Found on eBay BONUS POST!

OK, got some extra time tonight, so it's time for a "Found on eBay" BONUS POST! And this time, it's all Batman stuff!



The above Batmobile was manufactured by AHI, who produced a lot of cheap licensed toys in the 1960s and 1970s and beyond! Here's a different Batmobile, manufactured by Azrak:



That company actually produced at least two different Batmobiles!





The "Alfred to Zowie!" book is one of the more popular non-comics printed Batman items... and one that I recall pretty much seeing at least one copy turn up at every comics convention I go to!

The other item in this photo, I've got a better angle here...



Yes, it's a Batscope, and no, I'm not sure what it is... it's either a microscope of some kind, or binoculars of some kind, I'm guessing.



This Batman bendy was sold in Australia... the bendy itself isn't anything special, but the card artwork is very nice!



As you may have guessed, the above Batboat was manufactured in Japan!



The flying Batjet above was manufactured and sold in Great Britain, if I remember correctly.



This Batcopter was either manufactured by AHI or Azrak... I forget which... I believe it actually flew, you'd insert a pull strip (like the ones on the Kenner SSP's) and pull it, and then let it go... or something like that.



The seller of the above item claimed it's a "Batgirl" super junior toy, but I think it's really supposed to be Batman, since the colors are way off for Batgirl. The Robin super junior figure is also for sale, and I'll have that photo in another posting or three or six...



Nice box art on this card game, manufactured by Ideal. Perhaps Infantino pencils, inked by Sid Greene? That's a complete guess, by the way.



The Batman carded toys you see above are pretty typical of some of the AHI and Azrek stuff, which would often be found at Kmart, Woolworth's, or Kresge stores in the 1970s... these days, some of that kind of stuff occasionally shows up at dollar stores!



I remember seeing these Batman charms on the Bat-Blog a few weeks ago... and found them for sale on eBay this past week!

Here's some Batman coloring books:







And we'll wrap up this post with a Corgi Bat-Bike!



Jon

Found on eBay - Extra-Large Edition!

So... since the post below this was supposed to be posted last night, and it's kind of short... here's an extra-large edition of "Found on eBay!"

As with previous posts in this series, all these photos are of merchandise I've found in the last week on eBay. Many of these items may still be available, while some may be sold or closed without bids and not relisted. I'm just collecting the photos and sharing them here because I think they're cool, and I get nothing out of it if you track down the auctions and buy the stuff!



I haven't posted too many coloring books at all in this blog... except for the Bewitched and Pufnstuf ones, anyway... but I'm beginning to think this is a collectibles field that's not really been fully tapped yet. You will see a lot of coloring book covers in this Found on eBay series, and a lot of them have starting bids as low as 99 cents -- which is a pretty good deal, if you ask me!

I like the idea of an Apollo coloring book... definitely dates this coloring book, doesn't it?



Coloring books, sticker books, fun books, punch-out books... there's all kinds of stuff like that. One of the neat things about these collectibles is that some times, it's about the only merchandising done with a particular character (or, at least, the only ones I've found, so far). Archie, obviously, is not one of those... but the only Archie stuff I have found is some of the Whitman-published stuff, like this sticker fun book above, and the TV fun book below:



In both of these cases, I'd imagine the only reason Whitman got the license was because of the popularity of the FIlmation cartoon series!

Now, for some Banana Splits items:



I have no idea what a "Cut Up Kit" is... or what the items have to do with the Banana Splits. I'd imagine these exact same items have been put on cards with other character artwork and logos.



Puzzles are another interesting collectible you see on eBay, although not as cheap to get into as coloring books! What's even more interesting is the artwork on these covers. Jaymar was one major publisher of puzzles, but Whitman was the biggest for licensed characters. You may recognize the art on some of these covers from other items by Whitman, too... there's a Fantastic Four puzzle coming up sometime which has some art I immediately recognized!



These Banana Splits rings are pretty neat, aren't they?



This sticker fun book is in excellent condition, isn't it? And the photo quality is also very good (I love it when I can find pix as good as these!). I'm not sure why Snorky, the elephant, is playing the organ... seems to me with his particular hands there's not much in the way of any instrument he could play.



And finally, here's the Banana Splits View-Master envelope... sadly, there's no chance that anyone will ever scan the actual View-Master slides well enough to share online, eh?

Jon

DC September 1977 Ads of Interest!

I know I've posted comics ads before with the Sky Heroes... but at least this one shows Superman, who's an actual flying character! None of the other characters shown there are known for their flying, naturally.

