East Coast Toy Soldier Show 2015

The East Coast Toy soldier Show is held the first Sunday in November. The show is produced by Bill Lango as a labor of love for the hobby and he has been doing  since 1982. This year was the 33rd edition and it was held at the Rothman Center of the Farleigh Dickinson University. For many collectors of plastic and lead figures it is last major toy soldier show of the year.

Laurie and I left early on Sunday to get to the show. The drive to the show is hour and half drive on major highways. Sadly we saw the remains of at least six dead deer along the road and were almost hit by one that ran across the road. (To our foreign readers, we have an deer over population due to the removal of their predators.  This causes the deer to go outside their normal habitat for food and cross roads to their death.) We arrived about a half hour after the doors and went in.

As we entered the hall and went down an aisle we stopped first at our very good friends Mike and Noreen Russo of Stockade Miniatures.  Mike had for me some Helmet kits he had found while he was cleaning out. These are kits from the UK that are 54mm and are of Napoleonic  figures either foot or mounted. Mike knows I like these sets and when he finds them and saves them for me.  The funny thing Mike had bought them years ago at an auction where  we competed on the lot and I lost out on the bid.

Mike had an interesting mix of metal and plastic items, but the most interesting item he had was the arch in the above picture.  Mike told us it was in a garden shop  and he got as it as he thought it was ideal for 54mm or 60mm figures.  We saw another dealer who had the arch as well. This item is very nice but is something if you want buy you would have to picked up as shipping cost would be expensive.

We headed up the row to our very good friends Gerry Watts and Chris Lamont and dropped off our coats. We could see that they were busy, so we went down the aisle to John Stengel JR.’s tables. We were interested  in seeing if he had any of his Vietnam figures. Sadly he did not have any sets for sale as he had shipped  out his orders from OTSN and had various personal commitments that took his time to get stock ready.  To make these figures is very time intensive. John was taking orders at the show with free shipping.

John had many other items for sale including these  western building that he was asking $175.00. I forgot  to ask John where the buildings came from. Are they from the Marx Miniature Western Town?

I asked John if he had any of the new Engineering Bassevitch Yugoslavian partisans. I needed them for a friend who does not get to shows. John  replied that he did not have them, but his Russian source which was across the row had them. We turned around and discovered that his Russian source was Dmitry  who Laurie and I have met at several shows here and aboard.

 Dmitry not only had the Engineering Bassevitch figures for sale.  He also had the Pvblivs figures including the new crusaders.

The sets were not cheap the Engineering Bassevitch were $50.00 each. The Pvblivs were $40.00  to $60.00 each depending on the number of figures in the set.

We continued down the row and came on a dealer selling remains of Bill Hamilton’s collection for his widow. Bill was a great guy with great deals and is sorely missed.  Mark Hutzky who walked by as we were buying remarked that used to visited  a hobby shop near bill where Bill would put items up for sale. Sadly that is now all gone.

At the end of the row was Belle and Blade with their wide selection of war movies and t-shirts. Laurie had gotten a great shirt from them years ago. Their war movies included  foreign releases that are hard to find.

The next stand we stopped at was Dick Jackson. Dick was a customer on my old lists and one of two Dick Jacksons I had on my list. (I saw that they were introduced.) The other thing with Dick he is the person we got the Cherilea mounted  Knight on the rearing horse that grace my earlier web site.

Dick was selling loose and  in groups as this and next picture show.

As we left Dick’s stand, we ran into Mike Westbay another old friend and member of my old lists. Mike commented that we are hobby of old men. He had tried to get his sons interested in the hobby with no luck. He did tell us his one son had made him a grandfather recently. One of his sons had  been given a set of Timpo reissue Arabs by Bill Murphy which he still had.

Who would walk by at the time but Bill Murphy of Hobby bunker. I asked Bill if he was coming out with anything new in Marx reissues . Bill responded no, but he was on redo some he has out. He had no specifics.

Next we stopped at the stand of friend Bob De Angelo. (Bob is on left the other person in the photos is Art Rostel.) Bob  has a wide selection of Disney figures and dinosaurs.

Laurie likes his ceramic dinosaurs which are from Italy, she does not know where she will put them so she has held off in buying them.

