You might notice me stopping to do a little toy hunting in some of my hiking blogs. Yes, I'm a giant child who collects toys, forever on a quest to re-collect my childhood. Yard sales, flea markets, antique stores, comic and toy shops, I scour them all. Most of what I buy I resell, mainly because my collection is so big I have most of what I want, but these are my top finds of the year.
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By the time the summer Brimfield show rolled around I was off my crutches and Dad accompanied me for one of my days there once again. He came with me on Friday to hit the fields that weren't open on Tuesday, opening day. One of the first fields we hit, first booth there, I was telling him how I always look but it's typically in box pieces that are way out of my price range. As if on command, I spot the MOTU Classics line Castle Grayskull, along with the Point Dread/Talon Fighter set with its box, a handful of MOTU Classics figures as well as MOTU retro style figures made by Super 7. The sticker said $425 for the lot. Wait, for the entire lot? Yep, here, take my money. It took me and my dad two trips, luckily he brought his little hand cart which helped, almost a mile of walking it back to the car twice, I was the proud owner of another MOTU piece I'd never seen in person and never expected to own, along with a handful of figures I was actively looking for. To give you an idea, the castle is complete and typically sells for no less than $650, everything else included puts the value for this lot around the $1,000 mark.
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And Brimfield for the win yet again. During the September show, my parents came with me for my first day there, Mom's first real outing since kicking breast cancer's ass earlier in the year. They headed back to the car while I finished up a field and planned on hitting the rest the following day. On my way back to the car, something in one of the always ridiculously overpriced tents caught my eye, Mumm-Ra's Tomb. I had it as a kid, sold it with the rest of my Thundercats collection during the poor college years, and years later found the box for it at my parents' house full of dinosaur toys. I asked on the price, knowing it'd be bad because it even had the always missing lizard tail part, plus both Mumm-Ra figures. The guy said he could let it go for $300. I had it on my list in my phone as $400 being a good price. I passed on it, once again told Jaime about it when I got back and was instructed to return the next day, hit that tent first and get it. I did, and now I once again own this awesome piece of my childhood.
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On Friday, June 28th I was out doing what I do every weekend, yard saling. I made sure to hit one I go to every year that always has a basket of overpriced action figures that I usually manage to find a few worthwhile deals at. This time, in the $5 figures basket I spotted the unmistakable glow of one of my favorite toy lines ever, the WWF Hasbro wrestling figures of the early 1990s. It wasn't until I started digging that I realized they weren't all the pretty much worthless early series figures, there was a Sid Justice, Sgt Slaughter, Papa Shango, Tatanka, all ones I've owned since my childhood but all time favorites of mine. And The Undertaker, another favorite, only this was the dark haired version I never had, of course he was missing his highly sought after and expensive entrance robe but the figure alone is worth about $65. It's not often you find these later releases at a yard sale, and even though I had all the others, I bought them anyway and kept them on display the rest of the year.
An infection in my foot in the spring nearly knocked me out of action when the first Brimfield antique show of the season was taking place. Nearly, because we got me some crutches and a post surgical boot, (my foot was way too swollen to fit in a shoe), and I managed to hobble around two days in a row, one in the rain. Let me tell you, walking a couple miles on crutches through a crowded flea market isn't easy, but it was well worth it. It may not be complete, but in a tray of random figures at a toy booth I always stop at, I spotted another one of my holy grails, a piece I never owned as a child, the original Megatron figure. He was in gun mode, obviously missing pieces, but the guy said $30 and I jumped on it, adding him to my little pile of figures. When I got home and transformed him I realized he was way more complete than I'd anticipated, I was picturing missing limbs and no head, turns out he just needs his chest and arm cannon and he'll be complete enough for me. Wow. Hands down, one of my favorite characters of all time since I first laid eyes on the leader of the Decepticons when I was only a few years old.
