New York Knicks Player Apperances Sat 10/22/2011

Tomorrow, from 2-4pm, former New York Knicks stars Charles Oakley and Allan Houston, along with former NBA player Kevin Willis, will be apperaing at the new Men's Wherehouse in Manhattan. The address is 730 Third Ave off 45th st.

I'll be there and will try to get Houston and Oakley to sign 2 mini basketballs I have, but will bring some basketball cards just in case.

Hope to see you there.

IP: Carmello Anthony

I was at NY Comic Con last Friday (I promise you, there will be a blog post about that in the upcomimg days) and I get a text from my buddy that Carmello Anthony would be doing a free signing at a Modells Sporting Goods store in Manhattan that day. At first, I wasn't going to leave my first NYCC, but the more I thought about it, I knew 'Mello was a hard autograph and the chances of him doing a free signing anytime soon was not good, so I left the convention after lunch and headed over.

I got to Modell's an hour early. I spoke to some of the employees about the rules. Anthony was signing one item with the purchase of a "shooting" gel he was promoting. The gel was 10.00. I'll never use it, but hey, if it got me a free autograph, I was buying one. I also bought a basketball for him to sign, got my ticket and waited on the line outside. The line was pretty short, which amazed me. I thought for sure there would be a lot more people. Oh well, makes it eaiser for me since he was only signing for an hour anyway.

During my wait, a Modells manager came up to me and told me Carmello was only signing pictures that was provided by the company. It made me a little angry because I did speak with a few employees. Why wouldn't they tell me this before I spent 25.00 on a ball? No matter, I would return it after I got my picture.

Carmello arrived early and started signing right away, so I got to meet him really quick. When I got there, I shook his hand and he reached for the ball and signed it. I was surprised, but elated that there were no problems for Carmello's "people" about him signing the ball.

Here is my very first signed basketball:

I heard that Charles Oakley and Allan Houston will be doing a signing this weekend as well. I hope to make that and get a couple of mini basketballs signed.

New Yankee Card pick up

Just to remind you all that I do still collect my Yankees, I just got this beauty in the mail. An ebay purchase, it is a 1998 Circa Boss Insert I needed for the Yankees PC.

This card is everything I love about inserts. The graphics, the colors and it's a Yankee.

Jeter has become even more expensive (If you can believe that!) since he joined the 3,000 hit club, but I was able to grab this one for a steal at 1.99, plus free shipping.

Now, I just have to put this bad boy with the rest of the 1998 Circa cards I have. That will be a task and a half. I still have piles of cards to put into binders. Anyone have any tricks of how you organize your cards?

One more day till New York Comic Con

The first day of New York Comic Con is today. Although I did not go inside, I did stop by to pick up my press pass. I felt so very excited as I walked into Jacobs Javitz Center in Manhattan and saw all the people walking around. Some were in costume, others were not. It was not very crowded today. Tomorrow, when the con is open to the general public, I expect it to be a madhouse, Saturday worse.

Having never been to NYCC, I have done my reasearch by constantly looking at the official NY Comic Con web site and planned my time there. I picked out what I want to see, what I want to buy, which pannels and viewings I want to attend. I will mostly wander around, look at all the dealer tables and ogle the scantly clad women dressed as their favorite characters (I keed, I keed).

If you are attending, I suggest you show up early. Doors open at 10Am. Hope to see you there.

New York Comic Con Exclusive:Maximum Carnage Mini Muggs

When I read about these yesterday, I knew I had to have them for the Spidey Mighy Mugg collection. Now, after seeing the picture, I might have to contain myself from being first in line for these buggers.

Mighty Muggs Adds

With New York Comic Con 2011 a few days away, I am trying my best not to spend any money so I can blow it all at the convention. That said, A week ago, I was on shopgoodwill.com, browsing. I wasn't planning on buying anything until I saw a post that had these three Mighty Muggs. A Black Suit Spidey, a Venom and a Human Torch. I wanted to try and put together the Spidey set of Mighty Muggs as I already have the red suited one, still in the box. The auction was starting at 5.00, with 5.00 shipping. I placed a bid for 5.50, not really expecting to win. Heck, on ebay, Venom is usually a 25.00 figure. I thought what the heck.

I got an email from Goodwill a couple of days later informing me of the win. I expected to pay only 10.50, but to my surprise the total was 19.95. Apparently, there are taxes and fees placed on the winning bid. Never having bought anything from Goodwill before, I was a bit stunned. I just chalked it up to my money going to help the less fortunate, paid my bill and waited for the package which arrived today. I gotta tell you, the figures, not coming in their original boxes, were packaged great and look great in person.

Of all the Spidey villians, Venom shares the top spot with the Green Goblin. Hated the incarnation we saw in Spiderman 3, I perfer to think fondly of the Todd McFarlane version who tormented Peter Parker, wanting to eat Spider-Man's brains. As much as I like Venom, I don't have any Venon collectables...until now. I really try not to collect the villians due to space, but this Venom figure is awesome. Love that the tounge is not painted on this figure, which gives this Mugg a more demonic look.

