Maryland Toy Show

 January 19, Laurie and I went to the Toy show at the Maryland State Fairgrounds. The show used to be in Putty Hill. The trip to the show was a pleasant ride.. We took exit 17 instead of Exit 16 to get to the fairgrounds as suggested by Map Quest.  I had found this exit was better as you do not have to make a left turn to get into the fairgrounds. We got to the fairgrounds and discovered that there was a horse show on as well as the toy show and the place was packed.  We parked the car and headed to the show.

After paying our admission, we turned to the right and started down the row.  Two  tables in we found Kerry  who was sharing a set of tables with Mark Hegeman. Kerry always has a diversity selection of toys which are at very fair prices. I was able to pick up some nice items including some MPC military items. I talked to Mark about the lastest Playset Magazine.  While we were at their tables, Norman Carey  pop up  and join us in the conversation. Norman has great success at the charity shops.  We continued down the line and came up on Chuck. another person I have bought from before. I picked up a Britains anti aircraft gun and a Marx Warriors of the World German. Chuck had gotten some horses  from his attic to see if he could sell them to  anyone attending the horse show. If the horses did not sell, they were going back into the attic.

We went into the second row  and saw our very good friends Chris Lamont and Gerry Watts. Gerry had a wide selection of  plastic figures including his figure boxes. Chris had a selection of  action figures and Lego pieces. Chris has bags of mix lego piece that sell well to parents attending the show. Chris told us it was a battle to put the bags together as his children are always trying to get pieces for their collection. 

I glanced over Gerry’s and Chris’ tables and not seeing anything that I needed for now headed to do the rest of the show. We walked down the aisles and I did not see anything I could use for the collection or resale expect a lot of loose farm pieces. Gerry kids me on the farm items but I have found on Ebay I can sell the pieces.  Laurie looked at some stands for their jewelry but found nothing that interested.  The show is two days, the first day is a toy show, the second day is a antique market. Some of the toy dealers stay over for the second day.  One dealer I found had a lot of dark gray Marx German vehicles, but he wanted $95.00 for them which left no room for resale so I passed on them.  We headed to the front row part we had not done as I knew there was three dealers I was going to buy from or talk to. The first dealer was one I had bought from at the last show who a nice mix of pieces. I was able to get some Marx construction pieces that I could work into a little group to sell on Ebay.

The next stand we went to was Jim McGough of CTS. Jim has a selection of Atlantic figures, Beton and GI Joes. I was able to show Laurie on Jim’s stand, one of the ways Crescent boxed their 60mm figures for sale. Jim had two box sets from Crescent British army and U.S. Cavalry.  We talked  to Jim and we found out that Tim Geppert was no longer part of CTS.  Tim had decided to pursue other interests. We told about Jim my operation last year which he was surprised to hear about. (Laurie had sent a message to Rusty of Playset Magazine about my operation but never recieve a reply nor was it printed in the magazine.) We talked some more before  I bought a Cofalu bandit for the collection. Then we headed across the aisle to Randy. Randy has wide selection of toys and we have gotten a great selection of items from him in the past. One time we got the anicent Olympic maragine figures from him which I had only seen in Germany. This time Randy  only had some RL pirates a cereal premium from Australia, which I picked up.

We continue down the row and we stopped back at Kerry’s and Mark’s stand where Tom Stein was trying to sell some Marx and other pieces. I bought from Tom all his loose pieces passing on his Marx Fort Dearborn playset.  We then stopped back at Chucks stand where I got a fountain flat from a Warriors of the World box and Timpo Solid figure 8th Army Flamethrower.

We headed back to Gerry’s and Chris’s tables to make some purchases and talk some more.  I asked Chris about a claim that Jordan Hembrough of Toy Hunter made on his tweets. Jordan claimed that he had seen a Darth Vader  with a double periscoping light saber carded go as high as $20,000.00. I asked Chris and he said that he had a friend who tried to sell one for $2,000.00 and got  $1500.00. So it will be one more question to ask Jordan if his price was typo or not.  I got from Chris a Dai Ranger figure mint in the box. This was a show from Japan that was used for Power Rangers. From Gerry, I picked up some loose figures and some Playmobil Zoo pieces  to expand my Playmobil section on my Ebay store.   I went back to the person who had the loose farm pieces and bought them. On the way out of the show we saw a replica of the Batmobile from the toy show. The person who had it had a sign up if you took pictures outside the fenced area it was free.  If you wanted your picture inside the Batmobile it was $10.00.

We left the show after two and half hours and because it was only slightly out of our way we stopped in the Lancaster area for food to take home and a meal.

While the show was good for us, Laurie noted we were missing some dealers that used to set up at Putty Hill. These dealers had been less expensive and had some unusual items. Chris had told us that some of the action figure dealers were up in prices.  We notice the same thing as some dealers were fair on their prices while others were high. Despite the changes we will be back in July.