*****We finished building our auction site earlier than expected, so we have opened up bidding. The auction ends Friday June 29, 2007. It's fast and easy to register & bid. If you have already registered for previous ITPC auctions and have forgotten your User ID or Password, just contact us and we'll forward you your information. We also have made some changes to the site that we think will make your visit easier and faster to navigate. We have new Search tools to narrow down what you are looking for. Let us know what you think or if you have any suggestions to improve the site.
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Follow-Up- We would like to follow up on last week's article written by Joe Marasco (great stuff-Joe). We recently purchased off of Ebay an article that appeared in a 1964 Hockey Magazine (may have been Hockey Illustrated). The article was written by Larry Fox and dealt with of all things- the Bobbing Head craze of the 60's.
In the article, Mr. Fox interviewed Jim Redmond- the treasurer of Sportservice Corporation, which handled the vending stands at various hockey arenas and other sports venues in the 60's. In talking about bobbing heads, Mr. Redmond said, "We understand it's the fourth leading novelty seller in any rink. We started in this (bobbing heads) with our own dolls in baseball about four years ago. Then about three years ago we bought out the Bobbie Doll Corp from the Los Angeles Rams, of all people, and we got the rights to the pro football teams. We make our football deals with the two professional leagues (remember there was the AFL back then) and buy baseball rights from the teams. We also pay royalties to the hockey teams for their rights".
"On a good day the dolls can make up 5 per cent of our gross," chimes Joe Misley, concessions manager of Madison Square Garden in the 60's.
The article goes on to talk about the individual player dolls made in baseball (Mantle, Maris & Mays- no mention of the Clemente doll) and the remote possibility of the company making a Bobby Hull doll (too bad it never came to fruition). Redmond was again quoted saying, "Our top hockey seller is the Chicago Black Hawks, and if we ever start with hockey players, Bobby Hull will probably be the first".
Redmond went on to say that the typical doll purchaser is "an adult who buys one for the kids at home, but the kid never gets to play with the doll because it ends up on the mantle". So even back in the early 60's, adults were enamored with bobbing heads. It's a fascinating article that gives us a little behind the scenes background to the little guys that have remained so popular more than 40 years after their inception.
If anyone would like a copy of the article, just drop us an email and we'll scan it over to you.