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Toy Conventions, Toy Fairs, and Toy Shows oh my!
533 Plays6 years ago
On this, the first episode of Adventures in Collecting, Dave and Erik talk the latest news from Star Wars Rise of Skywalker and Funko's New York Comic Con exclusives, their recent hauls, and the ins and outs of Toy Shows, Fairs, and Cons, along with some tips on how to make the most of your experience there.
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Intro by Joe Azzari
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Music is "Game Boy Horror" by the Zombie Dandies
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Transcript
Introduction to Adventures in Collecting
00:00:00
Speaker
Hi, Dave. Hi, Eric. Hey, Dave. Do we curse on this podcast? Yes, Eric. Yes, we do. Are you ready, kids? Get your parents' permission, check your mailbox, and grab your shopping cart. It's time for the Adventures in Collecting podcast.
00:00:21
Speaker
I'm Eric. And I'm Dave. Welcome to Adventures in Collecting, where we talk toy news, culture, and hauls. Along with our journeys as collectors.
Brothers' Journey in Toy Collecting
00:00:36
Speaker
All right, so episode number one. Kind of cool, Dave. Yeah. As if you couldn't tell by our voices, Dave and I are brothers. And we have been. And we are very sorry. We've been collecting.
00:00:50
Speaker
collecting toys for a very long time and we still do. So we thought that we would share our findings with you as we go through our lives as adult collectors. So to start off, let's talk about
Star Wars Vintage Collection Leaks
00:01:08
Speaker
what's in the news.
00:01:08
Speaker
There was some really big news for me yesterday. I'm one of those people who is a leakaholic when it comes to things. I'm scouring the subreddits and the various forums out there to figure out what's coming down the pipeline, especially when it comes to Star Wars.
00:01:27
Speaker
the first wave for Triple Force Friday was leaked thanks to an errant Yavin ceremony loop Skywalker that's out there. The vintage collection will feature a couple of new faces from The Rise of Skywalker, aptly titled Night
00:01:49
Speaker
of Ren, which could not be more vintage Star Wars in terms of toy packaging. We have Zori Bliss and of course Rey, our hero, our heroine. And we have a jetpack Sith trooper. So looks very much so like the Sith trooper that's been all over the news in the red, but with a jetpack. So we have that to look forward to.
00:02:22
Speaker
Oh, should I have said spoiler alert? Spoiler alert, there's a jet pack in Star Wars. The jet pack, the jet trooper in all fairness was officially revealed by Disney at D23. This is just a red version of said trooper. That's my big news is we have some new figures coming to the vintage collection to look forward to for Triple Force Friday, which I believe is October 6th.
00:02:46
Speaker
I'm very disappointed that Jetpack was spoiled for me.
Funko's NY Comic Con Exclusives
00:02:50
Speaker
I'll look that up. I'll confirm that.
00:02:52
Speaker
I was going to say, you tell me. The other news that I stumbled upon today and I stumbled upon today, I mean that Funko has just been releasing stuff that's coming to New York Comic Con.
00:03:08
Speaker
around actually that same time because that's usually the first weekend in October. There are many Comic Con exclusives. They've not said what's shared where yet. There is an Avengers Endgame 20 Stark. There are some classic Marvel characters. There's a new Stan Lee coming. There are some
00:03:32
Speaker
New York icons like Debbie Harry, like Jean-Michel Basquiat, like Keith Herring. There are Scott Pilgrim five-star figures, so Scott Pilgrim versus the world. Scott Pilgrim, Ramona, and Knives are heading to the five-star line. Bluntman and Chronic are coming.
00:03:56
Speaker
There is Sting and a Diaper from Dune, a killer clown from Outer Space, Marty McFly in the plutonium suit when he is Darth Vader from the planet Vulcan.
00:04:12
Speaker
There's Dr. Frank, not to be confused with TV's Frank, from 2001 A Space Odyssey. There are some deep cuts from H.R. Puffin's stuff and Hanna-Barbera wacky races that have been announced thus far. As always with Funko, stay tuned till closer to the Comic Con.
