@countdouglas said:
Oh wow! This takes me back! I'll admit it, I had a passion for the SLUs back in the day, and still own way more than you should ever mention today in polite conversation to unsuspecting adults! Haha!
I remember when they first came out, while I would be envious over whatever star, super or semi, that my friends would have, I would only ever see the leftovers hanging up at the local Wal-Mart. Heck, even my 8 year old cousin, who couldn't have cared less, somehow scored an 88 Gwynn and Saberhagen from his birthday party that he had ripped open and displayed on his shelf. My choices would always be the likes of Glenn Davis or Mickey Tettleton or Dave Stieb or Steve Buechele, so I would rarely buy any at retail prices. I'd have to go to the local card shop, or card show, or hope a friend somehow picked up a few extras. I had an 88 Brett, an 89 Bo Jackson, 91 David Robinson, and a few others that I bought here and there at roughly "book value" prices, and had left all of them intact on the card. I liked them immensely, but it was impossible to find the players that I wanted to collect, so didn't really get that involved with them.
That changed in 1992. I just happened to be in the Kmart when they were setting out some of the 92 football pieces. I started loading up my cart with Emmitt and Barry and Thurman, and then Joe and Jerry, and also Dan and Derrick. I was about to leave, when the clerk casually mentioned that there was also some basketball in the back, but they were just waiting for there some vacant shelf space... and since I'd just created some, they were going to ahead and put those out, too. So into the cart went Larry and Magic, David and Dikembe, Charles and John, Michael warming up and Michael driving...I had become the guy that just a couple of years earlier that I would curse at under my breath. The college town that I was living in at the time also had 3 Wal-Marts, a Target, a Toys R Us standalone store on one side of town, as well as one connected to the mall on the other side of town. The mall also had a Kaybee, and for some reason, the shoe stores and music stores in the mall would also occasionally get a case of SLUs in. I started figuring out where and when to go to keep me in stock with the desirable pieces.
Back in my hometown, one of my friends owned a sporting goods store that sat in the strip mall connected to the Wal-Mart there. We had maintained a symbiotic relationship for some time, where I would swing by and hang out and "work" (mostly just sit there watching WGN or ESPN, making sure nobody was tempted to steal while he went in the back to get shoes for people to try on) for him when I had time. He wouldn't pay me, but in return, he gave me an 8 foot glass display case in his store that I could use to sell my cards and collectibles. Anyway, from 92 to about 96, probably half of the case was devoted to SLUs. I'd buy them for roughly $6 each, and routinely get $25-$50+ each in return for them. My friend also did a lot of business with trophies and plaques and medals, so I'd provide the cards and he'd put together various incarnations that were similar to what you'd see in the stores back then, with the wood backing and engraved name plate. He put a few monstrosities together that must have been 2'x3', with a 5"x7" photo, a couple cards, and an intact starting lineup package affixed to it, for like $99 or something crazy, and even then, they'd sell rather quickly. In 1993 and 1994, with those Chiefs teams we had with Joe and Marcus and Derrick and Neil, my friend literally started getting tendinitis from all the engraving he was doing during the Christmas season making the various incarnations of plaques people were requesting...remember, this was also the height of the junk wax and Jordan and Pippen, Griffey and Frank Thomas, the Cowboys Triplets. He'd created more business making those plaques than anything the county fair or wrestling tournaments, etc, would ever generate for him. Boom times!
Anyway, I digress... while I still have probably 400+ SLUs still on the card packed away in boxes, and likewise, at least 50 McFarlanes, I likely sold at least 3 times that many figurines over the years at ridiculous markup. Of course now, the ones that I have left, you can't give away. But that's ok...I still love 'em and dig them out from time to time.
