It’s that time of year again, where the Bloglin throws up it’s usual year-end lists on music and movies. I tend to do a different sort of list each and every year centered around my passion for collecting weird/odd objects and toys. While I do tend to pick up quite a deal in my travels, I still avidly search on eBay for a variety stuff that will capture my eye. So, with that said  I present my top 10 eBay purchases from 2010.

This list is in no particular order, just ten of my favorite things that I won on eBay this year. I kept the titles as they appeared on their respective eBay auction, however this year I opted to just shoot each one of them myself instead of throwing up the images from their auctions. It’s just easier for me to take them myself. Enjoy!

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10) PALITOY GOR KING OF TERRONS BOXED & COMPLETE VERY RARE!

I actually already owned a Gor King that I found loose at flea market when I was a kid. It’s from the 70s and part of G.I. Joe’s Super Joe line. If you’ve never heard of those figures before, check them out. The Super Joes had some pretty rad characters including Gor King of Terrons.

This particular Gor King is a UK version made by Palitoy which I won for about $50 shipped, which is a steal. One of the best things about this particular Gor King is the rad packaging. It’s totally different from the US release, and I think it’s by the same artist who did all the artwork for the Cyborg/Cybo-Nator figures.

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9) King Kong Rubber Jiggler Keychain Store Display

I love vintage King Kong toys…. But I probably didn’t need to get this, but it was just so cool. A set of these still attached to the store card? Too hard to pass up. I could only imagine walking into a store as a kid, seeing this and buying one.

There was actually one Kong missing from the header card when I bought this… So maybe I did buy one as a kid, and don’t even remember?

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8) Old Graphic Trash Can Tot Stickers Vending Machine Sign

As a kid there was this Pathmark supermarket by my house which had a bunch of those ¢25 plastic bubble toy vending machines. My favorite one was this one machine that sold these bootleg Garbage Pail Kid stickers called Trash Can Tots.

At the time the machine was actually busted, and my hands were still small enough to wiggle up the door. I remember stealing a bunch of these stickers. But I don’t steal anymore, I don’t think its right whether it be from a small store or a large corporation.

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7) Vintage Bullmark Bagged Hawaii Spray version. Ultra7

I usually don’t get caught up in buying packaged Vintage Kaiju. The figures tend to usually go for way more than I’m willing to pay. I randomly found this listing one day and decided to bid on it on a whim. I actually ended up getting this guy for a pretty good price.

This particular paint job is from Hawaii and I know figures from Hawaii are typically more rare. This guy unfortunatley, is more common than others. However, to find him mint-in-bag? Well that’s just not common at all. I kind of want to sell him, so if you are interested, make me an offer!

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6) Weird Bootleg He-man figure in Hebrew

This was not the name of the actual eBay listing. I’m actually not sure what the original listing was titled unfortunately so you’ll have to make do with this. I cant ready Hebrew but I’m sure it says something really cool all over the packaging.

Where did they sell these? In Isreal? Hasidic neighborhoods? Who bought them? I want to know and get more of them. But I have one and I think that’s enough.

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5) vintage monster rubber head 3.8 pez

I know I said this list is in no particular order, but this is probably one of my favorite eBay wins from this past year. This Pez is part of a series that came out in the 70s called the Eeire Spectre series, and this guy’s name is “Spook.” There are 6 characters in total from the linel.

I am trying to collect an entire set, but I always seem to get outbid, and let me tell you, these don’t go for cheap! They also don’t come up very often, so this is something I am constantly on the hunt for. If you happen to have a set, let me know, Ill make it worth it to you!

Fun Fact: eBay was originally set up to buy, sell and trade Pez dispensers

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I ran out of free time so now I only blog about things that don’t involve me leaving my house. I wrote about favorite my records yesterday and I wrote about my Star Wars shit last week. Now I’m going writing about my favorite T-shirts.

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10) Megadeth “I Kill… For Thrills” Hooded T-Shirt

This is one of the most amazing metal tees I’ve ever seen. Not only does it feature Vic Rattlehead as a scuba-diver on the front with the slogan “I Kill… For Thrills”, there’s a photograph of him on the back with an audacious claim as to the technical superiority of the band.

