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eBay Will NOT Ban The Sale of Dukes of Hazzard Merchandise

@larryafranks We don’t intend to prohibit items where the Confederate flag isn’t the main theme or focus of the listing 1/2

— Ask eBay (@AskeBay) June 24, 2015

@larryafranks such as most Dukes of Hazzard merchandise. 2/2 ^M

— Ask eBay (@AskeBay) June 24, 2015

After the crazy couple of days that Dukes of Hazzard fans have gone through, it sure is nice to get some good news for a change.  Ebay just reached out to me through twitter to assure Dukes fans that Dukes of Hazzard merchandise will continue to be available on the auction super site.  I sure am relieved.  Thank eBay for not making hasty decisions and for letting us know.

New Dukes Stuff - Unique and Foreign Items - German and Italian Toys

Now, this is a batch of very cool and unique items that come from around the globe.

Several of the items came from my new friend and fellow Dukes Collector Bernd Tiemann.  Bernd is from Germany and has a great collection.  He attends the Euro Dukes Fest often and is a member of the German Dukes Board.  I'm very glad I met Bernd and really happy he sold me some of these great pieces.

This is the first piece from Bernd.  If I included this model kit with most other Dukes items, it would be one of the stranger items, but in this bunch it's the most common.  This is the Boss Hogg's Hauler Snap Model Kit from the golden era.  It is in perfect condition in a sealed box.

There were three model kits released that portrayed goofy vehicles that never appeared on the show. They are 1/32 scale as opposed to the standard General Lee models that are 1/25.  All three are rare and hard to find in such great condition.  This one looks like it just came off the shelf.

The side of the box shows different angles of the van.

My favorite part is the decal on the back that says "Gonna Git Them Dukes Boys!"  This is an odd item that was released way back when.  I'm glad I can add it to the collection.

Also from Bernd comes the other Dukes of Hazzard Movie Crew Coat.  He bought both of these items from the U.S. and had them shipped to him.  I had them shipped back.

This is the Carhartt crew coat and has the yellow lined red logo on the sleeve.

And added bonus that came with this coat is a card reading "with compliments, Jay Chandraskkar & Bill Gerber."  Jay and Bill, of course, are the director and producer of the movie.  My other coat did not include this gem.

This is a very heavy coat and is referred Blanket-Lined coat.

The new one is on the right, and my original Columbia Coat is on the left.  They are different colors, and the Columbia is darker.

The Columbia has the logo in all red, whereas the Carhartt logo is the same as the logo on the Crew Gym Bag.  I'm very excited to have the two different coats.  I got one more item from Bernd, but I'll get to that in a bit.

Sometimes you find really odd items to add to the collection.  This is one of them.  This is a puzzle that was released in 2013.  The title of the puzzle is "Games We Played." It features a collage of many classic board games.

In the bottom left of the puzzle features yours and my favorite board game.  Amidst Monopoly, Sorry, Twister, Uno, and Clue, is the Dukes of Hazzard board game.  Bo, Luke, Daisy, and Boss Hogg are honored to be included.

Games We Played comes from Lois B. Sutton.  Thanks for including the Dukes Lois!

White Mountain Puzzles Inc. is the company behind the puzzle.  This is a very cool and unique addition to the collection.

And now to the foreign items.  Our pal "Uncle Jesse" is going to love this.  I saw this on ebay and had to have it.  It's the Autorodeo from Italy!  There is no mention of Dukes on it, but we all know it's the Stunt Buster from the Barn Buster set.

Auto Rodeo translates from Italian to Car Rodeo and the sentence underneath says "the only car in the world that works even on one wheel." It also says "the booming car acrobatics." The set is made by Harbert Sport licensed by the Knickerbocker Toy Company. The paragraph on the box says in Italian "for more sophisticated tricks, ask your dealer to show you the new big packs sfondadienile rodeo and rodeo acrobatic leap, with new car in two speeds" which I'm sure is a reference to the Speed Jumper and Barn Buster.

I really expected the decals to include the 01s and rebel flags even though they are not pictured on the box.  You don't get the familiar Dukes signage but you do get an American Flag and the Golden Eagle.  This Charger sports a 16 on the doors.

Not until you do some real snooping do you find a mention of the Dukes, WB and Knickerbocker embossed in the ramp.  I knew we would find it somewhere.  This is a great and extremely rare item. Now I gotta find the sfondadienile rodeo and rodeo acrobatic leap (Italian Barn Buster and Speed Jumper.)

My final item on this post is also the last item I got from Bernd...and it's a doozy!  This is the German version of the Dukes of Hazzard Slam Shifter.  Man, I am so glad Bernd sold this bad boy to me.  It is huge and a great addition.  I have the standard American version in a sealed box and blogged about it in on of my very first posts, but for some reason, the pictures in that post don't work.  I'll have to find those old pics and reupload them.

Just like the Italian toy, this box doesn't mention the Dukes either, but it does feature the Gen'ral quite prominently.  For some reason it is callesd Speedy's Morodrom.

The box has all the same pictures that are on the American version.  I just can't compare them because my old pictures aren't available.  My American version is behind a lot of other things right now.  I should have gotten it out to compare.

It does have WB trademark information on the box.  All of the contents of the box are the same as the American version.

The box is open so I had to explore the contents.  And have some fun.

These tiny billboards are incredible.  You are supposed to pop them out and insert them to the edges of the race track.  Ideal Toy Corporation did any excellant job on the details.  You get The Boars Nest, Cooter's Garage...