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Megatron wasn't the only grail piece I got at that booth, he wasn't even the first one I spotted there. On a shelf above the figures, gleaming like a fluorescent green sun, was the Ultimate Warrior frisbee I've been hoping to find for years. It must have been 1993, a few months after Grandpa passed away, at Grandma's house on Christmas Eve I got this frisbee as a present. Turned out I should have kept it in its package because ten year old me trying to throw a frisbee is the equivalent of current me trying to throw a frisbee. For years it sat in the sports bucket, slowly succumbing to the barrage of bats and footballs banging against it, until it was eventually thrown out. When I started collecting all the awesome toys I once owned, this was a piece that seemed too random to ever find in the wild. It's a little beat up, dirty and cracked in places, just like mine had once been, and I love it. No, I haven't tried throwing it.
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Still hobbling around on crutches, I made my way through the Mansfield Flea Market, easier said than done with all the rocks and people rolling wagons around. At one of the always overpriced booths I find deals at every once in a great while, I spotted a figure I've been looking for since 2005 when I stocked the pegs at Toys R Us with the new WWE Classic The Rockers 2 pack. I couldn't afford it at the time and now they're rather pricey. A couple years ago, my first time attending Brimfield, I found the Marty Jannetty half of the tag team, but on May 19th I finally found Shawn Michaels. At only $5, I snatched him up and didn't let him go. Well worth scooting along on crutches all morning.
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It's not often I find anything good on Facebook Marketplace but when I do, oh man. On our anniversary, August 26, a local guy was selling a small box of random figures for $30, averaging out to $1 a piece. The pictures were vague and a bunch of the GI Joes were broken but there were some parts I needed. It turned out the figures I needed for my collection had all their parts and just needed to be put back together. I owned two of the four Sgt Slaughters as a kid, still have them, and recently got the Marauders version, but the last one I needed was the mail away exclusive, the first ever version of the figure. I also knew I needed this lot because the Battle Armor Cobra Commander, the first GI Joe I ever bought plus all time favorite, actually had his facemask hose. And it turned out his backpack was included as well. Of the five of him I own, only one has his gun, and now I have one complete. My two favorite Joes in one lot. Yo Joe!
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Those weren't the only two vintage GI Joes I found this year. At an estate sale on June 7, fresh off my crutches but still limping, I got to the sale a little early, knowing there were some figures I wanted in the preview video. I fell behind the pack running up the driveway when they opened the gate, having enough trouble walking, but I managed to get some pretty cool stuff including a bag of random figures and one of GI Joes from the living room where there were a handful of overpriced Joe vehicles. I got to the basement before the other vultures made it down there where I snagged a bag of GI Joe accessories and a small bag of broken GI Joe figure parts, all of whom ended up being complete between the two bags. The later released GI Joes like these are a bit more rare, some of them on the pricey side, upwards of around $40, so spending $16 between the three bags of Joes was well worth it, coming out to about a dollar a piece. These are five I never owned but wanted, especially the two in the top row (Viper v4 & T’Gin-Zu). And they were far from the only amazing pieces I picked up at that Eddington Maine estate sale.
At the same estate sale, on the long row of basement tables, I grabbed a bag of random figures for $5 mainly due to two figures in there, both Battle Beasts. I had the entire collection as a kid and loved them, sold them all in the poor college years and have been picking them up over the last decade whenever I find them. I already had the Orangutan, sold this one later for $17, but the Rabbit was still on my long list of Battle Beasts I'm hunting down. I dug through a box of vintage Legos under the table because I've found some cool accessories mixed in with Legos before and today didn't let me down, I found the Diving Duckbill Battle Beast in there along with a few other accessories I grabbed. And that put me two closer to completing the collection I already owned once upon a time.
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Still not done at the Eddington estate sale. Almost missed this one hanging on the wall between a raincoat and some pennant flags. I had a few Super Naturals figures as a kid, as well as the playset, they were creepy but awesome and now I own most of them again. But I didn't know the Halloween costumes existed until a month or two earlier. Assuming I'd never find one, I didn't bother putting either one on my list of items to look for. It's not exactly valuable, maybe $20, but I'm not planning on selling this guy anyway. For $5, excellent condition with the mask included, I was super excited to find this piece and it's been hanging on my wall ever since.
