This weekend was the annual toy show at the Das Awkscht Fescht in Macungie PA. It was the first toy show I had attended. Over the years I have seen the show grow from a building on the inside of the festival to a separate location at nearby Junior High School. This location grew until they were using three school buildings and a field across the street. Things changed two years when the organizers lost the field to a group who are building a church. After one year on a different date than Das Awkscht Fescht, the outdoor dealers were moved to abandoned factory field a mile away from the school. This year I saw the continuation of the decline which started last year.
I went over to the open field dealers on Friday to see my good friend John and Mike Russo of Stockade Miniatures. I also was hoping to see what was available. After dropping off packages at my local post office I drove out to the show. After dealing with a detour, I pulled into the show and was in for a shock there were very few dealers set up and I was at the field at 4:00PM! John and Mike were set up so I parked in front of their stands. I went through their set ups and found some nice figures for resell. John said he had done well at the West Virginia Marx show. We discussed the hobby and John was saying he was planning on getting the TSSD Romans and Barbarians playset when it comes out. He was planning on buying enough of the Romans so he could do a turtle. Mike was disappointed in not finding anything. Last year he had found a Marx Jim Hardy character figure in a bag of figures.
I also saw Steve Falken and Harry Davis while at John’s stand. Steve said that he was going to set up tomorrow. I looked around realized that there was nothing else to look at and headed home to get ready for next day.
On Saturday morning I got up around 6:30AM got dressed and headed to the show. I had found a different way to get to the show to avoid the detour and arrived at the show about 7:15AM. There were more dealers, but it was at least half of last year’s dealer attendance. I parked the car and started to look around. There were plastic pieces available but the prices were at market or higher. One dealer had three Marx yellow hard plastic teepees missing the separate top for the teepees. I continued my search hoping to find something around but I only found two metal knights for five dollars each. One of the knights was Timpo and the other was a Barclay. There were several playsets around a Zorro playset, a Construction Camp and Walt Disney Playhouse. The last one was purchased by Steve to replace the one had traded for GI Joe Australian years ago. I got a couple of pieces from Steve including a Comansi Mounted Indian which I will keep. Before I purchased my items Steve was selling two large vehicles in the box for the 12 inch figures to a party. I noticed as the person was negotiating with Steve he was using his phone to check prices on eBay.
I went back to Mike and he remembered he had some items I wanted. I purchased them with some Britains Deetail items and we discussed how certain items like loose Lord of the Rings figures were not at the show. I stopped back at John’s stand and pick up a Durham German Troop Transporter before getting back to the car. I decided to go over to the school and see what was there. I found they had moved the indoor dealers into one building. The dealers were in the cafeteria and also down the hall way. I saw Marx Warehouse for $65.00 but it has rust on the roof. I walked around and found nothing at all. I notice some dealer competitors in the same situation. I ran into Bob D’Angelo, who Laurie and I saw the night before at a restaurant. Bob is into Disney and Dinosaurs and said he had found only a few items. He is trying to upgrade some of his Marx Figures from Holland and Germany. Bob said he had done well at the Marx Convention, but was not planning on going back because of the distance. After talking to Bob, I decided to call it a day and headed home. I will do it the show again as I did well, but if the show was a distance I would pass on it.