Star Wars Monday: Adhesive Bandages

July 17th, 2023

In addition to sorting and selling my Star Wars figures, I also dove into a large box of ephemera I had accumulated over the decades. This week I’ll showcase some of what I found.

Today we’re focusing on ‘adhesive bandages’, and since most of us call them ‘Bandaids’ it makes sense to begin with the above three sealed boxes of Star Wars (actual) Band-Aids from 2014. The back of each is shown at right.

The bandages are a bit boring due to the pores and what I think is a mostly failing graphic design. The above are only three of many, and I know there’s been other boxes sold over the years (perhaps even still today) so it’s possible other bandages look better. I’ve received many boxes of these over the years as gifts and have used many of the bandages, .but the above three boxes will remain sealed in my collection.

The above ‘collectible’ Band-Aid tins also were on shelves in 2014. I stalked the local shops until I found all four of these because they’re lovely tins!

It was a little tough to photograph them since the silver metal parts are very reflective. The backs of each are identical and show the Star Wars logo. I particularly like the choice of the Death Star and Darth Vader’s tie fighter since both are rarely seen on licensed ephemera.

The above is an earlier product from 2009. It’s not sealed, and the Yoda design suggests it was a Clone Wars licensed item. I’ve still got about a dozen of the bandages, which are printed on clear plastic (hence the ‘tattoo’ claim):

I seem to recall the tattoo effect mostly failed so this was very much a gimmick product.

Going back even further – all the way to 1999 – we have some Curad brand bandages licensed to The Phantom Menace! I don’t know why I never kept the box, and only two unused bandages remain. The design is similar to the band-aid ones of over a decade later but these, in my opinion, are better.

Lastly we have the above. These again are tins, only they are for Elastoplast brand bandages sold in England. Each ton is double-sided, and all four sides are shown above. I picked these up in chemists during our Scottish trip, and have always wondered if there were others available.

The bandages themselves are superior (in design) to all the ones I’ve seen released in the USA, and there is a larger variety as well. An impressive product!

I also have the above (now empty) box, which I probably purchased on the same trip.

In sorting my ephemera a great deal – old packaging, cheap toys, stationary – has been thrown away, but there’s something so unusual about these bandages that I’ll be keeping them. And I may even buy more if I spy a new design in the bandage aisle one day!

Tea Cards

July 15th, 2023

A few weeks back, on the way from fireworks shopping in New Hampshire, we stopped at a flea market in a field in ‘the middle of nowhere’. Imagine my surprise to find – amidst people selling their own unwanted stuff – two postcard dealers! Their cards were vintage and pricey, but I fell in love with a collection of tiny cards one guy had that had been distributed in packets of tea in the 1960s, so I made him an offer and walked away with the entire binder!

The cards were issued by a tea company called Brooke Bond, and in the USA and Canada came packaged in boxes of Red Rose (brand) tea. They were also issued in several other countries, and were most popular in England where 87 sets were issued over several decades!

The album contained 172 unique cards in eight different series. Six of the series (on birds, plants and butterflies) were for the US market, and two (transport and space) are Canadian. I also have dozens of doubles.

The cards are small – about an inch wide and two tall, and are beautifully printed with lots of information about the subject written on the back. Each series had 48 cards, and from what I can determine were available for a year each, so they would probably have been a challenge to collect!

The cards I have range from 1961 (Wildflowers of North America) to 1969 (The Space Age), which is about when they stopped including them in America (they continued until 1999 in England). They’re in incredible condition: some look like they came right off the press and it’s hard to believe they’re 60+ years old!

While these were inexpensive (I paid $25) I don’t plan on seeking out any more, and this will just live in my trading card collection (such that it is) as a lovely little curio from before I was born. As I said I’ve got a lot of doubles: if you want some let me know.

Coincidentally when I was in Australia I bought two cigarette cards from an antique shop. They were also inexpensive ($1) but were almost 100 years old (the above is from 1930) and I couldn’t resist them. They’re the same size as the tea cards, so this one will live in the same binder forever 🙂

Earlier today I went to what I believed was a local stamp show, but when I got there discovered was actually a postcard show! About a dozen vendors were there selling vintage (what I learned was before about 1963) cards to a room of people mostly older than me, but I found a few $0.25 bins of ‘modern’ cards and spent almost an hour sitting next to an elderly gentleman and chatting with him about his collection of 275,000 postcards!

