Hackensack Show 2006

Because of the attitude of the New Jersey tax people and poor sales we decided not to do the show as a dealer. It was good that we had made that decision because Laurie was exhausted from setting up her desk from the day before when her office moved to a new location. We took our time and arrived at the show at 10:00AM, an hour after it opened. We saw the place was crowded with collectors which I figured was four times bigger than the crowd that had been at the Allentown Toy show the day before.

The two Marks. Mark on the left is the exception to most collectors as he has his book to remember what he needs for his collection. Mark on the right got an another interesting Marx item for his collection. He got a painted Campus Cutie which had been given away by a pipe company.

After dropping off plastic grocery bags for our very good friend Gerri Watts, (he always is in need of bags), and dropping our coats with another very good friend, John, we walked around to look at the tables. There was a nice selection of playsets available. One collector was selling a Wells Fargo playset with a train for $800.00. Another playset the collector had was an Alaskan playset for $1100.00 We saw the collector had sold a Remco Battle Action playset and two vacuum form Elastolin 40mm figure castles. Another vendor with playsets was Francis Turner. Francis had a number of playsets including a Gunsmoke out of the box. Francis also had a plethora of loose Marx parts. Also with playsets was Rick Eber. I can not remember what playsets Rick had for sale but I do remember that he had some Marx blue covered wagons.

Gerri Watts with his cousin Ricky

There were a number of dealers with loose items. Our very good friend Gerri Watts had items ranging from $.25 to a hundred dollars. Gerri is always a great place to find a missing piece. Our good friend John is another person with a nice mix of items. John is noted for putting together a number similar items into a single package at a reasonable price.

Dick Jackson back at the show after a two year absence.

Dick Jackson is another one with loose figures. Dick had not been there for two years. Dick was the source of the figure that graces our front page. When we bought it years ago, we had no idea what it was, but Laurie and I liked it and purchased it for the collection. Six months later we were over in England visiting a friend who showed us a mounted knight figure but no horse. He told us that this is the rarest Cherilea figure. We told him that we had the knight, the horse, the shield and the lance. Our friend was in shock as to how we found such a rare item. Sadly Dick did not have anything unusual this year.

The new items were disappointing in some ways. Two of the three playsets that were at OTSN were not at the show. The third playset from TSSD, Tarawa, had figures available from various dealers. People who were looking for the Imex Mexicans were only to see samples.

Barry Warren was also in Gerri's piles of goodies

On the other hand, AIP had some surprises for collectors. Not only did they have their new WWI Russians, they also had their new cavalry figures, Arab warriors, Afghans , Dervish and Egyptian Cavalry. These new mounted figures now have the saddle molded to the figures. We will be doing a review in the near future.

We were also able to get some new Marx reissues that were being sold by Hobby Bunker. We got the western furniture from the western town that includes the jail house. We also bought wrought iron fence sections. The western furniture is in brown and olive colors. The wrought iron fence has caused questions with collectors on where this fence was used. Some people think the fence was used in a doll house playset. Another possibility is the fence was used in the zoo playset.  We will also review these items in the near future. 

Mike Westbay going through some of Gerri's buckets of goodies. Mike is on his second career as a teacher.

Hobby also had reissue of the outside ladder for the two story army building, the 45mm marines and sailors and a German 88. We were told that the German 88 is missing the barrel extension.  Hobby bunker will be announcing more reissues in the near future.

Paul and Leanne Osiadacz-two new people at the Hackensack show.

One of the important things for Laurie and me at a show is to see old friends. Many of the people we see, we only get a few moments to say hello, others we get a chance to talk to about toy soldiers or other items. Occasionally we will be asked what we think of an item a person is going to buy. What we will do is help them make their own decision. We also get to meet new people. This time we met Paul and Lillian. Paul had bought from me through Ebay and had started to read Comment Time.  Paul was going through the goodies at Gerri's stand, so we did not get more to say than hello. Hopefully we will get to chat more in the future.

Allan Ford's Display of the Lord of the Rings figures.

As to what I got at the show, I got some of the new AIP sets and the Marx reissues of the western furniture (jail house side) and wrought iron fence. I also got a set of the TSSD marines which I will share with a friend. (It will be interesting if my review of the marines will upset the owner of TSSD as my review of the Japanese did.) From Bob Jones I got a Marx newsstand for my town I plan to set up.  Gerri Watts had a matador and bull I have not had seen before. I have not had a chance to see where the figures were made. One dealer had the Conte Collectibles shako hat Mexicans on the card for $8.00. I will keep the ones I need and sell the rest. I also got loose Conte Collectibles figures for resale.

A display of Gary Dutko's  figure conversions

I picked up two of Gary Dutko's conversions. They are two New Orleans Grays he had converted which I will use as Confederate navy. Gary had reduced the figures from $8.00 to $5.00 as he wants to get away from just converting mass numbers of figures to making custom figures for people.

After several hours walking around we headed home. We were pleased with what we found and will come back next year.