Generale Lee clothing store in Lucca Italy

While endlessly searching the internet for Dukes of Hazzard (I do that....a lot) I came across the above picture on a travel site.  I was perplexed and intrigued.  And was already planning a trip to whatever state was home to this magical looking store.  Than I noticed the extra "E" on the marquee and realized the store was in Italy.  So I mentally un-packed my bags and started to look for more information on Generale Lee.

The store is located at Via Fillungo, 145, 55100 Lucca, Italy which is an Italian address and I have no idea how to read it.  Most of the information I got online also had to be translated.  Thanks Google!  According to it's facebook page Generale Lee "is a multibrand fashion store that was founded in September 2003 in the heart of the city of Lucca."  I'm not a fan of facebook, or a member, so I couldn't communicate with the store owners.  I couldn't find a website or email address for them.  But I'm still looking.  They sale women and men's contempary fashions.  The have brands like Diesel, Tommy Hilfiger, Lacoste, and a bunch of Italian ones I never heard of, but I bet fashinonistas have.  

The owners are obviously Dukes fans.  In the first picture, which is from a few years ago, you can see a big General Lee on the back wall.  There is also this great graphic of the General on their logo.

It appears that this graphic seen in these two pictures is their go-to logo inside the store.  It is seen behind the register.  The image of the General they used is of a 1/18 diecast.  It has the packing straps still attached to the car.  Looking at several of their pictures on facebook, they seem to use this image often to advertise their sales and events.  If a store around here did that, I would be there every time.

I really don't know what this ad means.  But I believe the date has passed, so apparently they went deeper underground.  This image of the General is an actual car.  So they do mix it up.

It seems the store also hosts events such as live bands.  American Eagle never does that, at least not at a store.  You can see the above mentioned logo on the wall behind the register.  And a 1/18 on the counter.  I tried to check all the pictures for any indication of a Dukes shirt or piece of memorabilia for sale, but I couldn't find one.  It seems to be a very trendy store that really follows fashion.  And happens to love our favorite car.  If I ever find myself in northern Italy, I will be checking out this store for sure.

Dukes of Hazzard promotional displays

Finding Dukes things that aren't intended for normal sale is always fun.  I have a few items that were promotional displays.  These kind of things are rare and unpredictable.  They can come from anywhere and it's really about luck if you find them.  Let's take a look at a few of them.

Movie items seem to be a little easier to find.  The movie isn't as popular as the show, and they weren't made all that long ago.  Though I have no idea where I got this one.  It promotes the DVD release of the movie, and is made of a thick cardboard.  It must have been part of a bigger display, because I really don't why there is the blue and gray background to it.  It's a cool and different piece.

Sticking with the movie theme, they next few items were all a part of one of those huge Wal-Mart floor displays.  These two sides promoted the release of the movie.  I believe the only exclusive release at Wal-Mart was a DVD with the pilot episode "One Armed Bandits" and the trailer of the movie.  

What I find odd about this display is the obvious (to me at least) use of the 1/18 diecast General Lee.  Weird that the graphic designers used a picture of the toy and not the actual car.  But it's not the first time this happened.  

This large floor display also advertised the release of season 3 on DVD.  These sides have the true Dukes cousins on them.  Buying season 3 gave you a free ticket to the movie.  

There are also these really cool panels that feature Bo and Luke.  

And this box that was a part of the top of the display.  It has two sides.  

The opposite side has a really goofy photoshop of Daisy hanging out of the window of a jumping General.  Not all that realistic.  That's a diecast too.  You can tell by the wheels.  

This piece would have been the "lid" to the whole display.  It's very big.  It features some different pictures than the rest of the display.  

This photo from season 1 isn't used as much.  It is a cool group shot.  You can tell it is from season 1 because of Luke's denim jacket, Cooter's beard and the different patrol car.  

You have to love this picture of ol' JD.  Boss Hogg just looks so distressed.  Rosco must have really screwed up this time.  I tried to get these large Wal-Mart displays at my local stores, but they just wouldn't let me have them.  They said it was store policy that they had to destroy them.  What a waste.  I bought mine from a fellow collector.  I would have tried very hard not to take the display apart, but then I would have a huge display taking up all kind of room.  It is better that I got it this way.  

The poster with this image on it is very rare and sought after.  But this isn't the poster.  This is a display for it.  

It is very thick and heavy. 

And looks and feels more like canvas on the front.  

The back has a sticker from the "National Picture & Frame Co." out of Greenwood, MS.  This display once came with 8 of the posters.  I got this from a seller at the Steel City Con.  It is a great rare addition to the collection.  

