Charles Apple

Posting on the road today from Augusta, Ga. Kind of an emergency. I drove through the night, so I’m pretty tired.

Not sure when I’ll be able to post. There’s a redesign tomorrow — Wilson, N.C. — from which I’m hoping to receive pages.

In the meantime, I’ll go and put up what I had planned to post today.

Best wishes, all.

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The new Star Trek movie opens this week. Bob Voros and I already have plans to watch it Friday afternoon.

I’m not sure I can wait that long.

Did you see the cover of Newsweek last week? Not only did it feature STAR TREK on the cover, it features Star Trek TOYS on the cover:

Just unbelievable, for a longtime Star Trek toy collector like me.

Here’s our request: Please make sure you send us any cool Star Trek-themed pages, graphics, illustrations or page treatments you run this week. We’d like to feature a number of them here.

If you can, please tell us who designed or illustrated the piece and a sentence or two about how you built it or what it took to sell it to the boss. A lot of us love reading stories like this.

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I’ve written, occasionally, about my hobby of collecting action figures. Last weekend, for example, I showed you the new Star Trek movie figures Sharon bought me for my birthday:

Just a few days later, I received another huge surprise when I received a package from my friends Chris Anderson and Kathryn Morton in Harrisburg, Pa. They sent me another four Trek movie figures:

And they’re in a completely different scale than the ones Sharon gave me. So my collection grows, despite my self-imposed moratorium on adding to my already unwieldy toy collection.

All of  those toys are made by a company called Playmates. They made Star Trek toys throughout the 1990s but then lost the contract. They acquired it again for the new movie.

A few of you asked to see more pictures of the collection. Quite frankly, most of it is boxed up in plastic tubs, like here in the bottom of our hall closet:

Or jammed into our guest bedroom closet:

And if you think that’s bad, you should see the huge, bathtub-sized containers we have stacked in the garage.

I honestly have no idea how many action figures I own. It’s well into the thousands.

And to answer your next question: No, I can’t sell them to make a few mortgage payments. I am what toy collectors refer to as an “opener.” None of my collection is “MIB” (Mint in box) or “MIMB” (Mint in mint box) condition, which is what brings in major bucks on eBay.

I put the bulk of my collection in storage many months ago. I simply didn’t have the energy to pull them all back out again last fall. And besides — the collection has grown to the point where it no longer fits our four-bedroom condo here in Virginia Beach. So storage is where they’ll stay until we move again.

In the meantime, though, here’s a look at the tiny fraction I am displaying in my office.

Sharon mounted two extra-long shelves above the futon we bought last summer for my apartment in Rock Hill:

Let’s start with the Star Trek stuff first, shall we?

In the middle of the second shelf is my collection of crew members of the original Star Trek TV show. These are made by a company called Art Asylum and are quite detailed. Note that Captain Kirk even has an authentic little hair to sit in. Also note the lizard-like Gorn on the right and the green dancing Orion woman on the left.

To the left is my collection of Star Trek movie figures by Art Asylum:

And, further still to the left is the crew of Star Trek: The Next Generation — again, by Art Asylum:

These three photos show a total of 41 figures. That’s maybe half of my Art Asylum collection. There just isn’t room for more.

Below that shelf is a collection of autographs. At the top left is Marina Sirtis, who played Deanna Troi on the Next Generation. At the top right is James Doohan, who played Scotty.

At the bottom right is Louise Jameson from the British science-fiction TV show Doctor Who. All three of these are pieces I drew and then had autographed back in the days I attended scifi conventions.

In the bottom left is Yvonne Craig, who played Batgirl on the old 1960s Batman TV show. That one, I didn’t draw. Of course.

In the far upper left, above the futon, are two USS Enterprise toys, also by Art Asylum. Above is the movie Enterprise, below is the original TV Enterprise.

Both light up and make all sorts of cool sound effects noises. The tiny ship at the lower left is a Hallmark Christmas ornament, in fact. If you hit the button on the stand, you’ll hear the Star Trek theme music.

In our guest bedroom is a book shelf. One of the shelves is devoted to a few Trek toy items, including another Enterprise ship — this one was made in the 1990s by Playmates — a cool Mr. Spock teddy bear and my Star Trek Barbie set.

The Barbie set is a good example of how I built my collection. Those sets originally sold for $60 or $79 dollars when they first came out. Not long after we moved to Chicago in 1996, howevever, I found dozens of them clearance-priced at $19.99 at the old Viacom store on Michigan Avenue. Sweet!

Back to my office: Surrounding my closet door is my collection of faux-Mego action figures:

A company called Mego made a number of Star Trek figures in the mid-to-late 1970s. I never bought any of them, mostly because I was “too old” for toys by that time.

Silly boy. Original Megos — even opened and damaged — sell for plenty on the collector’s market today.

Because of this — and because Mego is long out of business — another company has made replicas of the Mego figures, down to the package artwork and the real-cloth uniforms:

They’ve even made a number of figures that were never made in the 1970s, including Lt. Checkov and the Khan figure you see above.

