Dig This Treasure!

So two weeks ago, if you remember, Sarah and I didn’t have the greatest of estate sale days…or so we thought at the time.  I didn’t buy much that day, but one of the finds was a giant lot of old plastic figures (cowboys, indians, horses, army dudes, random animals, etc).  

At the time, I kept kicking myself for how much I paid for these things, which was $25.  I felt like I was taking a big risk on re-selling them for any sort of profit.  I listed them on ebay a few days after purchase at a starting price of $19.99, hoping I could at least make back some of my initial investment.  

When I bought the figures, I tried to haggle on the price, and the woman selling them said no because there were a lot “MARX” brand toys in the lot.  I told her I had no idea what the meant, and proceeded with the sale.

Well, apparently MARX figures are SUPER COLLECTIBLE.  Over the next few days, I had numerous bids on ebay and messages from people asking me to send them more detailed photos of the pieces.  I knew something was up, so I started researching what I might have that was of so much interest here.

I realized quickly that I had posted this photo in my ebay listing, and assumed that the MPC meant MARX brand.  It does not.  It is some other undesirable manufacturer.  I panicked that I actually didn’t have any MARX brand here, and thus lied to my numerous bidders.  

But I did have MARX figures, and in some crazy alternate-reality-world I was temporarily living in, I had some of the RAREST MARX figures.  

I had a little Davy Crockett man, from one of the earliest MARX Alamo playsets.  He was only around for a little while before they started making a different, more common Davy.

I also had what are called “put-to-gether cowboys” or “swoppets” in which the torso and legs of the figure are separate and you can swap them out.

The collectibility of my set was seemingly endless.  I had benefitted from someone throwing all of these figures together into one giant pile, mixing several valuable items together that were never originally in the same set.

Over a couple beers, I read and read.  My figures were collectible because they weren’t painted, because many were light-colored, because they were clearly not reproductions, and because they were a mix of all types of figures.

I had reoccurring dreams about this lot, in one of which I payed off my student loans with the profit.  In the end, these guys sold for $100.01.

I messaged the winner of the auction and asked him what made this particular lot so valuable to him.  I thought maybe there was one figure I had not seen in my research that was the holy grail of MARX collectibles.  Here is what the buyer said:

I’ll bet you were shocked! You probably spent $10 for the bag, right? Well, chances are, unless you get really lucky, you will never get a buy like this again! You will be one of ‘us’, people who are 'hip’ to the profit margin on these guys. Do NOT, however, buy just any bag full of toy soldiers. The VAST majority of what you will find at flea markets, garage and estate sales, are garbage from China…like most stuff from over there, mass produced and definitely INFERIOR! Actually, it was the age of the stuff that attracted me. Most of it is from the '60s, the golden age of plastic toy soldiers and playsets. I am 55, so was right in the middle of it. I have loved these figures all of my life, and have collected them as well. I have a full basement of them as a testament to my devotion. These figures are timeless, and although many of us who grew up with them are no longer around, there seems to be a renewed interest in them. Something about miniature figures facinates people (doll houses, train sets). If you really would like a good resource, get the book 'Toy Soldiers’ by Richard O'Brien-it is the bible on the subject. Hope that helps, and good hunting! Can’t wait to get my fix!!!
John

I was really excited by John’s reply. He sounds a lot like my dad, who got me into collecting and has his own basement of treasures. And I was glad to know that these little guys were going to be proudly displayed amongst their fellow plastic friends. All in all, one of the coolest finds I have made.

-Erin

Sarah and I see Beanie Babies at nearly every sale we attend, and I always give them a good look-through.  Here’s the thing though…you know that percentage on anti-bacterial hand soap?  99.999% or whatever?  That’s exactly the chance you have of NEVER finding a valuable Beanie Baby.  

How do I know?  Well, for one thing, this is me:

(Let me say here that if I was a kid now, I would have bullied myself.)

So yeah, I know a little bit about Beanie Babies.  Also, it is a good rule of thumb for any estate sale buying that if something was mass produced or marketed as “collectible” then it really never was or will be valuable.  Holiday Barbies?  Eh.  Santa Bears? Eh.

The most collectible things are rare, either because only a few were made or because people never thought to keep them.  

So back to the bean bags…

You can tell a collectible Beanie Baby instantly by its tag.  If it has the half-fold tag with a poem inside and a yellow star on the front, then move on.  These are the Beanie Babies that my fellow youth and I collected.  They’re everywhere.  

If you find a Beanie Baby with a hang-tag that is only one single piece of cardboard, but printed on both sides, then you are onto something.  These are first generation Beanies, released well before the collecting craze began.  If you can buy these first gens for a couple bucks, then they can be well-worth the investment. 

This is not to say that NONE of the newer Beanies (with fold-tag) are collectible.  A couple of them are, but only because of SUPER RARE manufacturing flaws.  There’s “Peanut” the elephant who was released in small quantity as a royal blue color (instead of baby blue), and “Spot” the dog who in some cases is missing his spot.

You can check out some other Beanie Baby variations here.

My favorite Beanie Baby hands-down is the Princess Diana commemorative Beanie.  When I find one at a sale, I like to pretend that it is super valuable.  I usually hold it up and say loudly, “YES! The holy grail!”  In truth, it is worth about $5.  I just love that someone had the audacity to propose the creation of this thing and make mad cash off it.  

