Midwest Toy Soldier Show 2018 Report Don Perkin we have his report on the show. we hope to have photos later today or in the week. So with out any delays here is Don’s report
Lafayette Indiana Toy Show 2018 Report Don Perkins Introduction
The Midwest Toy Soldier Show (previously known as the Indianapolis Toy Soldier Show) has once again lived up to its billing as “the Midwest’s SECOND BIGGEST toy soldier show”).
This year there were some 40 dealers, filling up a total of 81 8-foot long tables, the maximum number the Marriott Hotel & Conference Center in Lafayette, Indiana had space for.
Rick Keller, one of the three show promoters, says this means that next year whoever wants to rent a table should make their reservations early. He points out this was the third straight year the show has had a complete dealer sell-out of available space. I was informed at the hotel check-in desk Saturday morning that every room in the hotel itself also was completely booked up for both the Friday and Saturday night prior to the show.
I managed to fill many of my own wants, including four Marx tin litho pieces I was looking for: U.S. Army HQ Armed Forces Training Center building, the Revolutionary War Tavern, the U.S. Cavalry HQ with all log pegs present, and the Marx Western Ranch building in creamish/whiteish color with front porch.
Midwest Toy Soldier Show 2018 Report Don Perkins Rick Eber
Rick Eber was one of the major dealers (coming from New York) who arrived early Friday afternoon and immediately opened his room for business. Rick said he found this show a good “buying show” for the boxed Marx playsets he specializes in. He said that before the show itself opened Sunday morning he had sold five boxed playsets, and purchased four more. Rick commended the show promoters as people who put this show on out of their love for the hobby, rather than the somewhat limited financial benefits which sponsoring a toy soldier show brings He also complimented them for their publicity outreach running local radio ads for the show. I never can afford to purchase one of Rick’s 98% complete, high-end Marx playsets, but I did pay him $20.00 for a Marx Cpt. Gallant Arab, and another $10.00 for a handful of Marx farm cows. I like Rick, and he’s always polite & sociable, but I don’t think he sees me as one of his major customers.
Midwest Toy Soldier Show 2018 Report Don Perkins John Stengel JR
John Stengel Jr. also showed up from New York. The massive quantities of well-organized toy soldiers John sets up across six tables lined up end to end are always impressive. He had, just to pull out a few examples I noticed, Marx powder blue Ft. Apache/Alamo pioneers for $3.00 each; green plastic Lido Rev. War figures, also for $3.00 each; a complete 10-piece set of Fort Apache/Alamo defenders in gray from the Heritage Set for $45.00; and a huge plastic container of the complete Airfix WWII line of individual figures — German, Desert Fox, American, British etc. He had many beautiful sets and pieces, such as the Conte D-Day large painted bridge, priced at $150.00.
I should mention that at shows John is usually flexible on his posted prices. He mentioned once that no matter how low a price is puts on a product, some customers will always offer a lower price, so he just puts what he thinks is the proper price, and will sometimes go down from there, rather than trying to start out with the lowest possible price from the get-go.
John didn’t have his long-awaited Confederate marching set, and in fact said it won’t even be ready for his own show at Gettysburg next month. He projects the set to be unveiled at Chicago this September. He says the molds are all complete. The set will consist of a total of 8 Confederate marchers — 4 completely different poses, with 4 additional poses put together differently from the first four with switched around heads, arms, legs, etc. This will result in 8 completely different marchers. They will be sold in bagged sets. John says he has worked very hard with varying plastics and manufacturing techniques, and these figures will “technically” be injection-molded. John also says at Chicago he will be selling reworked versions of his four WWWII German paratroop figures.
Midwest Toy Soldier Show 2018 Report Don Perkins George Kroll
George Kroll of Marx playset and demonstrator board fame was present the whole weekend with a large selection of boxed playsets. George lives in Maryland and says he travels with Francis Turner from West Virginia to attend this show. Although I walked past Francis Turner’s open room, I chose not to go in, since I had recently criticized on this site Francis’ pricing. I didn’t know whether my criticisms may have made it back to Francis either first or second-hand, so I thought it was probably for the best that I didn’t walk into his room, even though Francis has never shown me anything but friendly courtesy, and always has a good selection of the less common Marx figures for sale.
Midwest Toy Soldier Show 2018 Report Don Perkins Toy Meister
Toy Meister Dan McLean out of Pennsylvania was in attendance with his wife. He always has so much well-organized stuff that I usually buy a fair amount from him. This year he had a big selection of original Andy Guard Civil War figures for $5.00 per figure. He had a bag of 10 Marx 6-inch knights for $100.00, 2 complete sets of Marx 54mm WWII Russians for $18.00 for the 2 sets together, metallic blue Alamo Mexicans marked at $3.00 each, and a big box of about 100 Daktari Natives for $5.00 each. Dan was offering a 25% show discount on all the above.
