MY COMICS /BOOKS /TOYS & COOL STUFF

Welcome to my blog, I am based in Nottingham UK & I love toys, comics, science fiction, horror ect. This blog is dedicated to my trips around the flea markets, toy shops & charity shops, toy fairs & E bay in pursuit of that elusive bargain and holy grail toy.
All the toys & comics reviewed are mine.
I shall be regulary updating my finds and trips out to various car boots & toy fairs.
Hope you find it of interest!

Tuesday, 18 October 2011

BATMAN & MARVEL DISPLAY BOXES

I love old display boxes, especially the ones with cool artwork,  for sweets, cards or toys on various trips to the supermarket I"m always on the lookout for a good display box  and the chances of buying whatever's left and taking the box with me to the counter, I've done this many times  and got some great boxes a few of which are pictured here

The Marvel one is from Debenhams department store around Christmas 2009 ,there was a sudden appearance of Vintage style Marvel Memorabilia including T shirts key rings mugs etc, all with Steve Ditko/Jack Kirby art there were 2 Key rings left so i got my girlfriend to take them & the display box to the counter ( i always get her to do that bit!) after smiling nicely to the assistant she said it would be fine for us to take the display box home, in fact we've never had a problem with any store assistants telling us we cant have the box as well that's if there's only a few of the items left in it.


box front with great art work
 Next is this Burger King box for Marvel superheroes i don't have any of the figures just the box, i think a friend gave me this some years ago i also have the Universal Monsters Burger box but I'll put that up a bit nearer to Halloween along with some other Monster Goodies.
Great box, shame about the Meal!
More recently i got these Marvel boxes from Morrison's Supermarket they don't seem to mind at all if you walk up to the checkout with the box, we emptied the contents out and took the box, leaving the contents on the shelf!
the box for these Candy Sticks uses same art all around
Sticker booklets and jelly's And cool little box
Next are some of my Batman display boxes these are my faves they usually feature some great artwork, the following one is from the animated series i got this from E Bay a few years ago for £4.00, it looks great on display even though the spin Pop Batmen had leaked  bat liquid candy over most of the header display it still looks good i had to remove the Candy from the Batman to prevent further damage..


Header with Leak Damage!

Surviving Spin Top Batmen


from the same E bay seller i got this Further Adventures Of Batman & Robin Spin Pop Candy box with surviving Spin Pop Candy Batman & robin, Batman's Spin Pop had already began leaking so i removed it to prevent further damage, I've left Robins on as so far it hasn't leaked, I've had it for around 4 years and its been fine even up in the attic where i store a lot of the items i don't have room for its still OK with no sign of leaking as yet.



Great art for the box front
Batman had to have his spin Pop removed, poor bloke.
Side on view Robin..yes and Batman's on the other.

There was a lot of great stuff for the first Tim Burton Batman movie and a dealer friend of mine had accumulated a lot of it and stored it away, i got quiet a few nice things from him as  at the time I'd gone a bit Bat mad  I've since sold lots of it on the E bay, but i kept a few of the boxes like these 2 Tops ones, the first was for the candy heads, nice little plastic busts full of little pieces of candy in the image of Nicholson's Joker, and Keaton's Batman. neither are rare but i like them especially the one with the Joker art work, it looks very oriental and can still be got off E bay as can the the card box, usually still full of cards.

Very Japan Looking box, with Animated series card box.
Love the Joker & Batman art

From the first Burton movie

The next one is my fave, and another of our Supermarket steals!, it was full of tins but we emptied it kept one and took the box to the counter, this was at Tesco, and once again no bother at all.. i just liked the box so much, from ' The Batman' animated series and its another one that looks great as a little backdrop for figures.

I like this box!
Different pose for the sides

Love the Bat signal in the background

This is the Waddingtons Pog Display box and as you can see also has some great artwork, i especially like the line up of villains just under Batman and the great Bat signal in the distance, i got this from the same guy who had kept and stored Various Bat items since the Burton Movie it came with quiet a few Pog packs too.
As did this brilliant Joker box, the art on this is just fantastic and looks great displayed with various Joker figures

Super cool hypnotic Joker!
Side view..Ha Ha!

Big and small packs
So there we are a few of my Display boxes, i have a few vintage ones too which I'll blog at a later date.