Here is one that someone put a mini crown on, because apparently the bear alone wasn’t tacky enough:

-Erin

Update from Sarah: Erin also used to make outfits for her beanie babies. I know this because at a garage sale she and her sister were having a few years ago, she let me have some of them that were wearing her creations. I used to make “homes” for my smaller stuffed animals out of shoe boxes that included moveable furniture made of cardboard and construction paper. Just another thing among many that I learned about her that affirmed the reason we are BFFs.

One difference between she and I–I would have never left a tag on any toy I owned. EVER. To this day, I threaten to remove the tags or take things out of boxes that Adam has that are collectible. Those tag “protectors” are especially rage-inducing for me. 

(BTW, Adam was thrilled about my securing some new beanies, as I’m sure you figured.) 

So we headed out on Friday, full of promise, eagerly awaiting a repeat of the success we had found the week before.  The first sale we hit was pretty packed, with both stuff and people.  It was the type of sale where people use one arm to sort through items, and their other arm to block you from getting anywhere near the stuff they are looking at.  With a house full of people all doing this, it gets annoying pretty fast.  I’ve gotten good at muscling around in these types of situations, but it is still real stressful.

My first find was a bunch of vintage plastic toys.  I had been researching these on ebay last week for an art project I’m working on and found that they can be surprisingly valuable.  There is a good mix of cowboys, indians, horses, spacemen, pirates, knights, and more.  The woman running the sale mentioned that many of the pieces are by Marx, which I guess is one of the more collectible brands.  

I also bought some vintage jello/baking molds since I had had previous success in selling them.

Here is some of our loot while we were standing in line to check out.  The line was the slowest ever, as the sellers were having to phone in every credit card transaction.  At some point, Sarah contemplated leaving the line to go back for a huge ceramic dog she had saw.  I encouraged her to at least take a photo of it so we can document all the questionable items she considers buying.  She ended up just buying it, which I am sure Adam is thrilled about.  Hopefully it will make an appearance soon in TTFYHO.

Check out that nice kitten postcard in Sarah’s box.

The rest of the day was filled with bummer sales.  A lot were overpriced or had nothing of interest.  I did find this little buddy, by Josef Original.  He is pretty much the cutest.

I first came across Josef Original figures at Christmas, when I found this guy:

So a rather uneventful Friday.  No huge scores but still lots of fun.  I even ate a cookie for lunch, which is always a fun thing to do.  And we ended up going to the casino, although there were no huge scores there either.  We’ll get ‘em next time.

-Erin 

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Erin is right, the sales weren’t that great. We were also both sort of “off” on Friday. Erin seemed cranky, and I was sick. However, shockingly, I still came home with a carload of items. The first sale was the most fruitful in terms of treasures. I’ll do a separate post about the ceramic dog another day. He’s an Irish Setter and I love him. 

I found some cool items at this sale, but they were pretty overpriced. Oh well. (Note: This sale was ALSO by the same people who did the House of Horrors sale and the antique cigar stand sale. They love overpricing things.) 

Anyway, I got my brother this vintage Michigan State pennant for his man cave. I think he reads this blog, so I’m ruining a surprise. It’s probably from the '50s…if I had to guess. 

I also found this amazing book, called The Crazy Ladies by Joyce Elbert. I’m not familiar with her work, but as you can see from the blurb by Cosmo at the top, it is the first really great dirty book. 

I think Cosmo is probably wrong about this claim, but it was still a great find because clearly someone had kept this book just for the sexy parts. I know this because when I opened it, this happened: 

It reminded me of the copy of Jackie Collins’ Chances that was in my grandma’s basement when I was a kid. I would go downstairs and pretend I had to use the bathroom down there, and just read the dirty parts. My family probably thought I had extreme bowel problems (I’m neither confirming or denying this.) The book looked just like that by the end of my tween years. 

I flipped through it this morning, and didn’t find anything particularly racy. However, the first page is great, and I don’t know how this happened, but it’s like a picture-perfect description of the way I throw parties: 

I found some other cool stuff at the sale, most notably these postcards, a Swedish Christmas ornament, and a Greenfield Village pennant, all vintage: 

Next, we went to a sale at the home of a woman who was clearly a compulsive shopper, and I scored two purses and three pairs of Naturalizer dress shoes in my size that looked like they’d never been worn. You might say that’s a grandma brand to wear, but I was thrilled because a) the shoes are all cute, b) I hate looking for dress shoes when I have to go to a wedding or something, and c) each pair was only $5. 

Related sidenote: I first started hanging out with Erin, we were at this wedding and I complimented her whole ensemble, which was lovely. She then told me that her shoes were NATURE-alizer brand like it was real cool. First, nice pronunciation skills. Second, that’s not something you want to walk around advertising when you’re 22 or 23 (which she was at the time.) 

At the last two sales of the day, I scored some decent items, including cool wrapping paper to add to my collection (I remember making things out of fabric that was the same pattern as the paper to the right when I was a kid), an antique shelf, some cool vintage cheese picks for all of the entertaining that I do, and a cat pin with a head that wobbles. 

All in all, not the best day, but not the worst either. Until I lost at the casino and had to drive home from Erin’s in the snow, coughing and sneezing my brains out. 

-Sarah