00:04:32
Speaker
basically the time of Comic Con to see where those are going to live. It never ceases to amaze me, the stuff that Funko pulls out. I would love to be in the room when they're either negotiating with, or I mean, I know they have those Facebook Live things where they kind of give you a peek behind the curtain, but I would absolutely love to see how they come up with some of these characters. It's nuts.
00:04:57
Speaker
I mean, generally, it seems like the licensing for that is yes. Well, I mean, they somehow managed to get, you know, the Tony Stark, you know, Rock and the Gauntlet from the end of Endgame. And, you know, we can't get that in Marvel Legends. So I don't know what juju they're playing with, but spoiler alert.
00:05:18
Speaker
I think at this point, if you have not seen that movie and you're listening to this podcast, you're either not going to see it or you don't care.
Recent Purchases and Collecting Interests
00:05:27
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Accurate. So speaking of things that are going on, what's going on with us? What are some things that we're buying lately? Let's talk some hauls. So there was a lot going on for me. I picked up the
00:05:44
Speaker
There's a couple of GameStop exclusives, the WWE Elite Retro Fest. They're packaged in like the old WWE Superstars video game, the arcade cabinet. I've seen those, yeah. Ric Flair and Hacksaw Jim Duggan I picked up.
00:06:00
Speaker
I picked up Elite 61 Fandango, Elite 66 Nikki Cross, the 2019 top talent Finn Balor for this collection that I'm putting together that we'll talk about, I'm sure, like big collections. We're not even going to go down that road right now with you for that very, very specific niche collection you're working on.
00:06:26
Speaker
Yeah, it might have changed. There was also the Haunted Mansion pops started coming out, so I was able to get The Mummy, the opera singer, and Constance Hatchaway. You had me looking for some of those in Disney Springs when I was there back in, what was that, late August? Yeah, there was a Madame Leota glow-in-the-dark park exclusives.
00:06:54
Speaker
that was out. Now there's going to be a standard Madame Leota that should be hitting soon that is not glow in the dark. But basically those are on the way out if they are not out already.
00:07:09
Speaker
A couple Office ones, too, finished up the main Office collection, so found Jim and Kevin and Dwight and Pam, and also picked up Andy Bernard and Goldenface. So I got the Johnny Rico Starship Troopers, believe it was the San Diego Comic-Con shared with GameStop exclusive. But wait, there's more. So there was the WWE Micro Maniacs.
00:07:38
Speaker
a board game, I guess it's similar to hero clicks in a way in some form or fashion, but it is like they're not very big at all. Are they blind bagged or are they ones that you have, you know who you're getting? You know who you're getting. There were ten of them for the series and then the board game came with two as well.
00:07:59
Speaker
So that was Daniel Bryan, Braun Strowman, Ronda Rousey, John Cena, Roman Reigns, Randy Savage, Alexa Bliss, Finn Balor, and the ring also came with a Finn Balor and a Braun Strowman that were a little bit different. Different paint on those. So you rounded out that set and then you have the whole set? Yeah, that was a pretty quick...
00:08:23
Speaker
get up and go. It's series one, so who knows if there's going to be a series two or beyond, but Wicked Cool Toys put that out. And it's a neat little collection because I like how it's kind of off the wall. It's a different looking thing.
00:08:40
Speaker
Well, at the very least, we'll have to try the game out. Yeah. So are we done with the toy haul? We are done. Okay. So my toy haul, much, much, much, much simpler. Again, we'll get into kind of the facets of how Dave and I collect and the way that we go about it. But I got
00:09:01
Speaker
a new Marvel Legends yesterday, which is Spider-Man in the stealth suit from Far From Home, and lovingly known as Night Monkey. Not on the card, of course. On the card, it's just the stealth suit, but spoiler alert. Yes, yes.