And finally here is one of my favorite pieces of my whole collection.  Notice that the really good stuff is on the business card and blog background?  This is a nearly life-size stand-up promoting the Dukes of Hazzard Racing For Home and Daisy Dukes It Out video games.  The original Playstation game was released in 1999, and the sequel, Windows, and Game-boy versions were released in 2000.  It was a fun time to get video games after all those years.  I bought this display from a guy on Craigslist.  He said he worked for Hills and Ames department stores when they closed.  He said he was clearing out a store when he found this and kept it.  I got it for a great price.  I wouldn't be able to afford it if it were on eBay.  I got lucky.  

The base has very nice graphics of the General and all the releases.  I have all of these versions of the game.  The first game sold so well, it was re-released under Playstation's greatest hits and had a green box.  

Isn't Daisy beautiful?

New Dukes Stuff - 9/19/2012 - Sunglasses, Hills Ad, and What Do You See?

When I was a kid, Hills Department Store was a magically place.  The commercial for the store featured an elf called Spryte and the jingle "Hills is where the toys are."  They had the best toys of any store around except maybe Toy City.  But I was too young when this in-store promotion took place.  It is so cool to see two parts of my childhood together in one new addition to the collection.  The grand prize to the contest was a trip to California.  No mention of touring WB or meeting any Dukes.  And each store gave away a General Lee Pedal Car or a Daisy bigwheel.  My trip to California that included a tour of WB Studios earlier this summer cost me less than either the pedal car or the big wheel would.

Speaking of Hills, a few years ago I bought my buddy Mark a Hills t-shirt from our pals over at 80stees.com.  They have everything on their site.

I picked up these Dukes sunglasses recently.  They were made by Gordy International.  They made a bunch of different Dukes of Hazzard items that are all packaged on similar white blister cards.  I have a few, but it seems I find out about new and different ones all the time.  They can go for a pretty high price.

The small town I live in, Brownsville, has seen it's share of hardships.  Most of the downtown area is deserted and boarded up.  But recently things have started to turn around.  There is a new cafe, and some of the dangerous buildings have been torn down.  While at the post office the other day, I noticed the scene in the above picture.  A few months ago there were decrepit buildings there but now it is clear.  As a Dukes fanatic, I saw this and only pictured one thing.

Not bad for a quick photoshop.  Yee Haw!!

"Shiny" Chrome 1/18 General Lee

It's a great feeling when you finally get an item you have been searching a long time for.

I've finally added the the "shiny" chrome 1/18 General Lee to the collection.  If you remember this post, you know that I have all of the other chrome General Lees.  There is the "blue letter 'brushed' chrome" 1/18 General Lee, the "black letter 'brushed' chrome" 1/18 General Lee and the shiny chrome 1/25 General Lee.

The other two 1/18s are very similar to each other, but the shiny chrome really stands out.  It is very similar to the holy grail of Dukes items, the gold General Lee (which can be seen on the background image of the blog).  The shiny chrome is very reflective and well, shiny.

The shiny chrome 1/25 has the same finish as the 1/18.  I wonder why they made two different (well really three) 1/18 chrome cars and only one 1/25.  The shiny chrome ones are much more attractive than the brushed chrome versions.

 
In the last post dedicated to these cars, I mentioned that one of the brushed chrome versions had blue letters and no license plate stickers.  This shiny version has the standard black letters.

As well as the CNH-320 plate and the RT tag.  Even though these are movie versions, they have the TV show version of the CNH-320 plate.  One thing that I really appreciated about the movie was the attention to detail of the CNH-320 showing up on a current Georgia plate.

The shiny version also has the rebel flag on the front.

Another mini-collection completed.  I now have all the chrome variations of the General Lee.  I love completing mini-collections.

Crazy Boss Hogg wannabe and a Keep Calm shirt

Above is an article from The National Enquirer from 1982.  It tells the story about a politician from Hazard, KY who took his admiration for Boss Hogg too far.  Carroll Fugate was more corrupt than J.D.  It is an entertaining read, but I'm not too sure how true it is, because doing a Google search on Carroll Fugate only brings up articles related to Dukes.  And it does come from the National Enquirer.

I not really up on the whole "Keep Calm And..." craze.  But going to Comic-Con, and other geek-oriented things so often, I have seen many different variations of it.  The first one I saw was for Doctor Who so I thought they were all a parody of that. Not until I googled it for this post did I learn that it is actually a parody of a WWII era British war poster. Weird. Anyway, here is a Dukes version saying "Keep Calm and Yee Haw." I found it on etsy. I like it.

