Ask anyone who has been to more than one regional meet or convention and they will all say the same thing. The toys got us here, but the friendships are what keep bringing us back. This past Saturday Lance Sputnik’s wife threw a surprise party for him and invited his closest Joe friends. That would have been cool on its own, but the day was beyond awesome for reasons I’ll get into and more importantly something I wish all of you have or will experience at some point in your hobby lives.

I met up with Sputters, nova, Stealth Viper, and Scramble at nova’s house as they were coming from Toys R Us. Despite being fresh off the hunt (some Kre-O Snow Serpents and vinyl Godzillas) hugs were exchanged. As soon as we walked into nova’s house we saw his stuff still packed up from Con last month. We talked and dug through figures and cast parts. Apparently drbindy had already got dibs on all of the 1/18 scale glasses nova had made up to that point but nova did have a cast mini-HISS I’d bugged him about. So down into the dungeon we went. I’ve seen several pictures of nova’s collection, Joe room before. But seeing it in person is mind blowing. Every flat surface is covered. He’s got customs going on, theoretical tinkering engineering projects, cast projects, vehicle projects, vehicle shells, as well as his actual collection stuff. Organized chaos. An international Z-force variant next to a Crystal Ball next to what I assumed was an Eco Warrior vehicle custom, but turned out to be a test shot. I was honestly lagging behind the rest of the group because I was trying to take it all in and I’ll be honest, I was overwhelmed. Every square inch was an adventure. I mean when you have 4 long time collectors geeking out over your stuff, then you’re doing something on a whole other level. I don’t think that I’m exaggerating when I say looking at the stuff on his work tables was like getting a peek in Santa’s workshop. He’s working on a lot of cool things all at once. But we’re also joking and having an all-around good time.



After hitting a Five Below (turns out they don’t sell mint M&M’s in Canada), nova wanted to take us to one of his local toys stores in town called Big Fun. I may or may not have had a vinyl Godzilla molest my neck on the way courtesy of Scramble. As it turns out Big Fun is a toy store that has everything. No seriously, http://bigfunbigfun.com/. I saw stuff like the Jurassic Park RV that I’ve never seen in person before. They had a cool Flagg diorama in the middle of their GI Joe/Transformers/Star Wars area. MASK, Reboot, Black Hole, Mego, all incarnations of Star Trek, Dr Who, you name it they had something from it. But that wasn’t the really cool part. Nova is friends with one of the guys helping run the store that day, so right as we started looking at the Joe stuff he asks nova if we wanted to check out the basement. Before I get into what we saw let me explain how the store works. They get in lots or buy collections. They then try to piece together 100% complete items to sell online or in the store. But that leaves a lot of inventory that is anywhere from just shells to 80 or 90% complete. So we go down into the basement and he’s giving us the tour. Star Wars in this corner (6 vintage Ewok villages, 4 rebel transports, Death Star frames, POTF2 Hoth playsets, Droid factories, Micro machines playsets), He-Man in this section of an isle (Greyskulls, boxes of Battle Ram parts), Elvis stuff, Snoopy stuff, and finally back to GI Joe. Well holy crap balls! 10 pound ice bags filled with Sluggers or Swamp skiers or Cobra Sting Rays, boxes of paper work, 8 boxes of ’83 Joe HQ parts with a shoe box of just HQ flags, and entire bins of single figures and their accessories. We all agreed that was the most Tomax and Xamots we’d ever seen in one box. It was crazy. It was something out of the Toy Hunter tv show. I’ve been in a lot of toy stores in my years but I’ve never been in the under belly of the beast before. And even though we were all just looking, I’m pretty sure we all moved something where it should have went at some point to help them organize it all. It was nuts.

So then we’re just driving around stalling because Sputnik’s wife wasn’t quite ready for him. He knows we’re doing something but he has no idea where, who else, or exactly what. Boom, SURPRISE! He’s instantly surrounded by family and friends including the better halves and kids. Besides the fantastic party and good eats (I’m fat, I was starving, leave me alone) two Joe related things happened. First, Sputnik’s wife gave him a camouflaged cake but felt bad she didn’t think to add toys. I dug into my pocket while nova went out to his car and then he redecorated.
CAKE!!!!



Then we each had to tell our favorite Sputnik memory. nova stole mine. We both agreed it was when nova slapped Lance in the chin with his sack of dirty Crystal Balls.
BALLS!

We all had a blast.

If that wasn’t enough, after the guys plus one, snuck off to go see the late showing of Godzilla, I went back to Lance’s house to crash. Next morning tour of his collection and customs and to also pet the friendliest dog I’ve ever met. My collection is pretty close in size and scope as his. So while really cool to see everything out and displayed as much as possible it was also kind of sad since mine is 95% packed up in plastic bins. Seeing how he displayed stuff, like putting the HQ facing towards the wall so you could see inside it was something I’m putting away for when I finally get to do something similar. Getting to see one person's collection is cool. Getting to see 3 large collections in a 24 hour period was pretty incredible.



I know I only talked about the Joe stuff, but really those were passing moments and thoughts between some really funny conversations with great people who I don’t get to hang around with nearly enough. Time flew by too fast. Fi you ever get to hang out with other Joe fans do it. You'll find that the toys are just the starting point.

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awesome recap. it's fun living vicariously through someone who clearly had such a good time.

on the toy front, what was the price on that Jurassic Park vehicle, and did it look useful in person, scale wise?

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Well said...,though, I feel a bit bad as I think you mention me more than you do Sputnik in your post

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Looks like everyone had a good time.

Happy Belated Birthday to Lance Sputnik.

I recognize pluv, Lance, and nova, but can you tell which one is Scramble and which one is Stealth Viper?

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It's always cool when you are able to check out a fellow collector's collection and stash.

Got a couple people in my area, this has inspired me to spearhead some future get togethers.

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