00:09:24
Speaker
So also, if you're listening to this podcast and have not seen Spider-Man Far From Home yet, you're either not going to or I can't explain it.
00:09:37
Speaker
Newsflash too. He's also no longer in the MCU, but that's a whole other can of worms.
Toy Conventions: Experiences and Strategies
00:09:44
Speaker
Dave mentioned during our little news brief, the pops that are coming to New York Comic Con. We figured it would be a great time to talk about toy conventions and cons and what that's like. It's kind of top of mind for us anyway aside from the news because
00:10:06
Speaker
Dave and I recently went to a toy convention, I guess you could say, or a toy fair. Think of like a baseball card show of toys. Toy show. That's the more appropriate word, yeah. We went to a toy show here in New Jersey, in Wayne, and it was really, really cool.
00:10:32
Speaker
You were saying, yeah, we're going to sum up that experience and it is expensive.
00:10:37
Speaker
Oh, I'm sorry. It wasn't in Wayne. It was in Parsippany, the big one that we went to, right? Yeah. All the people from Wayne and all the people of Parsippany are really upset right now. Yes, yes. Giant audience that we have with episode one. They're all furious. But yeah, so... Those of you listening back to the old episodes are really upset right now.
00:11:03
Speaker
Yeah, expensive. Definitely expensive. It's one of those things where I don't know if I would really be able to go to one of those things alone. So much of what I was able to accomplish there was because we had a small group. By the end, I think there was four of us.
00:11:26
Speaker
But I found that being my first ever toy show of that scale, that being there with other people, like a team, we were able to accomplish some pretty interesting things. I don't think we would have been able to otherwise. I mean, even though we went there together, we still kind of were
00:11:46
Speaker
individual in... Yes. ...kind of scale of what we were looking for. But, I mean, we were able to find vendors that were selling stuff that we both wanted, right? Yeah. So that was interesting because we found the Marvel Legends slash WWE Elite guy. And we were like, all right, so how much if we get all of these?
00:12:14
Speaker
Yeah, so I'm late to the Marvel Legends world. I have only started collecting Marvel Legends as of this year, actually, as of 2019. Prior that, I have literally...
00:12:29
Speaker
400 plus three and three-quarters Star Wars figures that I've been collecting since the 90s. Being late to the game, there were figures that I wanted for the collection that are no longer being made. As these things go, you never know whether they're going to produce more of them or not. Sure enough, I saw the Winter Soldier Falcon 2 pack. There was only one guy at the toy show who had had it. I had not seen it before in person and I really wanted it.
00:12:59
Speaker
And it was a little bit more than I was willing to pay. But luckily, the guy also had a bunch of WWE figures and some other Marvel Legends that I was on the fence about. So we were able to kind of make it worth his while to take some money off of everything for us. Most of the stuff was very fairly priced though, in terms of aftermarket prices, right? Because you were picking up guys that were, what, they retail for 20? You were getting them for like 14, 15 bucks?
00:13:27
Speaker
Yeah, thereabouts.
Nostalgia and Discoveries at Toy Shows
00:13:30
Speaker
And you know, sometimes when stuff will hit clearance, it'll kind of drop based on the popularity or lack thereof or fact that there's like 42 Seth Rollins'
00:13:42
Speaker
The peg warmers. Well, it's not even that there's peg warmers. There are guys that are just always – or there are wrestling characters that are always just going to be out there because they're the most popular. So, you know, your Seth Rollinses, your Finn Balor's, your Charlotte Flair's, your Becky Lynch's, Sasha Banks's. Like they are your kind of core characters, Braun Strowman, Rey Mysterio now that he's back.