Dukes of Hazzard JL White Lightning and Lightning Strike

In a recent post, I mentioned Johnny Lightning's White Lightning cars.  I realized that some of my readers might not know what they are.  Let's did into an explanation of White Lightnings.  Bo and Luke are doing a great impression of Barker's Beauties.

Johnny Lightning releases variant versions of most of their cars.  Most of them have white wheels.

 

This is the White Lightning version of a 1/64 JL General Lee.  It is the Internet Exclusive dirty General.

When you look at the bottom, you can more clearly see the white rubber wheels.  With the Dukes line the JL put out a few years ago, they had a General Lee in each series.With so many Generals, they got creative with each WL.

This is my favorite White in the line.  The standard version is on the left.  The white is unlike any other General Lee ever released.  It is also one of the most sought after JL Dukes car.  Other WL Generals in the line have white chassis, are chrome, and even green.  When this white General Lee was first released, many people mistakenly thought they were "Ghost of the General Lee" versions.  That car was released in a later series of the line. 

 There is a White Lightning version of each car in the line. 

When JL took over releasing the 1/25 General Lee they also made a White Lightning version of it.  It has white wheels and a white engine. 

They also put out a General Lee with orange wheels.  This version is called the Lightning Strike.  There are other JL Lightning Strike cars, but this is the only Dukes of Hazzard LS.  JL also makes the standard 1/18 General Lee now, but to my knowledge, there is no 1/18 WL or LS. 

All White Lightnings and Lightnings Strikes are extremely rare.  The WL versions are 1% to 2% of the line and LS are 1%.  Most of the 1/64 series were limited to 10,000 which meant there were 100 WLs, but the last series was limited to only 2750, so there were only 30 to 60 produced.  For this reason, they demand high prices.  The 1/25 WL goes for around $100 and the LS goes for more.  Some of the 1/64 WLs can go as high as $100 or even more. 

The new 1/18 Rosco Patrol Car, 00 Mustang, and Cooter's Camaro will probably have WL versions.  I bet JL will also release a 1/18 General Lee WL to go along with them.  So the next few months will be fun for Dukes Collectors.  Just be ready to spend some money. 

Is there an app for this? And great press!

The local newspaper did a great article about me and Jeff's trip west to San Diego Comic-Con.  Check it out: http://www.heraldstandard.com/entertainment/features/action-and-adventure-local-residents-visit-comic-con-international/article_5b6ab096-4e6b-5f4d-82b2-f0386d96f291.html

Watching Collection Intervention and trying to get my collection organized has lead me to start searching for some kind of database tool that helps me orgainze all this stuff.  I found a couple online and they all seem to be Windows 95 based.  They seem to basically be beefed up Excel documents.  Come on people, we live in the smart phone era.  Give me an app for this.  I searched in the play store and there doesn't really seem to be anything that helps.  I think Elyse Luray could market one and it would do pretty well.  Does anyone know of some kind of collecting app that I am missing?  There's got to be something. 

Update to new 1/18s and slot car set coming

We got a few new items scheduled to come out before the end of the year.  And I can't wait to get my hands on them.

First is a re-release of the Rosco's Patrol Car.  The first thing you should notice is the light bar looks nearly correct.  Not perfect.  But so much better than the last release.  This one will be put out by Tomy under the  Johnny Lightning line.  I heard there will also be a White Lightning version.  Great!  Now I gotta find one of those suckers.  It is scheduled to be released in mid October.

November sees a re-release of the 00 Mustang from the reunion movie.  Original versions of this car are becoming quite rare and demanding high prices on eBay.  This one will be updated and more detailed.  Also coming from Johnny Lightning so a White Lightning version is possible.  

And  hoping for a December release is a new car to the Dukes 1/18 line.  We haven't had a Cooter's Camaro in 1/18 before.  This is a pre-production sample picture, and the final product isn't done yet.  I can't wait for this one.  So far it is looking great.  Ben is going to love this one.  Another JL release so I expect a White Lightning version as well.  

We also get a new slot car set in December.  I really like the new artwork on the box.  It will be made by Auto World who made the newest highly detailed 1/18 General Lee and the other two newer slot car sets. 

With these new items coming out, all the new items already released this year, the many events, and the news worthy happenings of 2012, not to mention this blog coming into exsistence, this has been a banner year for The Dukes of Hazzard!