slim
Sith Lord
the corn exchange..those were the days , going over to watch the mighty MAN UTD and bringing home mocs from the corn exchange , they always seemed to have loads of mocs , it was a great place to visit
Who was the UK equivalent of Steve Denny?
- Thread starter stratpack
- Start date
This tale sticks in my mind about the corn exchange..
Back in 1993ish a dealer from blackburn called Bill told me that the corn exchange had had several VCJs, all MOC, in stock. This was apparently in recent years before he told me the tale. One person went in and bought the lot for an absolute pittance. There were in the region of 10 MOCs. A tenner a piece!
I mean is that even possible, that one store in the early 90's would have had these in such abundance? At the time it was just an interesting story. A mouth watering legend. Now it seems like bullcrap.
Back in 1993ish a dealer from blackburn called Bill told me that the corn exchange had had several VCJs, all MOC, in stock. This was apparently in recent years before he told me the tale. One person went in and bought the lot for an absolute pittance. There were in the region of 10 MOCs. A tenner a piece!
I mean is that even possible, that one store in the early 90's would have had these in such abundance? At the time it was just an interesting story. A mouth watering legend. Now it seems like bullcrap.
palitoyjunky said:Indeed! Jason Joiner was prob most responsible for creating the secondary market for vintage SW over here.
Jim Srevenson tried to get as much as he could from the Palitoy Factory but I believe he missed out as much of the stuff was BBQd before he could get his hands on itApparently he hooked up with a bird who worked in the factory but don't know what he got out of her :roll: He managed to get hold of all the 12in Empire box flat prototypes amongst other things 8)
Hi there
just my thoughts on this , Jim never really did get much form the factory, it did go very quickly and was sold to the people that Palitoy worked with so these retailers got most of the interesting stuff.
Geoff's toys to name one that did clear alot trot eh factory , Jim did not buy from him so did not have a good relationship with the owner , i did and i did get stuff that now people would be amazed about but back then it was out there and you came across it here and there, there was a shop just outside of Chestnut that was cleared shuttles at £15 each they sold them to me for £25 each , they came in packing cases of 2 and i bought x 40 of them and had to make many trips in an estate car to get them and then i had to store them :-0 i think i should them for £45 each which was £10 less than the RRP
the good old days
One thing Jim did not get his 12in Empire box flat prototypes from the UK they came from the US
I was responsible for selling of any of the surplus toys and prototypes from Bethnal Green museum of childhood, i also cleared there Action Man and Gi Joe / Action force.
The first sale had to be public and was held at Wolsey Hall at chestnut where i used to run my Sci-if fairs at grundy Park , after prices were established i was able to buy more at that price , i am a collector and i did buy things for my self which i still have today.
Jason
Its funny that now days being a collector for a long time seems to be around 5 to 10 years on average ?
There was a time where Star Wars was dead and there was only a few of us around the same gos for prop collection also , if you go back 15 to 20 years no one was really aware of film props or even prototypes.
Some of you may know i am in business with the producer of SW and ESB Gary Kurtz , he popped into my office the other day and it came up the late 80s and mid 90s where no one was interested in Star Wars :-\
Its a bit like Harry Potter right now , the big peak of the books and films coming out is over the hype from the marketing has passed and everyone that was into it have gone onto other things , there are a few , a very few that are still out there that care , they are buying things and now being offered things that no one else cares about right now , its just the same as Star Wars in the late 80s and mid 90s .
But it will change , just to point things out , the average fan into Harry potter that grew up with the books coming out and the films being released is 25 to 30 years old right now.
When these generation starts to have kids that are a bit older and have a house or have a bit of spending money they will start to buy back the things they had as a child , then things start to rise in price and the interest grows.
Its the same for James Bond in the past and Star Wars we are right in the middle of fans buying back there childhood.
So everything that is collected has a time and place to buy and sell , i have watched this over the years and see the pattern its now quite clear who it works.
When i meet up with Gary Kurtz in the early 90s he has just cleared our Elstree Studios of all its props and costume and sent what he felt was important back the LFL and the rest he had nowhere to put it so have it distorted , the falcon was scraped as well as file size x wings and snow speeders all was destroyed its was the only thing to have done back then.
I got to know Gary and in 1993 we joined up to save as much as we could from the films and i then spent 3 years meeting cast and crew of the films and tried to buy and save anything i could from these films.