00:14:10
Speaker
Like every franchise has their Spider-Man and their Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader. Those characters always get produced. They find their way into like every other line. Sometimes every line, you know, it does happen. But the thing that I found that was really neat about toy shows, especially
00:14:28
Speaker
in the collecting culture that exists today. It was kind of nice to be in this massive series of gymnasiums and seeing toys on pegs, not only the new stuff that we were looking for, but it was kind of like a walk down memory lane too because as we were walking down, it was like, oh man, the toy biz
00:14:55
Speaker
90s DC figures, the Toy Biz Marvel figures, like, oh, the Jack Pacific bone-crunching wrestlers. We had those as kids. At these shows, there are things on display. There were the MacFarlane X-Files figures that came out with the first X-Files movie.
00:15:15
Speaker
There's always some interesting stuff you can find there. Mike was looking at GI Joes. Yeah. We had a friend with us that was looking through bins of loose GI Joes. Dave and I were standing there going like, oh my God, it's the fridge GI Joe. I think that was like a mail away one, right? Yeah.
00:15:38
Speaker
Just to see some of these figures again, it was almost worth the price of admission because it felt like we were in a toy museum at some points. I know you've been to a couple of these at this point. That was one of my first experiences with something that big. It was just cool for me to see the figures that I beat the crap out of as a kid and remember so fondly.
00:16:03
Speaker
I would say the biggest difference between a toy show like that and going to like say New York Comic Con or San Diego Comic Con or Emerald City or anything like those is the majority of what you're looking at here at this toy show was
00:16:20
Speaker
Generally, yes, there is some new stuff there, but it's just kind of new. There's the vintage stuff. There's a lot of loose stuff. There's a little bit of everything, whereas at Comic Con, there's the wall of pops. There's – and there is some vintage stuff.
00:16:42
Speaker
But it's mostly, you know, here are your con exclusives. Here is, you know, this chase that came out two weeks ago. Here is, you know, current stuff.
00:16:58
Speaker
It's been a long time since I've been to Comic Con. Being in New Jersey, we have that very, very quick access to New York. I know when New York Comic Con was smaller at the Javits Center and it was a little easier to get tickets. We were interested in the course of
00:17:14
Speaker
and all the panels as well as the artist's alley and the vendors and stuff. But when we were able to go to Comic-Con, you were able to park your butt in a seat and sit there and watch all of the big panels. It's not really like that anymore. I feel like
00:17:31
Speaker
that kind of shift in the difficulty of getting into a com like that, especially with the fan verification process and everything that they have, that the toy exclusives and the stuff almost sweeten the deal. It gives you more incentive to go, especially if it's something that you collect. Right now, the Funko Pops, they're so hot that there was a custom exclusive Funko Pop at the Parsippany Toy Show.
00:17:56
Speaker
Technically. Technically. I mean, it was a fucking stretch, but technically, that was an exclusive. It was Babe Ruth with a glued-on cigar. I bet he clipped the cigar off of another pop, right? Because it didn't look like it was handmade. Who knows? It was bad. Yes.
00:18:17
Speaker
But it was still an exclusive. And the guy made what? I think he said he made 150 or something like that out of them. There was a decent amount, all things considered, for a dude making them himself, printing the stickers and everything. And he pretty much sold all of them. I mean, in theory.
00:18:38
Speaker
That's also a good point with these conventions and these cons. Are you going for the exclusive stuff, the stuff that's hard to find because you want it for your collection or is it an investment? You can totally get the baseball bat case or bookshelves or whatever you're going to do and open the boxes and whatnot.
00:19:01
Speaker
or you can stack them and let them take over a corner of the room, that's fine. You sound like you're speaking from experience. Yeah, it's just easier to stack them places. But those are kind of easy to display in the box. I feel like those are actually easier to display on card than a Marvel legend. Or a Mattel retro or something like those where
00:19:29
Speaker
they're in the Tupperware bin right now because unless I get cases for them, I'm not going to pin them to the wall.
00:19:39
Speaker
It's not going to happen. We've all seen those Reddit posts with just thumbtacks, rows and rows of thumbtacks on the wall where people are hanging their carded figures. I actually found that toy show kind of overwhelming because I went in with a very specific thing that I was looking for, but it was just opening Pandora's box.
