Sunday, Laurie and I got to our first toy show of the year. The show was held south of Philadelphia in New Jersey. This was the third location in three years for this show. We had enjoyed the show last year, so we decided to go again.
Using a revised Map Quest request(the original directions had us going through Philadelphia which is a pain.) we used the Pennsylvania and New Jersey Turnpikes to get to the show. Once we got to the show, we ran into a problem, parking. The place where the show was held was having two other events and part of parking lot was set aside for valet parking. Because of this action we had to park in the back, which annoyed Laurie. She was also annoyed there was no information of where to get into the show. We followed some other people and entered the building. We found out the show was on the second floor.
We went up to the second floor and after paying admission we entered the show. We looked at the show and found it was badly chopped up. This was because the show was in several small rooms instead of one or two large rooms. We had run into this problem the first time we had done the show. The aisles are tight making it hard to traverse the room. We ran into Paul Osiadacz. His wife had to work, but he had gotten some Super Circus accessories for her and a Big Top Circus flag. I explained to Paul that Marx had originally planned to do the Big Top Circus, a show on CBS. Marx then switched gears and did Super Circus, a NBC Show. The Big Top Circus was sold only by Montgomery Wards. I placed a value of $20.00 on the flag.
From Paul, we ran into our friend Tom. We had met Tom years ago at another show when he had some of the very rare MPC hard plastic DC Superhero figures. We have gotten some great items for the collection and resale from Tom over the years. This time, Tom had some Marx 54mm Astronauts and a MPC hard plastic hut. Tom is a big fan of Vaughn Bode’, who created Cheech wizard and other characters in the 60’s and 70’s I had met Vaughn back in my college days, so Tom and I have a common interest. Tom had a interesting poster of Vaughn, which was based on one of Vaughn’s work. Underneath the Vaughn Bode poster was a poster that gave Laurie a laugh. It was a poster of the Disney characters in very negative and adult positions. I had not seen this poster in years. We told Tom we would be back after we found some other friends.
In another room we found our very good friends Gerry and Chris. They had a number of tables loaded with toys. Gerry was very happy as he had some very good sales at the start of the show. Chris was very pleased too as he had sold well. Despite the way the show was set up, people were selling. One thing Gerry had set up was his $.50 a figure table. This is a great fun thing to go through you never know what you will find. I found some figures for myself including two Russian Napoleonics, two CTS Italian figures and an anicent or fantasy figure marked 2005 Haboro LFL. I will do a photo of this figure soon. We got some other items from Gerry and Chris had some interesting character items we could use for Ebay.
From Chris and Gerry we did one last room where we ran into our friend Dean. Dean deals in all types of toys from tin litho toys to action figures. I have purchased from him in past and this time he had some carded HO Grendiars from Hong Kong. We walked down the aisle and I found a cereal rocket launcher no rocket and some Marx rocks. We walked back to Tom’s table and I found a few more items for resale. Tom was pleased with his sales as he clean out several cases. We said we would see him in April at another show. We walked back to Gerry and Chris got our coats and packages and left the show.
The show despite its problems was very good for us. I got some great items for the collection and resale. Many of the dealers were doing quite well in sales as people were spending. I noticed some dealers had items we had seen them with them before. If they get the main floor we will go back.