This still gos on today its what i have dedicated the last 20 years of my life doing saving film history in general as well as Star Wars.
Toy collection never stopped but more important things had to also be saved and that did take up my time.
back in the 80s there was a very few of us
Jim Stevenson
was the king of the toy fairs and spent most of his time doing the toy fair in the midlands and he did find a lot, he retired to become a full time toy dealer at the time that was unheard of in sic-fi toys , but jim had worked for him self being a body repairer and saw there was enough money to pay his bills buying and selling toys and that just what he did , he never took the leap to opening a shop and preferred to just attend the big toy shows around the UK.
David Oliver
was down south and had established a shop the twilight zone early in the UK and he found lots of things including film props from being located near some of the film studios his late father was also a key person in the film industry hiring military vehicles from his amazing collection , David collected just Star Wars and must have been one of the fest ever focus collectors in the world, being form a collection family and having the time to find things David amassed a very nice collection , i do think having to manage a show did lock I'm down a bit so it was hard for him to leave the show and go galavanting like Jim and i could do ?.
Craig Stevens
was half of a two collector team , "Tich" or Gary Halvey was his collection partner and they had an agreement to co own there collection , Tich collected mostly Star Wars and Craig collected the rest of the trilogy , this continued for many years and between them they had a good collection with lots of the impotent toys that should be in a completest collection , Tich fell in love one day and the collection was his way of moving out and making a life with the person he loved who he is still with today , so Tich sold me some times that i needed that i was missing at the time , which must have been around 94 ? and the rest was sold to Craig Stevens , and as you all know now Craig has started to sell of his collection. both Craig ad Tich had day jobs in the early years of collection so could only spend there spear time on finding things.
There was a few people with some nice collections out there back then but nothing on the size of these 3/4 collectors and myself
hope that helps a little about the past of the UK collating seen back in the 80s
Jason
There was a time where Star Wars was dead and there was only a few of us around the same gos for prop collection also , if you go back 15 to 20 years no one was really aware of film props or even prototypes.
Some of you may know i am in business with the producer of SW and ESB Gary Kurtz , he popped into my office the other day and it came up the late 80s and mid 90s where no one was interested in Star Wars :-\
Its a bit like Harry Potter right now , the big peak of the books and films coming out is over the hype from the marketing has passed and everyone that was into it have gone onto other things , there are a few , a very few that are still out there that care , they are buying things and now being offered things that no one else cares about right now , its just the same as Star Wars in the late 80s and mid 90s .
But it will change , just to point things out , the average fan into Harry potter that grew up with the books coming out and the films being released is 25 to 30 years old right now.
When these generation starts to have kids that are a bit older and have a house or have a bit of spending money they will start to buy back the things they had as a child , then things start to rise in price and the interest grows.
Its the same for James Bond in the past and Star Wars we are right in the middle of fans buying back there childhood.
So everything that is collected has a time and place to buy and sell , i have watched this over the years and see the pattern its now quite clear who it works.
When i meet up with Gary Kurtz in the early 90s he has just cleared our Elstree Studios of all its props and costume and sent what he felt was important back the LFL and the rest he had nowhere to put it so have it distorted , the falcon was scraped as well as file size x wings and snow speeders all was destroyed its was the only thing to have done back then.
I got to know Gary and in 1993 we joined up to save as much as we could from the films and i then spent 3 years meeting cast and crew of the films and tried to buy and save anything i could from these films.
This still gos on today its what i have dedicated the last 20 years of my life doing saving film history in general as well as Star Wars
.Toy collection never stopped but more important things had to also be saved and that did take up my time.
back in the 80s there was a very few of us
Jim Stevenson
was the king of the toy fairs and spent most of his time doing the toy fair in the midlands and he did find a lot, he retired to become a full time toy dealer at the time that was unheard of in sic-fi toys , but jim had worked for him self being a body repairer and saw there was enough money to pay his bills buying and selling toys and that just what he did , he never took the leap to opening a shop and preferred to just attend the big toy shows around the UK.
