Just came back from a week long vacation in the state of Indiana, and my idea of an awesome vacation was hitting vintage used toy shops every day in a different town. My first day was in Chicago, Illinois where I got to hang out with two favorite podcasters from
Optimusprimecast, Dale and Eric, who showed me, and my wife around town, taking us to all the great toy shops in their area, except
Quake Collectibles that sadly closes on Tuesdays which was the day I arrived.
Our first stop was
Namaka Toys, this was an awesome place, not a vintage store, but dealed in high end pricey imports merchandise, mostly Japanese imports including Gundam model kits, and Takara Masterpiece Transformers which had me drooling. Didn't pick up anything for myself there, but did find an awesome birthday present for a friend.
Toy de Jour was where I got my first find. Dale, and Eric was digging through a box of recently acquired Transformers, and who is sitting on top the pile to which I had to quickly pick up, and examine to check quality, and completeness, but Transformers: Prime First Edition Voyager Class Optimus Prime complete with both weapons and virtualy no damage or missing parts. What puzzled us, and the store owner was that his head was not what it should of been of Optimus with his face plate up, but a nicely detailed plate-less face, so we were thinking perhaps it was customized or a foreign variant we didn't know about. To find out after some research later that the head is a third party part swap:
Dr. Wu DW-TF06 Sage Maskless Face.
We also hit another toy shop called
Rad Vintage, a comic shop, and a gaming card shop called
The Dice Dojo, where I did find two Planeswalkers cards I was looking for a very price. With only a few hours to hang with Dale and Eric, and to roam around Chicago it was time to drive out to Indiana.
Our first stop in Indiana was
D's Toys in Indianapolis where I acquired my very first Beast Wars Transformer figure with Transmetal Optimus Prime, he dosen't have his weapons, but is in superb condition. My other great finds there was loose McFarlane Toys Youngblood Die Hard with all his accessories, and found the first three brothers of the 2003 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Leo, Don, and Mikey, all in fantastic shape, and complete with their weapons fueling the need to find Raph in my continued hunting.
Stop #2 in Indianapolis was
The Toy Pit, which after much digging and deliberation I only walked away with a carded Playmates WildC.A.T.s Grifter, starting me down the path of having to complete the team, but did find another great addition to go with my present for my friend I got at Nakama Toys the day before.
Kokomo Toys in Kokomo, Indiana I can only describe as Vintage Toy Heaven, this was the shop I was at the longest digging through pegs of loose bagged figures, and probably spent the most money. Very happily here was where I found the Raphael to complete my 2007 TMNT team. I checked off two rare-hard-to-find figures I was looking for off my list with Marvel Legends Commander Steve Rogers, and DC Universe Classics Green Lantern Kyle Rayner, both complete with their accessories. Surprisinly also found the recently released Marvel Legends Death's Head II, loose with his extra hand just not in the official package, and paid less then retail, Score!
In Mishawaka I ran in to
Tom's Vintage Toys, which i almost walked out with nothing until I came across a Playmate Star Trek: The Original Series Tricorder, but it wasn't until I pressed a button and heard that 60's tv show sound effect that I knew I couldn't leave without it.
Added another Playmates WildC.A.T.s member with Zealot at
Corn Coast Comics in Huntington.
My final hunting spot was the furthest to get to, but what I found there was truly worth the travel time, because at
Sewer Lair Toys in Terre Haute I found one of my Holy Grail Transformers: Generation 2 Laser Optimus Prime. He's not 100% complete, missing the disc launcher form the tanker, ripped stickers on the chest, the sword has part of the handle broken off, and some paint scraped off his hands, but damn did I pay a fraction of what I probably would of paid for a similar condition off Ebay. Just got to get some replacement stickers, track down a disc launcher,and hopefully maybe a replacement sword, and he'll look great along with my G2 Megatron.
