Roaming March Second and Third

This past Saturday I took my very good friend Les over to our local indoor garage sale. Laurie was getting her nails done, so I took Les over to the garage sale as he does not drive and he would have had to use the bus.  I did not figured on getting anything as the last time over to the garage sale I had only spent a dollar. 

Les and I got to the garage sale and went in. I looked over the show and I saw several empty tables so I figured it would be a dry run. As I made my first turn to back of the show I found a dealer with two bags of figures. One bag was Marx 54mm 7th cavalry (no Custer) and a bag of MPC cowboys for a friend. I went down the next row and picked up a large Ajax Indian. I went down the other rows and found nothing until at the end a dealer had some of Marx airport pieces and 30mm figures which I picked up. The person also had some Airport parking lights, but he had put them with some Plasticville street lights at a price that did not make them worthwhile. I ran into Les and he had not found anything. Les ran into an old friend and started talking.  I looked over some tables and spotted two metal train signs and in the bag two speedboats. I looked carefully at the speed boats and  saw that they said made in England. (When I got them home I found out that they were Lesney Matchbox items.) I purchased the four items and Les who had finished his conversation so we left the garage sale and went to check the regular stores in the building. There is one store that I always check out as they have fast food items. In amongst the fast food items you can find from time to time figures. I got a Papo Zorro and Hard plastic 54mm Wolverine figure for $5.00. I took Les back to his home and then took Laurie out for Indian food.

Sunday Laurie and I got up early as it was going to be a triple feature day. We would be doing three shows: Ed Gries Toy Soldier Show in Seacus New Jersey and two shows in Wayne New Jersey. We had not been to Ed Gries show in a number of years due to my work schedule. We arrived at the show about half hour after it had opened and walked  right in. One of the first people we ran into was our good friend Bob Mulero. Bob told us he had visited with Peter Fritz at the end of last year and stated that Peter was not in good health. Peter’s weight is down to 136 pounds and he is living alone in a one bedroom apartment. Peter  has visiting nurse coming in to check on him and he has a  small collection of  figures and playsets.  One thing we discovered on Peter is he has a son which we never knew about.  Bob did some errands and got items for Peter and hopes to visit him in the near future.

After talking to Bob Mulero, we headed down the aisle and stopped at the stands of Bob Jones. Bob had a nice mix of items, but nothing that I really needed. We also talked to Bob D’Angelo who always has a nice selection of Disney and dinosaur items. We continued down the row and made the turn. At the end of the row on one side was our very good friends Gerry Watts and Chris Lamont. Chris told us that he was surprised recently when he was buying a large load of items that his wife was not complaining.  Chris asked if it was alright what he was buying, his wife said its your money.  Hearing that remark, I looked at Laurie and said someone else is using your line. Laurie just smiled.  Gerry as usual had his load of plastic for all budgets. He had his famous 3 figures for a $1.00 bins and bags of  figures and toys for sale at various prices.  When you come to his tables be prepared to dig.

Across from Gerry’s tables was Bill McMaster of BMC. We talked to him  and asked Bill what he had planned for the future. Bill said that he was getting the Appomattox figures done painted and hope to have them for the Texas show. He was planning on doing some  accessories in the future as they had done well. We continued down the row and ran into Al Striano. Al told us he had survived a heart attack and I told about my tumor. Al said that he had enough Marx in his basement.  I later saw Al buying some Del Prado. I said I thought you had enough figures. Al replied how could you pass metal at those prices. I saw that Al had stocked up on other items.

We got to the end of the row and ran into our good friend Chris Salomon. Chris had recently posted in the Comment section he had gotten the Marx 54mm sailors in reissue.  The sailor figures were done in Peru. Chris was able to get them from someone in Pennsylvania at a price much cheaper than what a seller from Peru had offered the figures on Ebay. Chris also showed us a Prince Valiant figure in a translucent blue.  I advised Chris that his Prince Valiant version showed up after the Marx molds were sold. 

We continued to walk around and looking at the various  stands stopping to say hello to various people we know.  George Gueriero of  Minute Man had his great displays of various metal figures. We met another George of Toy Soldier Depot for the first time.  George was up from Maryland and had a wide range of  new and reissue figures and accessories for sale. George said that he decided to come up as he had done Ed Gries show in Virginia and decided to try his Seacus show. George planned to be back for Hackensack show. We met Paul Osiadacz and his wife. Paul had only found  a few items for wagon collection but his wife had not found anything for her collection.

On the second turn I did some purchases of items that I could use. Laurie found a woman at the show with some costume jewelry she could resale  The crowd was not big, but the people who were there were buying.  We heard that many dealers had good sales.

After about two hours Laurie and I decided to headed out. Checking  the previous day, I had found out that it would be easy to get to the shows in Wayne, New Jersey from the Seacus show. We got to the first show a half hour after leaving Seacus. At the first show we ran into Kevin Lawler. He said the day had been slow. I noticed some Freedomland  items Kevin had for sale. Freedomland had been an amusement park  that had been in Bronx, New York area in the early 60’s.  Kevin said that  Freedomland and Coney Island items were selling very well for him.  We walked around and I found a few items including the Marx birds in reissue from 1992. I will tell more on them in a future article.

From the flea market we went to the toy show near by. Laurie decided to stay in the car, while I did the show. I found two Greek sailors which are in demand . I also bought a bag of jewelry for Laurie’s side of the business. I thought how I could go wrong. Laurie thought it was junk, but I found a pin for Department 56 that will pay for the bag.  I told Laurie she can listed the rest of the jewelry on Ebay as my husband bought this junk.

Having done our three shows, we headed toward the Clinton Diner for a meal and headed home.