Marx Convention 2012

 

Last year we did the Marx convention and had a very successful time in finding items for the collection and resale.  This year I was not sure if it would be as successful. Many people this year have been complaining that they are not finding items or the pickings were slim. I had seen that this problem  when I would do a flea market and find a couple of items or nothing at all.  With these concerns Laurie and I decided to do the Marx Convention to see if the problem was beyond our area.

Laurie and I left Thursday afternoon after taking the boys for their vacation villa and making some final preparation. The trip is a six hour run from our home and as long as there is no trouble on the road, it is a nice pleasant trip.  We filled the car up and stopped at Chipolte for a meal before getting on the turnpike. We have found the food at Chipolte very enjoyable and healthy. With the car gassed up, we had to make only one stop on the turnpike and pay $3.50 a gallon versus the $3.25 we paid on the way.

We arrive at our motel, checked in and after putting our luggage in the room, we went out for dinner. On the way out we saw Alan Ford, who mentioned the place Hoss’s Steak and Seafood House that was across from the motel  had closed. We found out later that Hoss’s had closed that day. We had not been there since our first time to Wheeling so it was no great loss for us as we had found another restaurant that we enjoyed Cheddars. Cheddars is a chain restaurant that we have found very reasonable with good food.  We arrived around 9:00 PM and found the restaurant nearly empty.  We sat down and the person sitting behind  us warned about the lousy service from our server.  The surprising thing we had decent service.

Back at the motel, I discovered a problem; the bed was hard as a rock. I had slept on rocks that were more comfortable. Because of the bed hardness, I had a poor night sleep.  The next morning we got up and went down for breakfast.  We noticed a change in the food.  Where in the past we had little pastries, now it was a pastry roll.  We ate our breakfast and got ready for the show.  The show was only a few blocks from the motel and we got over a half hour after it started.  After getting our badges, Laurie and I started to look around.

The first tables we did were across from the rest rooms. Last year I had gotten nice items, this year nothing and I looked several times during the show.  We headed toward the main room after saying hello Alan Ford again.  First people in were Dave Pitman and Mike Handley.  I went through their figures and found a few bits.  We next went down the row and stop at Rick Eber’s tables. Rick is the person to go to if you are looking for the hard to find Marx items and playsets. I told Rick that pictures of his stand showed up on a Brazilian collector’s web site from Gettysburg and I would be sharing pictures of his items with my new friends on the French forum. We continued down the line and I picked up two Marx Fairykin inserts which were missing the outer box.  We turned the corner and stopped at Kerry Dunable’s table and picked up a group of Marx figures including two Gallant Men.  We stopped at our good friend Mark Hegeman’s tables and talked for a moment. Next up was our very good friend John Reichl’s table. John said he done well in selling and trading. 

We left the main room and headed toward the smaller rooms on the first floor. In the next room were Tom Stine and Pat Kirwan. Every year I wait for Tom’s deals and this year was no exception. Tom needed to sell items to either get new transmission for his car or a new car.  Tom made a deal on Marx farm items I could use for resale.  I passed on Marx battleground items which someone else purchased. We walked over to Pat Kirwan’s tables and purchase a number of items from him for resale.  Pat had for sale the Marx British royalty at decent prices for a collector.  I like how Pat had his items in plastic clear clam shells with prices on them.

From Tom’s and Pat’s room we went to the room I call the Marx train room. The train display was very much reduced from last year.  I spotted some Marx gas station accessories, but was not happy on the price. There was no one around to see if the person would go lower.  We went back several times and found no one there.  I decided that even if the person did go down it would not be worthwhile.

We went next into the room I called the Johnny West room.  Half of the room was Johnny West items from Marx Circle X Ranch. Also in the room were three toy soldier dealers Calvin Plowman, Don Mclean and our good friend Joe Falce.  Calvin is notorious for setting up late and fortunately this was a two day show. I looked Don Mclean’s items, but did not find anything I could use for the collection or resale I moved to Joe Falce’s tables.  Joe had been moved from his old location to against the wall those tables were empty. Joe had a wide variety items including foreign items I can use since I did not get to Plastic Warrior Show this year. Joe had a box set of Timpo Swoppet cowboys and a bag of the Starlux Female Band Figures, which I purchased. Laurie saw Joe had some 70mm Elastolin mounted Romans, which she liked. The figures had been repainted, but the price they were a worthy addition to the collection.  Joe told us he would be at Hackensack this year, which will be great to see him back there.

