Flea Market Findings V
It's been two years since I last traveled to Pickering Markets, a combination flea, antique and farmer's market just east of Toronto. I took my daughter with and tried to find wrestling stuff to write about....
Let's begin with the things that I didn't buy. The antique market contained a set of drinking glasses from classic WWF stars since 1989 or so. Among the set were Hulk Hogan, The Bushwhackers, Brutus The Barber Beefcake and Macho King Randy Savage.
While these were legitimate products and not bootlegs, I had zero interest in acquiring them. For one thing, they were $29.95 each. Second, they were used drinking glasses! Like, ew.
Speaking of bootlegs.... check out this bootleg Hulk Hogan figure from the early 1980s! It's a cross between the AWA Remco figures and a He-Man action figure, mixed in with a head of someone that kind of, sort of, looks like Hulk Hogan.
For $9.95, this thing wasn't at all worth my time. It's interesting, but without any sort of collection to marry it to, it would just be a random anomaly in my figure collection, one of seemingly thousands. I feel as though I have a Big John Studd version of this, too. But whatever.
Hidden in between a Cleveland Indians baseball cap and a bunch of random hockey merchandise was a small "Tile-a-Wall" picture of Randy Savage with the WWF Championship, selling at the ridonkulous price of $19.95.
Even if I wanted a Randy Savage framed photo for any reason, the frame is tiny and again, there aren't any other tiles to collect along with it. If there were, like, nine of them from that era and you could assemble it together to make some sort of wrestling artwork.... maybe I would have considered it. But not for 20 bucks!
Although most of the wrestling action figures were stashed away in the flea market portion of the building.... the antique market did carry a half-dozen TNA iMPACT! figures, including the pictured Jeff Jarrett and Chris Sabin, as well as AJ Styles, Christopher Daniels and a few others.
But the price tag was once again WAY too high - $24.95 a piece!?! I checked on eBay and many of those figures, also mint on card, are cheaper online.... including shipping! HARD PASS.
I was leafing through a pile of vintage wrestling magazines (didn't buy any of them, due to the fact that I already own about 65,000) when a pile of vintage WWF VHS tapes caught my eye.
Some were Coliseum Video originals, such as Best Of The WWF Vol. 7, WWF World Tour and High Flyers, and others were re-releases such as Best of SummerSlam and Most Unusual Matches. But in any event... these were videotapes that are (or eventually will be) available on the WWE Network, so I didn't see any great need to scoop them for $29.95 per.
So those are the things I didn't buy. What DID I drop some serious coin on? Glad you asked...
This is likely the only action figure ever made of Sgt. Craig Pittman, and now that I'm building a WCW collection, it was a necessity to buy. And for $10 and being in pristine condition.... it was a no-brainer to pick up.
For those of you who have never seen it (or for that matter, never heard of Sgt. Craig Pittman), it was a solid rubber action figure, somewhat similar to the WWF LJN line, released in the mid-1990s along with Hulk Hogan, Sting, Ric Flair and other WCW stars who actually deserved to have an action figure released. Pittman was, at best, a mid-carder in WCW, who probably never even main-evented an episode of WCW Saturday Night.
I've spoken before on this site about the WWF Bendies figures released in the mid-1980s, and I've slowly been finding deals to buy the line. Back in the day, I had only Rowdy Roddy Piper and King Kong Bundy, both of which were no longer salvageable due to magic marker stains and other such injustices.
I was able to negotiate buying both Bundy and his old tag team partner Big John Studd for $15 - a steal considering both are in great condition and surprisingly free of magic marker stains. Bobby Heenan would have been proud.
I've been eyeing the WWE Build 'n' Brawl series of action figures (released in the late-2000s) for some time and managed to buy two still in their box for a cool $20.
Umaga and Matt Hardy are about the size of the old GI Joe action figures, are fully articulated and each come with part of a steel cage. While it's unlikely I will find the rest of this collection at various flea markets... I couldn't pass these up.
Saving the best for last.... while I was eyeing the aforementioned Bundy and Studd Bendies (and the price tags are proof that I talked the vendor down from $10.95 a pop!), my daughter and I noticed something called "Hulkster Car" selling for $12.95.
At first I kind of looked it over and dismissed it, not sure it was something I really needed in my life. After all, I don't own any wrestling vehicles, most of which are Hot Wheels-sized die cast cars of WWE and WCW stars over the years.
But I kept going back to this item, and my daughter convinced that for about 10 bucks... it was worth picking up.
As usual, my daughter was right.
The car, created in 2000 as part of the ToyBiz line of WCW action figures, was part of a line called WCW Road Rebels. When first created, the car's lights worked and it made engine sounds (it also came with a non-nWo version of Hulk Hogan, which I unfortunately don't have). Having said all that.... the car was easy to clean up and looks absolutely bad-ass with a Hogan figure behind the wheel (and Eric Bischoff sitting on top of the trunk). It's the perfect piece for my Even More Ultimate Wrestling Wall Unit - see here for details - and absolutely made the trip to Pickering worthwhile.