THE COLLECTION

Ray Harryhausen:Special Effects Exhibit at MOMA, NYC 1981

2012-02-07T18:27:00.000-08:00

These photos were taken by my dad during the Summer of 1981, at an exhibit of Ray Harryhausen's stop motion figures and drawings (not pictured here, but which can be seen in his various books) at the Museum of Modern Art, in NYC. The show was entitled Ray Harryhausen: Special Effects and ran from May 28–September 1, 1981, coinciding with the Summer release of Clash of the Titans.

Dark Crystal Exhibit pics - c. 1982/83

2012-02-06T19:50:00.000-08:00

I took these photos at an exhibit for The Dark Crystal, the great Jim Henson puppet film, at the Astoria Motion Picture Studios in 1982 or '83.

Robot 6 - Shelf Porn and Figure.Fm Toy Pics!

2010-06-09T18:15:00.000-07:00

I've been featured this week on Comic Book Resources weekly ode to people's stuff. It's 'Shelf Porn' - a section of the Robot 6 site. You can read a little about me there and see a bunch of pics from my collection. Here's the link:

Robot 6 - Shelf Porn

I'm also on the very cool Otaku site Figure.Fm. You can see some of my stuff there as well:

My Studio Room Shelves

My Basement Toy Shelves

The Amazing Spider-Man Issues 31-40

2010-03-23T16:06:00.000-07:00

Over time, I'll post the covers to the first two hundred issues of The Amazing Spider-Man. Here are the covers to #'s 31-40, December 1965 - September, 1966. Artwork on #'s 31-38 by Steve Ditko, #'s 39 and 40 by John Romita, Sr.

Toys I Have Known

2010-01-31T19:34:00.000-08:00

This is me with a friend from my 2nd grade class at ASIJ (American School In Japan), at my family's apartment in Tokyo, in March 1975. On the floor you can see a bunch of my old Japanese toys, some of which I still have. The red robot in front of my friend is Robocon, a Popy die-cast figure from 1974. He was able to switch his legs for wheels, and you can see those off to the left. I still have that part, as well as the legs, but not the rest of him. Bandai did make an exact reissue of him, though, in 1999, and I've got that.

Check out the intro to his crazy TV show here:

Robocon Intro

Right next to Robocon is my Getta Robo base - I think the box for it is off to the right. I've still got that, as well, but I've only got one of the few small spaceships that you could shoot off the spring-loaded launch pad (and were stored in a secret compartment on the side) and maybe another piece or two. A few inches away is my Denzin Zaboga die-cast figure by Grip. I've still got him, but he's missing a few pieces, including his fist, at the end of a chain. I was able to find one in great shape, along with the box, on Ebay a number of years ago and you can see those pics below. Conspicuously absent is my Popy Kamen Rider Amazon figure, which you can see me holding, along with my Zaboga in the pics below. There's a few other items in this photo I haven't been able to identify, mainly the cars behind me and the boxes in the far background. I guess they could be for the stuff out in front of us. You'll also notice in this pic, my bangs cut rather short and unevenly. One day, my parents had left the apartment and I was left on my own. I guess my bangs were bugging me, and I picked up a small handheld mirror that came on a base, put it on the floor and found a pair of scissors and just started cutting away. I think this photo was taken after my father tried to even it out a bit more.

Here I am with my Kamen Rider Amazon and Denzin Zaboga figures, in March 1974. I think I had just had a chocolate bar before I took these pics.

The Kamen Rider suffered a broken leg, which at one point was Krazy Glued on, but I did wind up getting a nice condition one, with the original box on Ebay a number of years ago. Here we've got the box and figure for that one, along with my original one missing his leg, and a mini die-cast Gashapon version by Bandai from a few years ago. Here's the intro to his TV show:

Kamen Rider Amazon Intro

Here are the Ebay pickups along with my original Getta Robo base in the foreground.

These are pics of the Ebay Denzin Zaboga figure, made by Grip. It's a weighty die-cast figure. You can see in the pic above that you could add on wheels to the removable chest piece and make him into a motorcycle. His back compartment also opened up and you could store his handlebars in there. I've got a small die-cast version of Zaboga in motorcycle form as well. Check out the intro to an episode here:

Denzin Zaboga Intro

Micropainter and my Atari 800

2009-09-08T19:32:00.000-07:00

Ahh, my good old Atari 800. How I loved it. Enough that I took a few pics to remember, probably sometime in 1981 or 1982. I loved the artwork and design of the video game boxes. Most of the packaging was totally unneccesary, as the cartridge the game came on, was a fraction of the size of the box. Other than that, just a booklet and the rest was empty space. But they looked great! The last I saw of my system was when it was given away to my Uncle Jack in Mississippi, dozens of games included. Not exactly sure what I was thinking then, but I surely wasn't expecting it to be a collectors item. Strange, even if it was sometime in the early 90's. I normally would have had a collectors mentality about it, and I'm sure I had a bit of feeling of sadness giving it up, but it was a gift for my cousins, who didn't have a video game system. I wonder if my Uncle still has it, considering he's a pack rack to an even greater extent than myself.