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The year started off right with one of my only two Facebook Marketplace finds of the year. I spotted a small lot of action figures out in Hartland. Where the heck is Hartland? Ah okay, middle of nowhere, told the woman I'd be there in an hour and headed out to the middle of nowhere. The $20 lot consisted of about twenty figures, all to resell except for one who I would've spent $20 on alone, although he is missing his Krang brain accessory. Sold everyone else from the lot for around $80 so I basically got this figure for free, hard to beat that. I had him as a kid, right up until selling off the TMNT collection during the poor college years. Now to find his brain, maybe until then I'll just stick a little pink gumball in his stomach and call it good.
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The week after our impromptu trip out to Hartland, we headed off another road trip, this time to the indoor flea markets in western Maine. Along the way we stopped at the big antique mall in Fairfield where I got a few things, but the most noteworthy was one I didn't know existed until laying eyes on it. I had a couple Mad Balls as a kid but not Oculus, the one I wanted the most, even though he creeped me out every time I saw him in comic book ads. Still need the actual Mad Ball itself, but for now I have the paddleball, well, without the actual ball to paddle. I paid $15 which sounds like a lot but it's worth about $50 even without the ball on a string. Oh and don't worry, I bought a few other figures there to sell so I ended up breaking even. And it's okay there's no ball and string, I could only ever bounce those stupid things once or twice anyway.
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During my summer trip to CT for the Brimfield show, I stayed a whole week, giving me two weekends to hit the flea markets and even a few yard sales. On Sunday July 7, after hitting the flea markets with my dad, we headed down the highway a few exits to Norwich where I'd seen an ad for a yard sale that had the TMNT 2012 Party Wagon vehicle, a piece I needed for my collection. Getting there so late in the afternoon, I knew it'd be gone but we were close so why not. Not only was it there, it was only 50 cents, so I grabbed a bunch of other random stuff for super cheap, all to sell, even my dad bought a few things. The guy said if I was into Ninja Turtles he had some more stuff inside. I ended up buying his whole box of figures for $30, spanning generations that included vintage, 2003, 2012 and a few of the more modern ones. What really caught my eye was the last of the Toxic Crusaders villains I needed, a Cowboy of Moo Mesa and the bad guy leader of the Stone Protectors. There was also a bag of accessories, some of which were parts I needed, but overall this was a lot to resell while keeping a few for my ever expanding collection.
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The next weekend I hit the CT flea markets before heading back to Maine. Kind of a slow week at the Mansfield Flea Market, not nearly as many vendors as usual due to Brimfield, but I managed to get a few good lots. Most of what I bought was for reselling but these guys are for me, and I've been looking for them for years. When I was a kid, my dad got me the WWF Superstar Shootout tabletop hockey game at the Willimantic Benny's store, we played it all the time, until the bars that moved the figures around the rink bent too much to be fixed anymore. It pains me to say this but I assume we... threw it away *shutters*. We didn't even keep the figures. We kept the front of the box for a while but eventually got rid of that as well. Now of course it's a lot of money and I'd kill to still have the box artwork. And my wife wonders why I keep everything now, packaging included. This is the first time I've seen the hockey figures anywhere so I grabbed all five he had for $5 a piece, Earthquake, Tugboat, Million Dollar Man, Big Boss Man and Hacksaw Jim Duggan.
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For our Christmas trip to CT, the Mansfield Flea Market was unfortunately already closed for the season, but Jewett City is year round, inside and out. It was freezing on the 22nd of December, only 10 degrees that morning, but Dad came along with me, he didn't hang around outside for long though. I get it, by the time I finished buying a bag of mostly broken GI Joes along with a handful of other figures, I could no longer feel my fingers. I spent $50 total which would have been worth it had the figures not been as damaged as they were, most of them with screws so rusty we had to use a drill to carefully remove them and then reconstruct the figures with new bands and screws. But there were a few rare pieces in there I needed for my collection, oh and they all smelled strongly of mildew as well. It was more work than it was worth but it was a fun project for us over the holidays.
