Greetings From the Baltimore Toy and Collectible Show!

I enjoyed my first Dave Hart show so much, I was determined to make it to this weekend's despite the flurries of snow which beckoned me to stay inside my warm home with a hot mug of cocoa.

The vendors were in full swing once again with toys, trading cards, comic books, CD's, DVD's and so much more, but it was easy for me to make my way around. I had come for specific things, and I wasn't going to deviate into the mass of swooping vultures of dealers - Which mind you would have been easy to do. With a boast of eighty vendors and over three hundred tables there was certainly appealing items which weren't on my current list of wants, but easily could have been added.

A perfect example of this was the pristine condition Han Solo blaster from Kenner's 1978 Star Wars line. At $90.00 despite it having no scuffs, all the original stickers and working sounds I had to leave it behind. These things sell for fifty bucks on a good day on ebay.

Which leads me into my first question - Don't these dealer's realize everyone carries around Smartphones these days? I mean, come on. You know most smart people are going to immediately check to see if the juice is worth the squeeze when you throw your price out.

Anyway...

My main drive for wanting to hit the show again was the one dollar CD vendor I visited on my first trip. I was chomping at the bit to peruse through his massive stock, and I'm happy to say he didn't disappoint. I swooped up well over a hundred CD's, and after a nice discount ended up getting them for about seventy-three cents a piece. Can't beat that price anywhere that I know of.

Once again I wasn't picky about what I was picking up. Even if the dealer would have charged me a buck, I was all in on grabbing music with either one song on the album I knew, or artists I knew, but not necessarily any of the songs.

Check out these great finds!

For those who know me, you know I love a good soundtrack. As I've always said, they're a great way of getting lots of tracks from artists you just won't find on their studio albums.

La Bamba*What's Love Got To Do With It*The Big Chill*More of the Big Chill

Beverly Hills Cop II*9 1/2 Weeks*The Blues Brothers

I'm not really big into music past the 80's, but if I like a movie and see the soundtrack for relatively cheap I'll go ahead and grab it. Obviously seventy-three cents is well within my "Why not" budget.

In the case of Beverly Hills Cop III, I've actually never even seen the movie. I more so got it because I already have the soundtrack to the first film, and grabbed the sequel mentioned above. May as well finish the series out.

Beverly Hills Cop III*Beavis and Butt-Head Do America*Ace Ventura: Pet Detective*Boogie Nights*Dumb and Dumber

Philadelphia*Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery*Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me*The Crying Game*Man on the Moon

I wish I could have found Goldmember to finish out the Austin Power soundtracks. Oh well. Maybe next time.

I don't own any Disney movies and I can't honestly say I have seen them all. However, something as of late has drawn me to the soundtracks. I'm not going out of my way to find them. Nor will I spend big bucks on them, but when I see them for cheap I'll grab them. Today yielded eight more to add to my collection.

I'm actually really intrigued by the Pirates of the Caribbean one because it's not the film soundtrack, but rather the attraction at the Disney parks. I'll definitely be giving this one a spin in the next day or two.

Tarzan*Pirates of the Caribbean*Aladdin*Beauty and the Beast

Mary Poppins*The Little Mermaid*The Hunchback of Notre Dame*Chicken Little

I rounded out the film soundtrack findings with the complete trilogy of Lord of the Rings, and Edward Scissorhands - I'm a big Danny Elfman / Oingo Boingo fan, but honestly don't own a lot of his soundtrack work.

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring*The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers*The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King

Edward Scissorhands

I'm not a big Broadway fan. In fact, I can't honestly say I've ever seen any of the below plays in either TV or stage form. Quite honestly I don't know why I picked these up. Suffice to say something told me I had to have them.

Les Miserables*The Phantom of the Opera*Cats

Like I said above, I went ahead and grabbed a fair amount of CD's for artists I was familiar with, but not necessarily albums which had any songs I knew on them. This really pertains to Bruce Springsteen, John Mellencamp, Elton John and Sting (for today's haul anyway). I really only know their hits, and wanted to start broadening my horizons with their music catalogs. Hopefully the below proves lucrative.

Bruce Springsteen

Greetings from Asbury N.J.*Nebraska*Tunnel of Love*The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle

Magic*The Rising*Human Touch 

Elton John

Songs From the West Coast*The One*Peachtree Road

Love Songs*Something About the Way You Look Tonight / Candle in the Wind 1997*The Big Picture 

When Elton John released the 1997 version of Candle in the Wind in honor of Princess Diana, I kind of felt like it was a cheap way to cash in. Twenty years later, and I kind of still feel the same way.

John Mellencamp

Trouble No More*Wherever We Wanted*Dance Naked*Human Wheels

John Mellencamp*Cuttin' Heads*Uh-Huh*The Lonesome Jubilee 

Sting

The Soul Cages*Ten Summoner's Tales*Mercury Falling

Sacred Love*Songs of Love

Sting's Songs of Love (I came to find out) is actually nothing more than a compilation which was exclusive to Victoria's Secrets. Maybe it's just me, but that's an odd outlet to be selling CD's out of. I don't know...Does Sting make you want to buy panties?

Again, not a big fan of 90's (and beyond) music, but I went ahead and added a "few" CD's to my collection for the one or two songs I knew off the below CD's. 

