Show Reports

6 Responses to Show Reports

1. ed borris says:

   April 12, 2015 at 10:39 PM

   The Indy show is over. From my viewpoint it was the worst Indy show I have ever attended. Room trading was beyond slow, almost non-existent. The show itself seemed badly attended by the general public. I had a goodtime though, it’s always fun to see old friends and exchange chit chat. I did manage to pick up some nice items, but my total sales were about $90.00. I sold exactly zero on Saturday, a new record.

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2. erwin says:

   April 13, 2015 at 10:13 AM

   Sad to heard ,but apparently is a disease we have to face .INTERNET, Economy and old vintage collector interest despairing as old guard are unfortunately passing.

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3. Don Perkins says:

   April 13, 2015 at 11:59 AM

   I found it fun to see so many collectors and dealers that I see only a few times a year, and some out of state dealers that I only see once or twice a year, but basically found room trading on Friday evening to be extremely slow, and better (but still slow) on Saturday. Actual show attendance on Sunday was much improved from the room-trading, but it seemed to me (without actually taking a headcount) that the number of attendees did not much outnumber the 52 dealers who were present Sunday morning.

   It seemed that price-wise, many dealers were moderating prices on vintage plastic considerably in order to get actual sales. Those who weren’t didn’t seem to sell nearly as much. I thought Francis Turner was an example of this, having overheard him comment on how he wasn’t selling “anything”. His room was the very first I happened to hit Friday morning, and was somewhat shocked at the $40.00 price he quoted on a Marx Adlai Stevenson standing figure. I hadn’t ever seen one before, and just wanted it because he was one of my political heroes, and I concede maybe that really was the going price. I actually was prepared to pay up to $25.00, but at $40.00 I passed on it, and noticed it hadn’t sold by the end of the show. Another less arcane example was the Marx Galloping Cavalry Horse (as in the Blue and Gray Civil War Sets). I went to Indy needing about 35 of them — 10 in black, 20 in brown, and 5 in white or tan. Starting out in Turner’s room, he had a nice, clean, selection in the 4 basic colors. No price was marked on them. When I inquired, Francis said they were $3.00 each. By the time a few more dealers had arrived, I had purchased 20 good, clean, mint condition horses at $1.00 each, and spent $2.00 each on the last 15. The most common price among the rooms was $2.00 per horse for a single figure, but less if you bought several. But there were a couple dealer/collectors willing to part with them for $1.00 each. Of course, when that happens, the higher priced figures don’t get sold.

   Similarly, I was open to acquiring a few more Marx Heritage Alamo Mexicans. The most common price seemed to be $2.00 per figure, but there were several rooms with large quantities for sale at $1.00 per figure, with no discernable difference in quality or shininess. I even bought about a dozen flat white creme and metallic blue Marx Alamo Mexicans for $1.00 per figure in one room, and $2.00 per figure in another room.

   Even the Marx 54mm tan G.I.’s, with two years ago I had to pay $2.00 per figure to get, were now available in several rooms at $1.00 per figure. I bought about 25 at that price (mostly, but not exclusively from Rick of Ohio — Rick Keller’s roommate, always with him at OTSN, Indy, and the Florida show), and there were more available at that price in other rooms. From Rick Keller himself I purchased a group of 6 blue and silver Captain Gallant Foreign Legion standing shooting figures, accompanied by a mint silver Captain Gallant himself, all for $40.00. Do the math — that comes out to $5.70 per figure for the most desirable Cpt. Gallant shooting poses with character figure. I didn’t even have to haggle with Mr. Keller over this — I just asked how much he wanted, and that was the price he quoted me. I immediately paid it.

