UNIDOME ANTIQUE SHOW 2012

Here in my hometown of Cedar Falls there is an annual antique and collectables show held at the Unidome, which is a huge sports arena next to the University of Northern Iowa campus.
I found out it was going on when I took my daughter Sam to a local store in the afternoon called 18th Street Vintage. The guys at the store happened to mention it was going on and had hoped that some of the people that came into town would visit their store also.

So Sam and I decided to hurry over to the antique show since we knew there would be a lot to look at and could take quite a while. Thankfully I had the day off work. I've been to this show a few times and I knew it could take hours to look the place over.


By mrpottersfuntime at 2012-03-18

Sam and I scoured the place and saw all kinds of excellent stuff. I took some photos of the stuff I thought was cool.


By mrpottersfuntime at 2012-03-18

I've seen these old Mr. Potato head sets online before, but never one up close.


By mrpottersfuntime at 2012-03-18

Here's Mr. Potato Head's pal Frankie Frank.

Here is a neat Howard the Duck glass from 7-11.




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By mrpottersfuntime at 2012-03-18

This magazine was a Mad Magazine knock-off that never made it past the first issue. When I went back to the booth to buy it, someone had beaten me to the punch.


By mrpottersfuntime at 2012-03-18

A fat Albert figure I'd never seen before.


By mrpottersfuntime at 2012-03-18

A non-talking PeeWee doll? I have one of these that was supposed to talk but the string broke. I saw another one of these at the show that was larger with a ventriloquist dummy mouth also.


By mrpottersfuntime at 2012-03-18

These wind-ups were $2.50 a piece. I tried to talk the lady down to $1.00 but she refused.

I found all these Evel Knievel dolls still in the original package.


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By mrpottersfuntime at 2012-03-18

I also ran across three pieces of Pixieware which was popular during the late 50s and early 60s. They are jars and dishes with pixie heads on them. there are some really awesome ones if you get a chance to Google it sometime check out Howard Holt's "Pixieware".


By mrpottersfuntime at 2012-03-18

I saw lots of vintage Marx figures including Nutty Mads, and my favorite classic monsters.


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By mrpottersfuntime at 2012-03-18

Here's a pic of a California Raisin puppet I'd never seen before.


By mrpottersfuntime at 2012-03-18

I sold some stuff to a couple dealers there which was nice and I made $50. I only bought two things. I got a Topps garbage candy container, and I paid for a whole box of Star Wars ships just to get a gremlin figure that I saw in there. I came out quite a bit ahead.

When I got home and sorted through everything I found some neat figures down in the box including a Dungeons & Dragons figure, a Star Wars Taun Taun, and a dusty old Evel Knievel doll.


By mrpottersfuntime at 2012-03-18


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By mrpottersfuntime at 2012-03-18

Overall it was a great time and a nice "daddy-daughter" day.

TOPPS NON-SPORT MYSTERY FUN PACKS 1980

Topps produced these non-sport mystery fun packs from 1978-1981. Each bag had 27 assorted packs of popular Topps trading cards. There were sports and non-sports versions.

Some examples of the non-sport titles included are:

-Raiders of the Lost Ark
-A-Team
-Buck Rogers
-Creature Feature
-Moonraker
-Rocky II
-Star Trek: The Motion Picture
-Star Wars
-Empire Strikes Back
-Wacky Packages Stickers 1st Series

As far as what the sports bags contained, I really don't care.

Here are a few scans I've found.







COMING NEXT: TOPPS WANTED POSTERS 1980

TOPPS EMPIRE STRIKES BACK 1980

On to the next set of trading cards from Topps in 1980... Star Wars: Empire Strikes Back.
A whole butt-load of cards separated into three different series.







The first series has the red box/border, each pack containing 12 movie photo cards, bubble gum, and alphabet stickers kids used to spell out their names. With the popularity and anticipation of the movie the cards were a sure-fire hit.


Series 1 box


Series 1 wrapper

The first ten cards were "Star Files" spotlighting the ten major characters. I always thought it was funny back in the 80's when C-3PO and R2D2 were always spelled out as See-Threepio and Artoo-Deeto. Back in the 1980s a lot of the names weren't established or as important as they are to current fans so looking through the cards is kind of fun remembering how we used to refer to them. There's plenty of examples in the story cards:

Imperial Probot= Probe Droid
Rejuvenation Chamber= Bacta Tank
Surgeon Droid= 21B Medical Droid
Snow Walkers= AT-ATs
Bat-Like Creatures= Mynock
Calrissian's Main Man= Lobot

There are 109 "Story Cards" with movie photos narrating the story and then the last 12 cards are "Space Paintings" cards with conceptual artwork by Ralph McQuarrie followed by 2 checklist cards. That completes the 1st series 132 card set.































The 1st series also had 33 different sticker cards which included the alphabet stickers.










Sorry, I couldn't resist.

Alright, on to series 2...pretty much the same as series 1 (132 cards, 33 stickers). This time there's just different photos and narration and blue box/wrapper.





As you can see by the ad on the series 2 wrapper, Topps was also selling the Empire Strikes Back candy filled heads during this time. There were 2 series of these plastic containers shaped like heads of the Empire Strikes Back characters filled with hard candy. I remember buying these as a kid. I wish I would have saved them since they are of course highly collectible now days.













I don't have scans from the series 2 or 3 cards because I don't own any of them. I do have the wrappers from each series but that's it for the time being. I stopped collecting Star Wars years ago and sold the majority of stuff.

Series 3 is the smallest of the three sets with 88 cards and 22 stickers. This set has the yellow box/wrapper. Once again there are the movie photo cards along with alphabet stickers and stuff.





Once again the ad on this wrapper is worth noting. It advertises a set of four "collecting boxes" to store your sets in. These are a pretty neat idea and a great way for Topps to promote sales to complete full sets.







Finally, in addition to the three standard card series, Topps released a set of 30 giant photo cards. These were kind of like mini posters.






giant card back





That pretty much covers the basics as far as that set goes. May the force be with you!!

Next up: TOPPS NON-SPORT MYSTERY FUN PACK BAG