I learned a lot, but perhaps the most amazing thing was that less than a half hour from our home is a postcard shop with 14 dealers selling all sorts of postcards from the 19th century through to modern times. Guess where I’m going next weekend?

Selling Another Collection

July 11th, 2023

I’m selling my Star Wars figures. I’ve spent much of today getting them ready for sale, and have indeed already dropped half of them off at the shop.

All told I’ll be selling about 530 figures, as well as two dozen vehicles and figure multipacks. They’re all ‘modern’ figures, which means released after 1995. They’re all mint on card, and in fantastic condition.

I started collecting – as did countless people my age – when Kenner (now owned by Hasbro) relaunched the Star Wars figure line in 1995. I collected fairly seriously until 2003, sporadically until about 2007, and then only infrequently purchased any figures after that.

I have fond memories of weekly runs to Toys’R’Us and Walmart looking for new figures. Those were the early days of the internet so purchases were made in person. The figures were very popular and distribution was good so it wasn’t that difficult to get them all. They were inexpensive as well: my records show in the mid 90s I was paying under $5 for each figure!

As the line got more and more popular a silly amount of figures were released, and the quality continued to improve. Then the prequels came out and it felt like a lot of collectors lost interest overnight! The prequel figures were very high quality, but (for some) the films weren’t, and this killed interest.

I kept collecting, but around the release of Attack Of The Clones a pivotal change in distribution began: online exclusives. For me the joy of the hunt was a big part of collecting, and I had no interest just buying them online (or even worse, preordering). At that point, I stopped being a serious collector.

There’s not a great demand for modern Star Wars, and they’re hard to sell, so I’m happy the same shop that bought my games agreed to buy my collection. I won’t get anywhere near what I paid for them, but regaining the space they took up (10 large plastic tubs!) is worth a lot to me.

To end this post, let’s open one! The above is the most recent figure I bought. It’s a 1998 ‘Clone Emperor’ figure, which I bought brand new in Japan this past January for the princely sum of ¥300 (about $2.10)! I already owned one, so I bought it again just to open.

The package has a gimmick, and forms a ‘3D’ backdrop when it opens. It looks… well terrible. I understand that it’s supposed to replicate a scene from a comic but surely they could have gotten some better art? Also this doesn’t look anything like Palpatine. Maybe he’ll look better with the coat off:

Yeah, still nothing like what I think a clone of Palpatine would look like. But we know now such a future never came to pass, and Sheev’s actual (non-clone) return in Rise of Skywalker was much, much better:

I really love that film 🙂

Anyway the next few posts will likely be Star Wars collection related as well, since I’m not selling everything and I also found a few other strange items worth showing off while sorting…

No, I Don’t Believe

July 7th, 2023

I learned of a new local ‘attraction’ that may have been of interest to me, so naturally today I went to check it out. It’s called ‘Do You Believe’ and is a fantasy/supernatural ‘museum’ in a nearby mall.

First things first: the mall was terrifying. Dying malls are always creepy, but this one was doubly so. Almost every shopfront was empty, and the few remaining rarely had names or any signage and seemed to contain teenage employees sitting disinterestedly behind tables full of second hand trash. Only one ‘restaurant’ remained in the enormous food court and even though it was lunch time there wasn’t a single soul eating. Every fiber of my being told me to turn around and leave this depressing place and yet I soldiered on, found ‘Do You Believe’ and handed over my $10 entry fee. I walked around the corner and saw this:

It’s an animatronic Sasquatch! He didn’t move much, and his movement was a bit jerky, but he got points for being the only robotic Bigfoot I’ve ever seen (aside from on The Six Million Dollar Man). He was truly massive as well, and towered over me. Next to him, on the wall, were some Bigfoot facts:

That’s the format of the place: an animatronic accompanied by a list of dubious facts. You stand and look at the creature for a moment, read he facts, and move on. I was alone and had the place to myself, but only spent seconds at each display.

After the Bigfoot came a mermaid:

Her tail rose and fell but the display was otherwise static. Amongst the mermaid facts were these two:

The use of the word ‘fact’ to describe nonsense lit a fire in me, and less than 30 seconds into this attraction it was clear there was absolutely no science or anything educational to be found. Oh well, let’s take a look at the mermaid relics and artifacts…

After the mermaid came a dragon:

He was more animated than the others, and his mouth even glowed to simulate the fire. At least they didn’t attempt to suggest he was real!