I like those belt buckles and sweatshirts... I'm kind of reminded of some of the retro t-shirts I've been seeing at Target and Wal-Mart these days (which, unfortunately, are designed to look like they're actually old shirts).

Speaking of t-shirts...



Those and the towels are pretty cool-looking, too.

Unfortunately, I've not come across any of the merchandise offered in those ads on eBay lately!

Jon

Found on eBay!

OK, the usual disclaimers apply... these are photos of stuff I saw on eBay that I thought was interesting, and there's no guarantee these items are still up for grabs!



This is a pretty neat Charlie McCarthy hand puppet!



Kenner's Give-A-Show Projector was a toy that just about all the kids in my neighborhood wanted when I was a wee lad. I'll have a whole bunch of slides from these to share with you guys in the future -- I just wish that someone would do some really good scans of the original slides, just so future generations would get some appreciation for them!



Just a nifty robot manufactured by Ideal!



This Monster Lab was produced, I believe, by Ideal... and I'd never heard of it until I came across this auction!

Speaking of Ideal... check these out:





Those items were from Ideal's Star Hawks line of toys, which was intended to capitalize on Star Wars, naturally. The robot above was a reissue of one of the Zeroids, and the Dark Knight in the picture above that uses the same body Ideal used before with Captain Action!

Speaking of Zeroids, I'll have a few of those next time!

Jon

Comics Covers: First Meetings!

OK, gang... I'm pooped tonight, but I don't want to miss posting something, so here's some covers of first meetings!











Jon

DC Comics Ads of Interest!

From October, 1980:



Richie's dad has to be kidding, right? The Rich millions and billions came from selling Grit? I don't think anyone made millions off of Grit, even the publishers!

And note, too, the phrase "lots of famous people got their start selling Grit," yet not a single one of them is mentioned in the ad.

You know, I'm in my mid-40s, and there's only one time I've ever seen someone selling Grit. It was in 1981, and I bought a copy from the kid selling them. After looking through it, I can see why they needed this kind of advertising to recruit their salespeople.

From October, 1977:



Here's another one of those NCG Merchandise ads that I enjoy presenting so much, with art done by the Kubert School.

I'm guessing that "Tru Dimension" kits either had layers of foam board that were marked as to where to paint and where to glue them together... or each layer of depth was separated by a smaller foam board piece (I seem to recall reading in a Fantastic Four lettercol, back when Byrne was doing the book, that someone did something similar using comic book covers).

The Batman Utility Belt is pretty much the only "Utility Belt" toy that makes sense at all. Want to see what this looked like in real life?

Here's a tease:



I'll be sharing a larger version of that photo in the near future. Or you can look for it on eBay. Someone was selling that one there, MIB. Original price? $4.95. Buy it now price, no bidding allowed? $500. As I'm writing this, they have 12 hours left on a listing for the Superman one, for $300.

Neither price, in my mind, seems to be appropriate. I mean... I could see auctioning with a starting bid of, maybe, $50. But $500? That's ridiculous.

The play watches appear to be just that... play watches.



Not much to say about this ad... I just liked it and wanted to scan and share it!

Jon

Found on eBay (first of many, many postings!)

Here's some photos of stuff I found listed on eBay over this weekend. Some of these auctions may have already ended by now, plus I didn't keep track of the auctions, so there won't be any links to the auctions... but you can certainly do a search and find these or similar items, right?

For this first posting, let's start with some classic board games, eh?



The Green Ghost game is one I remember seeing commericials for on TV... unfortunately, I can't find the commercial on YouTube.



Mystic Skull, on the other hand, is a game I'd never heard of before!



Ka-Bala is another game which I definitely remember seeing commercials for!

OK, that's it for games... here's a few other interesting toys I saw:



This is Ideal's Rocket Countdown toy... I'm not familiar with it at all, but it looks neat, doesn't it?



There were quite a few Mini-Martians toys up for grabs this past weekend, but I'd never heard of those before, either! Looks like sci-fi toys marketed towards girls!



This was a very nice space helmet being offered... looks to be mint, and the box looks minty, too! I don't remember what the starting bid (or current bid) was, but I'm sure it was way more than I wanted (or could afford) to spend!

Here's some Ideal commercials I found on YouTube...



And that makes for a nice segue into some Motorific sets being offered (there were lots and lots of these being offered!):





I really dig the Motorific toys... they were very, very cool, and I never had 'em as a kid! Although I did, for a short period of time, luck into a bunch of Motorific track accessories on the card, back when I was buying and selling toys... I recall originally thinking I'd try to find enough Motorific track pieces, and then find some battery-powered car I could adapt to work with it.

Jon