Dave Mustaine’s a humorless asshole and that’s why I like him. I like the band because they’re like a meaner Metallica with only one member that anyone knows by name. Best of all is that this shirt has a hood. How many hooded t-shirts have you seen in your life? This is probably the only one. I want to design a hooded T-shirt.

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9) Cambodian Tin Tin shirt

The Vidiot went to Cambodia for a month and he brought me back this amazing T-shirt. Tintin is a much bigger deal in Europe and Asia than he ever was in America and bootleg Tintin merchandise abounds in both continents.

Here is a close-up pf the chest hit. “Danger! Mines!” Some weird characters, Cambodia. Hmmm, I wonder how successful that Spielberg Tin Tin movie’s going to be?

That’s Tin Tin and Captain Haddock on the back of he shirt. They’re in the forests of Cambodia finding piles of human skulls and looking horrified, a warning sign about landmines is nearby. I love Tin Tin and wish this comic adventure through Cambodia actually existed.

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8) Handmade Devo T-shirt

I got this for five dollars off of eBay. It was made by some guy when he was still a teenager back in the eighties. He used the heat press equipment at his dad’s sporting goods store and cut and applied all of the decals himself. Originally the Devo face on the front had a forked tongue but I wore it once and the tongue came off so I will never make the mistake of actually wearing this tee ever again!

The sleeves were cut into a jagged zig zag and he also did something really cool with the collar that involved splitting it down the seem and applying stars to the inner part. This is one of my favorite and most awesome eBay finds ever. I still can’t believe that the tongue fell off.

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7) Sample For Unproduced Мишка Sweater

I know this isn’t a T-shirt but I love it nonetheless and I drew the illustrations for it. It breaks my heart that this is the only one of these sweaters in existence. This is based on the first drawing I ever did for Мишка and Mikhail & Brian assembled the elements into this awesome sweater.

The drawing was overly complicated and even after being simplified some on the computer it still got way distorted from my original illustration. But you know what? I like this distorted version on the sweater better. The reason that this never came out was because My Pal The Crook is a cheapskate. Please write letters and comments until this sweater gets made. Until then I am the owner of the only one that exists.

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6) Michael Barron’s Mom’s Sweatshirt

Michael Barron was my best friend when I was a little kid. He was the only kid who was skinnier, paler and nerdier than I was. When I was in high school I stole this out of his mother’s car and wore it around school a lot. We didn’t speak too much after high school but I did leave bizarre comments on his livejournal until he finally banned me.

After that I left bizarre comments on his girlfriend’s livejournal. Then I sent him an email telling him I was gay and that I considered him my true love and wanted him to come spend the weekend with me. He responded by telling me that he was certain I was lying but that everyone had always suspected I was gay. That was a few years ago. I still have this sweatshirt anyway.

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I was surfing the eBay and found this auction for the original cover artwork for the Metallica single “Jump in the Fire.” For a cool $35,000 it could be yours!

Anyone that knows me, knows that I buy a lot of crap off of eBay. I have really curbed my spending habits this year, but I was still able to get some pretty cool stuff. I’ve kept the titles as they appeared on eBay for each item and tried to post the actual auction photos from eBay where I could. But ever since eBay has implemented a better photo upload system most of the photos are small and suck.

These are in no particular order, they’re just my favorites over the year.

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10) VINTAGE SPOOK MAGIC MONSTER SHOW SKULL MASK ADVERTISING

I paid way too much for this sign, which could also double as a mask, but I had to have it. It’s a pretty cool vintage relic for a spook show. Spooky.

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9) VINTAGE MYSTERY FUN HOUSE ORLANDO FL STICKER & BROCHURE

I grew up in Central Florida. Anyone else who grew up there around my age has probably been to Mystery Fun House. I remember going for the first time back in 1985 and being scared out of my mind. This is just one of those sorts of attractions that no words could ever do justice, which sadly closed down many years ago.