One thing I want to mention, and my memory may be a bit off, so feel free to correct me, but there was a slight overlap between the SLUs and McFarlanes. In reaction to the complaints that the SLUs were too generic looking, there was a year or 2 where they produced a second generation figure that was an inch or 2 bigger and more detailed, and packaged as "Starting Lineup 2" at maybe $2 more in price than the originals. At the same time, MacFarlane released a handful of figurines of MLB players without the licensing agreement so they didn't have logos or team names. I recall seeing Bonds and A-Rod, and thinking those would be cool if they ever corrected the generic uniform problem. They were priced a couple dollars more even than the SLU 2s. I believe the very next year, Kenner lost the MLB license to McFarlane, and that was that. Kenner may have released an NFL issue still, or some collegiate superstar issues, but with the loss of the MLB license, they quickly circled the drain.
Ahhhh, the things we collect... the things we remember... and the things we forget... until someone jogs your memory with a random old thread!
Great story. I still collect, never stopped, maybe only slowed down a bit in the mid 2000s, but I have been heavy into them again the past five years I would say. I would estimate around 8,000 to 10,000 figures in my collection. I have things other collectors didn't even know existed.
These are photos from some time ago, and the only ones I have on my phone. Most of my figurines are boxed up, but I'll try to dig some out later tonight or tomorrow and snap a few pics.
Well, I dug through most of the boxes and pulled a good variety of stars across all of the sports to show you. I have hundreds more besides these. Most of the pieces that I own are well known stars, but I do have a few Jason Kendall, Chad Curtis, Ray Lankford type guys, too. Some of these pieces have been packed away for 10 or more years, so it was a neat trip back in the time machine to take a look at these. I hope you get as much enjoyment viewing them as I did!
As a bit of an aside, to those who perhaps don't know the McFarlane back story, I believe that he made his initial fortune off of the S.P.A.W.N. comic book series, and then a movie, and then a release of S.P.A.W.N. action figures. I want to say that this was in 1993, as a college classmate of mine was chasing those figures as fervently as I was chasing the SLUs. I admit the hypocrisy up front, but I thought those S.P.A.W.N. figures were "the stupidest thing ever", and not something a grown man should be involved with! Haha! Anyway, even at that time, I believe McFarlane was using the variant gimmick, as my friend would try to describe to me all of the reasons why this piece was so much more valuable when compared to that one. He made a lot of money off of reselling those, but I never "understood" the attraction to those ugly things. Again, I am aware of the irony.
Then, at some point, McFarlane started making figures representing actual people, including the members of K.I.S.S. and Elvis Presley (not sure of the timeline on Elvis, it may have been after the sports licenses). By this time, McFarlane was massively wealthy, to the point that he was buying up the milestone homerun baseballs of McGwire and Sosa during the summer of 1998. He had most all of the homerun balls in the 60s from both guys, if I remember correctly, as well as a few in the 50s, and of course, #70. He set up a traveling walkthrough display that included all of the balls, I believe the next year in 1999, that went around to the various MLB stadiums. I remember visiting at Kauffman Stadium, but don't recall if there was a fee. I am thinking no.
So, McFarlane, with an insane amount of money to blow, a natural love of sports, and a factory with the means of production and the cutting edge technology to produce realistic facial features, as well as established toy distribution channels, it was only a matter of time, in hindsight, that he got into the manufacturing of sports figurines. I'm pretty sure that he first released about a 6 or 8 player series of baseball stars, but without any official MLB logos. I'm sure that I recall Bonds and A-Rod at the local Wal-Mart, for sure, perhaps Juan Gonzales and Jose Canseco, and some others, too, I think. I remember immediately being blown away at the realism, and thinking of they ever got the official licensing agreement, they would absolutely destroy SLUs in direct competition. The only drawbacks were, number 1, price, as I want to say that they were initially about $12 each, while SLUs were $7 or $8 at that time. The second problem, was the size. As someone that already had hundreds of SLUs at home, and had a limited space in an 8 foot glass case to sell them, so with the extra investment cost and additional usage of limited space, they better freaking sell, and quickly, or it would not be worth dipping my toes into that. I picked up quite a few of the Ichiro and Pujols figures that first year, and it turned out they were some of the hottest things going that year. I believe there were variant pieces even at that time, but don't recall ever owning anything but the common pieces of those 2. Overall, they never really justified me investing time and money in them to resell, so from then on, I mostly just picked up pieces that I liked for my personal enjoyment.
