Tuesday, December 31, 2013

A Look Back at New Dukes Item Released in 2013

2013 was a big year for Dukes of Hazzard collecting.  We started out the year defining the Eras of Dukes Collecting.  Placing everything in one of three Eras: gold, silver or modern.  Throughout the year, I've seen it catch on nicely.  We've also been treated to a bevy of new items.  Let's take a look at the highlights.


Not bad for thirty-four years after the show premiered.  Above are the decorative tins signs, Johnny Lightnings 1/18 Cooter's Camaro, the new Dukes of Hazzard coffee mug, The Dukes Fan Fair Official Highlight Film and Concert, Auto World's XTraction R13 General Lees, Neo's 1/43 Hazzard County Patrol Car, Johhny Lightning's all white White Lightning General Lee, and the Official 2014 Dukes of Hazzard Calendar.  It was a huge year for DukesCollector as I traveled all over and made so many new Dukes friends.  With the show returning to TV (in HD!!!) at the start of 2014, next year will be even bigger than this year.  The Thirty-Fifth anniversary of the Dukes of Hazzard will be great!

Sunday, December 29, 2013

Christmas Dukes of Hazzard Presents


I got a few Dukes items for Christmas.  It is very hard for anyone to buy me Dukes these days because I don't even know everything I have.  But some people managed to surprise me.  Let's take a look.


Our pal, Rush Pedder, blew me away with this one.  It is a Christmas album from a small organization in Illinois titled the Small One.  It is from 1977.  One of the stars happens to be John Schneider.


Finding anything pre-Dukes starring JRS is awesome.  This is a great gift Rush, and I really appreciate it.


I have no idea where Rush got it.  It is a great addition to the collection.


Jeff also came through big for the holiday.


This is a screen used prop from the show....seriously!  This "Vintage Glass Serving Bowl" was actually used on the show, during production, by the Dukes, and now sits in my collection.  That's mind boggling.


It comes with a tag describing it.


And a Certificate of Authenticity.  The item came from Ellis Props and Graphics.  It is the real deal.  This is awesome.  Great job Jeff.  Now that Dukes will be on in HD, I'll have to search the backgrounds of each episode to try to find this prop.


And the final Dukes Christmas present comes from none other than Santa himself.  He brought this item from the North Pole.  It is the brand new Johnny Lightning all white White Lightning General Lee.  Who would have guessed I'd get this version before I found the white wheeled WL General Lee?


This car was only recently released and is really striking.  It looked great under the tree.  It's not a stark white color, actually a little off-white.


It doesn't have either the front or back plate.


JL is not shying away from showing the flag through the package.  It looks really cool on a white background.  It almost looks like the red and blue are painted right on the white hood.


Johnny Lightning's newest products now have a blue Tomy logo on the box.  I have to see how many Dukes products have this change.  I don't want to have to restock the fleet again.


This car also has 2013 markings on the bottom.  That means a standard non-WL General Lee will also come in this updated box.  Here we go again.

I had a great Christmas, and I hope you all did too.  The Dukes in HD will be on TV before we know it. Let's see if we can squeeze one more blog post out before the New Year.

Friday, December 27, 2013

CMT's New Commercials For The Return Of The Dukes Of Hazzard in HD





Not only is Dukes coming back to TV but it's coming in HD. Now that is a surprise. I can only think of a few shows (Seinfeld, Friends, Star Trek) that have been converted to HD from the original footage. This is big exciting news. It all starts in January 5th with a marathon. You know I can't wait.

Saturday, December 21, 2013

Breaking News!!! Dukes is coming back to CMT!!

Breaker, breaker, got your ears on?  CMT is going to air the Dukes on January 5.  Who knows how long it will be on.  More info when I get it!

Pre-Christmas New Dukes Stuff - 12/21/2013


A few days before Christmas and I already got a few gifts, from myself.


This is a very rare item.  It's from the Canadian only released Dukes Crash set.  A General Lee also came with it. To find a set in the box is super rare.  The cars were made to crash into each other and break apart, so I'm sure many of them didn't survive.


This one is in surprisingly nice shape.  The top of the windshield is bowed and the bull horns are missing, but still, it looks great.


The decals of Boss Hogg are vibrant and clear.  I have to figure out what picture this image was taken from, because it looks like the top of the General Lee's hood is below ol' J.D. 