Laurie took the packages back to the car while I walked around.  I talked to Rick Eber about his conversations with Peter Fritz which I posted elsewhere. I got a few items and once Laurie was back we went upstairs.  The steps to the second floor are sharp and the lighting is terrible, there are several dealers to check. The main one is John Boyko; I have gotten a number of items from him in the past. This year John had a number of items I could use including an Eldon landing craft with all the pieces mint but the box was damaged and Payton three inch figures.  The Payton figures are ugly; I have sold them on Ebay so I picked them up. I talked to John and he said it had been hard to find items and he was even roaming into my area going to Merchant Square a local antique mall.  John had his wife along, who Laurie talked. One nice thing there was more wives than you normally see at other shows.

We found only one more item on the second floor before we went back down.  Downstairs we went out to the car and I got the camera.  I took some photos and then let Laurie take over.  Mark Hegeman had three interesting items he let us take pictures of. The first was two Pech Hermanos animals fight snake. We had seen pictures of them on the internet, but never at a show. They are quite graphic with the animal wrapped around by a snake. It is something we have been looking for.  The other was a large box which had contained the Marx six inch Indians, which had another company’s name on it.  It will be something to look into; I felt that the company bought them from Marx to resell.

I decided to take a break from the show so Laurie and I went to a place we had enjoyed in the past Later Alligator. Later Alligator has a nice selection of sandwiches and soups. We both had their basil tomato soup and Laurie had a pulled pork sandwich, while had an Amish club sandwich. After our meal, Laurie went down to a gift shop we had found the first time we had gone to Later Alligator.  Laurie found a pair of earrings which she liked but the she could not get them to go on her ears.  We headed back to the show to more buying and talking.  We bought some Processed Plastic Trucks from Mike Handley and then I nearly made a mistake, which Laurie caught in time. I was buying a bunch of figures from Mike including some Marx 60mm sailors from the landfill and calculating the price to pay Mike wrong. I was figuring on what I was going to sell the pieces and not the actual price.  Laurie spotted it in time, and I was able to correct my mistake.

We walk from Mike and walked down the row.  At Rick Eber’s stand was Rick Zunica someone I had not seen in years. Rick was relating information he had heard on the radio about American Pickers.  Rick Zunica said someone had called into a show telling his friend’s experience with pickers. The person had told the various conditions of the American Pickers doing a pick at the person’s place. One thing is they go in a day before to scope the place.  One other thing the person claimed was that they placed items in the pick.  Since the show I have checked the internet and the only complaints I have found is some of the watchers feel they are preying on the elderly.  I will have to do a further review of this information before I say anything more.

We walked over to John Stengel’s stand and talked to his son. He had seen I had purchased some Atlantic 1/32 Scale sets earlier from Joe Falce. He is actively seeking Atlantic for resale. I mention that I have been looking for it as well and we both noted the high prices that people are asking for Atlantic.  He related a story that Polk’s Hobbies which imported the Atlantic into the United States tried to unload the product about 20-25 years as it was not selling. At one point they offered a tractor trailer load free to several people, who turned it down as they had no place to store it.  If I would have known about it I would have taken it in storing the stuff anywhere I could.  I have a feeling the items might had ended up with Squadron Shop as I had bought a large load from them 20 years ago..

After one more sweep of the room, Laurie and I left the show. We got back to the motel and discover the room had not been made.  The stupid cleaning people could not realize we had left clean the room up sign on. Laurie went down to complain and got a smart mouth answer from the manager. Since he was not going to correct the problem, it was the final nail in not coming back to this motel ever again. Over the course of our visit I got a feeling the motel had changed ownership.  The last day of our stay, the clerk confirmed that the motel changed ownership in July and we advised we would not be back. I got the feeling other people had given the same feeling.

