Toy Bender

I used to collect only mint on card toys. I did that because I get more of a nostalgia kick out of carded and box toys than I do for ones that are opened. I also think that a toy in the package can be art. But as much as I like carded toys, I would never spend the insane amount of money I’ve seen go for vintage toys in the package. Take for instance this He-Man with a sled:

The seller is looking for $20,000 for this puppy. Egad! You know what’s even worse, though? The fact that he’s still charging twenty five bucks for shipping. Seriously dude? You can’t throw in shipping when you’re getting the same price some people buy for a new car? What a cheap ass.

I know that there are some of you nerds out there with enough cash to drop on a really expensive toy for no other reason other than it’s rare, but I have to wonder about someone spending this much in the economy we are currently in. Holy crap, I could only imagine buying a He-Man for twenty grand and then losing my job. Of course, I’m looking at this from the perspective of someone who doesn’t have a lot of money. The world may seem a bit different if I’m taking daily dips into a pool of gold.

As I stated yesterday I’m working on restoring my vintage Ewok playset to it’s former glory. I was on eBay looking for some of the parts I need when I ran across two actions that fit right into the theme of “eBay Madness”. The first is for this lovely custom Ewok as a Jedi:

I’m really afraid that somehow this will make it’s way into the live action Star Wars show if George Lucas sees this. I love Ewoks and all, but I like to think that they could even more ridiculous than seen in the cartoon Ewoks. If you find yourself wanting to throw money away, then the bidding starts at the low, low price of 14.95.

But if you think this is bad, just check this out!

It’s a life size Ewok costume prop and… I think it speaks for itself. By Crom, those eyes! It’s staring into my soul. The seller says the costume is not endorsed by Lucasfilm. No shit? I can’t imagine why they wouldn’t want to endorse this abomination that looks close enough to the real thing, yet fails on so many levels.

You know, I’ve been reading a lot of H.P. Lovecraft and I swear it was in one of his stories. I think it was called, “The Thing From the Movie House Scares the Piss Out of Me” or something along those lines.

Aaaaaaaaaaaahh!!!

P.S. I promise I’ll stop talking about Ewoks for a bit.

In the interest of getting money in my pocket, I’ve gone ahead and decided to let some pieces of The Collection go up for auction. So far I’ve only got a couple of items up for your consideration:

SDCC King Greyskull:

Click here to bid on King Greyskull (pretty please)

SDCC Lobo:

Click here to bid on Lobo (Oh God, I’m begging you!)

Basically, both of these items were procured by me on a sort of a whim and I decided that I liked them enough to keep them. Unfortunately, bill collectors don’t accept toys as payment.

Why am I telling you all this? Well aside from the fact that you might want a genuine collectible that was once owned by an important historical figure (ah hem… me), I’m also throwing in some goodies to loyal or unloyal Toy Bender readers who win. All you have to do is to send me an email after you win (at paul.toybender@gmail.com) and I’ll find some cool extras like kick ass comics or even some freebie toys to chuck in your box before it heads your way. Hell, I may even throw in a free puppy!* Awesome hey? Yeah, I thought so. Now go bid!

*There’s no way in Hell I’m giving away a puppy.

Toy collectors can be an odd bunch, specifically when it comes to collecting female figures. There’s some of us that like having some hawt girl toys, perhaps to make up for the hawt girls in real life that could never be possessed by you no matter how many poems you left in their locker and how many times you threatened to kill her cat. Anyway, there’s was a custom Scarlet figure that sold on eBay that targeted that special segment of the collecting community.

Sadly, the eBay seller didn’t write much that you could make fun of, but the pictures speak volumes.

Warning: There’s some explicit pictures. I apologize if you are looking at this via a feed I apologize, the overlords have it set to “full.”

(more…)

While not gut busting hilarious, I found this auction funny in it’s banality. It answers the question, “What happens when Grandma finds some Star Wars figures that she thinks are worth something and decides to put them on eBay?” The answer is she charges a pretty high amount for a few figures that aren’t really worth it, but the real beauty here is the descriptions of the characters. It’s like it’s written through a translation device like Babelfish, like how this site is written.

(more…)

Warning! If you like G.I. Joes and you like your sanity, then do not read any further. However, if you want be subjected to a serious bout of confusion, anger/sickness which is accompanied by vomiting, then read on.

This time we are going to look at not one auction, but many auctions that are quite noteworthy. Fairly recently they were pointed out on some G.I. Joe message boards due to the fact that they were for vintage, carded figures from ‘82 and fetched a grand total of five dollars each.

Now before you start thinking that it was some scheme to get around eBay fees by charging hundreds of dollars for shipping, you can stop right there, smarty. The auctions had a shipping price of only 3.00 bucks for priority mail. Accounting for the fees and the lowest price for priority anything is $4.80, I’m guessing the profit margin here of around three dollars per figure maximum.

In case you’re wondering Scarlett alone is listed on the online G.I. Joe price guide as going for $300 to $400 and that’s ungraded.

I’ll give you a moment to compose yourself.

