Memorial Day message: Today we celebrate Memorial Day in the United States. Many of us will usher in the unofficial beginning of summer with barbeques, picnics and visits to the beach. It would be nice if even for just one minute we pause and remember the real reason for this holiday- to honor those who have served this country and given their lives to help protect our freedoms.

This Blog centers on figural items but let us never forget that there is a very important and special statue that we all should be thankful for- the Statue of Liberty.

***** This week's Blog entry was written by John Pergine. John has been a loyal customer and great friend for many years. He has amassed what could arguably be the finest AFL/NFL collection of bobbing heads and Kail statues in the world. John's collection includes several extremely rare variations and one of a kind pieces. This article concentrates on his NFL Promotional doll collection. Most collectors would be lucky to own just one of these incredibly rare dolls, but as you will note, John currently has six.

John has also started to sell framed pictures of his collection. He can break it down into teams or series. He made us one of our favorite team (the Giants) and it proudly hangs in our office. It shows all the Giants dolls including his Promo Giants.

Thanks John!

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 NFL PROMOTIONAL BOBBING HEADS - by John Pergine

My journey into collecting vintage football bobbing head dolls started quite innocently.  About ten years ago, my Mom

had been bugging me to help her clean out her attic and I did everything possible to avoid this ugly task. One day she

cornered me and I reluctantly went upstairs to clean.  As we were rummaging through all kinds

of family treasures, I found a Gold Based Philadelphia Eagle bobbing head doll.  Seeing that

doll brought back memories of going to my first Eagles football game with my Dad back in the

late 60's.  He bought that doll for me as a souvenir of that game.  Over the years it has been fun to collect many Eagles

dolls (see picture).

A couple of months later I went to a yard sale and found another old football bobbing head among the treasures of that

day.  Since I love football, these bobbing head dolls were a "natural" for me to collect.  It started to spark my interest in

finding out more about these dolls and more importantly - how to get more.  There wasn't a yard sale or flea market

that I would pass up, always with hope of finding another addition for my collection.

My favorite pieces however, are the Promo dolls.  They are called Promo dolls because they were given out as a promotion

to stores to help sell the very first NFL series- the Square base dolls of the early 60's.  They stand

a whopping 13.5" tall without a base.  The team nickname is on the chest.  All the NFL teams were

made, except the Vikings (although there are rumors that one may exist). The Eagles are the most

unique because there are two variations of them. There is the standard and very rare Eagles with an embossed winged

helmet. Because they won the NFL Championship in 1960, the producers thought it a good idea to repaint other team

promotional dolls with the Eagles colors. They simply painted many of these dolls in Eagle green and hand painted Eagles

across the chest. The helmet is solid green with no wings. Instant Eagles!  If you find one that has cursive "Eagles" on the

chest you know that there is another team underneath.  I have the original Eagles doll with block lettering on the chest

and silver wings on the helmet.  It is the only one I have ever seen.  Several years ago, I purchased a Cleveland Browns

promo from ITPC. They had found a repaint Eagles and found some orange paint under the lip of the helmet. Upon further

examination, they noticed the faint outline of the "Browns" decal on the chest. They sent the doll to the late Larry Reed

(the Bobbing Head Doctor), who was able to strip the green paint off the doll and restore the doll to its original form. As

far as I know, this is the only known example and one of my prized dolls .  

My entire collection has grown to over 250 pieces.  I am still looking for a number of dolls to complete my sets, but I

realize that this may be a life-long avocation. If you have any unusual or rare dolls, please

contact me at: johbar@comcast.net.