Micropainter was the first true computer graphics drawing program I ever used. Released in 1982, you could draw on the screen, in 21 colors, using the joystick. Over on my Drawing On My Youth blog, you can see a couple of the drawings I created with it. I still own the box and contents, aside from the actual game, though! I just took these pics of it for the blog.

The Amazing Spider-Man Issues 16-30

2009-08-16T19:01:00.000-07:00

Continuing with scans of my Spider-Man comic collection, with all it's blemishes on full display. There are some nice copies in here and some pretty battered ones. That #17, for instance! I got that one from my friend Gary Rifkin, around 1977. It was a book that had just been lying around his house for years. I guess once I had it, I figured 'ok, I've got #17', and moved on to acquiring another issue I didn't have, never bothering to upgrade. Same with my #3, which is in pretty poor shape. Unfortunately, upgrading my copy of #3 now would be cost prohibitive, but a #17 upgrade I think will happen one day. My #19 is also kinda roughed up. I did have another copy at one time that I sold at a con in the early 90's, but I seem to remember it was in even worse shape!

Most of these were purchased at flea markets and comics shops in the late 70's and early 80's, but a few were Ebay purchases (#27 and #29), another bought from a guy I met on my bus, who was a former comic dealer (#25, which was actually an upgrade of a copy I subsequently sold on Ebay), and #28, which I traded for or bought, can't remember, at a con in the early 90's.

The Amazing Spider-Man-the first 15 issues

2009-08-06T21:18:00.000-07:00

I would consider my Spider-Man comic collection one of the highlights of my overall collection; certainly in terms of monetary value, it trumps any other collections I have. Up to now, I've only posted the covers to my copies of issues #1 and #9, so, here, then are the other 13 issues within the first 15 issues of The Amazing Spider-Man. My full collection includes every issue up to around #315, with a good amount more of later issues as well.

All of these books - aside from #9, which was purchased on Ebay in the last few years - were all bought from dealers back in the late 70's and early 1980's. The #3, the copy in the worst condition (I could really use an upgrade!), I remember buying, for $15.00, at the end of the day at the Aqueduct Flea Market in Queens, where my parents had a spot, selling, literally, garbage. But it was good garbage! We'd drive around and collect people's trash, finding some amazing things that folks would throw away. You'd be surprised! I remember once we found about five large glad bags filled with toys. There was even the entire Mego Star Trek Enterprise, and once opened, a bunch of 8" action figures inside. Too bad I didn't keep that! But I digress. At the other end of the spectrum, condition wise, is the #14, the first appearence of the Green Goblin. I'd say my copy is around in 9.0, VF+ condition.

For completions sake for this post, I've reposted the covers to #1 and #9.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah and Holiday Wishes!

2008-12-28T18:41:00.000-08:00

In time for the holidays, an update to this too neglected blog. Pulled from the archives, here are some pics of your humble writer, from Christmas, 1978 (making me eleven years, 3 months old and in the sixth grade when these pics were taken.)

Top to bottom:

1) Holding a Battlestar Galactica 12" Cylon Warrior (made by Mattel) and a copy of Amazing Spider-Man #5 (tough to tell with the glare, unfortunately). On the floor in front of me is the Micronauts Galactic Command Center and an orange Pharoid in his sarcophagus case.

2) Balancing Pharoid on top of the Galactic Command Center.

3) Holding a few other comics I received. They are: Fantastic Four 53 and 66, and Captain America 101 and 102.

Happy Holidays!

Toy Score of the Week

2008-10-04T12:12:00.001-07:00

This past Friday, I took a lunch time walk with my friend, and fellow blogger, Rob, to the Toys R Us in Times Square. Within the last couple of months they've been having sales on the items they had in a series of glass display cases towards the back of the action figure area, up the ramp from the large mechanized T-Rex. These are mainly more high end items, the stuff you'd likely find at a comics specialty shop. They had the Corgi series of die-cast Marvel heroes, large scale Disney maquettes, Kotokubiya Star Wars kits and Master Replica Star Wars light sabers and such. A couple of months back I was there and was able to pick up the Corgi die-cast Colossus mini statue for just $29.99, which was a big discount from the original price of $89.99. Unfortunately, it was the last one, and they didn't have the box anymore, but that was just as well, as the box for that piece is huge, even if the figure is relatively small.