Monday, 10 October 2011

DONNINGTON TOY FAIR

After a break of a couple of years the toy & collectors fair finally returned to Donnington Park on Sunday and with apparently 500 stalls as they had  also merged it with the International collectors fair.
We got there nice and early (myself, my girlfriend & Jonny T) a huge queue had already begun and we filed in eager to see all the toy goodies on display, the first hour or so was a little disappointing as there seemed to be masses of Dinky & train toys and not a lot in the way of Horror or Sci Fi collectibles, the first thing i bought was an old Avengers paperback I'm a big fan of this great series from the 1960's and it was a steal at £3.00 the stall had lots of 60's UK TV shows on DVD and lots of TV tie ins & Merch, i almost bought the New Avengers board game which was very reasonably priced at £15.00, but space is at a premium at the moment in the toy room so i had to let that one go, although it was still there 4 hours later, after another 30 min walkabout and not a lot of great toys, i came to a stall with a lot of cool items and my second buy was this great Planet Of The Apes Super 8 Movie

I've seen these on the E bay a few times but i usually get out bid as they can go for up to £20.00, i got this one for £5.00 so a great bargain and one i was very happy with this will look  great on display with my other Ape bits.
A cool cross section of collectibles minus one Ape super 8
Things were looking up with a few more stalls selling more of a variety of stuff instead of the Dinky & Star Wars toys that sometimes clog up a lot of the fairs i mean one or 2 of these kind of stalls is fine i like looking at the old Dinkys & Corgi's. i had most of them as a Lad but stall after stall of them gets a bit Dull & disappointing so its nice to find a descent stall with a good cross section of toys and things you'd not previously seen I'm sure a lot of dealers have given up on toy fairs altogether and now just sell on the E bay.
my girlfriend found some great Nightmare Before Christmas figures she hadn't got and also this great Gremlins Stripe figure which caused a lot of attention as she carried it around which was strange as the seller had it dumped at the bottom of a box out of sight!, at £3.00 this was a great bargain..

Stripe naughty Gremlin with tag Bargain!
Next up were these 1960's spacemen i found these rummaging through a large box of various Nick knacks  Toy Soldiers Animals etc..they were 30p each and originate from Spain i like them a lot i think you can't go wrong with plastic 1960's Spacemen really..

Talking of Spacemen i found this bag of Britain's space Creatures made of metal & rubber i love the bat one he's ace, i got some of these previously off of the E bay along with various vehicles for them to command i believe they are called Star Guards , i bagged all these for £3.00.
Britain's Star Guards Creatures

my fave, the great Bat Creature Alien

Various Star Creatures
This ones been involved in a bloody Skirmish
The same dealer also had this Incredible Hulk Hand/Glove puppet it's Missing the box/Header card but for £5.00 i thought it will look great on display, the front is as it should be but the back of the puppet was missing and someone has stitched on a completely different back as you can see..

Hulks Beach Boys style stripey shirt
Gargon! live at Donnington
Next i snapped up this ET display box & card pack very reasonably priced at £5.00 for both, unusual to find an ET display box i thought, apparently the stall holder had had it for a long time and never thought about selling it before its pretty cool as you can see and did of course originally hold the card packs for the ET game.
I did!

After 4 hours walking about i needed refreshments so it was back to the car for sarnies & chocolate , we went back for one last dash about as people had started packing up and i grabbed this great Hong Kong rack toy for a quid!..it had been sitting there all day and no one had bothered buying it ,maybe it was more expensive earlier i don't know, but for a quid i didn't think twice theres nothing on the back of the card and no year of issue I'd probably guess at late 60's early 70's i was really happy to get this and at such a cheap price.
 Some of the other bits we found..
Cool Dracula figure & X men wolf
Justice League Superman's Resting!

Jonny T found the Cool drac figure for 50p The wolf is marked Marvel Comics X men, so its obviously to do with that,we thought it would just look cool amongst the Vampires we have and the Justice League figures were a Quid each, yes we shop cheaply at the toy fair no expense spared! the Van Helsing figure was also a bargain for £2.00, in fact cheaper than the one we picked up at a charity shop which cost us £6.00, amazing to think the Toy Fair is cheaper than The charity shop!
Van Helsing Bat Creature
More stall pics, see what goodies you can spot ( i don't mean the comedy trio from the 70's)
Some great items here

Jim 'Mr Star Wars 'Stevensons great display
Stall where i got the ET box & cards
The above stall also had some great 'A team' transfer sets and loads of other great items so we had a pretty cool time didn't spend a fortune and came home with some top bits for the toy collection.

Friday, 7 October 2011

HORROR BABIES FOR HALLOWEEN AT ASDA UK!

Yes its near that time again and most stores have got their Halloween stuff out on display, most of it is very kiddie and rubbish but some gems for horror collectors are starting to appear, like these demon babies
Arrgh! ain't he cute!
My thanks to Jonny T for these pics http://jonnyscultfilms.blogspot.com haven't been & checked out Asda yet but i will do so tomorrow, so theres more pics to come i love this Devil head also from Asda & Morrison's.

Here's some of the horror bits at Asda & Wilkinson's for this year..

I like these Skelly convicts!

The portraits change as you walk past them

The usual ' Scream' Mask and a cool Devil one not too Kiddy
Wilko's Devil Cats with light up eyes & screaming sound just like the real thing!

 Death at Bargain Prices!

Screaming Gargoyles

Thanks To Mr Jonny T for these Heads
So not a great selection about the same as last year , with the occasional cool piece thrown in, and no Evil Screamers at wilko this year ( unless you count the staff) but those Asda heads are great, my thanks again to Mr Jonny T for those a bargain , get em while you can they sold out pretty quickly last year.