Anyway, Curch, thanks for bringing this thread up. You've awoken memories that were buried deep. I read your article, and your collection is impressive. I never personally got into chasing the really rare pieces, especially of the common no name players, but that seems to have paid off handsomely for you. I do have a few of the Rodman pieces with various colored hair (no soccer ball). I believe I have an opened 89 Gwynn somewhere, and maybe a few semi rare football from the 88 and 89 that are opened. I didn't even begin to go looking last night through the opened figures that I have. They're not organized in any kind of way. I'd guess that I have maybe 250-300 opened in addition to the 400+ still on card. While there are some super-superstars included amongst the opened figures, most are of the Frank Viola, Chris Sabo, Mark Grace, Eric Rhett type guys.
I just did a search, and the initial McFarlane figures were Bonds, A-Rod, Manny Ramirez, Chipper Jones, and, OF COURSE!!!, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa! With the homerun chase, and all of the homerun balls McFarlane had purchased, that only makes too much sense.
Hmmm, one of these things is not like the others, one of these things just doesn't belong... but whose to say we don't eventually find out something about him, too?
I have about 100 SLUs that have been repainted by a friend as various University of Michigan football players from over the last 50 years (one shown in my profile picture). I have saved the baseball ones I bought as a kid, but love all of U of M favorites throughout the years. I would add some pictures if I knew how!
Seller ALFLAIR on eBay. for many vintage PSA and raw card sales. PSA Set Registry OldEnglishD with various sets including 71 Fleer Globetrotters, 71 Topps Football, and 64 Topps Standups. Also under FarFars (various sets) on the registry.
@OldEnglishD5 said:
I have about 100 SLUs that have been repainted by a friend as various University of Michigan football players from over the last 50 years (one shown in my profile picture). I have saved the baseball ones I bought as a kid, but love all of U of M favorites throughout the years. I would add some pictures if I knew how!
I've seen some really nice customized pieces over the years, and some are really cool. I would be interested in seeing a few photos.
I admit, I had trouble figuring out how to post photos at first. I post from my phone, and I don't know if there's a more efficient way, but I click on the little portrait icon, then click on choose file, then documents, then select "photos" from the menu, then choose the actual photo. It takes a few seconds to download, and you'll see an http etc. I then select preview, and the photo will appear for verification. If that's the one you want, and you want to add additional photos, then select edit. Repeat the process until you have all desired photos added. I had to do one photo at a time. There may be a more efficient way, where you can load all of the photos in one shot, but I am not quite brilliant enough to figure it out. If you'd like to add text between the photos, just make sure to select edit at the appropriate times, add your comment, and then select the portrait icon again, and carry on. I hope this helps, and again, I'd love to see some photos of your customized pieces.
Also, if anyone else has more proficiency in posting photos, and there's a better way, please share.
McFarlane also produced some mini or micro figurines that were the exact same pose a the full sized counterparts. I believe they were usually packaged with at least one other figure, and sometimes as many as 6 per package. The 2-packs were around $4 if I remember correctly. I only bought the one with Duncan and Yao Ming. They had those smaller figures for all sports, but I'm not sure how many years they did that.
Seller ALFLAIR on eBay. for many vintage PSA and raw card sales. PSA Set Registry OldEnglishD with various sets including 71 Fleer Globetrotters, 71 Topps Football, and 64 Topps Standups. Also under FarFars (various sets) on the registry.
That's cool! I really like the last one that depicts a play with a couple guys moving in for the tackle.
You know, I've really come to appreciate the aspects of the collectibles hobby that is a bit out of the mainstream. The way people personalize their collections and come up with things I'd never have thought of otherwise, like mouschi making his own relic and autograph cards, etc, the guy that cuts up junk wax to make just gorgeous mosaics of iconic cards, and now someone who customizes the figurines to depict icons of his favorite college team. Like I said, I've heard of other customizations, but I'm not sure I've actually seen more than maybe one or 2, and certainly didn't expect someone to have 50! Awesome!