The centaur was paired with a toy stuffed lion they probably bought on amazon. And he made horse ‘whinny’ noises, which was weird to say the least.

Around the corner from him was a giant ape versus (?) a small T-Rex:

And a unicorn:

A griffin:

And even (why?) giant insects:

None other than King Kong himself made an appearance:

Don’t worry, they didn’t forget to include some (non-animatronic) aliens as well:

Here’s the one and only ‘fact’ that accompanied the alien display:

There were a few other ‘displays’ that were just printouts pinned to the walls, including the Loch Ness monster, the Kraken and even the Bermuda Triangle:

The above is the entirety of the Bermuda Triangle display. The Loch Ness and Kraken sections were even smaller, and included what seemed to be a poor quality printout of concept art from Clash Of The Titans.

I wish one of those Atlanteans living in the Bermuda Triangle that turned into a mermaid had used her clairvoyance to learn I was planning a visit to this place and then hypnotized me to change my mind!

The ghost ‘fact’ stated that they keep their personalities, memories and emotions and act the same as when they are alive. (And yes, the above was supposed to be a ghost.)

Let me be blunt: this was the worst thing I’ve ever paid money to see. It was in fact worse than everything I’ve ever seen. Even though it only took me five minutes to walk through, I felt I had wasted my time.

Sure it’s intended for kids, and sure the budget is probably microscopic and they spent it all on the animatronics, but even had this been free I would have felt ripped off.

The mall also included a ‘Pop Culture Museum’ which also cost $10, and I was – insanely – about to enter before I noticed the feature display right now was some guys collection of Funko Pops. I turned away and left the mall without a second thought. I’ll never return.

Japan Pickups: Gamebooks

July 6th, 2023

It was a bounteous trip to Japan as far as gamebooks were concerned, and I think I brought home more than ever before.

With the above 8 (the last one is Slaves Of The Abyss) I now have Japanese versions of 17 of their original run of 32 Fighting Fantasy (FF) books. These are all in great condition, and Crypt Of The Sorceror even includes a separate character sheet:

These were bought at Mandarake and Yellow Submarine, and all but Slaves were fairly inexpensive (<$20) by vintage FF standards.

Here we have Sorcery! books 3 and 4, which means I now own the complete original (1980s) and reprinted (2002) editions. The other set of books in the above pic is Clash Of The Princes, the unusual two-player FF gamebook set. I was extremely surprised to not only find this but to find it for so cheap (about $8) since I had no idea it had been released in Japan!

Speaking of, the above is a recent Japanese edition of the first FF novel. It’s as beautiful as the reprinted gamebooks and includes the original art. It seems the retro reprints of old FF material are continuing in Japan?

This book – about the same size and length as a typical FF – is a genuine oddity. Google translates the title to ‘How to play game books’ but it’s entirely FF focused (that cover art shows Livingstone and Jackson) and seems to be a collection of articles from the Japanese Warlock magazine as well as dozens of pages of complex gamebook maps! The pic on the right is part one of a four-part map for Starship Traveller.

Speaking of Japanese Warlock magazine, can you believe I found one. It was peeping out from between AD&D manuals in a Surugaya store in Akihabara, and only cost an astonishing ¥200! As you can see it’s issue 37 from 1990, which was after the last FF had been published in Japan.

It includes articles on game books, lots of (solo) Tunnels and Trolls content, several pages on computer RPGs – including two pages on Wizardry – and a fairly lengthy adventure that uses an unusual numbering system and seems to be about preparing for a new years celebration. Another fine acquisition for the collection, and I’m very relieved to have found it since it lessened the blow of Mandarake being unable to find the one they allegedly had in stock!

Lastly, I picked up this manga collection of articles from an RPG magazine on how to play Advanced Fighting Fantasy. Skimming through it with a translator it certainly seems aimed at women gamers, which may explain why AFF is shelved with Call of Cthulhu in Japanese shops? But the riddle of why ‘TRPGs’ are so popular with female gamers in Japan is probably a mystery best left for another time!

I bought a few other Japanese gamebooks as well, including examples from the Golden Dragon, Grailquest and Tunnels & Trolls series. I even saw others – an AD&D one, another based on the game Landstalker – that I passed on because they were pricey and not FF. As I said it was a bounteous trip as far as gamebooks were concerned, and I’d be surprised if I found this many again on a future trip.