00:20:00
Speaker
because I was in there and I was like, oh man, I had not seen this figure in person or I didn't even know this figure existed. Or look at this build a figure from back in the Toy Biz, Marvel Legends era. Or this random alien that was on Jabba's sail barge that I haven't seen since I was six in KB Toys. It was just like my brain was going a million miles an hour and the next thing I know, I was like, oh, bye, bye, money.
00:20:28
Speaker
There it goes. We had bags of toys. We did. We did. Don't give me that look. They can't see you give me that look. So, tips. You have a local toy show in your area.
00:20:44
Speaker
What are some things to keep in mind going into it? Like you as Dave, the toy collector, what are some tips that you'd like to give people who are going to a toy show and maybe they don't know what they're in for? What are some things that they could do to make sure that they have a successful toy run at their local toy fair? I would probably say look for multiple things that you want.
00:21:09
Speaker
So that way you can try to bundle because it's one thing to be able to buy like a pop chase for 20 bucks or an elite for 20 bucks. But if you get like three, four things, you might be able to see what they're priced at and round and things like that.
00:21:28
Speaker
My first tip would be to canvas. So you may get super excited and I know I did and I pulled the trigger and it burnt me on the first purchase I made there. I saw something that I had in my head that it was rare. I was not going to find it. I found it. It was a little more than I wanted to pay for it and I sprung and pulled the trigger and not 10 minutes later.
00:21:50
Speaker
I found it again, same condition for about seven, eight bucks cheaper. I was immediately like, ah, can't return that now. My first tip would definitely be Canvas. I have this thing too where I guess I'm afraid to show my hand that it's something that I'm interested in because I don't want to come back and have the guy jack up the price on me.
00:22:16
Speaker
you know, just kind of like Canvas. That would be my first thing. What else you got? Don't be afraid to walk away. If somebody says, you know, something's more than you're willing to spend for it, or you don't see something else that you'd want at the table, or something is kind of not too rare, but
00:22:41
Speaker
You see it and you've not seen it retail and it's more than you're willing to spend. If you walk away and then come back later and it's still there, you might be able to get it for a little bit less or you might find something else that you saw and goes back to that bundle rule. My last tidbit would be find a friend, make a friend. I've actually found that this works in general, like across the board with toy hunting. Well, friends are generally a good idea.
00:23:12
Speaker
Either go like we mentioned earlier, where we found a guy that had a bunch of different stuff that we both wanted and we were able to team up to get a really good deal from him. But in general, the people that you bump into on your normal toy runs,
00:23:30
Speaker
chances are they're either looking for the same thing that you're looking for or they're canvassing the same areas for different stuff and they work as a second set of eyes. In the case of the toy show, I told Dave what I was looking for. He told me what he was looking for and when we split up for a little bit to
00:23:51
Speaker
go see what was out there. I was keeping a mental note of like, oh, that's the wrestling figure that Dave was looking for. I'm going to make a mental note of that and go back and grab it. Or even when you see somebody in Target or Walmart or wherever you're doing your toy runs, chances are you're going to bump into the same people
00:24:15
Speaker
and just talk to them. Not everyone is a scalper trying to undercut you and grab the entire box of stuff. You know, make friends. I think, like you said, friends are good.
00:24:27
Speaker
or sometimes someone's trying to grab the entire box of stuff because they've never seen it anywhere and the whole series just comes in one box. That's okay too. I think that's gonna do it for today, Dave. I think that's gonna wrap it up.
Conclusion and Social Media Call to Action
00:24:44
Speaker
In closing, toy shows are cool. It's kind of like going to a museum where you can buy some of the stuff. Yeah, it's the whole museum's the gift shop. Exit through the whole thing.
00:24:58
Speaker
exit through the front door of the PAL building.
00:25:20
Speaker
Follow us on social media at AIC underscore podcast on Instagram and Twitter. Stop by and say hi. Show us your toy hauls and share your toy stories. Maybe we'll talk about it in a future episode.