Anyway, this week, Rob and I had the good fortune to find that they were selling the Star Wars display cases that had been made for the Master Replica mini-lightsabers. These were originally selling for $29.99 (though you can find them online now for around $15.00 each) marked down to just $3.00! They had just three left, so Rob took one and I took the other two. They're perfect for displaying 3 3/4" Star Wars figures. I cleared away a shelf of books and replaced them with the two display cases and my Medicom 12" Stormtrooper. Pretty cool. I love a great deal!

Reunited...a tale of Gaiking Bazoler and his nose missile

2008-07-15T03:50:00.000-07:00

Thirty-four years ago, back in the halycon days of 1974, my family lived in Tokyo, Japan. My dad had been granted a Full-Bright fellowship to spend ten months researching and writing about the variations in the forms of the Kata (movements) in various well-known Kabuki plays. He spent many hours viewing these plays over and over again, live in the Kabuki-za and in the process began translating these shows and then adding highly detailed stage directions, something that had never been done at that time in an English translation. From that time period, he emerged with two manuscripts, which would eventually be published in 1979 as The Art Of Kabuki-Five Famous Plays and A Kabuki Encyclopedia (These links are to revised versions of the books). In 1976, a year after our family had returned to the United States, my dad directed a version of the Kabuki play Terakoya at Brooklyn College, from his translation. An earlier post here showcased my brief role in the play, forever immortalized on video.

While we were in Japan, I of course, bought lots of toys. Lots and lots of toys. Or should I say, my parents bought them for me. I had many of the early die-cast Popy figures (and some vinyl, too) from the popular live action and animated TV series of the time. Kamen RIder, Mazinger, Kikaider, Inazuman Flash, Mecha Baron, Denjin Zaboga, Getter Robo, Robocon and a lot more. One of the characters I had was the Triceratops tank from the animated show Space Dragon Gaiking. It should be noted that some of these figures were released a few years later in the United States by Mattel, under the name Shogun Warriors. The toys were released with their original Japanese lettering and stickers for the most part, though Bazoler does have some English on one side of him. I'm not 100% sure if it was like that on the original Japanese release - all the photos I've found of Bazoler so far in my books don't photograph him from that side.

Since I was kid, I actually got to play with all these toys, which is something I'm most grateful for. Fortunately, I was smart enough to hold on to a fair amount of them (no boxes, though), but unfortunately, most of them have only survived as worn down and broken remnants of the proud, shiny toys they once were. Kamen Rider Amazon is missing half of his left leg (not to mention signature scarf), Mecha Baron has broken headwings, Zaboga no longer has his fist on a chain right hand, and so on. Even in the shape they're in, I'm thankful I still have them, as a good number have been forever lost to the ages. Where did my Jumbo Machinder Getter 2 ever go? I know we brought it back from Japan, but somewhere along the line it either got sold at a garage sale or thrown in the trash (hard to imagine the latter). In the box, today, a Mint Getter 2 Jumbo Machinder would command upwards of $1500 on Ebay.

Besides the broken toys and the lost ones, I still have bits and pieces of figures. A missile here, a hand there, a pair of legs there. One of the pieces I had was a dinged up, but still shiny silver curved missile of some sort. I didn't know what it was for until a few years ago I came across a photo of Gaiking Bazoler, the tank triceratops, in a book of Japanese toys and recognized the piece as his nose! So I had his nose, but no figure. I took the piece and put it safely in a plastic bubble (the kind you get from Japanese vending machines, with some kind of PVC toy inside) hoping one day I might be able to have the figure it went with.

Since the advent of Ebay, I've been able to replace some of those lost or broken toys of my youth. I've kept the originals, but replaced my Zaboga, Kamen Rider Amazon and a few others, with boxed and fairly mint versions of these characters. Every now and then I'd come across a Bazoler, but a complete one, and with the box they're in the $200 and upwards range. Luckily, last week I came across an auction for a loose Bazoler, but missing his nose missile! Unfortunately, he was also missing his two white plastic horns, but I figured if I could get him cheap, it was worth it. So, I put in my $25.00 bid and I won! Today, Bazoler arrived and he has been reunited with his missing nose missile. Or the nose missile has been reunited with Bazoler. Not that they were from the same box, of course! But, thirty-four years later, one Popy die-cast toy has become that much more complete, and in the process, I suppose, this more than thirty-four year old man, has as well.