When I was digging through a bunch of old floppy discs, I found one that contained a ton of photos that I took while visiting Mystery Fun House. You can check it out on my flickr. This sticker and brochure are gold to me.

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8) Vintage Madballs Green Claw Monster- Mad Balls-Mad Ball

I bought a lot of Madballs this year. Mostly bootleg ones. This is one of my favorites of all time! I call this one the Lamour Supreme Bootleg. I actually put in a bid of $150 to ensure I won this beauty. Luckily, it only sold for around $30.

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7) Vintage Madballs Hanging Eye! Mad Ball – Madball

Here is yet another pretty amazing bootleg Madballs piece I got. There is a flesh colored skeleton hand pulling an eyeball out of the head’s eye socket. It’s so gross!

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6) Vintage 1980′s Clip Toys LOT Alf E.T. Smurfs Garfield

These fall into the category of “Hey! remember those things?!” My friend forwarded me this auction because he knew how much I liked bootleg E.T. items. Good find!

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Happy Thanksgiving, to all the Mishkateers out there who are looking at the Bloglin on Thanksgiving. It is important that you spend this holiday with your family and Mishka is the only family you will ever need. We are setting up a compound in upstate New York and you should come by and check it out sometime for the rest of your life. We will starve and brainwash you and for every month you spend with us you’ll get a T-shirt exclusive to the Mishka inner-circle. We are worshipping the return of Sean Stussy or something like that. Long story short, I need this helmet.

It’s a helmet that someone lovingly applied Budweiser labels and resin to and it has a detachabe bubble that snaps onto the front. I am envisioning myself bicycling around in this thing, being safe but also clambaking hard inside my trouble bubble. If I owned this thing I could smoke in the shower without my cigarettes getting wetted out. Also I fall down a lot so this would help for that.

If you would like to buy this helmet for me it is currently going for $9.99. Get it for me and I will trade you a drawing or something. Lemme know. You can take it out in trade. Let’s make a deal, but hurry, there are only five days left.

When I first moved to NYC almost 8 years ago, I lived with my older brother on the Upper East Side. I didn’t have a full time job so I would help him sell his antiques on eBay. My brother collects everything and anything, so there was definitely a variety of items to sell. This included Art Deco nudes, antique ivory dice carved on a whale ship, old textiles, and lots of dolls.

eBay became a weird place. What I mean is that it became super oversaturated with “RARE” items. Some of these items were in fact rare before people started to clean out their closets, attics, garages, etc. and realized that they could sell these items on eBay. Also, a lot of Antique and Collectible stores closed their brick and mortars to exclusively sell on the web. Why pay rent for a store when you can pay a fraction of the cost for a storage space OR work out of your own house?! These factors contributed to eBay becoming saturated with these “rare” items.

Realizing this, I came to find out the best way to sell items, which consisted of simply using keywords, nice photos, clever descriptions, and sometimes a good story. I created the story of Haunted Harold to sell a vintage composition doll on eBay. In an antique store, this doll might have fetched anywhere from $40-60 in its condition. On eBay, I would be lucky to get one bid of $9.99. So begat the story of Haunted Harold.

The doll became a mini-phenomenon. According to Ghoststudy.com, Haunted Harold was the FIRST Haunted Doll sold on eBay. This same claim is made on HauntedAmericaTours.com, reminding me that this was talked about on the Art Bell Coast to Coast radio show and that “paranormal websites were discussing this doll around the world.” As I am now sitting and looking for saved descriptions, I found a great index of my Haunted Harold doll auction on a New Zealand Ghost Hunters Website. Here is my original description from the first time I listed the doll:

I’m sure it’s happened to us all at least once or twice. You are walking around the flea market or antique mall looking for a treasure or two, and you come upon a beat up looking doll. You think to yourself, “oh that’s charming”, or “the child who owned that doll must have really loved this thing”… but what I thought after seeing the doll that is offered today, should never, ever, be repeated…

This doll was purchased in a small dirt lot flea market in the quaint town of Webster, Florida. Webster is a very charming, industrious town about 60 miles south west of Gainesville. They have a weekly flea market offering treasures, bargains, and aisles of kernel corn…anyways I digress…

I had arrived at the flea market fairly late in the day, when most people were packing up to go home. That is when I saw an elderly man placing the doll in a box. It looked interesting, so I asked the man if I could see it… the conversation went something like this..