   Of course, the converse of low buying prices from other sellers was that the items I myself brought along for selling had to be reduced in price as well in order to consumate sales. I would say everything I sold was sold at prices which were below going rates of a few years ago —- that would include Elastolin composition knight figures, Merten 40mm painted knight and landsknecht figures, and a bunch of Barzsos formtech type stuff. By the end of the show on Sunday afternoon, I had a MIB Barzso Fort Dearborn (with illustrated lithographed box) which I had paid $279.00 for. I had never even taken it out of the box. I was asking $100.00 for it. There were many lookers, with a lot of “oohs and aahs”, but at the end of the show it remained unsold. John Stengel Sr. saw me loading it up, and came over to admire it. I offered it to him for $75.00 and he took it, and I felt relieved that I didn’t have to take it home with me.
   Correction from Don.
   In any event, I do have one correction of my own post: It was the Barzso Fort Boonesborough, not Fort Dearborn. Sorry. There was an add-on Fort Boonesborough to the Daniel Boone set. It came in it’s own illustrated playset box containing just the fort — no figures or accessories. It was this that I sold to John Stengel Sr. for $75.00.

   Ron Barzso, of course was there, as was Rick Eagan, Larry Lovely, Rick Eber, McClean and wife, Stengels, Joseph Saine, Eric Koopmeiner and wife, etc. Larry Lovely, a regular advertiser of playsets in the pages of Playset Magazine, had a number of reasonably priced Marx playsets for sale. Close to the end of the show, he mentioned to me and Bill Skinner (we occupied the next table over), that he had only sold $42.00 of things the entire show, and obviously, no playsets.

   My conclusion of all this is that I think it’s getting hard to make any money in buying and selling vintage plastic these days. In fact, I didn’t take any dealer surveys there, but based on the somewhat limited buyer attendance at the show this year, despite the presence of 52 vendors, my humble opinion is that is that the future viability of the Indy Show is open to question. I myself don’t think there’s any advantage to me personally attending anymore, when I’ve got OTSN about the same distance away. In fact, I’m not planning on attending next year. Don’t be fooled by any enthusiastic “Rah Rah” review of this show which might appear in the next issue or two of Playset Magazine —- I don’t think very many dealers were too happy with the slow pace of buying, or the depressed prices. John Stengle Sr. himself mentioned to me during the show that the hobby was declining a little bit more every year. I cheerfully admit my bleak prognosis about all this could be overly pessimistic. Maybe Indy will come bouncing right back.

   John Stengle JR. (emphasis added) states he is still working on his Vietnam War figures, but continues to have production-type issues. Talking to him, he expresses himself freely about what he has learned, and what he is now doing differently. He says (with more than just me present, so I don’t think I’m revealing any confidential information) that he’s got $28,000 invested in the project so far, and is still refining processes. It was apparent listening to him speak that he has given a great deal of detailed thought and analysis to all his options (including getting his own injection molding machine), and is proceeding on the only viable paths open to him taking into account all factors. He says he hopes to have new product around OTSN in September of this year.

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   • Don Perkins says:

     April 13, 2015 at 3:29 PM

     I should add that among other things, I also purchased an excellent condition Marx Prince Valiant character figure from Eric Koopmeiners for what I thought was the bargain price of $10.00. Eric had multiple figures of each of the Marx character figures, but I had the other ones. Again, there was no haggling involved. I simply asked Eric how much he wanted for the Marx Prince Valiant, and he replied, “$10.00”.

     I also purchased, from Rick Keller’s room, a nice flat-toned Blue and Gray mansion with attached white portico, for their asking price of $20.00. Believe it or not, I never actually had one of these Civil War mansions before, despite their common presence at all shows.

     One dealer/collector on Saturday made the comment, “One of these years, we’re going to come to one of these shows and every person present will be trying to sell, and not a single one will be here to buy.”

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4. ed borris says:

   April 14, 2015 at 10:28 AM

   I’ve heard claims of people doing well at the show, but my feeling is they did well selling to other dealers not the general public. I did not see any great traffic during the room trading period and 5 minutes before the show was to begin I saw maybe 5 people in line waiting to get in to the show. I would say if there were 100 people that paid their way into the show I wouldn’t be surprised, but it wasn’t much more that if it even got that high. One guy that came to my room was offering the 3 Conte Civil War sets for $100.00 each another was trying to sell two CTS Alamo sets for $200.00 each. I almost saw as many people trying to sell me things during the room trading than I did people wanting to buy.

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5. ed borris says:

   April 14, 2015 at 12:48 PM

   Oh by the way, I did give Don some marchers.

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