Wednesday, August 19, 2020

New Dukes Stuff - 8/19/2020 - Pins, Gordy Tool Set, TNN Promo Pic, John Schneider 45, Goonies, All Kinds of Stuff!


How about new blog full of wonderful Dukes of Hazzard stuff?  It seems I slack on writing blogs when the weather is so nice.  So it's been a while since I've shared the newest items in my collection.  Admittedly, I took these pictures a few months ago and never got around to writing this one.  Let's dive into this slew of Dukes goodness Uncle Scrooge style!


One of the areas of Dukes collecting I've been very focused one lately is Dukes of Hazzard pins.  Of course, this is because of my obsession to complete the Jaycees Dukes pins collection, which I did earlier this year.  While focusing on those pins, I started started paying attention to other Dukes pens from all three eras of Dukes collecting.  I noticed that I didn't have all of the button pin backs that were released under the Dukes license during the golden era.  I had to rectify that.  These are the six pins that were licensed by WB and released in 1981.  Five of them are round and one is oval. The round ones feature Bo and Luke, , The Gen'ral, Daisy, and the two "bad guys."  I like that both Boss and Rosco's are election style pins.  "I'm makin' Bacon with Boss Hogg" has to be my favorite, though the re-elect Rosco is also a great one.  The oval General Lee pin features a cartoon Gen'ral while the round one has a picture of the Gen'ral jumping and a unique logo.  There are no markings on these besides the WB copyright info so I don't know which company released the pins.  Glad I have them all now.  


Besides traditional round button pin back style pins, there have been a bunch of other pins released throughout the golden, silver, and modern eras.  Most of these are non-licensed, but too cool to pass up.  The police badge style pin, the two that say Cooter's and the 01 all came from Cooter's Place.  Some are still available but some date way back to the Sperryville beginnings of our favorite store.  The TV shaped one is a weird little pin.  I think it's from the '80s but can't conform that.  I've had a few of them in my collection forever and have no idea who made them. The two General Lee pins on top and the one in the middle on the bottom are all recent unlicensed pins that came from various sellers online.  The bigger one was a limited edition that I think is sold out, but the other two pop up on ebay pretty often.  This is quite a collection of Dukes pins as well.  


Next up is a weird one.   Everyone's favorite comic book writer, Jeff, loves to find the most unique Dukes items and get them for me as presents.  This one was a Christmas present that I've been waiting for the perfect blog post to include.  It fits perfectly with all these other pins.  It appears to be a mash-up between the Friday the 13th movie franchise and the Dukes.  That's a new one.  It has Jason Voorhees' signature hockey mask, with a knife throw the eye, on top of a General Lee clone with 13 replacing the 01.  Wow.  Not only did I get a pin, but also a larger sticker of the artwork.  Great find Jeffery!
 

I'm throwing in this late silver era/early modern era key chain in this blog.  I picked it up cheap and then found another one in the collection that I already had.  It has the same logo on both sides and I'd say it is a licensed piece.  That's all I got to say about that one.  


I also got some non-Dukes pins to discuss while I'm on the topic.  When I was Jaycees Pins crazy, I still kinda am, I bought a few other pins that the civic club produced for their annual meetings.  I love me some superheroes so I jumped on this Illinois Spider-Man as well as these Ohio Supermans and Batman.  The Spider-Man is a little hard to recognize as the webs are hard to pull off on such a small piece.  I love the classic Super-Friends era Batman and both the Supermans are timeless.  I also got a couple Sheriff Buford T. Justice pins from Georgia.  There is a standard and a smaller Senator's pin.  
 

Next up is another awesome, but non-Dukes pin.  This one was also a present from Jeff.  HEY YOU GUYS!!!!  It's Sloth!  Who doesn't love the Gooines?  It is my all time favorite movie.  Jeff knows this.  He once stole my Goonie Blu-Ray special edition!  He made up for it all these years later by getting me this great Sloth Pin.  


It comes form Scott C.  Great job Scott.  


Let's wrap all this pin talk up.  Did you think I was gonna say "Let's put a pin in it?"  I probably should have.  The final pins I recently picked up come from the wrestling world.  This awesome four-pack of Wrestlemania III pins was a Walmart exclusive that never showed up in my area.  I had to have them and a good pal from Twitter, Good Brother Mike hooked me up.  He is a big part of the #FigLife online community that look out for fellow collectors finding wrestling and other figures for each to avoid paying online scalpers.  I'm really grateful for Mike for hooking me up with this pin set.  Thanks Good Brother!


