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I have been trying to find these photos for years. I finally found them this weekend, while looking for something else.
These pics were taken in the early 1990s. Look at my tiny little toy collection. A couple shelves of loose figures and a few boxes in my bedroom closet. That was the entirety of my collection. But I had a few gems, and one of them was this carded Mego Iron Man. I bought him for $90 at the Toyman toy show in St. Louis. He had sat on the dealer's table all day long with no one interested. Finally, I bought him just before the show closed.
I later traded it to Mark Huckabone for a boxed Remco Phantom of the Opera. At the time, that seemed like a great deal. The Phantom was a "hot" toy that collectors were buzzing about. No one seemed to care about a carded Iron Man. In any case, I was getting out of superheroes and focusing on monsters, so the trade made sense.
I see Star Raiders and Secret Wars in the closet. Secret Wars and Dapol Doctor Who were the first toys I seriously collected. I remember being really excited when I bought my Secret Wars Hobgoblin. Oooh, I was a big time collector!
I had some good carded Star Raiders, including some glow ones, back when they were cheap. I eventually sold them for $45 each, and I remember having a hard time finding a buyer. People thought that was too much to pay for those stupid things. I could hardly give them away.
It was in that climate that I found myself the only one at a toy show stupid enough to pay $90 for a silly carded Iron Man. And Mark was the only person crazy enough to trade me for it.
Looking at these two photos, it's odd that I look so different in one versus the other, even though they must have been taken a few minutes apart. I think I look better frowning.
These pics were taken in the early 1990s. Look at my tiny little toy collection. A couple shelves of loose figures and a few boxes in my bedroom closet. That was the entirety of my collection. But I had a few gems, and one of them was this carded Mego Iron Man. I bought him for $90 at the Toyman toy show in St. Louis. He had sat on the dealer's table all day long with no one interested. Finally, I bought him just before the show closed.
I later traded it to Mark Huckabone for a boxed Remco Phantom of the Opera. At the time, that seemed like a great deal. The Phantom was a "hot" toy that collectors were buzzing about. No one seemed to care about a carded Iron Man. In any case, I was getting out of superheroes and focusing on monsters, so the trade made sense.
I see Star Raiders and Secret Wars in the closet. Secret Wars and Dapol Doctor Who were the first toys I seriously collected. I remember being really excited when I bought my Secret Wars Hobgoblin. Oooh, I was a big time collector!
I had some good carded Star Raiders, including some glow ones, back when they were cheap. I eventually sold them for $45 each, and I remember having a hard time finding a buyer. People thought that was too much to pay for those stupid things. I could hardly give them away.
It was in that climate that I found myself the only one at a toy show stupid enough to pay $90 for a silly carded Iron Man. And Mark was the only person crazy enough to trade me for it.
Looking at these two photos, it's odd that I look so different in one versus the other, even though they must have been taken a few minutes apart. I think I look better frowning.
Those were cool, heady times to be a toy collector when the hobby was quite young for the most part.
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