Local Collector's Fair Haul Megapost!

Every three months a local recreation centre here in Western Australia hosts a "Collector's Fair" and turns the gym into a crazy cornucopia of plasticky pop culture crap! If you need anything from the newest Star Wars figures to an ancient Steve Urkel doll or a shirtless Stinkor then the Nexus Collector's Fair has you totally covered! And it's become customary for me to attend, spend a lot of money, and then post images of the things I bought that I'll never ever need.

Last time I bought a Rock Lord, an ewok, and some dubious trading cards. Did I fare any better this time? Join me after the jump where you can be judgemental and shake your head disapprovingly.

Okay, you know what, my biggest purchase this round was actually quite practical! I collect a lot of crazy crap so displaying it can be a real problem. Especially the smaller items that huddle in impenetrable shelf-clusters that are difficult to parse. Oft have I longed for a display solution, preferably in the form of some type of tiered acrylic figure stand. So imagine my shock/delight/arousal when I stumbled across exactly that! Check out these three tiered acrylic stands that are the perfect height to house my Kid Robot Dunny rabbit collection:

The uninitiated may scoff, but trust me, I know a ton of collectors who would kill for some of these. They save a lot of space and, for the first time, I can actually see everything.

Now that's two of them, but I actually bought six of these. SIX! You hear me? SIX!! I don't even know if I've got use for six of them, but I didn't want to go home with three or four and then have a classic dose of Collector Fair Regret. You see, the stalls and stock always change at toy fair and it's rare you'll see the same thing twice. It's a snooze/lose scenario so now I have six of these magnificent acrylic puppies that are going to give me display options for years to come. I'll be thankful when I inevitably buy a case of Dunny 2012 later this year. WHOOP!

Hey speaking of Kid Robot...

They've also made blind-boxed vinyl Street Fighter figures, so when I saw one for a couple of bucks it was impossible to resist. But who would I get? This is what's on offer:

I was hoping for Chun-Li even though the super-deformed figure manages to eliminate my favourite part of her - her head-crushing power thighs. Could I be that lucky? Short answer: No.

Still, plucky Russian pile-driver Zangief is pretty sweet. If by "sweet" you mean "hairy". And he's very angry.

Anyway...

So the stands were a big - and unexpected - Collector Fair win, but it wasn't what I was actually looking for. I was a man on a mission, hoping above all to find the new action figure of misshapen podracer Ben Quadinaros, one of the Phantom Menace finest and most questionable design missteps.  

Now, I've run into the latest Phantom Menace wave in the stores a couple of times, but the two new never-before-produced podracer figures have been absent each time. They're rare, folks, and as it turns out there was only one of each available at yesterday's fair. Lucky for me though (depends on your perspective I guess) I managed to snap them up! Check out the mind-boggling implausibility of podracer Ben Quadinaros on a vintage card!

Holy shit. He looks like a potato chip made love to your grandma. And this is a near mint, unpunched card too, not that it matters because we're going to rip this sucker open and run our fingers all over it until everybody's uncomfortable!

But first, check out the back of the card. They've changed the design to better reflect the original packages. It's kind of fun to see characters like expanded universe hair-rocker Quinlan Voss presented in an old skool block of colour:

But it wasn't just Ben. I also picked up fellow podracer Crazy Frog wannabe Ratts Tyerell. Check it:

Okay, NOW we'll rip them open!

Heh heh! He looks like a lil' baby! HA HA! Baby. Actually, it seems to me like a real missed opportunity to not sculpt him with his mouth wide open, pre-death, like on the card. I do think it's cool though that these guys are packaged with droids though - two packs are a dying breed these days. And pit droids are awesome!

Okay I apologise for making you look at this one...

"Hey George, how about a character that looks like your grandma plus a potato chip and has has no torso, no genitals, and a giant head". "Sure. Whatever. I don't give a crap." I'm going to display Ben Quadinaros next to Han Solo and use their jarring juxtaposition as inspiration for some buddy fan fic. 

But guys, this wasn't all about toys. I am a sophisticated gentleman with an insatiable lust for knowledge. And tits. That's right. I bought some books!

I've been wanting to re-read this for a while so when I saw both volumes super cheap it would have been irresponsible not to act...

That's Knightfall, and if you don't know, it's the epic series where Bane sets an epic trap for Batman and then breaks his back and then Batman is replace by Disco Batman (left). It looks a little dated now (it's from the early nineties I think) but I remember getting a kick out of the spectacle of it all. I'm actually going to use these books as a bible to annoy the Internet when Dark Knight Rises is released later this year. I'll be all like, "Nuh uh, you guys, if you look at page 27 of Knightfall you'll clearly see that Bane is portrayed as having 217 finely rendered stomach muscles, ergo, Christopher Nolan and Tom Hardy are assholes." You're going to hate my Knightfall period.

 And speaking of books, what the hell is this thing?

By the way, that photo doesn't give away the scale so let me say that it's about the size and weight of an old VCR. Press the big black button and...

To a symphony of lights and sounds, the case automatically open and (a much smaller) leather bound book rises on a mechanical lit platform. Epic.

Obviously it's a huge gimmick, and the book originally retailed for about a hundred bucks because of it, but I scooped it brand new for a mere fraction of that price. And frankly couldn't resist the opportunity to try it out for myself and possibly review it in the future. (They've since released a far cheaper version without the case).

I haven't read this yet, but it's basically an in-universe Jedi handbook, written by ancient Jedi Knights, which tells you all sorts of secrets about Jedi training that you probably don't even want to know. It also has margin notes by legendary Knights such as Luke, Qui Gon and coughcoughAhsokacough. Also Anakin has drawn dicks on some of the pictures.

But did you know it also has real life items scattered through the pages? Did you notice that metal medallion in the previous pic? That's real life Star Wars money! Enough to buy a space ice cream! And that's far from all...

That's a space coffee stained napkin, probably from Dexter's Diner. I bet that space coffee has been filtered through Obi Wan's actual beard. The book also contains a padawan braid, and a patch that you can sew on your jacket - just in case you were concerned that not enough people were punching you in the stomach. Stay tuned, and I might review it soon.

And that's my haul! A win I think. Especially for those sweetass acrylic stands. SIX! SIX I TELL YOU.

And now I pass out from excitement.