David Oliver
was down south and had established a shop the twilight zone early in the UK and he found lots of things including film props from being located near some of the film studios his late father was also a key person in the film industry hiring military vehicles from his amazing collection , David collected just Star Wars and must have been one of the fest ever focus collectors in the world
, being form a collection family and having the time to find things David amassed a very nice collection , i do think having to manage a show did lock I'm down a bit so it was hard for him to leave the show and go galavanting like Jim and i could do ?.Craig Stevens
was half of a two collector team , "Tich" or Gary Halvey was his collection partner and they had an agreement to co own there collection , Tich collected mostly Star Wars and Craig collected the rest of the trilogy , this continued for many years and between them they had a good collection with lots of the impotent toys that should be in a completest collection , Tich fell in love one day and the collection was his way of moving out and making a life with the person he loved who he is still with today , so Tich sold me some times that i needed that i was missing at the time , which must have been around 94 ? and the rest was sold to Craig Stevens , and as you all know now Craig has started to sell of his collection. both Craig ad Tich had day jobs in the early years of collection so could only spend there spear time on finding things.
There was a few people with some nice collections out there back then but nothing on the size of these 3/4 collectors and myself
hope that helps a little about the past of the UK collating seen back in the 80s
Jason
This is a interesting thread , and i know some of you know a little bit about me but there is quite a bit that maybe you do not knew , i have a little time tonight so i will try to give a little time line of things that may be of interest to you of my time line in the 80s collecting seen ?
1
I was bought my first Star Wars figure in 1978 Han Solo ) ( and Gary Kurtz says i was his target audience no kidding its all his fault and i keep telling him this ;-)
2
I started up a business buying and selling sic fi toys when i was 13 years old buying from car boot sales and
selling at the london comic mart around 1983 selling from my suitcase till i managed to get a traders stand. i had left school at 9 as i am dyslexic and back then there was nothing they could do :-/ right i had dealers tables at all the major events in the UK up till around 2002 ish
3
i bought my fist film production items which were the Ivor Beddows storyboard collection in around 1985 which was £500 all the money in the world for me at that time , Followed by a Darth Vader face mask later on that year that came from a Jim Henson worker £700 again everything i had at the time and i had to sell some other things off to buy it ( my fist prop ) this is when i bought the ( The Ivor Beddows Star Wars storyboard art collection )
4
i started up the UK's fist ever Sic-fi show in chestnut in 1985 i was 15 and my dad has to co sign the contact as i was underage at the time , my first event had 35 traders table and around 350 people came and it was successful and it continued for over 15 years and many many collectors attended these event and it started many of the collectors of these year from visiting these events.
5
I partnered up with a American and opened 2 retail shops over two years in the US in LA under the name ToyMasters in 1988 my partner was from the US Tim Miller how was one of the bigger traders in the US and we used to advertise in a magazine TOY SHOP at the time with double page adds and we brought in more European toys that anyone else at that time other than Mike Stanard at Toyrific how i had been in supplying for 2 years before this , i cleared more Action Man toys from the UK than anyone else in the world at that time as well as finding Star Wars stuff.
6
I researched and located many of the companies that had worked on the star wars films and kept an inventory of what they had in there archives from toy companies to prop makers every thing and anything to do with star wars my photo bill as a 17 year old was over £1000 for 3 months , i also contacted ever manufacturer of Star Wars product in the UK and visited each of them and found an amazing hall of items , prototypes , art , stories and anything relating to the proses of manufacturing. this was around 1987
7
i started up the unofficial UK Star Wars Fan club with Steven Nelms , Craig Stevens, and Andrea Swinsco who later became my wife , this ran for around 5 year and at one point had around 2000 members , yes it was the dead years of star wars . i still have all the members names and addresses
8
I bought two Darth Vader costume in 1992 both came from LFL and were used in the filming of the films one from Robert James and one from another gentleman, this story will be in a future book and i am not going to go into this more on there today, i hope you understand its a very interesting story , and by the way Robert James passed away many years ago ;-)
9
I took over the Comic Mart where i started off my toy career in around 1990 at west mister central hall running it till around 1995
10
I started to interview cast and crew of the Star Wars films with a fellow collector from France Arno, we interviewed around 200 people in 3 years so we could save there memories 1990 to 1995, Just in one day i found 28 things from the making of the films a C3P0 head, C3P0 hands, Stoomtrooper gun , contracts and unpublished photos and paperwork , i had many days like this and some days we would meet 6 people a day and find nothing for weeks then you could fine someone with one thing then a person with so much i just could not afford to buy it all and would have to come back a month later and buy the rest these were the days
11
i broke out of chestnut and I started up new collectors shows around the UK starting in Stevenage
12
I ran the fist ever Star Wars convention in Europe calling it "The Empire Day" in 1992 these were the first of there kind anywhere in the world really and started just before the men behind the mask tour that Jim latter started in the US and these events got to a size of around 1600 fans at a one day show again these was a first and where lots of new collectors get to see you could buy your childhood as a show , David Oliver had tables there as well as the other smaller traders that where around at that time.
