Rudy Panucci On Pop Culture

GI Joe Winterfest Part Two: Marx Toys and Modern GI Joe

The PopCult Toybox

I promised you more photos from last weekend’s Kentuckiana GI Joe Winterfest, and I’ve got a second batch for you today, but there will still be more! I managed to get so many good photos of the toys for sale at this cool show that I’m going to have to divvy them up and spread them out over the next few days.

Today we’re going to look at the Marx action figures on display, and then we’ll pivot and focus on the modern GI Joes.

There were several dealers who devoted the bulk of their displays to the original Real American Hero GI Joe, and several who had the current, GI Joe: Classified figures and sets. Since so many collectors are interested in those, we’re giving them plenty of space.

I doubt that I’ll have video from the show ready to go this weekend, but I do plan to run another photo essay on Sunday that will show off MEGO, Major Matt Mason, Barbie and more cool toys.

Following that, sometime next week, we’ll revisit the vintage 12″ GI Joes, because there was just so much cool stuff at the show.

For now, let’s start off with Johnny West and his pals from Marx…

MARX ACTION FIGURES

First off, it’s Dave Roth, Marx collector/dealer extraordinaire, and your’s truly, in a selfie photo I swiped from where Dave posted it on Facebook.

Dave’s booth, and I think that’s his brother tending to things.

Dave wasn’t the only person with Marx Action figures. Here’s a display case from another dealer.

And this guy had a bit of everything, including some Marx 6″ figures and a cool custom Western building.

Back to dave’s booth, there was a rainbow of figures for sale.

Yet another table filled with Marx figures.

Another guy had a wall filled with Marx goodies.

Back to the display cases, we find Odin, Johnny, a couple of the boys, Zeb Zachery and more.

MODERN GI JOE

There’s a ton of GI Joe: Classified here, but if you look closely, you’ll see a boxed Captain Action figure. I saw more boxed Captain Action figures here than at any other show I’ve attended.

Another vendor with Classifed figures and a ton of other cool recent lines.

Of course, many dealers had tons of the 3 3/4″ Real American Hero GI Joes.

This guy had a mix of everything. It’s not in the photo, but he even had GI Joe: Extreme and Sgt. Savage.

My wallet is eternally grateful that I chose not to collect GI Joe: Classifed.

Seriously. My wallet is baking me a cake right now.

Loads of GI Joe: A Real American Hero vehicles and playsets were available.

That was not the only boxed “General” giant thingymabob I saw at the show.

Need air power?

An assortment of the priciest of the little guys.

Rare official convention sets for sale. Prepare to mortgage your house.

Even more air power.

Another wild collection of coolness for sale. I wonder if the cereal is still any good?

I had no idea that the GI Joe Cobra H.I.S.S. Tank was so common.

But apparently it is. We saw boxes like this all over the show.

Finally for today, I don’t know if this was a legit item, or a very clever custom job, but the claw machine filled with RAH GI Joes ranks among the coolest thing I saw at the show.

Tomorrow PopCult will show you a bunch of the other cool toys we saw at Winterfest.

1 Comment

  1. Thomas Wheeler

    It’s a good thing I wasn’t there. I’d’ve been curled up on the floor crying.

    Regarding the HISS Tanks, I suspect its sheer number is due to the fact that it came out in 1983, and Hasbro produced a LOT of it over the next few years (back when you could expect a toy to hang around longer than a couple of months), and it’s also been reissued several times since then.

    It was no great surprise that the first G.I. Joe Classified vehicle to come out of a HasLab project was a HISS Tank, and it reached the required number of supporters faster than you can say “Yo Joe!”

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