Galactus! The far right comic in the far right picture there is a Holiday special that came out in '93. "An All New Story from the Original Creators!"

I mentioned a while back that I've been having a bit of a dry spell at Goodwill. AND THEN... I run in for a quick-stop and I come home with some pretty cool stuff like all this! This was a fun little handful of great stuff and I walked out whistling!

Well, that's it for me today! I'll be back soon with more Geeky Goodwill Goodies! Until then, Happy Hunting!

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!