The downside: Some of the figures are a little weird. You can see here that Uhura has her head turned around completely backwards:

That head-spinning trick wouldn’t be Star Trek, of course. That would be the Exorcist.

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It’s sad I can’t show you all the figures I have in storage. Most are made by Playmates. There are three basic sizes — 4.75-inch tall plastic figures, 9-inch-tall cloth-dressed figures and incredibly realistic 11-inch-tall figures.

Not long before we moved from Des Moines to Virginia Beach — in 2003 — a toy-collecting pal came to visit. He took a few photos of my collection as it looked at the time.

Here, you see the nine-inch-tall Trek figures on the top shelves and on the second from bottom right. The nice 12-inchers are on the middle shelf on both sides:

Here are two more side-by-side shelving units, stuffed with figures:

I have a number of customized Borg figures built by a toy collecting pal, Peter Hetrick:

He’s very talented. And he’s been generous enough to add one-of-a-kind sculptures to my collection.

Another friend — Dorian Potter — dressed this Deanna Troi figure in a home-made, uh, outfit, turning her into a waitress for a famous chain of restaurants:

Needless to say, it’s a prize of my collection.

Here I am, sitting at my desk in my home office in West Des Moines, six years ago. Behind me are oodles of super-hero figures (on the left) and sports figures (on the right):

They’re all hanging crooked because my basement office had cinder-block walls. The only way I could post the figures is by hanging tiny chains from the suspended ceiling frame.

You can also see my trusty ol’ Mac G3 here. Heh. That seems so long ago, now…

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OK, back to the present, to continue our tour of my office.

These are the same shelves, again, as you’d see them when you walk through the door:

Below, you can see Spock, Sharon’s cocker spaniel. He is not part of my prized collection. In fact: Make me an offer.

Looking to the right, you can see the rest of my desk — which I didn’t bother to clean up before I took these photos last Friday:

And here’s the rest of the near wall, including the door to the hallway:

Above that door is my collection of Justice League beanie babies:

In the corner of my desk, above my scanner, is a collection of Batmobile Hot Wheels cars and a few political collectibles. I wrote about my political button and toy collection last November, I believe.

On the top toy shelf is a large assortment of super-hero action figures. To the right is my Batman teddy bear:

This isn’t even a tenth of my collection. Man, I miss looking at the rest of them.
Immediately to the left is a special batch of figures, based on the artwork of Evanston, Ill.-based comic artist Alex Ross:

Again, this is maybe a third of the Alex Ross figures I have. I really had to narrow down what I’m displaying right now.

On the second shelf is a modest collection of Beatles figures:

Those are the cartoon Beatles, as they appeared in a mid-1960s Saturday morning TV show. On the left is a statue depicting John Lennon in the mid-1970s.

Just to the left of the mop tops is part of my G.I. Joe collection:

First row: Gen. George Patton, Gen. Douglas MacArthur, Lt. John F. Kennedy, Gen. Robert E. Lee; Second row: Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, Col. Theodore Roosevelt of the Rough Riders, golfer Arnold Palmer, Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys; Third row: Gen. George Washington, Dr. Zaius of Planet of the Apes, Bob Hope and astronaut Buzz Aldrin.

Possibly the rarest of the batch is MacArthur. You could buy him for a limited time only at the MacArthur library gift shop in downtown Norfolk.

And, to the left of this group, is a collection of Presidents of the United States. You can see right away, that Bill Clinton has made a couple of new friends:

Several of these presidents are equipped with real audio clips of their speeches. Just think of it: The world’s most boring toys!

Also, look on the left of the very back row: Yes, that’s Indiana Jones.

Above the Star Trek figures is a row of collectible Barbie dolls:

From left to right: The Dallas Cowboys cheerleader Barbie I bought last fall, the Lois Lane Barbie from Superman Returns, Poison Ivy Barbie — my only Barbie villain — Invisible Woman Barbie from the Fantastic Four, a Batgirl Barbie and a Wonder Woman Barbie.

I also have a Clemson cheerleader Barbie and a Chicago Bulls Barbie in storage. So far, I’ve avoided buying the new Star Trek movie Barbies –they’re just too expensive.

And, for what it’s worth, my sister has a modest collection of I Love Lucy Barbies — proving, I guess, insanity is truly in the genes.

Beneath the shelves are my political buttons and a few more autographs. I wrote about the political buttons here.

Above, you’re seeing Miami Dolphin great Bob Griese. Below him is Atlanta Brave Phil Niekro.

And here is Green Bay Packer Paul Hornung:

I wrote more about these sports autographs here.

And finally, Batman and Superman guard my TV against supervillain infomercials…

…while Batgirl does superb work frightening off nefarious telemarketers:

And that’s my action figure collection. Or all that I have room to display at the moment. One day, I hope, we’ll buy a larger house — or, perhaps, my daugter will marry a doctor or famous movie star — and I’ll gain room to build more shelves to show off more of my plastic pretties.

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So, that’s my picture show. Why not take a moment, shoot a picture of your desk or cube, and show us what kind of personaly you have?

This entry was posted on Monday, May 4th, 2009 at 9:57 am and is filed under Charles Apple, Getting a life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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