Plastic Iron Men

2008-05-11T08:57:00.000-07:00

I figured now would be a good time to showcase my Iron Man action figure collection, as the movie has just arrived in theaters. I would have liked to also have had some scans of my vintage Iron Man comic book collection, but, unfortunately, that box of comics went missing a few years back. How you might ask? That, I have no answer to. I've got around thirty-five long boxes of comics now, not to mention about a dozen boxes of magazines, so I suppose with all that, one box might somehow go astray. I guess it just got up, sprouted legs and walked away one day, tired of being 'just another box' of comics. I guess, in a way, I did neglect my Iron Man books for some time and only realized, a couple of years after they disappeared that they had in fact done just that! The story (what there is of one) goes back to when I moved into my then girlfriend's (now wife) apartment in Lodi, NJ in early 1996. It was a one bedroom apartment, so all my long boxes of comics stayed back at my parents house in Queens, NY. Over time, I'd bring a box or two back to the apartment, going through them, rebagging and cataloging them, bringing most of them back to my folks house when I was finished. I was too busy filling up new boxes with recent purchases to be able to store all my old stuff. I do distinctly remember, however looking through my box of Iron Man books. I still have my old list, dated Aug 26, 1996, which places it just about seven months after I had moved to Lodi. Each book in the collection is listed and graded. My earliest issues were #'s 5, 7, 10 and 15. Then it jumped to the mid 20's and continued up to #178, for a total of about 90 individual books (I also had doubles for about 10 issues). This would not have filled one long box, just a short one, with some room. I also remember selling or trading to a couple of dealers those few early issues at a con in the late 90's. So, still, I should have been left with the remainder of my Iron Man collection. In 1999, we bought a house in Hackensack. I remember the moving day well. Whatever comic boxes I had were moved in my own car, as I wasn't about to trust the movers with my comics. The apartment in Lodi was small and I was pretty thorough about checking every last nook and cranny before we left to make sure nothing was left behind. I can't see how I would have missed even a short comic box. Fast forward to around 2003. For some reason, in the intervening four years I hadn't thought much about my Iron Man comics. By this time, most of the comic boxes that were back at my parent's house had been transferred to my new home. Still, about six or seven boxes remained back there. I was now regoing through my books and it suddenly hit me....'um..where are my Iron Man comics?'. I could not find them anywhere and was pretty perplexed. So, that's pretty much it. I hadn't thought about them for a few years and then I went to check them out they were gone. Nothing else (that I can recall) from my collection is missing, so I don't think they were in a long box with other books, as those would be gone, too. So, I can only think they were in their own short box. I don't have any memory of selling off the rest of the Iron Man books, so it's truly a mystery as to where they went. Every now and then I do get a bit upset about it, but what can I do. Luckily they weren't the most valuable books I had (I think I'd be a bit more pissed if my Spider-Man collection vanished) with most books only in the $2-$10 range. Still, it'd be nice to still have them, of course. Ah, well. So, instead of any Iron Man comic scans, I bring you photos of my Iron Man toy and statue collection. Works, for me. Hope you like them.

DAREDEVIL

2008-03-25T20:26:00.000-07:00

After many months, a new post. This time around we've got a few early Daredevil covers. The covers for issues # 5 (inks by Vince Colleta), 7, 10 and 11 are by the late, great Wally Wood; issues #12 (inks by Vince Colleta) and 15 are by John Romita Sr. Issue #7, where Daredevil battles Submariner is one of the classic, iconic Marvel covers of the 60's. This issue also features Daredevil in his red costume for the first time. Enjoy.

Terakoya - 1976

2007-11-24T14:36:00.001-08:00

Here's something from the Leiter Family Archives that most of my friends might not know about. Back in the Fall of 1976, my dad, Samuel L. Leiter, who at the time was Professor of Theater at Brooklyn College (later to be chair of the dept. until retiring in February, 2007), translated and directed a production of the Japanese Kabuki play, Terakoya. Around the same time, his first (of many) books was published - The Art Of Kabuki, Famous Japanese Plays In Translation, of which Terakoya was one. For a synopsis of the storyline for Terakoya, click on this link: Terakoya Synopsis For the role of the young prince, Kan Shûsai, I was recruited. At the time, one of my father's best and most promising theater students was the yet to be famous TV actor, Jimmy Smits. Jimmy played my father in the play. I have many great memories of working on the show, in rehearsal, getting to put my own make-up and just being around the set and working with all the actors. It was the only show I ever did; later as a student myself at Brooklyn College, I took a couple of acting classes for fun. Here's the only known surviving photo of me in make-up. It was scanned from a pretty beat up Polaroid. The video included here is from a performance of the play that we put on in Brooklyn College's television studios. It was intended to be shown on their cable access TV station I think, but I'm not sure if it ever aired. Unfortunately, the entire show hasn't survived the years - only about 45 min of it still exists. The voice-over narration is by my dad. Represented here is my entire on-stage appearence. I'll try and get some of Jimmy Smits performance up soon. A few brief clips of it were shown on some early 90's TV shows of the 'before they were stars' variety. As I don't have DVD editing capabilities (or at least don't know how to edit a DVD!) I've filmed this off of my TV, hence the slightly shaky camerawork. Hopefully I'll be able to upgrade the video down the line.

