As another collecting story;
As a kid I played on the garden continuously. I lost so many things, that one entertainment I had was to make "digs" in search of lost soldiers, vehicles, etc (usually in 1/72 scale). I found in my digs a rat skull, some teeth (of a dog, I hope!) and so many soldiers as to fill boxes with them. In one of those, I found Charbroil's helmet, at first I had forgotten it was his, but after a quick check up with the catalogue, the mystery was resolved
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Also; one day in summer I was tired, just before the summer holiday break. So instead of finishing work, I went cycling. I ended up in a old toyshop, and surprise, they had old European Forces bootlegs, at 3 $ a piece, I bought all the ones he had. I managed to trade them for joe merchandise of around 900 $! and managed to get very rare Joes for my collection I wouldn't have been able to.
And the most recent one; I bought a lot from eBay with some GI Joes, bootlegs, etc. When it arrived, I saw the seller had given me two free figures with a missing arm that were not in the listing, I guess he didn't want to picture them so people didn't think the figures were broken, or found them later. One of them was the super rare Randon (red Dial-tone bootleg), which after a forearm operation, stands proudly in my collection (as I collect everything loose, I don't keep what comes in blister usually).
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See all my customs in high resolution on my blog;
http://cobrafactor.blogspot.com/
