Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

Official tax stamp for illegal goods

Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010

About twenty american states sell official tax stamps that drug dealers must, by law, attach to packages of drugs that it is illegal to posess.

In Nebraska dealers must purchase drug tax stamps from the Department of Revenue as soon as they aquire illegal drugs.  The cost of the stamps is $100 an ounce for marijuana and $150 per gram for other substances.  Purchase of the tax stamps does not give the drug dealers imunity from prosecution.  Dealers that are arrested for posession of illegal drugs that do not have tax stamps may also be liable to prosecution for tax evasion.

Not surprisingly, very few of these stamps are ever purchased, except by collectors.

Shown below are the tax stamps from North Carolina and Alabama.north-carolina-tax-stampalabama-tax-stamp

Collectors stories 2

Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010

The sports card dealer and NWA Wrestling announcer Don West, famed for his role as host of “Shop At Home,” was arrested on numerous occasions in the mid-1990s for selling counterfeit basketball, Tiger Woods, and other sports cards. His finest moment, however, came when he was caught selling Dale Earnhardt autographs… dated after the legendary auto racer’s death in February 2001.

The A-Team, big screen film

Thursday, June 11th, 2009

It is reported that Tony and Ridley Scott are proposing to produce a film based on the popular 1980’s TV series of the A-Team.  The film is planned for release in June 2010 and will feature the four war veterans, John “Hannibal” Smith, Templeton “Faceman” Peck, “Howling Mad”Murdock and “BA” Baracus.  The producers are in talks with various actors including Liam Neeson and Bradley Cooper.  The film should have lots of fast action, shooting, explosions and laughs.

In the Toys section of our Kollectomania site we have one scarce set of 6″ A-Team action figures with weapons and accessories.  Take a look here.

New Batman action figures cancelled?

Tuesday, May 26th, 2009

Is Mattel about to cancel the production of the forthcoming Dark Knight action figures?  It appears that there may have been too many Batman figures produced after the film so retailers have been left with much unsold stock.  It seems that many stockists have been cancelling future orders for the figures and some suppliers have been advised by the manufacturers that they won’t get any further shipments of The Dark Knight Movie Masters wave 5.

The Simpsons on stamps

Sunday, May 24th, 2009

The United States Postal Service issued a set of five 44 cent stamps featuring the cartoon characters The Simpsons on 7th May.  The stamps were drawn by Matt Groening and the post office had a billion copies printed.  A special postmark was used on mail posted at Springfield on the first day of issue.  U.S. Postal Service vice president said “We are looking to encourage a younger generation to develop an interest in stamp collecting by creating stamps that they can relate to.”

World’s longest model railway

Wednesday, March 25th, 2009

The world’s longest model railway is being built in Hamburg, Germany by twin brothers Gerrit and Frederick Braun who started work on it in 2000 and expect to have it finished by 2014.

It has 6 miles of track which they plan to increase to 12 miles by the time it is finished.  There are 700 trains with 10,000 carriages, 2800 buildings and 160,000 figures.  It runs around spectacular model scenery of United States, Germany, Switzerland and Scandinavia with more countries to be added.  The scenery took 500,ooo hours to make.  The layout is so large that it requires 160 staff to show visitors around.

Looking around here would be enthralling for both big boys and little boys.

MOD to sell toy soldiers

Tuesday, March 17th, 2009

The Ministry of Defence is to launch a range of 10″   ‘Action Man’  style figures with vehicles and equipment accurately modelled on the armed forces of  2009.

Some of the figures to be produced, as shown below, will include the infantry soldier wearing exact copies of the camouflage clothing, body armour, goggles, radio and SA-80A2 assault rifle as worn by British troops in Afganistan.  There is also expected to be a Royal Marine figure and an RAF pilot with oxygen mask and pistol.  Some of the vehicles planned to accompany these figures are tanks, RAF Harriers and remote controlled assault hovercraft.

This range of toys with the ‘HM Armed Forces’ logo is scheduled for launch on VE day, 8th May, under licence with the toy firm Character Group that already produces toys like Dr.Who, High School Musical and Scooby Doo.  The Action figures are expected to sell for around £15 with some of the other toys costing considerably more.

The MOD say the range of toys are being produced to raise the profile of the armed forces.  They will also be getting a share of the profits which will be spent on public relations.

What do you think about the armed services producing toys?  Should the profits be spent on equipment for the real soldiers rather than PR?

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New category in Kollectomania ‘Toys’

Wednesday, March 11th, 2009

We have recently created a new category for ‘Lead Figures‘ within our Toys department.  We have a collection of lead figures covering circus, cowboys & indians, wild animals, domestic animals and a few odd items.  We will gradually be adding these to the website over the coming week.  They come from various manufacturers including Britains, Charbens, Wend-al and others. We do not have any lead soldiers at present  but hope to get some in later.

Barbie 50 today 9th March

Monday, March 9th, 2009

wp-barbie1The first Barbie doll, named Barbie Ponytail, appeared on 9th March 1959.  She was first shown by makers Mattel at the New York toy fair.  Her full name is Barbara Millicent Roberts and she comes from Wisconsin.  Hundreds of millions of Barbies have been sold all around the world over the fifty years.  The very latest Barbie to be released is Totally Styling Tattoos Barbie that comes with 40 tattoo stickers.  Here is the first Barbie doll in case you wondered what she looked like.  Not bad looking for a fifty year old.

Have you got a collection of Barbies?  What do you like or hate about her?