John Byrne and Terry Austin - NYC Creation Con - c. 1979

2007-09-15T19:25:00.000-07:00

These pics were taken by my dad at a Creation Comic Con in NYC in the late 70's. I'm figuring it's likely 1979, right during the heart of the Claremont/Byrne/Austin run on X-Men. I remember their table being swarmed with people and briefly thinking about getting a commission, but realizing there was no way I'd be able to. Take a look at that piece Austin is working on....pretty darn detailed! That's a fairly impressive con sketch, considering it's pretty tight and it's got a whole slew of X-Men in it. That's me, off to the right, eagerly enjoying watching Austin at work. Even the pencil sketch that Byrne is working on in the first shot (likely later to be passed on to Austin) seems to be possibly a group shot, as if you zoom in and rorate the pic 180 degrees, you can see that there's more than just Wolverine there. The paper that Byrne is holding over the drawing, to prevent his hand from smudging it, looks like it's hiding Nightcrawler, as it appears to be his hand coming out from under it. The photo of John Byrne in conversation, was after a talk he did. I only seem to remember being around for his talk just a little while. I don't remember any of what went on. It was at this same con that I got a Moon Knight sketch from Bill Sienkiewicz, which I then brought over to have inked by Joe Rubenstein. The two were working together on the character's appearences in the back of The Rampaging Hulk magazine. Moon Knight didn't yet have his own title.

Keeping the Star Wars flame alive...

2007-08-06T21:13:00.001-07:00

I got very lucky this weekend. My neighbor of the last eight years has decided to move. That's not why I got lucky; he's a great guy and we'll certainly miss him and his wife, but in the process of cleaning up his home, where he's lived for forty years, he discovered some vintage Kenner Star Wars figures. The figures were his son's, who's around my age. Saturday afternoon, in the midst of a nap, the phone rang. It was Ralph next door. 'Might I take a look at some of these Star Wars figures that he had?' My wife had mentioned earlier in the week that Ralph had said something about Star Wars figures, but I had forgotten about it. 'Sure, I'd be over in a little while,' I said. Before heading over I took a look thru a recent issue of Toyfare magazine to get an idea of what some of the vintage 12" figures and 3 3/4" figures were going for in loose shape. I figured these might be a bit beat up and missing weapons (which they were). The prices listed were a bit too high for reality, as I used a better judge and went onto Ebay, checking some ongoing and recently completed auctions. Unless the figures were mint and complete, or in boxes/carded, they weren't going for too much. I took the 30 second walk over to Ralph's place and followed him down to the basement, where laid out on the pool table were Kenner Star Wars carrying case boxes, filled with figures, as well as three large scale figures, of a Stormtrooper, Darth Vader and Chewbacca. They were all without any weapons or accessories, and kinda dirty (especially the Trooper) but they weren't broken (aside from a loose arm on Darth). I figured on Ebay the lot of large figures, cleaned up, might sell for $25 or so. Add in Ebay and Paypal fees and you're not making a killing. The small figures were also almost all missing their weapons, but the figures were intact and just in need of a bit of cleaning. (Funnily enough, the R2-D2 was in better shape than mine!). I figured you could get a couple of bucks each on Ebay. In addition to the figures, there was a loose Tauntaun (c. 1980) and die-cast Snowspeeder. But there was more. There were a few boxes of Matchbox/Hot Wheels cars as well, all in carrying cases. There was even a Corgi Superhero cars carrying case that was pretty cool. A few of the Corgi diecast superhero cars were there, but most all of the cars were pretty beat up. One last bit of stuff was in the best shape. A full box filled with maybe thirty vintage Burger King glasses for The Empire Strikes Back and a few for Peanuts and a couple of other comic titles. These were all in pretty much perfect unused condition. I remember having some of the glasses and they were used in our house...and dropped, as well. It's funny how you can have an emotional connection to a glass, but my Burger King Star Wars glasses meant a lot to me. At this point, Ralph's son, Greg, had come down to the basement and I gave him my assesment of the worth of the figures. I didn't really know the value of the cars (not much, at least based on condition) or the glasses and I told him this. I offered some money for the Star Wars figures, but he was not willing to take any money and offered the lot to me for free. Wow..great..sure - Thanks! I could see there were a number of the smaller figures that I didn't have and I'd always wanted the 12" (the Darth and Chewie are more like 14") figures. Cool! Ralph had mentioned he was just going to throw them away, but I assured him that there was no need for that! He said he'd box them up and bring them over later. Later in the evening, after getting home from dinner, I saw Greg's wife, Vicki, in front of Ralph's house. I recounted the story about the figures and said Greg will be welcome to 'visit' his old toys whenever they might be in town (they live in Saratoga, NY). She then mentioned she'd heard about my collection and would love to see it. So I invited her over. A little while later, she and Greg came by, with Greg bringing over the SW figures and carrying cases. It was really quite a cool thrill to be handed over his childhood toys. Even though he hadn't remembered the figures, you could see he got a lot of play value from them. Now, they'd stand beside some of my own vintage figures and fill out the collection. All told, there were 31 figures, including about 11 or so 3 3/4 inch figures that I didn't have, all from Empire. A bunch of Cloud CIty guys, like Lobot and some of their security guys. The figures went up to Jedi, as there was even a Leia Boush helmet, but, alas, no figure. The top pic here includes some of the new additions. See if you can notice the new ones from the last blog entry pic!