You may question the authenticity of the auctions. I don’t blame you, you’re probably on the brink of losing your mind. I asked the seller myself:

ToyBender: Are the auctions legit? (i.e. are they really vintage figures that haven’t been re-carded?)

Wake_Watcher: They were legit. Never touched.

ToyBender: Why did you sell them for such a low price?

Wake_Watcher: I sold them at that price because I didn’t know their value. They’ve been sitting in my basement for 25 years. My dad was selling them at $2 each after paying $1.50 each.

ToyBender: Can collectors expect more of these type of auctions in the future?

Wake_Watcher: The only thing I have left is the miniature Care Bears from that era. I’ll be putting them out in the near future.

And there you have it. The only way I can cope with missing out on this deal of the decade is to completely deny this is real at all despite all evidence to the contrary in order to maintain my outlook of a world that is orderly and without chaos. You know, kind of like a 911 conspiracy nut.

It’s fake I tell you! Fake!

A little while ago I posted an auction that had rather embarrassing images put into it, due to the seller hotlinking the images from a site that didn’t appreciate it. Well, it happened again! Here’s the top of the auction for some X-Men Mini-mates:

And here are the images are mostly text, but they certainly are an enjoyable read. Oh yeah, and the Mini-mates engaging in sexual relations are back!

(more…)

I’ve been wishing for a new eBay madness for quite some time and I finally have a good one. This auction demonstrates two important things for a seller: 1. Use your own pictures. 2. Never hotlink your images. If you’re aren’t familiar with the concept, hotlinking is when someone posts an image somewhere on the web (usually a blog or on something like Myspace) and instead of hosting the image themselves, they “hotlink” it from another site. This can be pretty irritating to the person being linked as it is essentially stealing their bandwidth with little perceivable gain for the person being linked to. It’s also both lazy and self centered of the hotlinker. Here’s the top of the page for an eBay auction for a Marvel Mini-Mate (here’s the auction itself):

(more…)

Careful kids, this edition of eBay Madness! may not be for the sensitive types (i.e. lame-os that can’t handle some flesh rendered into toy form) as it features nude nakedness in it’s purest form! While recently trolling around the darkest corners of online auction giant eBay, I ran across a couple of incredibly strange toy auctions.

The person running the auction appears to be a rather talented sculptor who makes a lot of different heads for use on 1/6th scale bodies. I know there are some of you who enjoy putting Leonardio DiCaprio heads on Spider-Man bodies, but that’s just not my thing. (Side Note: If you are interested in 1/6th scale collecting I highly recommend you check out the Fortress of Testicular Fortitude for all kinds of 1/6th scale money shots.)

The other auctions this lady has are quite titillating… BEHOLD!

(more…)

If you’re not interested in my used crap, then stop reading this post now. If you are somewhat interested in the things I’m trying to sell in order to crawl my way out of debt, then this is the perfect post for you to check out. You see, my Rock Band obsession doesn’t pay for itself. I’m in desperate need for a quick fix of downloadable content, so I’ve decided to show off my current round of eBay auctions for y’all in the hopes I might be able to sell something and get me some hot Wonderwall action.

Pimp Daddy Destro

(more…)

I’ve been pretty disappointed in eBay lately. There’s been nothing crazy or dumb enough to warrant an eBay Madness post… until now! Through the Yo Joe forums I found this crazy ass auction:

(more…)

Usually the purpose of an eBay Madness post is to make fun of the person doing the selling or to point out a item so worthless and/or odd that it is simply hilarious. Not in this case, my friends. The purpose of this eBay Madness is for the utmost praise. I think we all need to take a moment to recognize the Pimp Daddy Darth Vader custom figure which recently sold on eBay as being one of the greatest custom creations to blow our collective minds.

(more…)

Some of the craziest auctions I’ve seen on eBay (that are toy related) often come from the Star Wars section there. This auction is perhaps one of the craziest. It’s for a “Hard Body” Storm Trooper, and much to my chagrin it’s not a weightlifter toy with a Stormtrooper head. No, this auction is for a really crappy vintage Stormtrooper that is trying to be passed off, and very poorly, as something other than total piece of crap.

(more…)

Here’s an auction that fits the very definition of the title, “eBay Madness”. It’s for an ultra-rare, original Pimp Daddy Destro figure going for 20,000 dollars.

(more…)

In the spirit of giving and general overall wonderfulness that I exude every day, I thought I’d share something sent to me by a reader. Frequent commenter (and I’d like to say friend to the site) Yo-go-re, notified me about an eBay auction that he just happens to be running. Well, here it is. It’s a fairly neat custom of Boba Fett with a removable helmet.

Now don’t say I’ve never given to charity.

I’m not one to throw in a simple plug to my dear readers for no reason. I made the best of it and decided to see what other cool custom Star Wars toys are on eBay right now and I ran across this:

Yoda going ape-shit on a clone trooper. This is one of those customs that looks really cool, but really how hard was it to glue a lightsaber to the middle of a clone troopers chest? I’m guessing not very. Still, this is one nifty looking, yet blood thirsty Yoda.

toy, toy collecting, eBay, Star Wars, yoda