13
I was offers screen used items from John Steers director of Special Effects on Star Wars collection 1992 , this consisted of many many blueprints the blue Tredwell robot light sabres stunt weapons stormtrooper amor parts radio controls and radio gear and many other things used to make the films , this was the ( The John Steers director of Special Effects Star Wars collection )
14
Mark Woollard a rival star wars dealer that was moving and shaking in the collectable toy industry , i thought at the time i would ether was a lot of time competing with him or just walk away from retail and spend more time running events and not triad at them ? , instead i joined up with my rival and at that time Off World was the biggest collectable retailer in Europe and no one came close to us in the way of stock and size of display at the toy fairs, and our buying power was big and we used that to grow even bigger faster. 1993
15
I joined up with Chris Malbun to run the first Action man day at Grunday park which run for around 5 years.
Chris still trades today at the NEC toy fairs and others around the UK
16
Mark and i bought a small collectors fair in Milton Keynes Marks home town at the time and now may home town 1993
17
I started to work more with Gary Kurtz in 1993 and he vouched for me as a collector and historian and gave me a letter stating such , at that point i had not even thought about becoming a historian but that was how that came about.
18
Mark Woollard wanted to open shops so we opened out first shop in Romford in around 1995 and Off world the collectors shop was born, we sold any toys from the 1970s to current toys and between us we had a vast nonage of star wars he man transformers and all the 80s cool toys, this first shop was not run by ether Mark or myself it was run by our long time employee Lesley , i think at that time we were the only dealers to have an employee all the rest were all one man band traders , we valued not having to be locked into a shop or a work place and saw if we were out and about we could do more and find more , and that has never changed to this day , i do not work 9 to 5 still and i do not have a sleep paten as some of you know by now
19
I started up a special effects company in Elstree studios called OFF WORLD EFECTS LTD with was with two partners Arnold and Bruce i got the contact to produce 18 sets of stormtrooper Armour and 4 Dark Vaders for use for touring around for 20th century Fox and LFL , i wanted to make these at the studio and we took over workshop 7 that had been LFL storage room for many years , we ran this company for around 4 years and we worked on Merlin , James Bond , Star Wars Ep1 , 5th element , Aliens trilogy tour , Star Wars European tour , just to name a few .
20
I was contacted by the Guinness Book of Records and was told that i had need nominated as having the latest collection in the world , a Dug White in Australia and two collectors in the US said that i had more than anyone else at that time , they talked to me on the phone and at the time was was in Elstree studio making touring Stormtroopers at the time 1996 they took down the wrong studio i was working in at the time and how many times i had and published it they put down Ealing Studios instead of Elstree and 25.000 items instead of the real amount 250,000 , i have to say it was not that important to me and i never bothered to correct it but that how the unfits became fact
21
we opened our second Off World Shop in Luton 1997 in the Arndale shopping centre
22 started to source and find film and Tv props for planet Hollywood and on my travels of picking would keep the best items for myself this carried on for over 7 years.
23
we opened up a collectors show in Watford
24
we made a contact in Hong Kong in 1997 and visited there to bring in directly all the new star wars figures before they were realised in the US let along the UK and sold them at Toy fairs around the UK and throughout our shops becoming one of the biggest in depend importers of star wars toys in europe severing fans and making shore we got the figures that the US shops got we did this for around 4 years.
25
i put on the first Star Wars museum exhibition in luton in around 1999
26
we opened up a collectors show in Chatham
27
we opened another shop Off Word in Dubbin in 2000
28
In 2002 10 years after located the Guns used in Star Wars at Bapty's i managed to buy all the guns that were screen used in Star Wars this was when i bought "The Bapty's Star Wars gun collection"
29
the Kurtz /joiner star wars film Archive was set up consisting of over 500,000 artefacts relating to the filming of star wars films. this is when i bought the "The Gary Kurtz collection"
30
Mark and i opened another of our shops Off World Chatham 2002
31
i started to produce a documentary film about the star wars films and interview the case and crew ofstar wars this is something i have continued to do up till today , in 2002 i took Garrick Hagon Biggs in star wars and Gary Kurtz and a team of 10 back to Tunisia this was between both gulf wars and was an adventure in its own right , we filmed for 10 days and only killed one camera. this is still in production , but there is some great stuff films so when it comes out people will be happy
32
Mark Woollard and i conceived the idea of a big show with amazing guest open for free to the public in a shopping centre that was when COLLECTORMAINA was born and over the years we managed to get the attendance up to around 300,000 people to attend over a 4 day show the largest show of its kind at the time and introduce many celebrates to there first ever public singings.