Star Wars - Happy 30th Anniversary!!

2007-06-03T19:43:00.000-07:00

It's been awhile since I've done much of an update on this blog, so in honor of the 30th anniversary of Star Wars, here are some pics from my Star Wars collection. Included here are a bunch of my original, vintage figures, including the original Early Bird Luke figure, with the double extending light saber. Because of the nature of the thin plastic on the second extending section of the light saber, alot of these pieces tended to break off. Luckily mine is intact. The first releases of Obi-Wan and Vader also had the same double telescoping light saber function, and I have those as well. Unfortunately, however, the entire length of those lightsabers are now gone (along with Kenobi's cape.) I also have the Early Bird versions of Leia, R2 and Chewie. Chewie's missing his crossbow and Leia her original blaster. In case you were wondering just what the Early Bird figures were, when Kenner got the license to produce Star Wars toys, they weren't initially thinking action figures. With the films massive popularity they realized an action figure line was going to be a neccesity. But with almost a year needed to produce a line, they saw that they would not be able to get product into the stores by Christmas. So, without any figures yet ready, they came up with the ingenious idea to put out a certificate package to be in the shops for Christmas that could be redeemed by mail for a set of four figures that would be sent out in the early months of 1978. Besides the mail-in certificate for the initial four figures, the 'empty box' as it's come to be known, came with a picture display stand with drawings of the main characters and a flat black board with the character names that the figures could be placed on, as well as a Star Wars club membership card and color Star Wars stickers. Below is an audio clip, also from 1978 of me reading some descriptions of the action figures from the back of one of the cards. I should be 10 years old on this bit of analog tape. I remember recording this and a few other things on an old Radio Shack portable tape deck, which is now long gone. Click on the link to hear it. Justin's 1978 Star Wars Ad The bottom set of pics are of the very rare 1995 Power Of The Force Boba Fett with only one of his hands having a painted dot on the back. As you can see in the close-up pic of his left hand, there's an unpainted sculpted circle. I only found out about this variation (at one time worth around $200 MOC) after the fact. When the Power of the Force figures came out in 1995, I bought two of each character. I'd open one and keep the other on the card. Naturally I wound up opening the rare one, unknowingly. As a loose figure, it's only worth around $25.

Mars Attacks!

2007-05-02T18:37:00.000-07:00

Ah the good old days of Creation Comic cons. I took these photos sometime between 1979-1981..I think.

Captain America Is Dead! Long Live Captain America!

2007-04-09T22:21:00.000-07:00

The annoucement a few weeks ago that Marvel had killed off Captain America came as a bit of a surprise to the comic community and certainly helped get a lot of people that don't normally step into comics shops, in there in droves to purchase one or more (if they were able to) copies of issue #25 of Captain America. Within hours, copies of the issue were up on Ebay, selling in many multiples of dollars of the original cover price. Will Captain America stay dead? Well, the issue in which he's killed is just Pt.1 of an ongoing story arc. Marvel never said they were cancelling the Captain America title, so I think we can imagine that he'll be back in some form, somehow or other down the line. It'll be interesting to see how many issues of Captain America will be published without ever showing Cap himself. Maybe they'll do alot of flashbacks. Here are issues #100-#110 of Marvel's solo title for Cap, following his resurrection in the mid 60's in Marvel's Tales Of Suspense comics. Tales of Suspense ended with issue #99, and became Captain America, continuing a story begun in the earlier book. All the covers from #100-#109 are the work of Jack Kirby. #110 is by new Cap artist, Jim Steranko, who brought dynamic new design work, heavily pop art influenced, to the title and Marvel Comics. The dynamism and exaggeration of proportion are what draw me to the Kirby covers - and the use of color, especially on #107, which also has a terrific cover layout. My copies are for the most part in pretty nice shape, with a few, in beautiful, Near Mint condition. The #100 is a decent enough copy, but unremarkable, with several surface flaws. The back cover has a small burn hole of some kind and there is general cover wear and dulling of the ink reflectivity. The spine has it's share of creases as well. I'd rate it a Fine-. On the other hand, the #103, #106, #107 and #109 are in really great condition, with amazing cover color vibrancy. My first series Cap collection ends in the mid 200's after the John Byrne run, in the early 80's. I then picked it back up with a bunch of runs of issues in recent years, particularly the John Cassady pencilled issues, as well as most of the latest series.

