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RIP a Mego Collecting Pioneer
Last night I got some sad news with the passing of my old friend and one of my "Mego mentors" Reade aka Brad.
The reason I post this is, he probably had an impact on you.
Brad is one of the handful of people that was involved in the Parkdale Novelty find of Mego during the mid 1980s. Without fail, the biggest player.
Long time collectors may remember this ad from Starlog, Toronto residents may remember the various TV commercials he ran for Star Trek Mego figures during the 1980s.
Remember the Diamond catalog had a seemingly never ending supply of Mego 12" Spider-Man and Batman in the 90s? That was Brad.
He was a complicated guy but he was also a true visionary ahead of his time and he was someone who had a real lasting, positive impact on my life.
I was just a teenager when I met his family and they opened their house to me, which was floor to ceiling filled with toys, posters, records and art.
They invite me to dinner, allow me to pour through Mego catalogs, showing me all his discoveries (He had the first window boxed Mad Monster I'd ever seen), open sealed Mego cases to get the assortments and we'd also go toy hunting together.
When i got the notion to write a Mego book in the 1990s, he lent me his collection, his home and his camera to take photos. Many of them ended up at the Mego Museum a couple of years later. I bet I can still find some here if I looked hard enough.
They were generous with their time and with stuff. I remember sending a NY toy dealer to them who filled his trunk with Mego Trek items. When I popped in to say hi, Brad handed me a perfect boxed Mego Aquaman and said "Thanks for the referral buddy!".
The Mego Trek wasn't the only smart move he made, his techniques for finding warehouses of vintage movie posters and toys were brilliant.
When he heard the Dick Tracy "The Blank" figure was only to be sold via Sears Canada, he bought all but 10 of them with his credit card. The entire production run, the president of Sears phoned him. Seriously, if you own one of those figures, you got it through him.
We'd lost touch when I moved and started a family, he became something of a nomad after his marriage ended but I always hoped we'd cross paths. You think you have forever to catch up with people but you truly don't.
What's bittersweet about all of this is, I was redecorating my house last week with movie posters, records, animation cels and art. It dawned on me that I was merely copying Brad's amazing house from all those years ago. I joked to my wife that I owed him and his wife a royalty and a thank you.
I'm happy to have known him, he's definitely a major reason i do this stuff.
Thanks for reading.
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