Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Three Toys from a box of junk 03/31/2015

For close to 15 years I collected toys. Mostly action figures,but there was a decent amount of non-action figure toys in my collection. When I moved back to Mississippi close to 10 years ago I sold off a huge amount of my toy collection.What I did keep mostly got put up in boxes.

I was never one to keep my toys mint in package. With action figures it was much much easier to display them when they were loose. Plus I get to pose them and place the various accessories where I want them.

I have been slowly moving stuff out of my closet. And dividing the junk I am finding into two piles. One of course is stuff I want to keep. The other is stuff I am getting rid of. I doubt I can sell much of what I want to get rid of. So if you see a toy on this blog that I say I want to get rid of. Contact me,I am more than happy to trade them for whatever.

Now I am stealing this idea from Matt at Dinosaur Dracula.Go check out his site,it is a great read. Click to goto Dinosaur Dracula website.But every few weeks Matt will pick 5 random action figures from his humongous collection.Take some pictures of them and talk about them. I really enjoy reading them. So I stole the idea. But I am changing it up slightly. Matt does 5 Action Figures. I am doing 3 toys. No clue how often I will be doing one of these.

3 Toys from the Box 03/31/2015



Up first is the oldest of the three toys I picked out for today. Oldest as in the one I have owned for the longest.

A few years after LJN lost the WWF license it was picked up by Hasbro.The LJN figures we bigger,but had no articulation. Which is kind of dumb for a wrestling action figure.The Hasbro figures were much smaller but did have a few points of articulation. Plus each of them had an action feature.

I am pretty sure Hasbro made 2 Brutus Beefcake figures.And this is the first one. Brutus IIRC came with a pair of shears,so he could cut the heel wrestler's hair.There is only 3 points of articulation. The shoulders and neck. And the action feature is super lame. You press down on his head and release it and he jumps. Well most of the time he just falls over.

This is the second one of this Brutus Beefcake Hasbro figure I have owned.I got my first one back in the mid 90s. The local America's Thrift had got in what I must assume was some kid's wrestling figure collection. There was at least 30 of these Hasbro WWF figures. They were priced at 50 cents each. And I grabbed almost all of them.Something happened to that figure when I moved in the late 90s. The one in the picture I got in a trade with a fellow collector. He was just getting into VHS collecting.And one of my neighbors called me and told me their kids had just gave them "A wholea bunch of VCR videotapes." As a thank you for helping the husband stack firewood the previous fall I was told to come over and get any of the vhs tapes I wanted.

This is one of the toys in my collection I want to get rid of. Loose it has almost no monetary value. Anyone reading this that wants it leave a comment below and we can work a trade out.



This is the newest out of the three toys.Either late 2012 or early 2013 I found it in a three pack at Fred's.I rarely look at the toys in Fred's cause like Walgreens and other drug stores,they price the figures a few bucks higher.Fred's at least puts stuff on clearance,and then the price is usually really good.

Mattel had been making this sized DC superhero action figures for a number of years. Most of the time the figures had good paint jobs,good sculpting and decent articulation.Cause of the size of them they remind me a bit of the Kenner Super Powers line from the mid 80s. Unlike the Super Powers figures this line from Mattel has no action feature.To make up for this they have much more articulation.

As far back as I can remember I have been a fan of Hal Jordan as Green Lantern.I think it is for 2 reasons. The first is my favorite color is green. The other is I love Green Lantern's power ring. Such a great power. And what kid wouldn't want a ring like that.

Oh maybe you are wondering who else was in the three pack with old Hal here. The pack was called "The Hard Traveling Heroes" set. For the comic geeks out there that should be enough of a hint to figure out who the other two are.To be nice I will go ahead and tell you :P The other two figures are Oliver Queen the Green Arrow,and Dinah Lance the Black Canary.Back in the 70s DC merged Green Lantern and Green Arrow's comic books. And those 2 along with Black Canary traveled around the world fighting off social injustices.

I doubt I ever would want to get rid of this figure.With my action figure display areas being very limited,smaller figures like this are much easier to display. And for such a small figure it looks amazing.My only complaint,and it is more of me being an ass than anything,is that the Super Powers Green Lantern figure came with a Green Lantern Power Battery accessory. This figure didn't.I am sure I could check Ebay and buy one and add it to this figure.



While this is the oldest of the three toys,it came out about a year or two before Brutus Beefcake,I didn't get it until summer of 2012.I can't remember if I got in in the same trade as the Brutus Beefcake or if I was in another trade with the same guy.

In the late 80s or maybe it was very early 1990 Mattel started a new line of He Man action figures.The Masters of the Universe line had been dead for a year or so and they wanted to revamp it some.Gone was the exaggerated muscles of the old line. Replaced by a somewhat more realistic look. Also this line had more of a science fiction feel.I don't remember seeing this toy line in stores. And only saw the cartoon maybe 4 times.

I was a huge Masters of the Universe fan. I clearly remember saving up my dollar a week allowance up so I could buy my first MotU figure,which was Man-At-Arms.So when I saw this figure on my buddy's trade list I had to have it.

Compared to the MotU line,the New Adventures of He-man line looks kind of crappy. The action figures aren't nearly as inventive.The sculpting while more realistic isn't as good.The paint jobs are not as good. I have no idea about the accessories,since this one didn't have any when I got it.

If someone made me a good offer I would get rid of this toy. It isn't that I don't like it. It just isn't impressive enough to hold onto when I am very limited in space.

Well I hope someone read and enjoyed this.I am gonna have to figure out how to take better pictures of the figures. But I am working with an cheap camera and it isn't like I have much of a clue as to what I am doing :P