What's that on Bossk's head? That ain't no SW accessory! 

(Awesome pic!)

It's the helmet from the GI Joe ARAH figure Shockwave. That's my first ever custom made when I was 9. Long winded story is here --> http://www.thecustomalliance.com/potc/first.htm

I was recently thinking about this topic again and took the opportunity to snap a shot of all my childhood toys together. It's been ages since they were all together. Many of the figures are in my display case as they're my best conditioned examples for those figures, others are displayed elsewhere.



It was fun to put all of these together, if even momentarily...

Hi All,

Well the Summer of Vintage 2011 keeps rolling on for me as since my last post I've gotten even more items to fill my collection room. At this point I believe I've pretty much doubled my collection from prior to the summer. Here we go...


This was a sizable pick-up from Craigslist that netted me some excellent boxes. Every box here came with an incomplete toy, the TIE Fighter is only missing a strut while the Micro Freeze Chamber is missing a number of pieces. The Dagobah set was a big score in that while all the pieces to the playset are missing, the swamp foam was complete and intact!!! That made for a great upgrade to my loose set.


From the same haul comes all the die-cast Micro figures I picked up. A notable group is the Build Your Army mailer set, though it's missing 2 of the figures.


Not pictured with the Craigslist haul was the Cloud City playset box I picked up. I was shocked to find an empty box w/ instructions for the set so I made sure to nab it. I then went and bought a complete loose set off of eBay later that week to complete the piece. I never saw this playset in person, so I was surprised to find out how small it really is. It's a great piece though, I would have loved to have seen Jabba's palace done like this.


In August, eBay was very good to me - I picked up both Sears exclusive Jabba's Dungeon playsets. The ROTJ set came with all of it's figures, while the POTF set did not. I really bought this for the POTF set since I had a complete ROTJ set, but for the price I couldn't complain about getting extras. 


Not everything from eBay is a winner - I picked up this X-Wing in a bit of haste. The auction was ending, the price was right ($33 after shipping) and the pic looked good to my eyes so I decided to bid and eventually won. Then I got it in the mail and was disappointed - the ship had more yellowing than I expected and was pretty dirty and the box looked like a dog chewed it up and spat it out. I went back to the auction and sure enough the picture did accurately portray the toy, I just saw it with rose-colored glasses. Oh well, the price was good, it shipped fast, and after a thorough cleaning it displays well (the ship, not the box) so I'm holding on to it as a place holder until I find a better one.


This is my haul from my first day at the 2011 Chicago Comic-Con - the figures are mostly for customs or upgrades. The Battle Damaged TIE Fighter was to finally get myself the box for the item as it turned out it had the BD stickers already on the ship so now I have on display a loose TIE with and without the stickers. The real big score is the MISB ATL Interceptor I got for only $100! You never see these guys for sale and when you do never a MISB set, loose ones go for at least what I paid for it so I was quick to jump on it. It's a beautiful piece and displays nicely with my Side Gunner and POTF mini-rigs.


Here's my Day 2 haul from Comic-Con - the Jabba guards are all upgrades and Thall Joben is a complete figure as I now delve into the Droids & Ewoks figures and the Emperor mailer was rather inexpensive (or so I thought - see next pic). The Imperial Troop Transport was the 2nd biggest score of the weekend - I had seen it during my first visit but it was priced higher than I wanted. My buddy sent me a pic of it that he'd seen from another site's coverage with the still too high of a price tag on it. Well my day 2 visit to the show was the last day for the con and it was still available, after some minor haggling I got the price down to something I was more comfortable paying and now it belongs to me. 


And finally just from this past weekend, I stopped by one of my favorite stores in Chicago - Quake Collectibles. I've been going to Quake for a good 10+ years now and as any of you who have been there may know, it's a great place to find hidden treasures and neat items. I've picked up many vintage pieces over there years there and went there explicitly to pickup some weapons I know would be available. What I was surprised to find were several baggie figures of RL C-3P0 and the Emperor for $2.50 ea! I picked them up along with a die-cast Darth Vader TIE and my fave score from the trip - a moulded face Jedi Luke! I was more shocked to find this figure in the cheapie bin than I was the baggie figures, so I quickly picked him up. Now I just need to get a complete set of accessories and my Jedi Luke variants will be all complete!