At this point I also got tired of spreading out CD's to take photos, so sorry for the massive stacks in the last two photos.

Meat Loaf: Bat Out of Hell III - The Monster is Loose*Damn Yankees (self titled)*Garbage 2.0*Van Halen Balance*U2 How to Dismantle An Atomic Bomb*U2 All That You Can't Leave Behind*Roxette Crash! Boom! Bang!*R.E.M. Automatic for the People*R.E.M. Green*Michael Bolton Soul Provider*311 Transistor*Ugly Kid Joe America's Lease Wanted*Cher Believe*The Breeders Last Splash*Chubawumba Tubthumping*Coverdale Page (self titled)*The Beavis and Butt-Head Experience*Poison Flesh & Blood*Lenny Kravitz Are You Gonna Go My Way*Moby Play*The Proclaimers Sunshine on Leith*Tom Petty Wildflowers*Gorillaz Demon Days*Gorillaz G Sides

You may have noticed I left the Duran Duran album in the photo out of the list above. That's because when I got home I was treated to just the DVD in the sleeve. Lame. Gotta check that stuff before you buy!

Sadly, there really isn't much 80's music to be found to add to my collection. Mainly because I already own so much of it already. I did manage to scrape up a few CD's, and yes, I know - Not all the CD's in the stack below are from the 80's. Then again, not all the CD's noted above are from the 90's.

 The Beatles Live From the BBC*Hooters One Way Home*INXS Welcome to Wherever You Are*INXS X*Billy Joel The Stranger*Peter Gabriel So*John Fogerty Centerfield*Squeeze Singles - 45's and Under*Crowded House Temple of Low Men*Cinderella Once Upon A...*Tears For Fears The Seeds of Love*Traveling Wilburys Vol 1*Tina Turner Foreign Affair*Cinderella Night Songs*Adam Ant Manners & Physique*Adam Ant Wonderful*Big Audio Dynamite The Globe*Bee Gees One*Living Colour Time's Up*Midnight Oil Diesel and Dust*Buster Poindexter (self titled)*Howard Jones Dream Into Action

Does anyone really need a Buster Poindexter CD? Probably not, but I had to have it cause I was feeling hot, hot, hot!

*UPDATE*

Gotta be honest, I was expecting the Buster Poindexter album to be silly Vegas style show tunes ala Hot Hot Hot. Boy how surprised I was to actually have a solid album in my collection full of some great rhythm and blues tracks. Noteworthy songs which stuck out were "Are You Lonely For Me, Baby?" and "Oh Me, Oh My (I'm A Fool For You Baby) - And of course, Hot, Hot, Hot. 

I'm not a big vinyl collector, but when I saw this, I had to have it...

The Karate Kid (front)

If there's one thing I love about vinyls it's the massive "artwork" on the sleeves. They're so eye catching. Mind you, I don't just mean the fronts. Check out the back of this bad boy...

The Karate Kid (back)

Fantastic photos from the film. A full cast list. The tracks on each side as well as information on the artists. Absolutely beautiful. Much nicer in comparison to the CD version which is (somewhat) available.

Okay, okay. I went to a toy show. So where are the toys?

Don't worry. I didn't just leave with CD's and a vinyl album - Although I would have been more than happy with the day if that was all I found to take home.

If you recall from my last trip to Timmonium, one of the things I was on the lookout for was a Captain Power figure. I didn't find one then, but today was more than generous. Not only did I find one, but I found it (almost) mint on card. I also found Lord Dread (as well as a few others).

The guy selling them was literally only shy one of the original wave of six figures. Had he had them all, I would have taken them all. However, since he didn't I limited myself to just the two. He initially wanted twenty bucks a piece for them, but I talked him down to ten each. Let's be honest - Captain Power is a tough sell to most toy collectors.

Captain Power*Lord Dread

I'm honestly torn here because my main goal was to find a loose / complete Captain Power. Now that I have this really nice one on a card I'm actually hesitant to open it (them). I may just hang them from a nail on the peg loops. 

The same seller also had a Michael Jackson doll which I was interested in, but I didn't take the plunge on it. Next time...

He also had...

V: Enemy Visitor

This is one of those items which has always been on the back burner of my mind, but I never saw one in the wild. When I saw this one in amazing shape at a price point of only forty dollars I was all in. Much like the Captain Power figures, I don't know that I'll be able to bring myself to open this bad boy up. He looks so cool in the package!

It's a real shame LJN never released the figures and vehicles originally planned for this line. I'd wager they would be a hot commodity on secondary markets these days.

On my way out the door I stopped by the G.I. Joe seller I started my collection with last time I was at the show, and picked up a couple more figures.

Storm Shadow*B.A.T.
Beautiful condition painted Cobra logos on these figures!

Joes are something I'm taking really slow. I'm in no major hurry to obtain a massive collection of them, and I really want to ensure I only get the ones I absolutely want. This is not a series I am going for broke on (literally) that I have to have them all. In fact, the more I see them, the more I am more interested in the Cobra figures and not so much the Joe team - Outside of a few key characters.

I'll add these two to the pile I got from the first show - Which honestly are still in the bags they originally came home in.

Well, that's it. Sadly I still haven't come across the 1989 Batman or Mego Buck Rogers figures I'm looking for. One day...

Until then, this is the haul for the day, and I couldn't be happier with it.

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