First Look At The Kentuckiana GI Joe Toy Expo 2026: Just Vintage Toys

The PopCulteer
July 24, 2026

Your humble blogger has had the last month of travel, and the last week of late-night video shoots catch up to him.

This is my way of saying that I did not get the extensive photo essay from last weekend’s Kentuckiana GI Joe Toy Expo done in time for today’s post.  Evidently there is this vital thing called “sleep” that I’ve not be indulging in enough lately, so yesterday my productivity took a bit of a nosedive.

The plan is to run the Kentuckiana music video, plus a fairly large photo essay this coming Sunday.

Tonight your PopCulteer will stop by the Celebration of Life for Brian Young at Short Story Brewery on Summers Street in Charleston, and then all day Saturday I will be chained to the video and photo editing machines.

Sunday we’ll see photos of friends we spotted at Kentuckiana, plus a look at Cindy Scott’s new diorama and some great customs and some of the 3D printed offerings that we saw at the show. Plus we’ll have the music video, and maybe more.

But today we have ten photos of some of the really cool vintage toys, along with captions cranked out fast on a Friday morning so I can get this posted for you fine folks…

This is a bit of a “murderer’s row” of incredible GI Joe boxed sets that I’d gladly add to my collection if I ever won the lottery. Except for the Helicopter at the top. I have that one already.

There was such an amazing mix of vintage toys from different decades, like this table that had stuff from the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s.

More lottery dream fodder.

This pariticular mix of Major Matt Mason and Captain Action stuff made many a 60-something collector’s jaw drop.

Younger collectors had their eyes popping out at this wild assortment.

Dave Roth was on hand, representing Johnny West and Marx Toys (and Batman).

I grabbed this shot of a display case of MEGO figures, and it wasn’t until I got home that I noticed the Action Boy in his spacesuit right there in the middle of it all.

Another wild mix of cool stuff.

Games, Big Little Books and non-sport trading cards. They were speaking my language.

We leave you with this wall of exceptionally cool 12″ GI Joe stuff, including some Dragons in Dreams and Marx sets, for good measure.

And that is this week’s rushed PopCulteer. Check back every day for fresh content and all our regular features.  Sunday we’ll have much more coverage of last weekend’s Kentuckiana GI Joe Toy Expo in Louisville.