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On Friday August 2 we hit the Corinna town wide yard sale, but all of the good ones we hit every year weren't taking part in it this time around for some reason. There were still a lot to hit, got a few things but honestly kind of a slow day on the yard saling tip. I did however find something awesome that's been hanging on my wall ever since. At the Legion Hall sale, the last one on our list, in a stack of random old magazines I spotted a Hot Dog magazine with He-Man and She-Ra on the cover. Grabbed a couple other things to sell and only spent $1 total, but I love finding pieces like this, especially ones I didn't even know existed. If you're wondering, the kids magazine sucked, but with a cover like that, who cares.
Creepy Crawlers Oven 1993
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In mid-September, one of the last real yard saling weekends, we found ourselves on some back roads we'd never been on before, traveling far and wide to hit every sale we could. At one of the last stops on our list, on a side street off a side street, towards the end of the driveway I spotted one of my grail pieces, complete with its box. The 1993 Creepy Crawler oven, the exact one I had, same box and all. They asked if $10 was alright, I said hell yeah and told them how I'd been looking for it for years. When I got home I realized it had some sealed packs of goop, including the awesome glow in the dark stuff, plus some trays and all of its original pieces. Over the years I've re-collected some of the trays I once had but now the set is complete. Hmm, do I see if it still works? Is 30 year old goop still usable? Honestly I don't care, I just wanted it for display. I actually came across it a couple years ago at the July Brimfield show, didn't want to carry it around, swung back by the tent to buy it on my way back to the car that afternoon and they were already gone for the day. And now I finally own this piece of my childhood once again.
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For the September Brimfield show, I went back to back days on Thursday and Friday, and got a buttload of stuff both days. I didn't carry it all in my butt though, I have bags to help with that, and on Thursday I had my parents to help with Dad's little metal grocery basket cart on wheels. First field of the day, after already buying some toys on the side of the road, in the back of the field I spotted something you certainly don't see everyday, a vintage WWF Big Bossman foam nightstick they used to sell at live events or through the merchandise catalog. I never owned one of the foam souvenirs but always wanted one, and to find this, over 30 years later in this pristine of condition is incredible. They're super rare so it's hard to get an accurate value but they typically sell for about $60, I grabbed this one for $20. Sure I wish it was Undertaker's urn or Razor Ramon's razor blade, but I'll gladly display Bossman's nightstick in my collection. I almost walked away from it but ran back a couple minutes later, realizing this isn't something I'll ever see again.
GI Joe Laser Viper v2, Lady Jaye v2, Storm Shadow v5, Duke v7 (1997-2001) & Indiana Jones 1982
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After buying the foam nightstick, I crossed the street where Dad told me someone had a giant trash bag of figures on a table, and boy was he correct. I started digging through and pulling pieces left and right, all late 80s and early 90s from Ninja Turtles to Transformers to Power Rangers and GI Joe. They wouldn't just sell me the entire bag and decided to dump it out on the table. So I dug through and made a giant pile, they wanted $5 a piece but were counting every little accessory that fell off the figure, so I unfortunately had to narrow it way down, and they kept some of the pieces I found in there for themselves and decided they weren't for sale, I hate when sellers do that. I missed out on a lot of great pieces but ended up with a backpack full, mostly to sell but I grabbed a few for my collection, including four semi rare GI Joes from the vintage collection they released around 2000. Last year I got the Lady Jaye and Storm Shadow figures but both were missing body parts, on this day I found them also missing body parts. but I was able to combine them with the ones already in my collection to make them whole. I also grabbed a vintage Indiana Jones I always wanted as a kid but didn't know they'd even made back then. I went back before leaving that day and grabbed some more pieces, then a few more the following day, spent a lot but made some decent money off that booth. It pains me to think about the pieces I left behind, including a bunch of Transformers Pretenders because they each consist of 3 parts and I wasn't about to pay the $15 a piece they were charging me. I could have spent all day at that table but my parents were eager to move on, but hey, at least I got first crack at it.
This is far from everything I kept for my collection but these are the top 20 from 2024. Overall it was a pretty bad year, but toy hunting made it just a bit better.