I've been in the process of moving, but I have others that depict multiple players which I can get some pictures of soon. Those are easily my favorite ones as well.
Seller ALFLAIR on eBay. for many vintage PSA and raw card sales. PSA Set Registry OldEnglishD with various sets including 71 Fleer Globetrotters, 71 Topps Football, and 64 Topps Standups. Also under FarFars (various sets) on the registry.
Kay-Bees back in the mid 90's would be a place to find older
SLU's. I bought all of the Ripkens plus a few others. One Saturday
they were setting out soccer SLU's and I bought several dozen.
Still have what I bought especially the Ripkens. Is there an on-line
site that shows values for SLU's and McFarlanes? OT, they also
had discounts on older cards, I bought '91 Stadium fb both series.
I bought 4-5 boxes of each.
Jeff Clow writes, "If I wanted to start a portfolio today with $500, here's what I'd buy, two 88 Nolan Ryan's, two Griffey sliding, two 88 Ripken's, two 88 Yount's, three 88 Birds and two 88 Magic's". "I'd venture to guess that this model portfolio will outperform stocks and bonds for the next ten years, there is still an investment that you can get in on the ground floor. Let's call it the Kenner CD."
Successful coin BST transactions with Gerard and segoja.
Successful card BST transactions with cbcnow, brogurt, gstarling, Bravesfan 007, and rajah 424.
@Tibor said:
Kay-Bees back in the mid 90's would be a place to find older
SLU's. I bought all of the Ripkens plus a few others. One Saturday
they were setting out soccer SLU's and I bought several dozen.
Still have what I bought especially the Ripkens. Is there an on-line
site that shows values for SLU's and McFarlanes? OT, they also
had discounts on older cards, I bought '91 Stadium fb both series.
I bought 4-5 boxes of each.
eBay completed may be your best source, although sometimes that can be off.
Jeff Clow writes, "If I wanted to start a portfolio today with $500, here's what I'd buy, two 88 Nolan Ryan's, two Griffey sliding, two 88 Ripken's, two 88 Yount's, three 88 Birds and two 88 Magic's". "I'd venture to guess that this model portfolio will outperform stocks and bonds for the next ten years, there is still an investment that you can get in on the ground floor. Let's call it the Kenner CD."
He was wrong! He should have invested in regional released players, not all stars!
@kingnascar said:
My NASCAR SLU's are some of my favorite items in my NASCAR collection
I remember back in the early 90's one had no trouble selling the Jeff Gordon's for $25-$30, and the Dale Sr's for $35 -$40. Jeff was considered the Tom Cruise of Nascar for that time. Dealers would "raid" the local outlets for the Nascar SLU's and double/triple their dollars with their markup at a weekend show. Nascar collectibles were really hot in the 90's.
Successful transactions:Tookybandit. "Everyone is equal, some are more equal than others".
Comments
Great story. I still collect, never stopped, maybe only slowed down a bit in the mid 2000s, but I have been heavy into them again the past five years I would say. I would estimate around 8,000 to 10,000 figures in my collection. I have things other collectors didn't even know existed.
Wow - and thought I had too many at over 100 in containers in the back of the house.
I know Fernando looked to the heavens with his delivery but isn't that just a little over the top???
The SLUs were the original cool sports figures.
would love to see stones or count douglas pics....10,000?? crazy!..thats a feature article
These are photos from some time ago, and the only ones I have on my phone. Most of my figurines are boxed up, but I'll try to dig some out later tonight or tomorrow and snap a few pics.
This is the only article I can find right now
http://www.mademan.com/?s=Joe+curcio
My NASCAR SLU's are some of my favorite items in my NASCAR collection
Kingnascar's PSA Sets
Kingnascar's PSADNA Sets
Well, I dug through most of the boxes and pulled a good variety of stars across all of the sports to show you. I have hundreds more besides these. Most of the pieces that I own are well known stars, but I do have a few Jason Kendall, Chad Curtis, Ray Lankford type guys, too. Some of these pieces have been packed away for 10 or more years, so it was a neat trip back in the time machine to take a look at these. I hope you get as much enjoyment viewing them as I did!