The car is battery powered and breaks into several pieces.  It's easy to put it back together.

I'm guessing this lever turns it on and off, but I'm not going to put any batteries in it to see if it still works.


It comes from 1982, well into the Dukes boom.  I wonder why it was only available in Canada.


This is a standard 1/25 Joyride General Lee, but it has markings from a car show in Arkansas.


I suppose this car was available to buy at the "Big Cruisefest in the Rock" in Little Rock, AK.  Interesting idea to print your logo on the car and sell them.  I wonder how cost effective it was.  I wonder if they made anything on them.


It looks pretty good, but they could have tried a little harder to match the General Lee font.


There is a raffle ticket inside the box.  Maybe the person I bought it from won this car or something.  It's a mystery.


And finally I bought this nice, new 01 toboggan.  It don't know where it came from, but it appears to be licensed.  There are no tags on it.  I like it.


The cursive Dukes logo is on the back.  It matches my movie crew jacket quite nicely.


What do you think?  Here's wishing for some Dukes surprises under the tree!  Merry Christmas everyone!

Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Auto World's New Xtraction Release 13 General Lee Slot Cars


We have really been treated to a lot of new Dukes items in 2013.  The newest of the new is Auto World's new line of slot cars.  Two of the four cars in the line are General Lees, the standard General as well as the black General from Happy Birthday General Lee.  Along with the standard versions, there are two chase versions of each car.  I took the leap and bought all of them together.


The standard General Lee is packaged in the same design we expect from all Dukes items these days. These cars are a part of the Silver Screen Machines line that also includes AW's 1/18 General Lee. The boxes are the same for both cars.  One major difference though is that you can't actually see the standard General, just a picture of it.  Raise your hand if you can tell me why.  You guessed it, the black General Lee doesn't have a flag on top, so it doesn't need to be hidden.  The regular General Lee has it's roof covered once again.





The outer boxes are the same for both cars.  Pretty standard stuff.


Once you open the box for the General Lee, you see that the awkward looking cover surrounds the entire case that holds the car.  We saw similar cases in past Auto World Dukes cars.


Like the past releases, these cars could be sold in just these cases.  All in information is on them.  But I'm glad AW made these stand out by including the hanging box.


After you take the sleeve off, you finally see the General Lee in all its beauty.  They did a great job on the car, but it is incredibly similar to past releases.



The flag does fly on this car.


This is the way it should look, but I understand the reasoning behind the sleeve covering.


The Happy Birthday General Lee box has no sleeve.


Each car comes in a chase/variant version.  The black car comes in an all silver version.  It is the less rare of the two versions.


We also get an all white version called iWheels.  It's similar to White Lightning, but this is AW not Johnny Lightning, so it has a different name.  The car is white and also has white wheels.  I don't know the distrubution numbers, but these things are extremely limited and very rare.  I was lucky to get the white ones right off the bat.


The standard General variants include the flag, so they are covered with a sleeve too.  I'm glad they show that the car inside is a variant so it wouldn't be a blind buy situation where you don't know if you have the rare one until you open it.  This way is much easier on us crazy collectors.


The General Lee does look nice in chrome.  I'll have to set this one up beside the chrome 1/18 diecast.


The iWheels General Lee is a treat.  The Gen'ral really looks interesting painted all white.  Just like the JL WL version in series 2 of that line, it resembles the Ghost of the General Lee.


The colorful flag against the white car really pops.  AW even made the rim of the case white to show off the iWheels design.  I wouldn't have noticed that if I had kept it in the box.  I would love to have another scale of a car that looks just like this.  Hmmm......


I like the addition of the Dodge logo where the license plate should go.  A tiny CNH-320 doesn't always fit, so I'm glad they added something.


On top of the white car and white case, I noticed the inside mechanisms are also white.  Very cool little touch.


The moving parts for the standard and silver versions are all black.


These three Generals look great in their different attires.  I'm happy Auto World is showing Dukes love.  They have a few other great releases coming in 1/18 scale soon.  Keep 'em coming AW.  The other two cars in AW Xtraction Release 13 are the Back to the Future Time Machine and Bandit's Trans Am from Smokey and the Bandit.  Great cars, but I didn't need to add them to the collection.