Next to Bob De Angelo was Bob Jones who had a wide range of items  including Marx trees which I buy for resale. People have complained that I buy up all the trees at show, but I have people asking for them so I have to get them.

Bob  had pieces from the Marx Boy’s Camp. For our  foreign readers yes the figures are boy scouts, Marx did not want to pay for permission to us the Boy Scouts of America so he called it Boy’s Camp to avoid paying rights. In the UK they were marketed under the name Boy Scouts.

Various Marx buildings and accessories including the Zorro Hacienda were on Bob Jones ‘ stand

Behind the Marx Hedgerow pieces are various character figures including the Rifleman and his son Mark.

Another shot of the Bob’s Figures in the front are Marx 60mm 1812 sailors, Vikings and Romans

Next to Bob Jones was Rick Eber who had a number of unique and hard to find Marx items. In the photo above you can see some of the ways that Marx marketed figures other than in playsets. Marx sold the figures in bags and on blister cards.  The photo has the blister card of Ben Hur chariot which allow a child to increase the number of chariots in their playset. The card to its left is The Gallant Men card.  This card has the character figures from the Gallant men playset. The Gallant Men was a  television show that was set   in Italy during World War II. The tank that came with the set is 51 Tank which was larger than the standard 41 tank that came with most playsets. The figures in front of the blister cards and bags are the various 45mm Marx spacemen. 

Marx Wagon Train covered wagons in various colors. The odd colors of the covered wagons can go quite high. Also in the picture to the right is a Marx stage coach.

Rick also had Marx Civil War figures in reversed colors. Also in the picture is a Marx Untouchables warehouse and the Marx Johnny Tremain character figures.

Another photo of color reversed  Marx Civil War Figures and Marx Johnny Tremain Figures

Some more Marx figures and two of the Marx tin litho Untouchable cars at Rick’s tables.  I asked Rick  how was OTSN for him in selling he said he did very well. He sold one of two Marx Touchable playsets. a Johnny Ringo playset and a Wyatt Earp playset were some that he remembered selling.

Francis Turner of the Marx Museum had a wide selection of Marx items. (Francis is the person on the right in the photo. On his right is Don Farulo.) Francis had many interesting and unique items. I understand that he had bought a collection in the mid west where he got many of the items he had at the show.

This is a partial Marx Masterpiece display stand.  The masterpiece figures were the Marx painted figures done in Germany. For more me this was only the second time I had seen one. The first time was when I was a child.

A Marx display stand for the Marx presidents.

 

The Marx Captain Kidd and the Pirates Prototype. We will have a post on it.

Some of the other items Francis had including Marx 60mm Rough and American Beauties

Francis had so much material he had to put items under the tables.

There were so many interesting items you could have spent several days going through everything. There was an area with remote control tanks.  One dealer had dealer plastic and foam including the Conte church.  If you were interested in metal figures you had different companies to pick from.

Our very good friend Gerry Watts had a wide selection of metal and plastic.  His selection of items ranged from inexpensive to rare.  As I mentioned earlier we use Gerry’s area as a rest area as you can see Laurie in the background. Laurie was relaxing  there as she had only three hours of sleep while I was going around doing photos.  We also like sitting with Gerry and Chris who helps  Gerry as they both have interesting stories. Chris was telling that he likes to put up the Playmobil Circus train for his sons at Christmas. He wanted to get them a Playskool Circus Train but he could not get one due to the cost. He was at a flea market and a person who cleaned out a storage had one for sale. He had it at a very good price as he said it did not have the track. When Chris got it home he discovered the track was there hid behind the Styrofoam, which the seller  never looked at.

One of the people we met last year for the first time Percy (whose picture is  from last year.) had  poor luck last year finding his Ideal 60mm Army soldiers he was looking for. This year he was able to get a nice group of Ideal army figures from Gerry.  I got a nice mix of items from Gerry that I could use for resale including a group of trees that Laurie  had picked out while I was walking around.  After being at the show for four hours we head out stopping on the way home at one of our favorite eating places Clinton Diner. They have great selection of food ranging from burgers to full dinners with either soup or a great salad bar.

We enjoyed the show despite several dealers missing. Despite these absences, there was still a lot of items to pick from the dealers for collectors. If you missed this show you should plan to come next year as you will have a great time.