So there you have it, more vintage greatness for the summer. I'm going out east soon to visit my buddy Ash and I'm sure we'll find more vintage along the way. Getting back so heavily into the vintage has been refreshing and so enjoyable- it definitely trumps all.

I can't say that this is 100% solid, but I recall getting ROTJ figures before the movie came out in 83. Now I was only 5 years old at the time and it very well could have been that I got figures before I saw the movie, but it always stuck with me that the figures came out before the film. I have a clear memory of my first time seeing ROTJ figures at TRU in a huge shelf display at the front of the store and I remember thinking at the time how cool it was to see characters before the movie was out.

McMetal - sounds like a great score on an A-Wing, congrats!

I've been picking up a lot of vintage over the past couple months, I've practically doubled my collection since mid-May...


Two day haul from the Motor City Comic-Con in May. The Bespin Control Room is a sealed piece, while the Max Rebo, Dengar, and Stormtrooper are upgrades. Bespin Leia allowed me to complete the 3 major variants of the figure and I finally have a die-cast TIE Fighter for the first time since I was 5!


A nice pair of items from an RS member (Vintage_City) - the PDT-8 rig and the Dewback saddle are upgrades (never had the reins).


My buddy Ash gave a me a great hook-up with a number of vintage boxes to complete several pieces. The Rancor and CAP-2 were the only ones to come with toys, though I already have them.


Ash also helped me complete my collection of movie figures with the final piece to the puzzle - Blue Snaggletooth! The silver on the belt buckle and boots is obviously not the best, but the blue plastic on the torso and limbs is some of the best I've ever seen in hand.


Not a spectacular pick-up here, always wanted to nab the POTF2 set and got this for dirt cheap at a garage sale listed on Craigslist. More importantly it was a gateway to the next score...


The guy I bought the POTF2 set was having a garage sale at his friend's house (I think he owed his buddy $$) and mentioned he had some boxed vintage he was considering selling and wanted to know if I'd come back the next day to check it out. I did go back the next day and after some haggling I picked these 6 ESB pieces. The Slave 1 practically has no stickers on it - an unused sheet came with it. The Bespin Leia came along for the ride in the Cloud Car.


And finally, the biggest haul of them all! My Holy Grail!! I got a great deal on this Imperial Shuttle from another RS member (dspair) - I've wanted the Shuttle since I was 6 years old and have been so ecstatic over finally having it in my collection. This has become the centerpiece of my collection and I just can't stop staring at. 

This is just the first part of my "Summer of Vintage", I've got more coming in from eBay later this week. Woo hoo!!

Lot of folks have been mentioning the lack of weathering on the Dagobah Landing Luke. Now it definitely sucks that Hasbro didn't go the distance on the paint app, so I had to do it for them...



This is just a simple black/brown wash. I'm sure there are folks who can do a better job than I, but here's a basic idea of how it would look if Hasbro or you did it. The picture doesn't do it justice but the weathering is deep in person. Worth giving it a shot to those who don't want a day-glo orange Luke.

Also I believe the purpose of the wing men are to provide additional aft shielding for the pilot making the run. They need to be in a close relative position to the lead pilot to ensure they take the laser shots from the pursuing TIEs. Essentially they're sacrificial lamb to give the lead time to take the shot.

The recent Target TVC 9-pack gives those looking for unique ways to display their loose figures and interesting way to do so...



The plastic tray was removed and each figure is standing on the bottom inside of the bubble. The figures are all on REAL stands and if I were to make this a permanent display I'd consider hot gluing the stands to the bubble.

While never a replacement for a true ESB 3-pack, this is a fun way to display loose figures.