The pin set features the four stars of Wrestlemania III.  We all know I'm a huge Hulkamaniac, and I consider Hulk's match with Andre and "Mania III to be the greatest moment in wrestling history.  The other huge match at that event was Macho Man Randy Savage, my second favorite of all time, against Ricky, the Dragon, Steamboat.  That match it considered one of the best matches of all time.  No wonder WWE is still capitalizing on that event.  It was one of the best ever.  Ok, I put a pin in the pin talk. 


One more non-Dukes item.  This was also a Christmas present from Jeffrey.  I guess I really waited a long time to show off Jeff's presents.  Remember shopping malls?  Those were great.  This is an FYE exclusive cassette of the Stranger Things Season 3 soundtrack.  How cool is that?  


Jeff, of course, was very interested in this soundtrack because it features a song by his all time favorite, "Weird Al" Yankovic.  I listened to quite a few songs from this soundtrack streaming last summer and by far, my favorite is Gaten Matarazzo and Gabriella Pizzolo's rendition of Never Ending Story.  When Dustin and Suzie belted out that song over the ham radio I got all kind of chills.  It's perfectly captured on this soundtrack.  This is a very cool piece from Stranger Things.  Thanks again Jeff!


Ok, back to Dukes.  This is a great piece that DukesCollector Cooter wants to show off.  
  

It's a letter that real Cooter, Ben Jones, sent to his fans during production of the show.  Ben would hand sign copies of this letter and send them to fans what wrote him.  I'm super excited to get my hands on a copy.  What a cool piece of Dukes history.  


DukesCollector Cooter also wanted to show off this great 8x10.  


It's a promotional photo released by TNN to promote their upcoming airings of the show.  TNN started re-airing the Dukes of Hazzard in 1997, ushering in the Silver Age of the Dukes of Hazzard and helping the world fall in love with the Dukes once again.  


We are all grateful that TNN brought the Dukes back in our lives.  Could this promo picture that features my favaoite cast shot be the first piece of Silver Era Dukes of Hazzard memorabilia?  It just could be!


Now this is a fun piece.  DukesCollector Cooter loved posing with this one.  


This is a promo copy of John Schneider's "Love You Ain't Seen The Last Of Me" single on 45.  It is a "promotional copy, not for sale" version on the song.  It's on very cool yellow vinyl.  It's the same on both sides and did not come in a sleeve.  One of these days I have to get all the Dukes and Dukes related music together for a music blog.  Soon!
 

You know how excited DukesCollector Cooter and I get when we track down new Gordy items to add to the collection.  This is definitely Cooter's favorite piece of Gordy Dukes.  
 

This is the super hard to find Die Cast Metal Auto Tools Set.  I finally got one!


The real metal tools consist of a hammer, adjustable spanner, an open end wrench, and split joint pliers.


This image is used on several Gordy items.  It is a picture of a General Lee with a camera strapped to it post jump with liquid spilling out of the front.  What a strange image to use.  It's clearly the General Lee that made the Carnival of Thrills jump, but it's more of a behind the scenes picture.  Oh Gordy, you silly company. 


Like all Gordy items, there is nothing on the back of the card.  


I know what you're saying, "Larry, you already did a huge lunch box blog post that included all five different Dukes of Hazzard mid day meal containers."  To which I would say you are correct, and check it out here.  

But this Canadian lunch box is a tiny bit different so I had to buy it!
 

It features a blue handle!  I had to buy the different blue handle version!


Now I have a white handle Canadian Dukes of Hazzard lunch box and a blue handle Canadian Dukes of Hazzard lunch box.  I'm happy. 
 

I was shopping in a local antique shop a while ago and found this Bo Duke Halloween costume.  I have a few of them on both this generic Super Hero box, as well as the Dukes specific box.  But, usually when I find Dukes in the wild, I buy it.  


A cool addition to this costume was the original receipt.  Judith Bentz bought this particular costume at the Gee Bees Department Store in Bethel Park, PA in October of 1981.  I wonder what else Judy bought to total twenty seven bucks.  This makes the costume even more special.  Anyone know Judy from the South Hills?
  

Can you believe I am still finding Ertl four car sets with a different combination of cars or cars in different locations?  I am.  This set has Hazzard Patrol car, Boss Hogg Caddy, General Lee, Hazzard Patrol Car.  I have over eighteen different combos and still finding more.  I love collecting Dukes!


This item I found at Target.  It's a new printing of the Games We Played puzzle.  