33
we opened the First London Film and Comic con 2004 the start to the latest event of its kind in europe which now has an attendance of around 80,000 to 90,000 attendance
34
i was instrumental in stoping the pr release of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, i was invoice with a sting operation with Rick Mccallum and LFL to stop a crew member releasing the film well before its officle release , Rick Mccallum took me out for lunch and drinks after the raid and later at the premier party he introduced me to George Lucas of the second time in my life , but this time he knew who i was and what i had done to save the film and at that point LFL and myself has a good working relationship
35
we opened up Collectormaina Glasgow 2005
36
we opened up Collectormaina MANCHESTER 2006
37
I started to work on a project to bring a official Star Wars convention to the UK Mark and i joined up with Darren Epstein of cards inland Master replicas a LFL licensee to try to win this license , i worked on this of a year and won the rights through Darren to put on the show , I worked on booking the venue booking the guests and most aspects of the pre show , when i started to ask for money to pay for flights and things that needed paying i found out that Darren's other company was in a lot of trouble and i found out there was a lot of money issues and it looked really bad, I informed Rick Mccallum at LFL of this and they took over the project from then , i could see the event was not going to be what it should have been and also felt that is would be best i left the project as i had been the wilstal blower on the lack of money so i left it in the good hands of LFL take over and do the best they could with Cards inc, when it was over cards inc went under and master replicas lost all there LFL Licensees , but at least i managed to make something office happen in the UK
38
we opened up Collectormaina COVENTRY 2007
39
started up a new company to run small cons called Massive events which ran Tourchwood , StarGate, Twilight , Heroes , Dr Who , PowerRangers events 2008
40
Started up sports memorabilia company and have booked guests like Mike Tyson into his only singing events in the UK as well as over 100 other sports guests 2009
41
Started up with Mark Woollard Sportsmanina a sporting dedicated signing event.
42
Elstree Empire Day 2012 the only star wars convesnion ever to take place at the legendary film studio with displays of the Kurtz /joiner Archive
43
we co organised the Official Star Trek Convention "Dstornation Star Trek" the latest trek event ever to be held in the world with over 18,000 fans in attendance , we planed and implemented all aspects of this event and built film sets and had a museum of props and costume 2012.
2012 thats enough of now , lets say currently we are quite busy
well i got a little carried away here :-/ oops sorry , i started with a little bit of 80s background and then i started to get going
well its good to get that out somewhere ? i do not think i have ever given a career time line before and there is a lot of cross over with the star wars world so maybe its of interest to someone out here ?
the dates may not be 100% guys ok this was done quickly and its start to bleary over the years , i will say i do feel that i have give quirt a few years of my life to the hobby and i do feel its been of help to some of you out there and many collectors from the past , and the main thing to have come from all this is lost and lost of Star Wars stuff and other film stuff was saved by some of the things i organised or arranged over the years , if it got someone collecting that meant the things that person collected would be safe and looked after so i do feel a lot of good and fun came from my misspent youth
sorry for the long post.
Jason
1
I was bought my first Star Wars figure in 1978 Han Solo ) ( and Gary Kurtz says i was his target audience
no kidding its all his fault and i keep telling him this ;-)2
I started up a business buying and selling sic fi toys when i was 13 years old buying from car boot sales and
selling at the london comic mart around 1983 selling from my suitcase till i managed to get a traders stand. i had left school at 9 as i am dyslexic and back then there was nothing they could do :-/ right
i had dealers tables at all the major events in the UK up till around 2002 ish 3
i bought my fist film production items which were the Ivor Beddows storyboard collection in around 1985 which was £500 all the money in the world for me at that time , Followed by a Darth Vader face mask later on that year that came from a Jim Henson worker £700 again everything i had at the time and i had to sell some other things off to buy it ( my fist prop ) this is when i bought the ( The Ivor Beddows Star Wars storyboard art collection )
4
i started up the UK's fist ever Sic-fi show in chestnut in 1985 i was 15 and my dad has to co sign the contact as i was underage at the time , my first event had 35 traders table and around 350 people came and it was successful and it continued for over 15 years and many many collectors attended these event and it started many of the collectors of these year from visiting these events.