Awesome! So glad I brought this thread back to life!
As a bit of an aside, to those who perhaps don't know the McFarlane back story, I believe that he made his initial fortune off of the S.P.A.W.N. comic book series, and then a movie, and then a release of S.P.A.W.N. action figures. I want to say that this was in 1993, as a college classmate of mine was chasing those figures as fervently as I was chasing the SLUs. I admit the hypocrisy up front, but I thought those S.P.A.W.N. figures were "the stupidest thing ever", and not something a grown man should be involved with! Haha! Anyway, even at that time, I believe McFarlane was using the variant gimmick, as my friend would try to describe to me all of the reasons why this piece was so much more valuable when compared to that one. He made a lot of money off of reselling those, but I never "understood" the attraction to those ugly things. Again, I am aware of the irony.
Then, at some point, McFarlane started making figures representing actual people, including the members of K.I.S.S. and Elvis Presley (not sure of the timeline on Elvis, it may have been after the sports licenses). By this time, McFarlane was massively wealthy, to the point that he was buying up the milestone homerun baseballs of McGwire and Sosa during the summer of 1998. He had most all of the homerun balls in the 60s from both guys, if I remember correctly, as well as a few in the 50s, and of course, #70. He set up a traveling walkthrough display that included all of the balls, I believe the next year in 1999, that went around to the various MLB stadiums. I remember visiting at Kauffman Stadium, but don't recall if there was a fee. I am thinking no.
So, McFarlane, with an insane amount of money to blow, a natural love of sports, and a factory with the means of production and the cutting edge technology to produce realistic facial features, as well as established toy distribution channels, it was only a matter of time, in hindsight, that he got into the manufacturing of sports figurines. I'm pretty sure that he first released about a 6 or 8 player series of baseball stars, but without any official MLB logos. I'm sure that I recall Bonds and A-Rod at the local Wal-Mart, for sure, perhaps Juan Gonzales and Jose Canseco, and some others, too, I think. I remember immediately being blown away at the realism, and thinking of they ever got the official licensing agreement, they would absolutely destroy SLUs in direct competition. The only drawbacks were, number 1, price, as I want to say that they were initially about $12 each, while SLUs were $7 or $8 at that time. The second problem, was the size. As someone that already had hundreds of SLUs at home, and had a limited space in an 8 foot glass case to sell them, so with the extra investment cost and additional usage of limited space, they better freaking sell, and quickly, or it would not be worth dipping my toes into that. I picked up quite a few of the Ichiro and Pujols figures that first year, and it turned out they were some of the hottest things going that year. I believe there were variant pieces even at that time, but don't recall ever owning anything but the common pieces of those 2. Overall, they never really justified me investing time and money in them to resell, so from then on, I mostly just picked up pieces that I liked for my personal enjoyment.
Anyway, Curch, thanks for bringing this thread up. You've awoken memories that were buried deep. I read your article, and your collection is impressive. I never personally got into chasing the really rare pieces, especially of the common no name players, but that seems to have paid off handsomely for you. I do have a few of the Rodman pieces with various colored hair (no soccer ball). I believe I have an opened 89 Gwynn somewhere, and maybe a few semi rare football from the 88 and 89 that are opened. I didn't even begin to go looking last night through the opened figures that I have. They're not organized in any kind of way. I'd guess that I have maybe 250-300 opened in addition to the 400+ still on card. While there are some super-superstars included amongst the opened figures, most are of the Frank Viola, Chris Sabo, Mark Grace, Eric Rhett type guys.
I just did a search, and the initial McFarlane figures were Bonds, A-Rod, Manny Ramirez, Chipper Jones, and, OF COURSE!!!, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa! With the homerun chase, and all of the homerun balls McFarlane had purchased, that only makes too much sense.