Midwest Toy Soldier Show 2018 Report Don Perkins More Items
One item which wasn’t being discounted was a box of about 50 or so complete sets of Marx mint lime-green Ft. Apache/Alamo defenders, each set individually packaged in a clear plastic bag which Dan was pricing at $12.00 per bag, non-negotiable. Dan also had a mint Marx 54mm mounted Zorro on black, rearing horse for $80.00 – 25% discount ($60.00 final price). I kept mulling it over all day Saturday, but on Sunday Indiana attorney Richard Zunica, a regular attendee at both this show & Chicago, went ahead and bought it, after I assured him that was as low a price I had ever seen. Mr. Zunica already had the hacienda, the gate & walls, and all the other character figures to the Zorro set, so this completed things for him, other than the box, which he still needed. He mentioned to me that at the other end of the conference hall someone had just sold what he considered a somewhat raggedy Zorro box for $200.00.
Midwest Toy Soldier Show 2018 Report Don Perkins Rich Egan
Rich Egan from Chicago, a regular advertiser in Playset Magazine, was present. Rich said he had pre-sold five Marx playsets which he brought to the show for delivery. He said that before the show started Sunday morning he also sold a Giant Blue & Gray boxed playset and a boxed Captain Gallant boxed playset. He didn’t want to divulge the exact selling price (to me, anyway) other than to say each exceeded $500.00.
Midwest Toy Soldier Show 2018 Report Don Perkins Rick Berry
Rick Berry of Michigan Toy Soldier Store was in attendance, offering as a “Show Special” the LOD Trojan Horse for a price of $75.00. I had already paid LOD the standard $105.00 + shipping for mine, or I would have snatched it up as a bargain. Rick also had 2 big boxes of the Chintoy sets, including the new mounted Civil War sets. Additionally, he had a full selection of nearly every Expeditionary Force set, including all the new Napoleonic & War of 1812 sets. Rick said he had two boxes of every single set with him. He said the new ExForce Romans and Germanic Tribe sets will be out later this year.
Midwest Toy Soldier Show 2018 Report Don Perkins Ron Barzso
Ron Barzso and his wife also came down from Chicago and spread things out on two or three long tables. I obtained from Ron his famous and very well done frontier log cabin, as well as three medieval cottages to go with his Robin Hood playset which I already had. I also got from Ron several sets of his new & improved plastic resin figures, reissued from previous sets. Ron informed me and others that he’s now ready to retire, and that the upcoming Siege of Yorktown Playset in conjunction with LOD’s Ken Ciak will be his very last offering. Ron said it will be a limited edition set of a total of 100 sets. He was taking pre-orders, which he and Ken believe may very well use up most of the production. I thought it the better part of wisdom to go ahead and place my pre-order on the spot. The set’s final pricing will be between $279.99 – $299.99. The figures will all be injection-molded, and will match Ron’s beautiful Battle of Lexington Playset. After it’s gone, Ron says he and his wife will fully retire, travel, and devote themselves to working on Illinois state political campaigns both he and his wife have long been interested in, starting this November.
With Ron bowing out of the hobby to which he has contributed so much, I just felt like it’s the end of an era.
As a minor note, I managed to acquire from Ron what he said were the last five pieces of the kneeling woman hostage, hands tied behind her back, which originally came in the Barzso Barbary Wars “Shores of Tripoli” playset. Ron said these last 5 pieces were all made in the new, improved resin. There’s no need to contact me for any of them, since Andy Keliar immediately layed claim to all five for his conversion work, and they were placed in the mail from Indiana to Connecticut this very morning, priority post with USPS.
Midwest Toy Soldier Show 2018 Report Don Perkins Other Dealers
In addition to the above major-type dealers, there are so many smaller, individual collectors who set up tables and oftentimes offer the best bargains. Calvin Plowman had a table. Another collector had at least a hundred Marx 6-inch figures for sale. Michael Jones, wearing a WWI U.S. Army drill instructor type hat, had a large selection, and many, many others.
Although this show is primarily plastics, there were several metal dealers present as well. Since it’s hard enough to keep up with prices on new and vintage plastics, I didn’t pay much attention to what the metal dealers were offering.
Midwest Toy Soldier Show 2018 Report Don Perkins What He Scored
As for my own acquisitions this show, I had recently been seized with visions of creating a huge Marx Armed Forces Training Center set-up. I had already ordered a selection from Kent Spracher just before this show, and was looking to supplement. There was plenty available from multiple show dealers, and I acquired the helicopters and airplanes for the set, with more of the common metallic blue ground crew sets, as well as lots of marching ground troops.
One non-toy soldier item which caught my attention was a nice, colorful Gunsmoke metal lunch box, complete with thermos mug. It was in mint condition and had beautiful raised, embossed paintings of Matt Dillon, his horse, and nice Western scenes on it. The dealer said it could be mine for $140.00. It was tempting, but I had to decline.
Midwest Toy Soldier Show 2018 Report Don Perkins Final Thoughts
All in all the show was great fun. To attend such a toy soldier show is, for me, to take a walk back into my childhood growing up in the 1950s. Everywhere I turned there were toys I played with and enjoyed. Many of them can still be obtained on ebay, but there truly is something magical about seeing everything at one time, in one place, all lined up on one table after another, with friendly dealers and collectors who have the very same enjoyment and appreciation of these vintage toys.