5
I partnered up with a American and opened 2 retail shops over two years in the US in LA under the name ToyMasters in 1988 my partner was from the US Tim Miller how was one of the bigger traders in the US and we used to advertise in a magazine TOY SHOP at the time with double page adds and we brought in more European toys that anyone else at that time other than Mike Stanard at Toyrific how i had been in supplying for 2 years before this , i cleared more Action Man toys from the UK than anyone else in the world at that time as well as finding Star Wars stuff.
6
I researched and located many of the companies that had worked on the star wars films and kept an inventory of what they had in there archives from toy companies to prop makers every thing and anything to do with star wars my photo bill as a 17 year old was over £1000 for 3 months , i also contacted ever manufacturer of Star Wars product in the UK and visited each of them and found an amazing hall of items , prototypes , art , stories and anything relating to the proses of manufacturing. this was around 1987
7
i started up the unofficial UK Star Wars Fan club with Steven Nelms , Craig Stevens, and Andrea Swinsco who later became my wife
, this ran for around 5 year and at one point had around 2000 members , yes it was the dead years of star wars . i still have all the members names and addresses 8
I bought two Darth Vader costume in 1992 both came from LFL and were used in the filming of the films one from Robert James and one from another gentleman, this story will be in a future book and i am not going to go into this more on there today, i hope you understand its a very interesting story , and by the way Robert James passed away many years ago ;-)
9
I took over the Comic Mart where i started off my toy career in around 1990 at west mister central hall running it till around 1995
10
I started to interview cast and crew of the Star Wars films with a fellow collector from France Arno, we interviewed around 200 people in 3 years so we could save there memories 1990 to 1995, Just in one day i found 28 things from the making of the films a C3P0 head, C3P0 hands, Stoomtrooper gun , contracts and unpublished photos and paperwork , i had many days like this and some days we would meet 6 people a day and find nothing for weeks then you could fine someone with one thing then a person with so much i just could not afford to buy it all and would have to come back a month later and buy the rest
these were the days11
i broke out of chestnut and I started up new collectors shows around the UK starting in Stevenage
12
I ran the fist ever Star Wars convention in Europe calling it "The Empire Day" in 1992 these were the first of there kind anywhere in the world really and started just before the men behind the mask tour that Jim latter started in the US and these events got to a size of around 1600 fans at a one day show again these was a first and where lots of new collectors get to see you could buy your childhood as a show , David Oliver had tables there as well as the other smaller traders that where around at that time.
13
I was offers screen used items from John Steers director of Special Effects on Star Wars collection 1992 , this consisted of many many blueprints the blue Tredwell robot light sabres stunt weapons stormtrooper amor parts radio controls and radio gear and many other things used to make the films , this was the ( The John Steers director of Special Effects Star Wars collection )
14
Mark Woollard a rival star wars dealer that was moving and shaking in the collectable toy industry , i thought at the time i would ether was a lot of time competing with him or just walk away from retail and spend more time running events and not triad at them ? , instead i joined up with my rival and at that time Off World was the biggest collectable retailer in Europe and no one came close to us in the way of stock and size of display at the toy fairs, and our buying power was big and we used that to grow even bigger faster. 1993
15
I joined up with Chris Malbun to run the first Action man day at Grunday park which run for around 5 years.
Chris still trades today at the NEC toy fairs and others around the UK
16
Mark and i bought a small collectors fair in Milton Keynes Marks home town at the time and now may home town 1993
17
I started to work more with Gary Kurtz in 1993 and he vouched for me as a collector and historian and gave me a letter stating such , at that point i had not even thought about becoming a historian but that was how that came about.
