The shared nerd urge…
…is flipping through some old comic or magazine and looking at the ads, seeing some ridiculously cool thing for what seems to modern eyes an incredibly cheap price, and wishing, even for just a moment, that access was had to a time machine that we may whisk away to the past and, say, not rescue President Kennedy or kill Hitler, but instead obtain said item for such a paltry and affordable sum:
This ad in a Famous Monsters of Filmland from 1966 triggered that response in me, even though 1) I’d never shown much skill or enthusiasm for model making; 2) while I did enjoy The Munsters, I can’t say I’m enough of a fan to collect Munsters ephemera; and 3) seriously, I don’t need any more crap cluttering up the house, obtained via time travel or not. (Except more Swamp Thing stuff…that’s not crap.) But..darned if that’s not a pretty neat-looking model kit,
Of course, if one were to travel through time to buy collectible merchandise, you’d better have era-appropriate money. Don’t know that I could find a whole lot of 1966 paper money floating around, but I could probably scrape together two bucks’ worth of 1966 quarters right quick. Or I could write a check, I guess, but that’d be one hell of a post-date on it if I’d want it to clear. I wouldn’t want to write a bad check, because what kind of time traveler bounces a bad check written on a non-yet-existing account on some unsuspecting merchant in the past? The dick kind, that’s who.
But perhaps I digress.
This particular model kit has been reissued
But perhaps I digress again.
Here are some shots of the original model kit, which notes that one collectible guide lists the item at $1,200. Well, that $20 sounds a little better to me already.
I like the detail in one of the photos there (and obscured in the ad above) that Herman is actually on the TV, implying they’re watching a show about themselves. Well, it’s a little early for the “reality TV” craze, but I suspect, perhaps Herman turned up in the local news often enough that odds were you turned on the TV, there he was.
Anyway, the Munsters Hobby Kit. Pretty neat. Probably coveted by time travelers. Think about it, won’t you?
I wouldn’t have nearly as much trouble- I used to own one of these when I was 6 years old! All I’d have to do is go back in time to my own house, wait till I went to bed (ooh, paradox!) then grab the model kit.
I don’t know what happened to it now, so it’s possible that some alternate reality me has already done this.
I JUST ordered the Polar Lights reissue from Amazon! Like two days ago!!
The ‘real bunny rabbit ears’ antenna is what creeps me out. What did they do to a poor rabbit to make him into an antenna?
Whenever I see an old ad like that I automatically translate the price into comic books of the period. 1966 would be 12 cents a comic (and man, could you have bought some good ones in 1966), so that’s 16.5 comics. At today’s prices, even using the increasingly-less-common $3/comic, that’s about $50. No thank you, I’m going to buying some great Kirby and Ditko comics from Marvel and a whole bunch of DC comics with go-go checks.
I’m pretty excited for the reissue of the Superboy and Krypto model kit later this summer. One of my absolute favorite things from childhood.
http://www.entertainmentearth.com/prodinfo.asp?number=MM478
So you’d like to be Jefty from Harlan Ellison’s “Jefty Is Five” — without, you know, the whole being five years old forever thing.
I’ve given the whole time travel/money thing some thought. Go back in time earlier than the stuff you want to buy is. Set up a bank account. Bring back some cheap crap from today that would be mad-expensive and exotic, to say 1920’s people… something like dollar store digital watches. Sell them to people for 5K+ each. deposit in bank. Jump forward. Buy stuff.
Although I’m sure there’s better ways to abuse time travel.
No, really, the time travel/money route is close, but what you really want to do is go further back and set up a time travel/land scheme. Instead of digital watches (which would CLEARLY wreak havoc with the time-space continuum), grab some beads, moonshine and wool blankets laden with smallpox. I’m thinking late 1700’s. You could snag the whole Louisiana Purchase territory and west coast for a song. Then travel back to the present, walk into your local small claims court, present the land deed and buy every 60’s vinyl model kit on eBay for the next five years!