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Welcome to the collection
of I'm 53 years old
and in my TENTH Childhood! Fortunately, my Aunt found my original
GIjOE when I was in my late forties. She handed it to me in front
of my 6 year old son. By then, ol' Joe was missing an arm and
a leg, and was nude except for some underpants I had made for
him out of scotch tape. I was so embarrassed (at the time) that
I told her I didn't want it. My son said, "I'll take it."
I think I said, "that's dumb" or something equally
unimpressive. Anyway, now I'd give anything to have that Joe
back! Today, there is so many things stuffed into my cabinets that they barely fit. With such cramped quarters, fights often break out among my troops. In the photo at right, my Canadian Mountie is trying to break up a spat between the Brit and the Japanese soldiers. Joe and his Panties!
As my children grew, I moved on to other things. World War 2 souvenirs from veterans, comic books and as my wife says, "Lord knows what's next." Today, I think I've kept about 25 or so vintage Joes and traded the rest away for other stuff. Of course, those trades all seemed like a good idea at the time, but now that I'm in my tenth childhood and interested in Joes again, I'm not so sure. Anyway, here's a look at the rest of my diverse and growing collection as it stands today... My Man from UNCLE Days
The Solo gun was made back in 1965, and the box is a giant 36" long, so it's a very attractive display piece. My understanding is that it's very difficult to find (and it is). Especially mint in box. In fact, I'd never even seen one for sale on ebay. Until... one day there it was. However, I was very hesitant to bid because I knew it wouldn't go cheap and I had also recently made several promises to my wife about how I was going to slow down my collecting. Well, happily, I overcame my reluctance and today, I am once again the proud owner of a Man From UNCLE Napoleon Solo Gun. My wife Julie claims she's happy for me (but somehow I just don't believe it). What did German kids play with during WW2? I also collected WW2 "composition soldiers" for a few years. Composition soldiers were made with sawdust and glue, and these primitive-looking little toys are what German children played with during the war. I wasn't crazy about the fighting figures, so I focused my efforts more on collecting the "camp" type figures. These are the guys who are just laying around, eating, smoking, etc. They're much rarer now, so it turns out my choice was a good one.
In the photo above, my favorite figure is the little guy sitting on the box and shaving. There's also a soldier standing up shaving with a mirror to the right and a guy cutting a loaf of bread on his knees. The ones with the square bases were made by Lineol. The round based figures were made by Elastolin. These were the two major toy companies in wartime Germany. You should see the metal vehicles they made. Giant cannons, soup kitchens, cars, etc. Nowadays, they cost hundreds to thousands of dollars each! Unfortunately, after the war, kids would scratch out the swastikas on all of the political ones who had armbands (like SA and SS) or just destroy them. You can't believe how incredibly difficult it is to find authentic camp figures today. How Lester inspired my interest in WW2 Memorabilia I also collect original WW2 items. Most are all from veterans and I am also trying to preserve their personal history. This is NOT about Nazism in ANY form. It's just another thing I like to collect. Now, meet "Lester." Lester (shown below) called me up about five years ago and said, "I have some old Nazi stuff if you want it." Lester was in an artillery battalion during WW2. At the war's end, they liberated the concentration camp at Dachau. Dachau was an SS clothing facility. With the tables turned, the Germans were now the prisoners at Dachau. Many a soldier came home with unused SS patches and memorabilia from their stay at Dachau. Lester used to sit in the guard tower at night and guard the SS guys.
Anyway, he opened up this old cigar box
and this is what was in it. Lester had a daughter, but she wasn't
interested in any of his old "stuff." The Deutschland
insignia you see is a cuff title. It is made with real silver
bullion. You wanna talk about rare? How about WW2 "Trench Art?" When a soldier painted something on an object, they call it "Trench art." Well, you're looking at may be one of the best pieces of all time. This is a German helmet, onto which an American G.I. has painted Hitler hanging from a rope with a crow or vulture flying overhead. I don't know if you can see it, but the blood turns into little swastikas on the way down. I also collect German daggers. Daggers were dress parade items. All were bought by the Germans privately at stores. They were NOT issued to individuals like a bayonet.
The bloodiest card set ever: HORRORS OF WAR! This is probably the most famous gum card set ever issued. The Horrors of War card set was issued by Gum Inc. starting way back in 1938. The illustrations are colorful, detailed and often gruesome. It was conceived as a 240 card set originally depicting events in the Chinese-Japanese War, the Ethiopian War and the Spanish Civil War. The set proved to be so popular, that an additional 48 cards were added about Germany and the beginning of World War II. The addition of these 48 cards to the set did not prove as successful as Gum Inc. anticipated and hence the last 24 cards and in particular the last 12 cards have proved very elusive to collectors. The dogs eating the people is very popular card, as is the bus crash with severed hands card. Go figure.
Topps "Civil War News" Cards More good stuff. Released back in 1961, this was an 88 card set. I had the one with the guy under the wheels as a kid as well as the one with the spikes. Ah, great memories! I even remember losing a bunch of these to a kid flipping them off his porch. DARN! These are all from Cello Packs. Art courtesy of Norman Saunders. Amazingly, I remember when you could buy the ORIGINAL artwork when Topps sold off all of their archives. Small in size, but those now would bring really big bucks.
Topps 1966 "Battle Cards" I never had these as a kid for some odd reason (but I've got 'em now!). Topps Chewing Gum Company was only about twenty miles from me too, so go figure. Anyway, I distinctly remember seeing the famous Mars Attack and Civil War News sets, but not these. They are slightly soft because they are in plastic holders. I think this was a 66 card set. Art once again by Norm Saunders.
Odds-n-Ends In the photo below, the rusted scope is a WW2 German Sniper's scope which came out of a ditch in Berlin that some guys found when they were replacing a water line. The glass was still in the scope! To its left is a Elastolin Storm Trooper having a drink in his yellow shirt as an Army guy wipes off his back after a bath. The photograph is of me getting ready to swim at the lake. One year I swam until Oct 27th when the water was 47 degrees. I could go for an hour. When you got in, your neck would burn. When you got out you could feel the blood pumping through your heart. Quite a feeling! Crazy, to say the least.
Wartime Comics
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The real revival
seemed to happen quickly after the birth of my first child. My
wife was busy with our newborn, and I needed something to keep
me busy too. Before I knew it, I had amassed over 150 GIjOEs
in my collection! I was spending ten dollars on little plastic
shoes for Joe while my wife shopped at K Mart trying to save
money. Of course, after seeing some of the amazing collections
on this website, $10 may not seem like a lot, but at the time
I was quite impressed with myself.
The
Man from UNCLE Napoleon Solo Gun is my all-time favorite toy.
When I was a kid, I used to run around the back alleys at night
with this thing pretending I was the Man from UNCLE. Sadly, if
you did that today, you'd probably get shot. I
don't know what happened to my original black beauty, but it
just disappeared at some point.