After taking a break, we headed back to Cheddars for dinner. This time we were earlier and it was busy. Laurie got a full rack of ribs, while I got a half rack ribs and steak.  We checked out a couple of stores including Books a Million which we do not have in our area.  We passed on the Marx Museum meeting as we were tired from the night. I knew I would get a report from Mark Hegeman, which he told us the next day. Mark told us that meeting was discussing ways for the museum to get out the message to other people, who might be interested in supporting the museum.  The museum was planning other activities such as an employment day where collectors could meet with people who had worked at Marx.

The next morning after checking out from the motel, we went back to the Marx Convention for one last run through to see if we add anything to our purchases. We stopped and talked with Alan ford to see how he had done. Alan was very pleased with his sales. He had sold 9 playsets which he had not figured on. He said that playsets had sold well for other dealers.  There had been a number of Marx civil War playsets in the building to choose from. One party had sold a Marx battleground terrain set and pieces for the very rare Marx zoo.  Several people were hoping to make final sales on playsets before the end of the show.

Fred Bauer and his wife show up on Saturday and had two tables of various items.  I picked up from Fred a bunch of figures, but missed a Britains Stable that John Stengel got. He had also gotten a Processed Plastic 2 ½ Truck from Mike Handley. I paid Fred for the items after told him I do not carry a list of my items on Ebay. (Fred had wanted to trade. The Ebay store has over 1400 items.) Fred had been one of my old list customers, which his wife said he still had. From Fred we did a circuit of the room and I picked up from Larry Lovely some Marx Farm animals in gray. The animals were in gray because they had been from a Marx landfill. Marx instead of regrinding the plastic just dumped its leftover figures into various landfills in the Wheeling area. People are digging the figures up but the plastic is reacts to the minerals in the soil. Cream figures will turn gray. I picked them up as I was curious if the farm collectors would purchase them for their collection.  There were several dealers with landfill items. 

We stopped back one more time with Tom Stine and he had another one his deal s. He bundled a bunch of figures and accessories for a price which I accepted.  He had another deal with Marx pioneers which I passed on.  We went back into the Johnny West room and saw the other empty tables had dealers. I looked on the new dealers and did not see anything.  I also passed on an Ideal western street front as it was incomplete. I looked over again Calvin’s table and had decided to buy the Conte Collectibles ancients without the bases, but they were sold so I passed.  Calvin had told me earlier, he had bought a large lot of figures without bases at Indianapolis Toy soldier Show. Joe Falce saved me from not finding anything new for my collection. I had realized last night I had not found anything for my collection in all my purchases on Friday. Joe had the Italeri 54mm Napoleon Command Set. His price was very reasonable and I added to the collection.

I passed on being in the Marx convention photo and we headed out after saying our goodbyes.   We headed out for our trip back home.  We stopped at Bob Evans before getting on the turnpike. Laurie and I had seen on television the day before that Bob Evans was running a special steak dinner for $9.99. The meal included soup or salad, entrée and dessert.  Since we lost our Bob Evans it was an extra treat.  The meal was good once done we headed on the road.  The road was clear and we got home in time. I heard later that Rick Eber on his way home was hit by a deer.  Fortunately Rick was not hurt but his car was damaged.

The Marx Convention was once again was a successful show.  Alan Miller and his staff did a wonderful job.  Most of the dealers did well in their sales.   We did okay in our purchases and found a  some interesting items for Ebay.

Kerry Dunable at his table

Joe Falce and His Wife

 

 Three different looks at Joe’s tables and the wide range of figures he had for sale.

Two looks at thebox Mark got of the company that sold the Marx six inch Indians from Marx

 

The Marx Skyscraper Playset which was at Rick Eber’s Tables

Rick had a selection of Cream 54mm Indians that were in the Marx Wagon Train Playset

Fred Bauer and his wife

We caught Alan Ford at Fred’s Table looking for buys

Some more  looks at Rick Eber’s Table

Some of the items you would find in the Marx Battleground Playsets

This photo of Rick Eber’s tables showed some of the Marx western character figures

This photo shows the five Prince Valiant character figures and a box which could have been an add on that you could have been sold by Sears through their catalog.

Dave Pittman and Mike Hanley

Calvin Plowman