Holiday in Hastings

It could have been a title for one of Action Force’s stories. But it was in fact last week for me ๐Ÿ™‚

We spent the week in an AirBnB just outside of Hastings, in St.Leonards-on-sea. The house itself wasn’t very big, but it was very nicely decorated and furnished. We had everything we needed to spend some good quality time here.

I didn’t have much hope of finding some Joes, and I browsed a few secondhand shops, but found no toys whatsoever. I did find a Battle Action Force Annual from 1986 though in very good condition at a secondhand bookstore that had way too much inventory for the size of the shop. Books were stacked on top of the shelves, in front of the racks, in the middle of the floor… basically just about everywhere. Charming, but not very practical when you’re looking for something. I was almost giving up when I noticed this bright yellow book on one of the shelves hidden behind a stack of Doctor Who Annuals. Lucky me I guess.

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So the book collection is growing. Even more so since I decided to start collecting the IDW G.I. Joe Complete Collection in hardcover as well, they look great and should even get a spot on the living room bookshelf ๐Ÿ™‚ I already got #1 through #5. Thanks to @JoeonJoepodย for drawing my attention to these. I’ll try and get one each month from now on until I have all 9 released (#9 should be released by the end of this month). Check them out for yourselves, they are presenting the full run of ARAH and the Special Missions. In proper reading order and collected in hardcover volumes. I get mine from The Book Depository, they are cheaper (most of the time) than e.g. Amazon and offer free shipping (shipping usually is a bit on the slow side, best to order sooner rather than later). I recently found out that evenย Bol.comย is selling them – sometimes with next day delivery – though they consistently keep saying it’s written by Mr. HaMMa…

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Anyway, back to the trip. In the local toy store, I scored 3 new The Corps figures. They have a new set out. They’re figures that come with dinosaurs straight from the year 25xx… Stranger things could happen, so I just decided to go with it.

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The story isn’t that strong, but I can’t explain how good it feels to see some action figures in stores. As for the figures themselves, they are repaints of previous The Corps figures. Not quite Joe quality, but nice looking.IMG_20180828_105519

On the way back to Dover, we stopped in Ashford and went into the Smyths Toy Store there. I didn’t take any pictures inside, there were a lot of kids inside and frankly I was too busy looking left, right and center. I can honestly say I never saw a bigger toy store in real life. We had some stores here before and I have been to Hamley’s in London which is larger, but since it’s on multiple floors, it doesn’t look that big. Here everything was on one floor and had shelves of about 6m high, stocked from bottom to top with every possible toy. From Barbie to Hatchimals and Lego to Sylvanian families. We bought some toys for the girls and I got one of my all time favorites (even tough it was just released this year). The 3 3/4″ Jurassic Park Jeep Wrangler.

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Did I mention before that JP is one of my favorite movies from when I was a kid. I must have seen that movie (and the sequels) about a hundred times if not more. The Jeep in the Classic JP livery looks absolutely gorgeous and it should fit Joe figures. Since my Joes are all still boxed up, I haven’t tried it yet, but when I get the new Nerd Attic set up, this will get a prominent place in my display.

In the store they had a lot of WWW figures. I didn’t think that was popular outside of the US, but good to see that it’s a success in the UK as well. Maybe this can lead to getting G.I. Joe back on the shelves. Further down the row, they had The Corps stuff as well. I was tempted to buy a lot more, but well, it was the last day of our holiday so the money was running out and I managed to keep my credit card in my wallet, after all, first and foremost I am a G.I. Joe collector and these cheap placebos can work as a temporary painkiller, but they aren’t the cure. I did get The Gryphon – Aerial Assault Craft. That thing looks like it could have been a Joe design and it really does look good and a not-to-distant future like vehicle the Joes could use. See for yourself.

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It comes with light & sound machine guns, a cockpit that opens, adjustable wings that can rotate freely, spinning rotors and a non-descript action figure. When I get Wild Bill out of storage, he can take it for a spin. Or better yet, Windmill or Lift-Ticket. Or Dogfight, Ace or Slipstream. Or Zap (he’s a pilot, look it up).

Well that’s it. I have expanded my collection just a bit again. Can’t wait to start opening up those moving boxes and setting up my Joes again. I’ll keep you posted on any more updates, and the Impel Trading Cards will keep on coming.

