Toy Trade with The Goodwill Geek

You trade from @thegoodwillgeek showed up! Can't wait to blog about this one! #toys #toytrade #toycommunity

A photo posted by Adam Nori (@heroic37) on Jun 18, 2015 at 8:13pm PDT

First off, I love doing toy trades. Getting a random box of items that are vintage and many things that I have never known of. One of my favorite blogs to follow is Goodwill Hunting 4 Geeks. I have been wanting to do a toy trade with Derek and often I find myself picking up items at my local Goodwill that I think he would like based on his blog.

We finally got around to a toy trade and I wanted to highlight some of my favorite items.

Finally!

The arcade is finally at home.

I was lucky enough to have a friend who collects vintage arcade units and has 35 years of experience repairing them. After looking at this unit that I scored from another friend, it was determined that the power supply was bad. I was given the part for free and I paid for labor with a case of beer.

The game itself plays a lot like Guerrilla Wars/Ikari Warriors but with a Ghostbusters twist. You can find some of the gameplay here. I am surprised at how fun this game actually is and with the ability to put in as many credits as you want, you start to realize how these games were made to make money rather than be the story driven games of today. They make it HARD so you die and start over. Clever girl.

It took four men to get this into the man cave. (I am thankful for my firefighter brothers who helped with this after a hall meeting.) The least I could do was let them play it once it made it downstairs.

Because of the size of this thing and having to feng shui this thing into my collection, a lot of pieces moved around and this is now the 6th iteration of the ECTO cave.

I have also added a few new pieces which I am excited to share. Most of them are in this photo so a little sneak peek. I am also interested to see what pieces people are curious about.

Non-GB: Some blogger love

While I plan on making this post all about Ghostbusters, I do want to share some other collection ideas of mine that are not related to the main theme of this blog. I LOVE following other collectors blogs such as GOODWILL HUNTING 4 GEEKS and ITS TRASH CULTURE.

The first is from Derek who goes to Goodwill and thrift stores to see what treasures he can find. And he finds some odd but very cool items. I think I must check his blog once every two or three days to see what he discovers. I enjoy the oddities that he comes across like his recent Bizarro Flintstone book that talks about a boy named "Junior" in place of the girl named "Pebbles." Weird.

I love that blog so much that it leads me to my local Goodwills and holy smokes, have I found some cool stuff. I might have to make a Goodwill finds section...

The second blog is from one of my favorite toy traders. I was lucky enough to win one of his contests awhile back and the box of random items was heaven. Action figures, 90s trading cards from movies, and comics.... so cool! I wish I could get a random box of goodness from his every month as it blows my HorrorBlock/Nerdblock out of the water.

I also enjoy the week long celebrations that he comes across like the recent Friday the 13th marathon that talks about everyone's favorite Camp Crystal Lake stories.

Now that I have gotten my raving over about how much I enjoy these two blogs, this entry has a point and it's because of these two guys; Derek helped me venture to Goodwills and ITC helped me fall back in love with the 90s which led me to collecting "Goosebumps" books from R.L. Stine.

I really enjoy venturing out to thrift stores to find these Scholastica gems that were like bars of gold come book fair day.

"Oh you didn't get the new Goosebumps book this month? I don't know you and no you can't sit at THIS lunch table..."

Kids can be so cruel.

These were bizarre. They were never scary. But the ART on the covers. Oh man! That was the awesomest!

I can usually pick up a few copies at a thrift store at a time because no one just had one tale from Goosebumps. If you find one in the pile, there are usually 2-3 other copies from that series in there. And for about $1 too!

My only rule is that I am trying to get them from my thrift store adventures rather than buying a set on eBay. The adventure is the fun part, right?

Anyone else collect Goosebumps and if so, what was your favorite tale? I really enjoyed the Werewolf of Fever Swamp as it was the first one that I completed.