Part 1 – Part 2
When you spend a lot of time on Ebay auctions, it starts to take on a kind of soothing rhythm. Auctions open, auctions close, and there’s always more stuff coming. Ebay is a river, with a constant stream of stuff flowing past — and every once in a while, you dip your net in and scoop something out. Sometimes it turns out to be treasure, sometimes it turns out to be junk, but there’s always something drifting past.
So, in an attempt to justify the extraordinary amount of time I’ve wasted browsing on Ebay, here are some interesting things that have floated by lately.
One of the great things about Ebay is that sometimes you find cool stuff that you never knew existed — like this Tin Muppet Show Yo-Yo, which sold recently for $17.50. The Muppet Show logo’s on one side, Scooter’s on the other. It was apparently made by Lumar Limited in 1978. Who knew?
And speaking of cool, how about this — a Cookie Monster Weeble Sailboat made by Hasbro in 1982. I don’t care if you’re a collector or not — you’ve got to admit that this is really neat. It sold for $28.00. By the way, I love that the drawing on the back shows the Weeble Sailboat in an exciting action pose out on the high seas, to make it seem even more thrilling than it already is.
But for every treasure on Ebay, there’s a lot of trash… like this item, which was listed as Vintage Kermit the Frog Framed Picture.
Now, technically, that description may be accurate — it’s framed, it’s a picture, and it may well be vintage — but a photo of an old Kermit doll doesn’t really qualify as a collector’s item. It was listed, surprisingly, at $9.99 — and closed, unsurprisingly, with no bids.
And now, from the Japan Has All The Cool Toys file, here’s the Price Is Right audience-participation part of today’s feature. These five Japanese Sesame Street dolls were all sold in mid-June — the Bert Sushi Chef, the Big Bird Curry Chef, the Cookie Monster French Chef, the Ernie Pizza Chef, and the Grover Bellhop. Can you guess which of these toys sold for the highest price, and which one sold for the lowest price? The answers are at the bottom of the page.
And then, from the Deep Weirdness file, there’s the 24 Karat Gold Painted Kermit and Miss Piggy Pez Dispensers, which sold for $5.50. Who painted them? Who bought them? And why?
And there’s also this bizarre Knockoff Bert Bank, which sold for $2.26… to me, actually. I can’t wait to receive it; that bank will take a special place in my collection of Hideous Muppet Knockoffs. I’ll post some more weird Ebay finds as soon as I recover.
(Answers to the Price Is Right quiz: The doll that sold for the highest price was the Grover Bellhop at $36.99, followed by the Ernie Pizza Chef for $32.99, the Bert Sushi Chef for $31.00, the Cookie Monster French Chef for $24.99 — and the lowest is the Big Bird Curry Chef, which sold for the bargain price of $15.50.)
I hope this feature encourages you to go to Ebay and become an obsessed Muppet collector. Just remember the motto of collectors everywhere — Emptor caveat: Beware the buyers!
Click here for Tales of eBay, Part 2: Toilet Green!
Click here for Tales of eBay, Part 3: Christmas in eBaytown!
by Danny Horn