18
Mark Woollard wanted to open shops so we opened out first shop in Romford in around 1995 and Off world the collectors shop was born, we sold any toys from the 1970s to current toys and between us we had a vast nonage of star wars he man transformers and all the 80s cool toys, this first shop was not run by ether Mark or myself it was run by our long time employee Lesley , i think at that time we were the only dealers to have an employee all the rest were all one man band traders , we valued not having to be locked into a shop or a work place and saw if we were out and about we could do more and find more , and that has never changed to this day , i do not work 9 to 5 still and i do not have a sleep paten as some of you know by now
19
I started up a special effects company in Elstree studios called OFF WORLD EFECTS LTD with was with two partners Arnold and Bruce i got the contact to produce 18 sets of stormtrooper Armour and 4 Dark Vaders for use for touring around for 20th century Fox and LFL , i wanted to make these at the studio and we took over workshop 7 that had been LFL storage room for many years , we ran this company for around 4 years and we worked on Merlin , James Bond , Star Wars Ep1 , 5th element , Aliens trilogy tour , Star Wars European tour , just to name a few .
20
I was contacted by the Guinness Book of Records and was told that i had need nominated as having the latest collection in the world , a Dug White in Australia and two collectors in the US said that i had more than anyone else at that time , they talked to me on the phone and at the time was was in Elstree studio making touring Stormtroopers at the time 1996 they took down the wrong studio i was working in at the time and how many times i had and published it
they put down Ealing Studios instead of Elstree and 25.000 items instead of the real amount 250,000 , i have to say it was not that important to me and i never bothered to correct it but that how the unfits became fact 21
we opened our second Off World Shop in Luton 1997 in the Arndale shopping centre
22 started to source and find film and Tv props for planet Hollywood and on my travels of picking would keep the best items for myself this carried on for over 7 years.
23
we opened up a collectors show in Watford
24
we made a contact in Hong Kong in 1997 and visited there to bring in directly all the new star wars figures before they were realised in the US let along the UK and sold them at Toy fairs around the UK and throughout our shops becoming one of the biggest in depend importers of star wars toys in europe severing fans and making shore we got the figures that the US shops got we did this for around 4 years.
25
i put on the first Star Wars museum exhibition in luton in around 1999
26
we opened up a collectors show in Chatham
27
we opened another shop Off Word in Dubbin in 2000
28
In 2002 10 years after located the Guns used in Star Wars at Bapty's i managed to buy all the guns that were screen used in Star Wars this was when i bought "The Bapty's Star Wars gun collection"
29
the Kurtz /joiner star wars film Archive was set up consisting of over 500,000 artefacts relating to the filming of star wars films. this is when i bought the "The Gary Kurtz collection"
30
Mark and i opened another of our shops Off World Chatham 2002
31
i started to produce a documentary film about the star wars films and interview the case and crew ofstar wars this is something i have continued to do up till today , in 2002 i took Garrick Hagon Biggs in star wars and Gary Kurtz and a team of 10 back to Tunisia this was between both gulf wars and was an adventure in its own right , we filmed for 10 days and only killed one camera. this is still in production , but there is some great stuff films so when it comes out people will be happy
32
Mark Woollard and i conceived the idea of a big show with amazing guest open for free to the public in a shopping centre that was when COLLECTORMAINA was born and over the years we managed to get the attendance up to around 300,000 people to attend over a 4 day show the largest show of its kind at the time and introduce many celebrates to there first ever public singings.
33
we opened the First London Film and Comic con 2004 the start to the latest event of its kind in europe which now has an attendance of around 80,000 to 90,000 attendance
34
i was instrumental in stoping the pr release of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, i was invoice with a sting operation with Rick Mccallum and LFL to stop a crew member releasing the film well before its officle release , Rick Mccallum took me out for lunch and drinks after the raid and later at the premier party he introduced me to George Lucas of the second time in my life , but this time he knew who i was and what i had done to save the film and at that point LFL and myself has a good working relationship
35
we opened up Collectormaina Glasgow 2005
36
we opened up Collectormaina MANCHESTER 2006
37
I started to work on a project to bring a official Star Wars convention to the UK Mark and i joined up with Darren Epstein of cards inland Master replicas a LFL licensee to try to win this license , i worked on this of a year and won the rights through Darren to put on the show , I worked on booking the venue booking the guests and most aspects of the pre show , when i started to ask for money to pay for flights and things that needed paying i found out that Darren's other company was in a lot of trouble and i found out there was a lot of money issues and it looked really bad, I informed Rick Mccallum at LFL of this and they took over the project from then , i could see the event was not going to be what it should have been and also felt that is would be best i left the project as i had been the wilstal blower on the lack of money so i left it in the good hands of LFL take over and do the best they could with Cards inc, when it was over cards inc went under and master replicas lost all there LFL Licensees , but at least i managed to make something office happen in the UK
38
we opened up Collectormaina COVENTRY 2007
39
started up a new company to run small cons called Massive events which ran Tourchwood , StarGate, Twilight , Heroes , Dr Who , PowerRangers events 2008
40
Started up sports memorabilia company and have booked guests like Mike Tyson into his only singing events in the UK as well as over 100 other sports guests 2009
41
Started up with Mark Woollard Sportsmanina a sporting dedicated signing event.
