SLABBED SATURDAY - TMNT #1... SIGNED!

Sent to CGC in December, Received in January, Signed in March... and now, finally, my boys are back home!

A few years ago I found a Third Printing of "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" #1 at a flea market for a dollar. Yes, you read that right. I still can't believe it; I come across some lucky finds, but this one is easily in my Top Five.

I held onto it for a few years and kept going back-and-forth on whether or not I wanted to get it graded and slabbed. And then, CGC announced that TMNT co-creator Kevin Eastman was going to do an in-house signing. Welp, that sealed the deal.

I immediately sent the book to Pressing Wizard Extraordinaire Gary Kendra at Impressive Comics. Then came the waiting. Hoo BOY, the waiting.

Finally, it arrived this past Thursday. The slab is clean, the signature is crisp and in a perfect spot, and best of all Gary took a crusty, dirty dollar book and turned it into a friggin' SEVEN POINT ZERO. For a roughly under $200 total investment, I now have an easy $1K+ Grail to add to my ever-growing collection.

Thank You to Mr. Eastman for the signing (and for helping bring our favorite Heroes In A Half-Shell to life!), Thanks to Gary for his always-excellent work, and Thanks to CGC for making this possible! COWABUNGA!

Thrifting Pickups - Week of 6/6/21

Kind of a slow week with only one major surprise...

I picked up a handful of common PS2 games from the flea market for $2 apiece, all of which are headed straight to this year's AbleGamers donation box.

Goodwill provided me with some $1 CDs; the live album "Good Friendly Violent Fun" from Thrash Metal legends Exodus was a neat find; it's currently OOP! I have a good friend who collects rare 80's and 90's Metal albums, so I'm gonna see if he wants it for his collection.

The soundtrack to "Once Were Warriors" is also an interesting pickup. Along with also being OOP, it's the backdrop to a fantastic, criminally underrated movie. Both the album and film are worth checking out!

And the big surprise of the week is "The Silent Majority", the lone outing from the fantastically strange Rock band Life Sex & Death. While the album can be purchased digitally via Amazon and other outlets, the physical CD itself is long OOP.

Mainstream Radio had no clue what to do with this band, which is a shame, because the album has some absolutely phenomenal tracks on it. If you're a fan of Shock Rock, early 90's Alternative, or want to see a performance that's a combination of Punk, Glam, Grunge, and even more (yes, really), then please check this album out. A single copy can currently be picked up via some blogger's eBay store...

Thrifting Pickups - Week of 5/30/21

Another week of thrifting yielded me even more GameCube games plus some interesting comics!

Three GameCube titles for only $3 apiece, plus a few semi-valuable PS3 sports titles for only $0.50 each was a great way to start my day at the flea market... but then came the comic books!

I'm always on the lookout for weird or obscure books if they're cheap enough, and so when I saw some special variants and a #1 I'd never seen before (Dee Snider's "Strangeland") for a buck apiece, I just had to grab them. Color me surprised when I did some research and found copies of "Strangeland" selling for upwards of Thirty Dollars!

I have yet to come across anything incredibly rare or expensive this thrifting season, but that's not going to deter me... I'm sure a large Grail is just around the corner! Just have to keep thrifting, just like everyone reading this should be doing this Summer as well. :-)

Thrifting Pickups - Week of 5/16/21

Took a break from thrifting for a week, but came back last week with a vengeance!

The GameCube games (of which WWE Crush Hour is uncommon) were both $4 apiece and were both CIB. All of the other discs came from a "dollar table"! The HELMET CDs are all original prints; if you haven't heard "Betty", give it a listen, it's a great album.

The Diablo coaster set was also fairly cheap, and I was surprised to see how much it goes for; they may end up on the Sanctum's eBay page soon.

Lastly, the Nintendo DSi only ended up being $5, as the seller did not have a charger to prove the handheld worked. Luckily I had a charger at home, and after about an hour charge, it did indeed work... SCORE! It's always worth taking a risk as long as the initial cost is low!

As the weather gets warmer, more and more people will be setting up tables at local flea markets, and prepping for yard sales... don't miss out on the thrifting season! You won't know what's out there unless you go out and hunt!

"THE BERENSTAIN BEARS - HOW TO GET ALONG WITH YOUR FELLOW BEAR" - 1982 Kid Stuff Records Read-Along

Here's another incredibly short Kid Stuff Read-Along, which is less like a story and more like a series of lessons in manners.

"The Berenstain Bears: How To Get Along With Your Fellow Bear" is along the lines of the "Raggedy Ann & Andy" Christmas Read-Along in terms of tone and quality. In fact, it features the same narrator as both that record and "The Care Bears Help Out", so be prepared for even more sugary-sweet voice work!

While the overall message of the record is commendable: be nice to others, share, be helpful, etc. some of its wording wouldn't fit well in today's social climate. I mean, should you really force yourself to smile and/or be nice to someone who is continually mean to you?

Also, aside from the usage of "bear" in place of "man" or "person" is really the only thing tying this Read-Along to the "Berenstain Bears" IP; this script could've been tweaked and used for pretty much any other character.

It's also incredibly short, clocking in at just a little over 5 minutes.

The message means well, and the record is pretty rare... but it's only for die-hard "Bears" fans.

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"BUGS BUNNY'S SPACE CARROT" - 1977, 1984 Kid Stuff Records Read-Along

Today's post is proof positive that amidst all the drama and issues within the "geek" community, the YouTube community, etc... connections and friendships can still be made.

In my most recent submission to Under Design, I sent in my childhood copy of the Kid Stuff Read-Along record "Bugs Bunny's Space Carrot". My copy was in absolutely terrible shape, and for years I'd been hunting a brand-new copy to buy and digitize, but to no avail. So I decided to throw caution to the wind, and digitize my copy.

Welp... it was awful. Under Design did everything they could, and it still came out horribly. There was no way I could share it here.

So I started searching to see if anyone else happened to have a copy of this story... and lo and behold, I stumbled across Jon at GenXGrownUp.

A few years ago, he digitized his own copy and shared it via GXGU's YouTube channel. The clarity was fantastic, and so I immediately reached out to him asking if he still had the raw audio (as his video outro obscured the tail-end of the story in the video). He messaged me back within minutes, and for the next half-hour or so we chatted about our shared love of old Read-Alongs and other vinyl oddities.

I took the raw audio, cleaned it up a tiny bit more, added the necessary metadata, and now "Bugs Bunny's Space Carrot" is available for all Sanctum Dwellers to download and enjoy!

I cannot stress enough how grateful I am to Jon for initially sharing this; and I'm overjoyed to know there are others out there like me who appreciate these stories. Please check out GenXGrownUp and give them your support... oh, and enjoy the Read-Along as well!

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"THE CARE BEARS HELP OUT" - 1984 Kid Stuff Records Read-Along

Here's one of the sweetest, gentlest Read-Alongs in my entire collection: 1984's "The Care Bears Help Out".

As the title suggests, it stars those lovable, pudgy Care Bears as they help a little boy overcome his fears and anxieties that come with moving to a new house in a new neighborhood.

The narrator just drips sugar as she reads the story, taking her time and speaking thoughtfully and slowly to the listener. This record was 100% made for toddlers and very, very little kids.

It's adorable. Give it a listen!

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