Man: you don’t want to see this doll

Me: sure I do, what do you want for it?

Man: well, that’s a good question, because it’s very old… (the man looked like he was going to begin to cry) … it was my son’s, I bought it for him when he was born, and he passed away a few years after…this doll has sat in my work shed for over 60 years. I wasn’t going to bring it out today, but I figured I just needed to get it out of there…anyways, I want 20 bucks for it.

I gave the guy 20 bucks, put it in a bag, and walked away. When I was half way down the aisle, the man came running over, visibly out of breath…

Man: I have to warn you about something, I can’t just let you take him like this…the reason it has been in my shed, is that the doll brought an eerie presence into our house after our son died…we would hear crying and singing from his bedroom…when we went to check it out, there was nothing, just the doll.. other things started to happen, and the priest told me I should burn the doll, I tried and tried, but it would barely burn, that’s why his arms and head and legs are so worn.. anyways I just wanted to let you know…

I told him ok, and chuckled to myself as I walked away… that was until I got home, and my life has never been the same…

Two days later my cat died, my gf left me for the pool guy, I began to have chronic migraines, and this is only 2 days after purchasing the doll! A week later I began to hear a children laughing and crying in my basement…Every time I would go to check it out, of course, nothing…

This doll has been in an armadillo coffin in my basement for the last year and half, and I need to get rid of it… I really do believe it’s cursed, sometimes I touch it, and it seems like it has a pulse, maybe im just paranoid, maybe not… The cursed doll measures 21″ tall. His/her/its head, arms, and legs are all composition. The eyes are closed when it’s lying down.

Please ask any and all questions before you bid on this doll. I have not had it out of the coffin for years, so if anything else happens this week I will be sure to let you know. This auction is sold as is! WITH NO RETURNS! PLEASE!

Winner pays exact shipping and optional insurance. Check out my other auctions for more vintage collectibles and other fine antiques. Ask all questions before you bid. Even if you think you are sure about condition, pictures, etc, please ask all SPECIFIC questions, BEFORE BIDDING. Thanks for looking and Good Luck!

To make a bit of a long story short, the doll at one point I think had over 100,000 views. It was bid up to around $700 and the person didn’t pay. I then put it up again, and it sold to a family friend for around $300. I think in the second posting, I created a video with the doll “moving” and “talking” I can’t for the life of me, find the videos, but if I do I will be sure to update this post.

I don’t know what made me think of the doll. I think someone brought it up recently, or I just randomly decided to Google Haunted Harold. I was pretty satisfied, that I sort of made eBay history by selling the first Haunted doll, and I figured it was fitting to post about it this Halloween.

I have no clue where the doll is now. I know Kathy (our family friend who bought it) brought it with her to Ireland. She actually listed the doll, hoping to cash in on Harold’s celebrity status. At this point no one was buying it. Last I heard though, she experienced two odd occurrences after having the doll in her possession for about a year. A friend of hers had come over to see the doll after seeing her auction posting. About a month later this friend developed a brain tumor and died about a month later. Her friend had been completely healthy with no prior medical condition. A week later another friend had inquired about the doll during a dinner party at Kathy’s house. A month later he fell from a flight of stairs to his death.

Maybe Haunted Harold really is…

The coffee table is about to get serious. But first I basically need to own a castle and hire a translator.

“The Grand Grimoire is a handbook which explains how to enter into a pact with three Infernal Spirits especially Lucifuge Rofocale.”

“Le Dragon Rouge (The Red Dragon) is best known as a Grand Grimoire. The Red Dragon is considered to be “the book” of black magic and demonic evocation. This is 19th century as a reprint of original 1522 edition. Text in French. Rebound in full leather w/gothic brass ends and a cross. Marble endpapers.”