Hmmm, one of these things is not like the others, one of these things just doesn't belong... but whose to say we don't eventually find out something about him, too?
I have about 100 SLUs that have been repainted by a friend as various University of Michigan football players from over the last 50 years (one shown in my profile picture). I have saved the baseball ones I bought as a kid, but love all of U of M favorites throughout the years. I would add some pictures if I knew how!
Awesome, glad you got to read the article. Here is a short video I did with NFL Films about Starting Lineup.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Os4e_u3yBvU
Enjoy! They really are the best!
I've seen some really nice customized pieces over the years, and some are really cool. I would be interested in seeing a few photos.
I admit, I had trouble figuring out how to post photos at first. I post from my phone, and I don't know if there's a more efficient way, but I click on the little portrait icon, then click on choose file, then documents, then select "photos" from the menu, then choose the actual photo. It takes a few seconds to download, and you'll see an http etc. I then select preview, and the photo will appear for verification. If that's the one you want, and you want to add additional photos, then select edit. Repeat the process until you have all desired photos added. I had to do one photo at a time. There may be a more efficient way, where you can load all of the photos in one shot, but I am not quite brilliant enough to figure it out. If you'd like to add text between the photos, just make sure to select edit at the appropriate times, add your comment, and then select the portrait icon again, and carry on. I hope this helps, and again, I'd love to see some photos of your customized pieces.
Also, if anyone else has more proficiency in posting photos, and there's a better way, please share.
McFarlane also produced some mini or micro figurines that were the exact same pose a the full sized counterparts. I believe they were usually packaged with at least one other figure, and sometimes as many as 6 per package. The 2-packs were around $4 if I remember correctly. I only bought the one with Duncan and Yao Ming. They had those smaller figures for all sports, but I'm not sure how many years they did that.
I think I've figured it out. Here are a couple.
That's cool! I really like the last one that depicts a play with a couple guys moving in for the tackle.
You know, I've really come to appreciate the aspects of the collectibles hobby that is a bit out of the mainstream. The way people personalize their collections and come up with things I'd never have thought of otherwise, like mouschi making his own relic and autograph cards, etc, the guy that cuts up junk wax to make just gorgeous mosaics of iconic cards, and now someone who customizes the figurines to depict icons of his favorite college team. Like I said, I've heard of other customizations, but I'm not sure I've actually seen more than maybe one or 2, and certainly didn't expect someone to have 50! Awesome!
I've been in the process of moving, but I have others that depict multiple players which I can get some pictures of soon. Those are easily my favorite ones as well.
Kay-Bees back in the mid 90's would be a place to find older
SLU's. I bought all of the Ripkens plus a few others. One Saturday
they were setting out soccer SLU's and I bought several dozen.
Still have what I bought especially the Ripkens. Is there an on-line
site that shows values for SLU's and McFarlanes? OT, they also
had discounts on older cards, I bought '91 Stadium fb both series.
I bought 4-5 boxes of each.
How have these done investment wise?
Jeff Clow writes, "If I wanted to start a portfolio today with $500, here's what I'd buy, two 88 Nolan Ryan's, two Griffey sliding, two 88 Ripken's, two 88 Yount's, three 88 Birds and two 88 Magic's". "I'd venture to guess that this model portfolio will outperform stocks and bonds for the next ten years, there is still an investment that you can get in on the ground floor. Let's call it the Kenner CD."
Successful card BST transactions with cbcnow, brogurt, gstarling, Bravesfan 007, and rajah 424.
eBay completed may be your best source, although sometimes that can be off.
He was wrong! He should have invested in regional released players, not all stars!
I remember back in the early 90's one had no trouble selling the Jeff Gordon's for $25-$30, and the Dale Sr's for $35 -$40. Jeff was considered the Tom Cruise of Nascar for that time. Dealers would "raid" the local outlets for the Nascar SLU's and double/triple their dollars with their markup at a weekend show. Nascar collectibles were really hot in the 90's.