Stan Lee Ripped My Comic !!!

2007-03-29T21:14:00.000-07:00

Sometime in 1979 (if memory serves me correctly; it may have been 1978), my childhood friend and fellow comic collector, Joe Carbone, and I, were taken to a NYC comic con by his dad. I think I went to the show with maybe $50 or $60, deciding that I was going to put a good portion of it toward getting one really nice book. I wound up choosing issue #11 of The Fantastic Four, featuring the origin and first appearence of the Impossible Man. I think I paid around $30 for the book. The Overstreet Guide from 1979 places the value in Fine at $33, so I guess $30 sounds about right for the condition of this issue, which I'd put around a Fine -. The 2006 guide has it at $264 in Fine and $1750 in Near Mint. The Excelsior himself, Stan Lee, was at this con and signing comics. I got in line with my new purchase, figuring, “Ah, perfect, I can get my #11 signed by Stan Lee himself! The line wasn't too long and it was set up in the hallway of the convention. I can't remember what hotel it was being held at, but it was a relatively small space in the crowded hallway. When I got to him, Stan, sitting behind a small table, asked me my name (and made some now forgotten comment about the old F.F. issue) and proceeded to inscribe it to me and sign it. Unfortunately, Stan pressed fairly hard on the cover and as he signed it, his ball point pen sliced right through the (then) 16-or-so-year-old-paper. I noticed that and showed it to him, so he took it back and wrote the now infamous line , “I'm sorry I Ripped It - Stan.” On the one hand, I was pretty pissed that Stan had ripped what had been a pretty proud investment for an eleven-year-old, and on the other, I had a special, one-of-a-kind note on my book from Stan Lee! As I was leaving the table, I showed the book to my friend's dad who got pretty upset and used a couple of expletives about Stan ripping a kid's comic and how he should have paid for it. I let it slide and I guess the book is fairly unique. I've often wondered if I'd prefer to just have a nice clean copy of the book, without any signature at all, as, to many collectors, writing on the cover of a comic, other than maybe a store date, is frowned upon. Later on, I did a trade with my friend Joe for his Fantastic Four #14, which he bought that day and also had signed. Looking closely at that signature, you can notice that Stan tore into that cover a bit as well!

Number Nine, Number Nine...

2007-03-22T19:48:00.000-07:00

Up until last year, the only number I was missing out of the first 20 issues of The Amazing Spider-Man was #9. It's a classic issue, featuring the first appearence of Electro and a beautiful Steve Ditko cover. For some reason, over the 28 previous years of my buying comics, that book never made its way into my collection. In this photo from a 1979 NYC Creation Comic convention you can see my mom considering purchasing a copy of Spider-Man #9, while I and the dealer look on. I can't say I'm totally thrilled at the way my mom is holding the book . . . seemingly creasing it at the mid-way point in the spine. I'd much prefer it be cradled in the left or right palm, and the pages turned with the other. And I'm surprised at the dealer, pretty much leaning his body weight right on top of his own books for sale! I'm just an innocent bystander, hoping that my mon will buy the book but, unfortunately, she ultimately passed on it. I seem to remember the dealer wanting $80 for it; however, looking back at an Overstreet Price Guide from 1979-1980, #9 in Mint is listed at only $33. Based on a close-up, zoomed-in view on the photo here, this #9 looks to be in pretty nice shape. Too bad we didn't get it. It was probably around $30! The 2006 Near Mint value is $2150. Last year, I finally picked up a copy of this book. I'd followed a number of Ebay auctions for #9 over the last few years, but never really seriously considered bidding on any of the nicer grade copies because they were going for too much money. But last year I saw an auction for what looked like a pretty clean copy, except that, when you looked at the cover in a certain light, you could see some scratches or impressions of writing on it. The cover reflectivity and colors were still pretty good, it looked pretty smooth otherwise and laid flat, and it had a low opening bid, so I went ahead and bid on it; to my surprise, I won it for $125! The 2006 Guide lists it in only Good 2.0 condition for $108. Without the scratches/marks I'd grade the book a Fine +, which would put it in the $400 or so area . . . so if you take off a bit for the scratches and I think it was a pretty good deal. Overall, the book looks great, with a bit of edge wear at the top and some corner blunting and creasing, but with some nice cover gloss still retained . . . and in a mylar it looks awesome!

