Note The views of Peter Fritz do not reflect the view points of Stadsstuff and its owners. We are putting them up for your enjoyment and reading.
It seems every cultural cycle goes through a blossoming, driving demands and emotions over the far heights to the impractical unsustainable patterns. Too many “got to get in on the gravy boat” me-tooers push their way into the scene and make it overactive and ultimately unattractive. I wonder if the original “millionaires toy club” crowd who started the whole sequence of vetted auctions and shows with strict definitions of qualifying toys and dealers in Allentown would be disappointed at the death knell of the personal contact show and tell. I heard legendary stories of stunning commercial and retailer finds of scarce toys and art and collectables all over the country. Many of the finest toys came from hidden collections amassed privately by well-healed patrons of this miniaturized culture and its products. In the beginning it wasn’t about the money but the toy itself. Those of us who commercialized it I think contributed to its slow demise. Most assuredly, the Internet is the future of all marketing, but it comes at the price of human contact and interaction and the joyous social compatibility of this strange and far from the norm passion! Maybe that’s always the way it is – a fledgling boom, well-financed venues with absolute rules, expanded by more and more into “overkill”. It seemed to take a special breed of collector and dealer to keep this traveling road show truly ON THE ROAD. From vehicles packed with far to much merchandise into orderly designed merchant slots has now lost out to point and shoot digital cameras and electronic postings. The show has truly been forever lost along with the flavor of traveling from site to site over America (Toledo, Chicago, Atlantic City, Glendale, Dallas, York, Allentown…….). In the end, it wasn’t the money, it was the hotels, the restaurants, the competition to acquire toys and knowledge.
To me, Peter Fritz seems like a perceptive observer. I myself didn’t get tuned in to the world of plastic toy soldier shows until the late 1980s. And of the shows I regularly attend — OTSN, Indy, and Michigan — there has been a discernable downward trend in the number of dealers and their wares, along with the number of attendee collectors who go to buy. The November/December Rin Tin Tin issue of Playset Magazine arrived today, with its review of the OTSN show in September. Even with Rusty Kern’s traditionally upbeat view of things (I mean, has Rusty ever reviewed a toy soldier show that was not a “great success”), he was forced to admit that for this year’s OTSN “…the crowd for Sunday’s show was clearly down…”.
So Peter’s observation that “The show has truly been forever lost….” is probably true from his perspective of the show heyday in the early to mid-80s. But for me, with my reduced expectations, I still thoroughly enjoy them, along with seeing fellow collectors whom I only get to see 2 – 3 times a year. For me, the shows are still big, fun events. I’ve purchased things from the internet before, and it just doesn’t compare to going to a show.
I agree with Don, I still enjoy going to shows, although I will admit I have seen a decline in attendance as well as a decline in the sale of vintage items. I believe there are numerous factors involved, yes the iternet ( e-bay), the prices, the economy and the production of newer items. I think the newer items while good for the hobby have detracted from the purchase of vintage items, increasingly I have seen the more casual collectors gravitating towards the newer items rather than the old Marx sets. There are still the dyed in the wools guys that buy vintage, but a lot more frequently people are looking for the newer items where in the past they would be relegated to purchasing toys from their childhood. This is both good and bad in my opinion, good that it perpetuates the hobby, but not so good for the vintage dealers, who will have trouble selling off the middle of the road sets and related items.
Oh yeah and one of these days Rusty is going to spell my last name correctly.
I have to agree with Peter on this one. At one time, I looked forward to Hackensack (and before that Schutzen Park) for weeks. It was the highlight of the collecting year. All of the Boston Mafia attended, Bill Murphy, Chuck Thornhill, George Cushman, Jim McGeough and his buddies and on and on. It was a chance to meet with Bill Hamilton, Stad, both Stengles, Gary Dutko, Tommy Hill and so many others. There were plenty of guys who I knew by face, but not by name, that I always enjoyed talking with. I even took a few tables with Al Striano back then to unload some unwanted stuff.
Maybe I am just older and not as enthused as I once was, but I have not attended in 5 or 6 years. I used to leave my house at 4 o’clock in the morning to get there in time to do some parking lot trading. That was the most fun for me. The metal dealers just giving away the plastic “junk” that they had accumulated over the years. I bet everyone who reads this and remembers it, had a “source” that they kept hidden and met with at the show. My secret source was a woman who’s husband dealt in antique trains. He used to give her all of the plastic and tin litho that he got when buying large lots of trains. Her standard price was a dollar per figure with the tin at 10 bucks and the accessories as throw ins. I got a complete Johnny Tremain, Zorro, several Fort Apache’s, Blue and Grays, Capt Gallant and all of the Western Towns from her. I remember her asking me why the Tremain character figures were not blue or red like the rest of the set. I believe that I told her that they were neutral, non-combatants!!
But all of that is over, now. Ebay killed it. Whether that’s good or bad is for you to decide. I know that I miss those days. In truth, I have more stuff than I can ever use and there are very few items that I need. So, the thrill is mostly gone for me as far as shows go. Flea markets are another story. I still routinely find great stuff at my local market and that is where the fun is. Check the new issue of Playset to see a story about one of my flea market finds.
In one aspect, Peter is correct in that he and a few others (who shall remain nameless)
destroyed the price structure by selling plastic to rich folk and speculators. That was the beginning of the end of plastic sanity. I have no problem with people making a profit on a sale. But when playsets began to climb into the thousands of dollars range,
then things had gotten stupid. So yeah, Peter it’s all your fault. LOL….Bill