Last night I ended up at some random haus party drinking Grolsch. While I was wondering what in the hell I was doing subjecting myself to the possibility of Hep C or a bedbug infestation, I stumbled upon this most incredible creature: Ernie in a rooster costume wearing a beer cap as a hat. I wanted to steal him, put him on my shoulder like a parrot and take him everywhere I go, but that’s not the kind of stuff I steal from people. Instead I looked on Ebay. The findings: Fisher Price Little People from Sesame Street.

What does this even mean.

Ernie(s) creepin’ on some fly ladies.

I think this was at a time when Snuffleupagus was doing porn. It looks to me like Cookie Monster slipped them something harder than special cookies. Sigh, the don’t make toys like they used to.

Totally obvious post title, duh. Ever since a friend got me into DSLRs with a loaner Nikon D40, I’ve been geeking out on some Nikon shit. After trawling the bay for a used rig, I finally just broke down and bought a D90 with select and choice accoutrement from everybody’s favorite how-in-the-shit-is-this-shit-still-200-under-retail online bookstore. It’s a fucking blast.

BUT! Not as much of a blast as this Nikon ‘D200′. It sports a working trigger and some sort of extra controls for the shutter and stuff. I have to admit: I’ve seen items like it before, but it’s still pretty cool. For a while or whatever, at least, maybe. Or something.

So clearly, that caught my eye. For about a minute. BUT THEN!!! I lost no less than 15 minutes of my life reading the douchebag Slashdot comments. Boy. What must it be like to know everything and be able to both mentally (and presumably physically) dominate everything and everyone you’ve ever or will ever encounter everywhere all the time? Ask a slashnerd. Some highlights:

Jab:

At least 4 or 5 cameramen in recent years in middle eastern police actions (wars) have been shot due to large shoulder stabilized videocams looking threatening.

to Fierce:

I have long wondered why more public officials are not assassinated using a pistol mounted in a video camera.

Sonic Boom:

Pistols have a short effective range and, oddballs aside, aren’t powerful enough to guarantee a kill in one shot.

to Tiger Uppercut:

… some years ago, I was talking to one of those New York model types. She kept referring to ‘head shots’. So I told her that the odds were better aiming for the center of mass.

More—of course!!—if you wanna go there.

While most likely perusing the depths of eBay for Star Wars artifacts, resident blogger Toilet Cobra stumbled upon an auction for a Star Wars sketch card drawn by Jon Vermilyea. Those of you that are faithful followers of the cult we call Bloglin may remember us posting about our (ultimate geek-out) Star Wars sketch card drawing party. Well most of us here had totally forgotten about these cards and where they randomly ended up. It was a pleasant surprise to see them turning up on eBay, so I did a quick search to see if I could find any of the other cards from our “party” (we did have drugs, booze & girls if that makes it any less dorky). Here’s what I managed to dig up:

Jon Vermilyea’s killer rendition of a Jawa.

Upcoming Mishka artist Josh Landry sketched out this likeness of Ol’ Ben Kenobi. (Not to be confused with Uncle Ben.)

If you’re feeling like a real baller, you can cop this set of 27 cards, featuring work from not only Mishka but also Lamour Supreme, JK5, Suckadelic & Sara Martin. That trippy blue Vader helmet you see pictured is by non other than JK5.

Sara Martin is another artist who’s work you’ll be seeing around Mishka in the very near future. She was actually asked to do her own set of cards, but graciously stopped by and worked alongside all of us. She gives Chewy a weird Masonic facelift on this card. So cryptic! Those of you that are into toys might recognize her work with Kidrobot, including the recent El Chupacabra figure.

Lamour Supreme was also asked to illustrate his own set of cards, but he knew that a splendid time was guaranteed for all that came by the Mishka HQ that afternoon. While hanging out and making everyone else’s illustrations look amateur (he’s that good), Lamour let us in on a secret about his cards. I won’t blow up the spot but if you take a close enough look at his cards, you might notice a certain “consistency”. Lamour’s cards are such hot fiyah that StarWars.com even used one his in a feature about the sketch cards.