42
Elstree Empire Day 2012 the only star wars convesnion ever to take place at the legendary film studio with displays of the Kurtz /joiner Archive
43
we co organised the Official Star Trek Convention "Dstornation Star Trek" the latest trek event ever to be held in the world with over 18,000 fans in attendance , we planed and implemented all aspects of this event and built film sets and had a museum of props and costume 2012.
2012 thats enough of now , lets say currently we are quite busy
well i got a little carried away here :-/ oops sorry , i started with a little bit of 80s background and then i started to get going
well its good to get that out somewhere ? i do not think i have ever given a career time line before and there is a lot of cross over with the star wars world so maybe its of interest to someone out here ?
the dates may not be 100% guys ok this was done quickly and its start to bleary over the years , i will say i do feel that i have give quirt a few years of my life to the hobby and i do feel its been of help to some of you out there and many collectors from the past , and the main thing to have come from all this is lost and lost of Star Wars stuff and other film stuff was saved by some of the things i organised or arranged over the years , if it got someone collecting that meant the things that person collected would be safe and looked after so i do feel a lot of good and fun came from my misspent youth
sorry for the long post.
Jason
jedisearcher
Sith Lord
- Joined
- Feb 26, 2012
- Messages
- 1,450
Nice stuff Jason..
Re the earlier post, I remember the guy in the corn exchange as well. He never had anything like the VCJs when I went, but he was a nice guy to talk to. I remember turning up one day and it was closed, apparently he'd gone running of to Portugal chasing a factory find of trilogos. Another time I turned up and it had closed down with no notice which I was gutted shout at the time.
Think the was a shop upstairs with Scifi stuff and modern SW as well.
Re the earlier post, I remember the guy in the corn exchange as well. He never had anything like the VCJs when I went, but he was a nice guy to talk to. I remember turning up one day and it was closed, apparently he'd gone running of to Portugal chasing a factory find of trilogos. Another time I turned up and it had closed down with no notice which I was gutted shout at the time.
Think the was a shop upstairs with Scifi stuff and modern SW as well.
grinchy
Sith Lord
Very interesting thread thanks for all the info, loving the history of this hobby of ours
So good to read those two posts about the history of it all.
I went to one of those Cheshunt fairs back in around 1998... having regained the collecting bug at Uni a few years earlier by hunting through boot fairs a shop called Merv's in Bicester and stalls in the basement at Greys Antiques on Bond St.
I seem to remember a few signings on the day including Ken Colley, Rick Macallum and I think Declan Mulholland amongst others. I bought a piece of the Episode 1 set that day (thinking it would be the most valuable thing ever #trash) and regretted not bidding or even trying to win the original massive blueprint of R2 that was auctioned off at a crazy low price in today's market.
I went to one of those Cheshunt fairs back in around 1998... having regained the collecting bug at Uni a few years earlier by hunting through boot fairs a shop called Merv's in Bicester and stalls in the basement at Greys Antiques on Bond St.
I seem to remember a few signings on the day including Ken Colley, Rick Macallum and I think Declan Mulholland amongst others. I bought a piece of the Episode 1 set that day (thinking it would be the most valuable thing ever #trash) and regretted not bidding or even trying to win the original massive blueprint of R2 that was auctioned off at a crazy low price in today's market.
sith-smith
Grand Master
- Joined
- Oct 25, 2006
- Messages
- 7,589
I started hitting carboots in the early 90's. Then discovered the twilight Zone in Tunbridge well. Got to know David Oliver fairly well.
Didn't discover shows like Cheshunt until 99. Wish I had earlier. Went there for years.
It's always interesting seeing how collecting developed both personally and nationally
Didn't discover shows like Cheshunt until 99. Wish I had earlier. Went there for years.
It's always interesting seeing how collecting developed both personally and nationally
