New additions to the collection include a bunch of great Golden Era items from the early '80s that are on the rarer side. Not incredibly hard to find, but we'll calls these pieces medium rare. They have a warm pink center. Let's take a look.
First off is the Duncan General Lee Yo-yo. Duncan released three different Dukes yo-yos and the General Lee is the most common. There are a Rosco and Daisy Jeep version as well. The features list says it's in the collector's series, but not a specialty. Ok. It's a pocket full of fun.
The back of the package explains some tricks you can do with it and it also comes with a mini trick book.
The center of this wheel yo-yo is a little different from another General Lee yo-yo I have as well as the one Dave DeWitt has in his mobile museum. The center piece has less "spoke-like" details to it.
I love finding variants.
Next up is the 1981 1/16 MPC General Lee model. Following the success of the first 1/25 model, the only place to go was up. The completed model is very big, a little bigger than today's 1/18 diecasts. This model has become pretty hard to come by these days. I really like the angle of the car on the box art.
In 2010, the model was re-released. The box is very similar to the original, but the flag was hidden on the car. This re-release is still available at Hobby Lobby and other hobby stores.
Some of the sides are the same on the new and old boxes...
But they didn't reproduce the shots with the flag.
The back of the box is blank on the original, but the re-release has a parts diagram. The flag is included on the back as well as the actual decal inside.
Next up is a very rare item. It's the Dukes of Hazzard Stop Watch. I've never seen one carded before. It works by winding the top. It was made by Durham Industries and came out in 1981.
The card isn't perfect, but it is in really nice condition. Durham Industries also made the Dukes play watches that taught kids to tell time, but didn't actually tell time. They use similar graphics as the stop watch.
Moving on, we have the Dukes of Hazzard Puffi-Stickers. These bad boys are tough to find. They pop up on ebay from time to time, but demand pretty high prices. I'm not sure if I've ever seen a complete set sold together. This is the complete set. It's glorious.
The back of the cards show each other available sticker set.
The first set is the red card top. It includes our three cousins, the Gen'ral, Cletus, and labels.
The blue card top has head shots of Bo, Luke, and Daisy as well as Daisy leaning on Dixe, Cooter, and Rosco and Flash.
The yellow card top again has our three cousins together, a bigger General Lee, another Dixie, a close up of Boss Hogg, a badge, and two flags. The General in front of the rebel flag is very similar to the graphics used on the stop watch above.
The final sticker set is the blue card top. It has a very big sticker of Bo and Luke getting out of the car, Uncle Jesse, Boss Hogg, and a Hazzard County rebel flag. This is the only set that doesn't include Daisy.
Though different colors, the tops of the cards have the same graphic. These were released in 1982. Most Dukes stuff released in '82 was Coy and Vance-centric. We are lucky these little beauties feature Bo and Luke. Hey look, these are the "Collector Series."
I love when items like this mention the collector series. It's almost like they knew some crazies like me would be collecting them over thirty-five years later. The back tells you about the different sets and to be sure to look for the "Collector Series" stripe in the corner. I wonder if there is a "non-collector series?"
Well I know the answer, and there is. You can also find the same stickers on a generic car. The generic card just says "puffy sticker" on it and doesn't mention the Dukes. Notice that "puffy" is spelled differently on the generic version. The generic ones don't have anything on the back. Both sets are made in Taiwan. I wonder if they were released by the same company. Probably just an overstock release sort of thing.
The last item today is not a licensed Dukes of Hazzard item. This is the John Schneider toy guitar. John did some of his own marketing during the boom of Dukes collectibles and put out his own products. The addition of the rebel flag clearly associates the product with the Dukes.
This toy guitar was released in 1981 by South Star Productions, Inc. Google doesn't have any info on that name. John and Tom left the show in early '82, so this predates their strike. But maybe it didn't come out until after they left and was John's attempt to recoup some of the merchandise money that was owed by WB.
Maybe it had nothing to do with the issue with Warner Bros. John's music career was booming in 1981. His single "Now or Never" was a huge hit that year. Maybe this guitar was sold at concerts and appearances along with his music. However it came to be, I'm glad it was made, and more glad I finally have an opportunity to add it to the collection. It is very rare and when they do appear, they usually aren't in such good condition. Mine even has the guitar pick still attached. This is a great piece.
It's the same size as the two different licensed Dukes guitars. It fits in great with them. This blog post is full of great hard to find items. I'm really fortunate to have found them all in such great condition.
