shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Apr 2, 2020 14:25:23 GMT -5
I remember being a teenager when Wizard magazine came out and getting ahold of the then-coveted Web-headed wizard card in Marvel's Overpower card game. That was a GREAT card, and that was a really fun game, even if some of the character power levels were total garbage. I can't claim familiarity with the game. So Wizard actually had a card published as part of the game? That's wild. |
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Post by Batflunkie on Apr 2, 2020 14:44:34 GMT -5
I recall getting a hand-me-down copy of Wizard #97 and really loving it. Had a preview of a Usagi Yojimbo story. They also had some coverage of manga titles back before they really exploded in the early 00's. I remember Viz was still distributing manga in floppies, but reversed, which was weird  |
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Apr 2, 2020 14:48:39 GMT -5
I recall getting a hand-me-down copy of Wizard #97 and really loving it. Had a preview of a Usagi Yojimbo story. It was actually an original Usagi story, exclusive to Wizard. I owned this issue for many years for just that reason! |
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Post by impulse on Apr 2, 2020 14:56:39 GMT -5
I remember being a teenager when Wizard magazine came out and getting ahold of the then-coveted Web-headed wizard card in Marvel's Overpower card game. That was a GREAT card, and that was a really fun game, even if some of the character power levels were total garbage. I can't claim familiarity with the game. So Wizard actually had a card published as part of the game? That's wild. Yep! Wizard had a lot of exclusives and tie-ins back in the day. And not just a card, but one of the very best ones and a must-have. I used to love reading nearly every inch of that magazine. It was hilarious until all the good writers apparently left and went on to make Toyfare which I (now regrettably) never got into. |
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Apr 2, 2020 15:07:32 GMT -5
I used to love reading nearly every inch of that magazine. It was hilarious until all the good writers apparently left and went on to make Toyfare which I (now regrettably) never got into. Toyfair was my guilty flip-through-the-mag-at-the-bookstore-but-never-buy-it pleasure in the 2000s. Fun stuff. If I'd had the time to read the whole thing, I probably would have started buying it. I really do think Wizard can take responsibility and/or blame for making toys into collectibles. I don't think it's any coincidence that the toy equivalents of CGC and the 10.0 rating system came into fashion while Wizard and Toyfair were in publication, and both died out pretty much right after the publications went under. Sure, we still care about condition when buying on ebay, but not to the same extent of scrutiny and pickiness. People have stopped selling slabbed used action figures. |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 2, 2020 16:17:45 GMT -5
I used to love reading nearly every inch of that magazine. It was hilarious until all the good writers apparently left and went on to make Toyfare which I (now regrettably) never got into. Toyfair was my guilty flip-through-the-mag-at-the-bookstore-but-never-buy-it pleasure in the 2000s. Fun stuff. If I'd had the time to read the whole thing, I probably would have started buying it. I really do think Wizard can take responsibility and/or blame for making toys into collectibles. I don't think it's any coincidence that the toy equivalents of CGC and the 10.0 rating system came into fashion while Wizard and Toyfair were in publication, and both died out pretty much right after the publications went under. Sure, we still care about condition when buying on ebay, but not to the same extent of scrutiny and pickiness. People have stopped selling slabbed used action figures. You must not be spending time in vintage toy stores of following any toy shops or toy shows online, as AFA grades are still all the rage in toys, as much as CGC is in comics these days. The price differential between an AFA graded toy and a raw carded/boxed toy in the same condition is staggering, probably a wider gap than slabbed/raw high grade or key comics. And there was a thriving toy collecting market long before Toy Fare. Krause publications (the publishers of Comics Buyer's Guide) had a toy publication long before Wizard or Toyfare, and it's classified ad section was a hot bed of activity in the toy collecting market, and it is where things like the Mego Museum, Dr. Mego's replacement parts for Megos, several GI Joe collecting groups etc. all emerged before Toyfare entered the scene. -M |
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Apr 2, 2020 21:25:24 GMT -5
Toyfair was my guilty flip-through-the-mag-at-the-bookstore-but-never-buy-it pleasure in the 2000s. Fun stuff. If I'd had the time to read the whole thing, I probably would have started buying it. I really do think Wizard can take responsibility and/or blame for making toys into collectibles. I don't think it's any coincidence that the toy equivalents of CGC and the 10.0 rating system came into fashion while Wizard and Toyfair were in publication, and both died out pretty much right after the publications went under. Sure, we still care about condition when buying on ebay, but not to the same extent of scrutiny and pickiness. People have stopped selling slabbed used action figures. You must not be spending time in vintage toy stores of following any toy shops or toy shows online, as AFA grades are still all the rage in toys, as much as CGC is in comics these days. The price differential between an AFA graded toy and a raw carded/boxed toy in the same condition is staggering, probably a wider gap than slabbed/raw high grade or key comics. And there was a thriving toy collecting market long before Toy Fare. Krause publications (the publishers of Comics Buyer's Guide) had a toy publication long before Wizard or Toyfare, and it's classified ad section was a hot bed of activity in the toy collecting market, and it is where things like the Mego Museum, Dr. Mego's replacement parts for Megos, several GI Joe collecting groups etc. all emerged before Toyfare entered the scene. -M My point is that Wizard brought these things to the mainstream. Certainly, collecting toys existed prior to Wizard, and certainly it didn't blink out Infinity War style when Wizard and Toyfair stopped being published, but these practices moved into and out of the mainstream along with them. Cleveland Ohio is a hot bed of vintage toy shops, and not one is using AFA anymore. I regularly attend two major toy conventions, and you rarely see professionally graded items there either. On ebay, the amount of professionally graded toys has drastically fallen in the past ten years. While Toyfair was still being published, the grading system was everywhere, and it simply isn't anymore. Toy collecting is still very much a thing. That was inevitable in the age of ebay and nostalgia, but it's a far looser thing than it was during the Toyfair and Wizard heyday. |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 2, 2020 23:14:55 GMT -5
CTS, the organizer of the Columbus and Cincinnati toy shows is a big proponent of AFA and their booths at the shows are almost exclusively AFA. Most of the AFA merchandise has moved from ebay to Hake's Auctions and other professional high end auction houses. A complete set of the original 12 Kenner Star Wars figures carded and AFA graded made headlines about 2 years back because it sold at auction for about $250K for the set and then was flipped by the buyer to a collector for twice that within six months. Most of the vintage toy stores in the Dayton/Cinci area at least have a few AFA items in showcases in the shop, but a lot of it disappears into the owners personal collections when they get it in (or is presold to collectors before it ever hits the shops shelves as buyers line up for the stuff to get it before it is made public), at least for lines of stuff they collect. The biggest rage right now among them seems to be AFA graded prototypes of action figures, both those produced and unproduced toys. Since Kenner was located in Cinci, a lot of prototypes get sold to toy dealers/collectors thee from former Kenner employees, and get sent to AFA before they go on the open market. And again, thse sellers are putting things up at places like Hake's and Sotheby's when they are AFA graded, not ebay.
-M
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