The Amazing Spider-Man

2007-03-20T19:42:00.000-07:00

The heart of my comic book collection consists of my Amazing Spider-Man books. Up to issue #300 of the first series, I'm missing only #27 (third Green Goblin appearence) and #217 (not sure why I never picked this one up). Granted, not all of the books, especially early on, are in the greatest shape, but there are a few really nice copies. #13 with the first appearence of Mysterio and #14, featuring the first Green Goblin story, are particularly nice. #2 and #7, both with classic Vulture covers, are in overall nice shape as well. My #1, purchased for me by my mom for $325 in 1980 , is what I would consider a VG+/FINE – book. It’s a nice book (hey, it's Spider-Man #1!) but by no means a CGC 9.0. The same day that the Spidey #1 was purchased, we also picked up a Spider-Man #4, with the first appearence of the Sandman. I remember the day well, when Richie from Tomorrow's Treasures came over our house in Queens with some choice books. We knew him well from buying comics at his usual Acqueduct flea market set-up; he’s still operating after all these years. Richie is the first comic dealer you see at the NYC Big Apple Cons when you come up the escalator The only regret from that day is that we didn't buy a copy of Amazing Fantasy #15. It was in better shape than the Spider-Man #1, but it was the same price. At the time Amazing Fantasy #15 was worth less in the guide than the Spider-Man #1. Of course, now that's changed and the #15 in high grade is worth more than the #1 in a comparable grade. My mom was making the money decisions and she figured I was putting together a collection of the Amazing Spider-Man, so it made more sense to go with the #1. Thinking about it now, I wonder why we didn't just buy both, but $325 for a comic book in 1980 was still a lot of money! Looking back at the Overstreet Price Guide from 1980 it's amazing to see that after #1, the prices for Spider-Man comics were actually pretty low in the high grades. The #4 probably cost around $40. I likely paid in the $10-$20 range for a lot of the other early Spidey books, most of which were acquired in the late 70's/early 80's. I've been debating whether to get the #1 professionally graded by CGC. I've also thought about having it “pressed.” a process used by comic restorers (although, technically, this isn't considered restoration) where they literally press the comic to remove wrinkles and some surface defects. It might raise the grade by a bit, for a relatively low price. Naturally this requires the book to leave my hands, so maybe that's what's held me back from doing it so far.

Welcome to THE COLLECTION

2007-03-11T17:46:00.000-07:00

Most of my friends know I've been an avid collector of all kinds of comic-, art-, and music-related ephemera and non-paper collectibles; it's something I've been doing since I was old enough to make the decision to keep something I owned, rather than have someone else (read: parents) make that choice. I've heard lots of horror stories over the years of parents throwing away their kids’ toys and comics and it saddens me. From my own family I can hear the dissapointment in my Uncle Jack's voice when he recalls how after going to serve in the Armed Forces in the late 50's, he came home to find all his comics gone, thrown away by his mother, my late Nana Rose. We're talking Golden Age Supermans, Action Comics, along with much more DC, probably Timely, and lots of EC Horror books. In todays market, this represents thousands upon thousands of dollars worth of comic books. Of course, the only reason those same comics are worth as much as they are today is precisly because my grandmother chose to discard a few boxes of seemingly worthless “joke books” taking up valuable floor and closet space in a small Brooklyn apartment. She can hardly be faulted for failing to forsee the future worth of those cheaply printed comics. Still, there were those few individuals, even at that relatively early time, who did realize that some of the toys and comics of their day might be worth money down the line. Though—until I was ten or so—I didn't treat the comics I read as a kid with much more respect than most kids would, I still managed to hold onto most of them, even the Ghost Rider #15, featuring the villain with a big eye for a helmet, the Uncanny Orb, with multiple puncture holes on the cover. When I was nine, one of my father's theater students gave me a box of his old late 60's comics, including some issues of Spider-Man. Most of the comics were pretty beat up (the Spideys in particular!) but my mom had heard about a comic price guide, so she went to the library looking for it. It had been checked out, along with the two or three other remaining copies of the guide in local libraries. Finally, she was able to track down a copy and discovered that these comics, in better condition, could be worth a lot of money. From there, it was a natural progression to build on my comics interest and actually start collecting. That led to her writing, a few years later, one of the very first books on collecting comics, titled Collecting Comic Books (what else?). You can see the cover, drawn by one of my favorite artists of the time, Michael Golden, well known for his work on The Micronauts (and you can bet I had a lot of Micronauts toys!). You can see the cover here: Collecting Comic Books This blog will showcase some of the items that I've amassed over the years, including scans of comic covers, original art, toy pics, and various other photos (vintage and new) and scans of interesting things in the collection. Hope you like what you see!