As mentioned, the Midwest Toy Soldier Show is one which has successfully emulated the bigger and older Chicago (OTSN) Toy Soldier Show’s practice of dealers opening up their rooms for buying & selling in the days preceding the actual Sunday show. For this Indiana show, the serious buying and selling begins heavily early Friday evening and continues all day Saturday, with the actual, formal show in the Marriott Conference Center going from 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM on Sunday.
As some have noted, this renders the whole idea of paying an early admission fee null and void, since anyone can visit and view dealer wares absolutely free for at least two days before the big show actually commences, whether you are staying at the hotel or not. Everything is open to the public BEFORE Sunday morning, although that doesn’t deter some determined collectors who are still willing to pay an early entrance fee so they can start their toy soldier buying at 7:00 AM Sunday morning, when dealer set-up begins.
But if one keeps things in perspective, these events are just pure fun.
Great report, Don!!
Maybe Stad will hire you as his official show correspondent & send you and the Missus, all expenses paid, to all the European and domestic shows from now on?? 🙂
I want to thank you PUBLICALLY for the extra effort you went through to purvey my long sought after Barzso kneeling captive pioneer women. I will never cut, paint, nor alter them in any way, but at least three of them will be bad women about to be hung in my big jail diorama. Maybe the other two can be captured by bandits and awaiting rescue by Charlie Basset, Neil Brown, Bill Tilghman and their other Dodge City Lawmen buddies.
You’re a GOOD GUY, Donald, and a real credit to the hobby. If we were all like you, the Toy Soldier World would be a better place.
Great report Don! Thanks to you for going to the trouble and writing it and Paul for making it available to us.
Sad news about Ron’s retiring – indeed an end to an era and a great loss to the hobby. Now, here’s hoping Ken or Ron shows up in Texas so I can get dibs on one of their sets.
Impressive report so well detailed and as if were walking step by step.
Well done Don ,excellent job and dedication to hobby.!!!
I think next time if use a camera and do video recording could post it in you tube ,I do not know if sponsors will agree to it but should be a great way to promote toy soldier shows for future and more people see.As far i know not main toy soldier shows had ever free you tube posted and youtube is mainstream free video used by internet viewers in the world ,included young generation.
My thoughts.
Dave Pitman and I were set up at the Lafayette Show. We arrived on THRS with a few others and were ready to go FRI morning right after breakfast. We were busy almost immediately. Both of us did well on FRI and SAT. Dave did so well that after helping me set up on SUN, he went home since he had sold most all the “good stuff” already. I think Rick Keller told me we had 142 folks come thru the door SUN which was about a 40% increase over 2017. A lot of the same dealers will be at the Ohio Toy Soldier Show in Wadworth, Ohio on May 20….though it is only a SUN show with no room trading.
Great report, Don – and good to see you. This was my first time attending this show, and yes there were great bargains everywhere. I don’t know where to start. My “quest” was to find the small plastic stairs for the Marx freight station (the one I saw on eBay went for 57.00!). I found one for $5, he gave it to me for 2.50. I also bought several crates and barrels from him for 2.50 each. I picked up several skinny steers from Rick Eber for $2 each, MIB Cunningham rebs for $3, Timpo teepees for $3 each, Dom Indians for $4 each, and a beautiful reissued Marx covered wagon (tan wagon, flat gray top, whip driver, w/oxen) for 20.00. Some unusual finds were a Weston Mag 7 church for 15.00 and Boones pioneers in a rubbery vinyl. From Ron Barzso, I got several character figures and some of the last bags of his Hurons, R.Rangers Indians, and D, Crockett Indians – not to mention, reserving my “Yorktown” playset. My biggest temptation came in the room of Francis Turner, where he had a beautifully perfect “Cattle Drive” set. The set was complete with bags, dividers, and pristine, unfolded tin buildings for 550.00. I passed. I did not pass on a nice “Comanche Pass” playset. It once belonged to the late, loved Joe Joria. It also had an extra dark brown wagon top. I was able to pick up a perfect matching CP wagon (with cream whip driver) from Rick Keller and sealed bags of extra CP horses and TeePees from Larry Lovely. Sorry for all the words, but that’s not even ALL the stuff and fun we had.
Very sad to hear about Ron Barszo’s approaching retirement. I must say that given the choice, I would much prefer to make toy soldiers than to work on political campaigning, but to each his own… Best of luck to Ron and thanks for everything he’s done for us.
One additional piece on a sadder note, Joe Seine was unable to attend as he had to undergo emergency surgery on what was reported as a burst hernia. I’m not sure what that means exactly, but I hope Joe is okay and he has a speedy recovery. I’m sure we all wish Joe well.
My brother and I will miss Ron Barzso we used to see him at the London shows a lovely man. We used to buy everything we could off him especially the unusual items from his playsets. We hope he enjoys his retirement I wonder if Ken Ciak will carry on with Rons moulds as what he has done so far is great
Check out the Barzso website for a description of his upcoming Yorktown playset.
I pre-oredered one at Lafayette, had to Barzso’s farewell set, only 100 being made. Solid gold.