YoJoe and Happy Collecting!

The Corps called into Action

Hi all,

I was planning on continuing the Impel Trading Cards series today in a new blog post but as I went shopping yesterday, something happened that I could hardly believe. Okay, maybe it wasn’t that dramatic, but seeing 3.75 inch figures in a store over here is kind of a big deal. Trust me. I look all the time. I’ve mentioned this before in several of the posts. There’s this local discounter chain called Action and they sell all kinds of stuff, from office supplies to cleaning products, tools, lights, candy and cookies, underwear, cutlery, painting supplies and of course toys. They don’t have a fixed product range, I guess they buy stock from companies going out of business or buy sleft over stock from wholesale. In any case, I’ve bought a lot from them, going from My Little Pony toys for my daughters over LEGO-compatible toys to complement my Kre-O’s and Disney Infinity figures. This time around though, they are selling The Corps figures (and a vehicle set, which I didn’t get initially).

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The Corps! now has a series going of The Corps! vs The Curse!, a ruthless terrorist organisation determined to rule the world. Scratch that last sentence, there might be some copyright infriction ๐Ÿ™‚ The figures aren’t as detailed as the ones we love, but there not fugly. If I ever start customizing, they might end up being used.

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So I first got these 6 figures for about $ 2 each. A small price to pay for small soldiers around here. Maybe I’m just getting used to those ridiculous prices people are asking for Joes these days. I didn’t get the playsets, mainly because I don’t have room larger items right now and they don’t look that good. Naturally I went back after a few days and got them as well ๐Ÿ™‚

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The plan still is to create some form of dio when I finally get my Joes unboxed again. These will be great for that I guess. There’s a boat, piece of wall and cannon and the other set has an ATV, sandbags and drums and another cannon – both cannons have realistic light & sound… ahum.

Anyway, they may not be top of the line, but it’s so great to finally find some 3.75″ soldiers in stores here. Basically, shut up and take my money!

See you again next time. We’ll continue the Impel run then. YoJoe! Oh, cursed. The Corps!

2018 – New Year’s Resolutions

Hi all,

let me wish you and your families all a Happy New Year. As any year, let’s hope some new Joes find their way to our collections!

Let’s look back at 2017 first. It was a good year for the site. I haven’t been able to post as much as I wanted to, but still, views and visits went up a lot compared to 2016. Thank you all for that. Without your support, it would be a whole lot harder to keep up posting stuff. As for my collection, 2017 brought some new items (cool flags – yes, one G there -, comic books, Funko Pop Destro, some bricks). Again not as much as I was planning back in January 2017, but some nice additions. Check out my Instagram page if you want to see cool pics of those. As a sneak peek, here are my #2017bestnine:

2018 promises to be quite a challenging year. We are moving to our new house, but there’s still a lot of work to do before we can move in. My entire collection will be boxed up (about 70% is already in boxes now) and will remain in boxes for a while until we can find the time and money to build rooms in the attic. I did briefly consider selling my collection, but I just can’t. It’s a part of who I am and it gives me a reason to write blog posts and maybe even stories again.

So now, here are my hopes/wishes/resolutions for 2018:

  • Make our new house a home for my family
  • Work on my health and fitness – the last half of 2017 has been painful for me, but I’ve started working on it and I feel positive changes are underway
  • Keep buying & reading the Joe comics (that will probably be all the expansion my collection will get in 2018)
  • Write more – not only more frequent blog posts, but also continue working on the novel/novella I have in my head

That’s about it I guess. Let me thank you all again for reading, visiting, following and liking. I’m not making any money on the blog, it’s just an outlet for me to talk about my collection. So the only appraisal I get for all of this is your support and feedback. Keep it coming in 2018 and as always…

Happy Collecting and YoJoe!

 

Happy New Year!

Hi all —

Another year has passed and before I get to my resolutions and start looking back at 2017 (that’ll be in a later post), I just wanted to wish all of you a spectacular 2018 with lots of toys and fun. Let’s hope the new year will bring us some good Joe news (new cartoon series please) and some new collectibles ๐Ÿ™‚

Happy Collecting and YoJoe!

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