Had to have this Spidey figure. This will look great on my Spidey shelf next to the red suit Spidey I bought a couple years ago from Toys R Us. All I need to complete the Spidey collection is the half Parker/half Spider-Man and the 2011 San Diego Comic Con Exclusive with the removeable mask. I'm hoping I can grab those at New York Comic Con. If not, there's always ebay.

Johnny Storm may be dead, but he looks pretty cool in Mugg form. This was the "throw-in" of the bunch. Not collecting anyone but Spider-Man and Batman, I'm probably going to trade this guy, although I am tempted to keep him. Again, love that the flames on his head are actually molded plastic and painted to look like he just Flamed On! Might have to think about holding on to this one...

Dispite the added costs, I'm very pleased with this purchase and would probably order through shopgoodwill.com again. I'm sorry they stopped producing these. Would have loved to have had a DC Line with a Batman made. I might actually put together the Avengers Set later on and might have done a Justice League had DC given up a licence to have them made.

Oh well, I will just enjoy the ones I have and continue on my search for the other 2 Spider-Men Mighty Muggs.

See you at New York Comic Con!

Finally, Some Haulage..

This Past weekend, I was able to attend a flea market over in Wayne, NJ. I had'nt been to one in such a long time, but I was looking forward to attending. Especially after reading some other blogs and seeing the scores some people made, I wanted to try my luck.

I met up with my buddy in Yonkers at 9am. The flea market opened at 8 and since it takes almost 45 minutes to get there, we would be about close to 2 hours behind the ball. Didn't make a diffrence to me. I need sleep, since I don't get enough of it as it is. Before we left, my buddy had 2 gifts for me


Finally! After looking for these guys for months, I have my Batman Legacy Kmart Exclusive. I love the old style Batman and wanted this for the collection. Dig Batmite being in the package as well. I may keep this in the package. I did see a regular old school Batman figure without Batmite, so I might pick that up and open it up for display.

One of my all time favorite movies is Back To The Future. I'm trying to get a small collection of stuff from the movie. I already have a movie poster that was given away last year at the release of the remastered movie at theathers, a Delorean from Johnny Lightning and some stuff from the release of Back To The Future Part II. Hot Wheels released this Delorean recently that was hard to find, but my buddy managed to track it down and grab one for me.

We drove out to Wayne and once we parked I saw this van

I knew we were in the right place, although I never seen something like that at just a flea market. Usually, fun cars like that are reserved for conventions.

Once we paid our dollar admission, we walked inside to a nice sized flea market

There were some pretty good tables at this market. The dealers had some nice stuff. The prices varied from great to insane convention prices.
There was a lot of stuff collectors could have added to their collections. For me, I seen Yankees, Jets and Devils items I could have nabbed. I was very intregued by a table that had signed Devils pucks for 10.00 from players like Petr Sykora, Bill Guerin and Scott Neidemyer. The Neidemyer was the one I was torn about grabbing, but ultimately left it behind because I was questioning the authenticity of the autograph.

I seen a lot of Beatles items I drooled over like books, lunch boxes and figures. All that this Beatle-maniac wanted for the collection. But the prices were insane so I walked away.

The one item that I wanted was a 1966 Batman hand puppet I seen. The puppet's head had some paint rub, but the plastic costume looked clean. The dealer was asking 20.00 for it. I walked away thinking long and hard about picking it up. It's one of the items on my "must own" list. Why not add it today? I went back and asked to see the puppet before making a final decsion on it. I looked it over and found a large rip from the neck down to the shoulder that was held together by a safety pin. I could have still bought it cause it looked decent on display, but I didn't want to have to spend more money on an upgrade, so I left it behind.

I did manage to grab this 12 inch Spidey figure from the first movie for only 5 bucks. Haven't seen one of these on ebay for that low a price.

My buddy grabbed a few vintage halloween masks and gave this one to me

Vintage 1970's Spidey mask. A bit beat up, yes, but as my favorite saying goes, if it's for free, it's for me. This can display nicely until I find a suitable upgrade. The masks I have seen on ebay for pretty cheap.

I also snagged this Lando Calrissian figure for a cool 50 cents for my Star Wars collection

Been wanting to collect the vintage Star Wars stuff. Hate the new movies and will not collect from that era. I did pass by a Darth Vader action figure carry case that the dealer was selling for 30.00. Passed it by, but hopefully I can grab it next time. The flea market will return in November, so I'm hoping I can go back. I did enjoy it as it wasn't too crowded and I was able to add some nice pieces without causing my wallet to yell uncle.

After, we hit Nanuet, NY and the Target up there. My buddy needed to grab some stuff so I went along for the ride. I found the first season of the Spectaular Spider-Man on dvd for 14.99. I had never seen it before and was willing to pass it by until my friend saw me looking it over and mentioned he had a 50% off coupon for Target he was using for his stuff

Needless to say, it came home with me along with a box for Count Chocula cereal. Spent under 10.00 for both. I watched most of the first disk and have to admit, it's a very good show. The animation is better than the 90's Spider-Man show, although the storyline's on that show was better. Neither will take the place of the original '67 show in my heart though. Still, I do recomend the dvd.

All in all, I'd say it was a productive day. Even got to see Star Trek on Imax. I'm ready for my next flea market. Bring it on!