I found the first printing back in 2015.  This is the same puzzle but in a smaller box. 


Among all the classic board games is the Dukes board game.  I'm surprised the Dukes game is one of the few licensed games featured.  Most shown are regular games like Sorry and Monopoly.  They could have included a lot of other licensed games like Care Bears and Knight Rider.  But the Dukes is the best at everything.  



This version of the game carries a 2019 copyright year.  


Appearantly, the creator of the puzzle, While Mountain Puzzles, also has a lunch box puzzle that also features the Dukes.  I gotta find that now!


Sheesh, this is a long one.  Next up is a cast and crew belt buckle.  This is my fourth one in the collection and this one is from 1980.  There is one from every season and I'm over half way to completing the set.  


Like the other ones, this one is made by Trophy King Gifts.  


DukesCollector Cooter has a few cool notebooks to show off.  


Remember the three Italian notebooks I got earlier this year?  I got a fourth one!  This one fits right in with the other three and features artwork similar to the album cover.  


The back is the same as the other ones.  This is a very rare item. 


Next up is an 8" by 10.5" spiral notebook by WriteRight.  I have a bunch of the school supplies by WriteRight, but I keep finding more I don't have.  This one features the Duke clan and Cooter hanging out in front of the Hazzard County courthouse.  


The back has the best Dukes logo, in classic Dukes font.  


This is a weird one.  I found this shirt on instagram from a vintage clothing dealer.  Since I bought this one, another showed up on ebay.  I don't know the history of it, but it appears to be a football type jersey.  It features the Dukes of Hazzard in a font similar to Kinght Rider on the front.  


The back has a big 01 on it and it has the name "Davies" above the number.  


The sleeves feature Warner Bros on them.  I have no idea why or when this shirt was produced but I'm going to make up a story that the cast a crew of the Dukes participated in a football tournament against other television productions.   The tourney was so big that it featured crews from all over Hollywood and different studios like Universal, Disney, and Paramount.  I have nothing to back up that story, except this shirt, but I'm sticking to it.  I'm sure the Dukes team won the championship which I am now calling the Hollywood Bowl.  There's nothing else with that name, right?


Coming up on the end, I promise.  I got yet another cast and crew jacket!  This one is a different style than the other two I have.  I have to have all the different versions!


This one has the label Jon on it.  There were two Jon's that worked on the crew of the Dukes of Hazzard.  First Assistant Director Jon Pare and stunt coordinator Jon H. Epstein.  Jon Pare is a big deal in Hollywood.  His credits include working on 35 episodes of the Dukes, as well Wonder Woman and the A-Team, and spans all the way to today where is is the Co-Executive Producer on the Sons of Anarchy spin-off The Mayans.  With about a hundred titles in between.  Jon H. Epstein did stunts on one episode of the Dukes and also did stunts on everything from Twin Peaks, to Walker: Texas Ranger, to The Incredible Hulk Returns, to Captain America: Winter Soldier, to This Is Us.  Yep, he's a big deal too.  So this jacket once belonged to one of this fine gentlemen and now belongs to me!  


The jacket features the familiar Dukes Of Hazzard on the back. like the other jackets.  


It is a zipper jacket, unlike the Bob G. jacket that is a button down.  


The new jacket is similar to the Len jacket, because it has a zipper, but is a Lawman brand, like the Bob G.  All three jackets have a lot of differences.  They were probably all ordered from different distributors.  Catherine Bach ordered all the jackets and Christmas presents for the cast a crew.  


The new one doesn't have the Hazzard County Sheriff Department badge on it.  


It's very similar to the Bob G. jacket, except it doesn't have the sheriff patch and is a button down.  I wonder how many other variations of this Dukes crew jacket there are.  I can't wait to find out!

You'd think I'd end this wonderful post with a piece as wonderful as a Dukes of Hazzard cast and crew jacket.  Nope.  I'm ending it with yet another Christmas present from our pal Jeffrey.  This is a poster from a movie John Schneider made called Cocaine Wars.  John is looking pretty Schwarzenegger ripped in this artwork.   I don't know much about this movie but imdb tells me it's from 1985 and John played an undercover DEA agent trying to take down the biggest drug exporter in the region.  Get 'em John!  This original movie poster is in perfect condition, except for the folds.  It is certainly an odd piece and will be displayed proudly in the Jeff McClelland Memorial Wing of the DukesCollector Dukes of Hazzard Museum.  (Don't worry, Jeff isn't dead.)