Hazzard County Picture Palace, the familar "Boss Hogg Sez 'Welcome to Hazzard County'" sign, Hazzard County Drug Store...

Another Cooter's Garage sign, and Hazzard County Savings Bank.  I love these tiny signs.

The directions are in great condition.  When I was setting up an Ertl playset for the museum at the new Cooter's Place in Sperryville, I framed the directions and hung them on the wall of the faux bedroom.  These directions are worthy of being framed as well.

Let's play with my new toy.  I was surprised that the cars are diecast, not plastic.  They are unique to this set.

The Charger is nicely recreated.  The police care is a hybrid two-two Monoco.

I couldn't help myself.  I put it together.  It is a big set when assembled.

Is this thing beautiful, or what?



The raceway works by slamming the shifter down launching the car around the track.  I couldn't get the cars to go around fast enough.  Maybe I wasn't hitting the shifter hard enough, but I didn't want to break it.  Check out the video to see the cars in action.  Thanks to John and Tom for providing the soundtrack.  I can't imagine this toy working as advertised.  The cars just don't get enough speed to make it around the track.

I love these new additions to the collection.  Maybe buying all those foreign DVDs got me looking for outside of the US Dukes items.  It seems like a new market and I'll be looking for more foreign Dukes pieces.  Thanks again to Bernd and I look forward to talking Dukes with you in the future.

Dukes of Hazzard Action Figures Series 3 Exclusives from Entertainment Earth by Figures Toy Co.

The long wait is finally over!  Well actually, we only first found out about these in April, but the few months wait is finally over.  Entertainment Earth has released their exclusive series 3 of Figure Toy Company's much loved Dukes of Hazzard action figure line.  Series 3 is comprised of episode specific variations of characters.  They are only released in 8 inch form and are limited.  You can order yours by clicking on the Entertainment Earth button on the right of this here blog.  Let's check them out.

The packages are the same as series 1 and 2.  I really like the design that went into these.

I like that these exclusive figures are officially Series 3 in the line.

There is a nice bold Entertainment Earth stick on the bubble of each figure.  Thank you very much EE for making these variant figures possible.

The backs of the figures have the same image as series 1 and 2.  Three is not shown.  The individual figure's character image is also on the back.

The world rejoiced when Tom Wopat and John Schneider returned to the Dukes of Hazzard after sitting out for eighteen episodes.  Read about that here.  In the story line, the Duke Boys chased their dream of becoming professional race car drivers.  When Coy and Vance needed to go help Aunt Bessie at her farm, the real Duke Boys snuck back in to Hazzard still wearing their race suits.  When they took off their helmets, all of Hazzard rejoiced too.  Bo and Luke in their orange race jump suits from "Welcome Back Bo n' Luke" start off series 3.

Figures Toy Co got the details of the suits right.  "Octoline," "Salzar Radials," and "Christy Batteries" are all represented on as sponsors.  These are, of course, made up sponsors.  I wonder why they photoshopped them out of the image used on the package, but used them on the actual figures.  There are things we will never know.

I think I prefectly recreated the image used on the package.  I should do more classic Dukes photo recreation with these figures.

I wonder who designed the look-a-like sponsor logos for the episode?

In the show, the two suits weren't exactly the same, there were a few different logos here and there, but you could never tell unless you meticulously google searched it.  (That's not at all what I just did.) These figures look great and really bring back memories of that great moment when we got our Duke Boys back.

Bo and Luke have different colored boots on.  They are the same colors as the individual character's standard figure boots.

Each jump suit has an American flag on the sleeves.

We never see the backs of the jump suits but we all know they didn't have the show logo on them. Though it is not show accurate, I really like that Figures Toy Company didn't just leave the spaces on their backs blank.  The show logo looks very good on the back of the jump suits and doesn't take away from the figure at all.

Season three's episode "Baa Baa White Sheep" introduced us to Boss Hogg's long lost twin brother Abraham Lincoln Hogg.  The episode also bolstered the '80s kid's fear of quicksand, but that's for another time.

Abe Hogg was as straight as Boss was crooked.  His name was even the opposite of Boss's.  Get it? J.D. stood for Jefferson Davis, the Confederate president.  Their mom must have known they would contradict each other.  Ah, '80s TV cliches.  There are a couple published press photos of Sorrell Booke dressed as Abe, but Figures used a standard picture of Boss and photoshopped the suit black. They did and excellent job in doing so.

His full name would fit on the package, though the joke is kind of lost without it.

When the idea of variant figures was bounced around, Abe Hogg was an obvious choice.  He is just Boss in black clothes.  The figure came out perfectly.

Somehow the black suit makes him look like a nicer guy.  This man wouldn't foreclose on your farm or frame your cousins.

Next up is Daisy Duke in her red bikini.  All the way back in "One Armed Bandits" (episode 1, like you didn't know) we saw sweet Daisy in her bikini helping the boys by distracting the truck drivers.  I think she has been distracting us ever since.  This figure was a no-brainer.  Great job FTC and EE.

Not only did we get bikini Daisy, but we also got another great Hazzard Police uniform with Officer Daisy Duke.

In a season two episode, Daisy joined Hazzard's finest after Bo and Luke got her fired from the Boar's Nest.

I have been singing the praises of Figures Toy Company's rendition of the Hazzard County police uniform since last year.  They did an excellent job with Rosco, then Enos and Cletus, and did not disappoint with Daisy.

 

The badge, tie clip, patch and flag all look great.  This may be my favorite police figure of the bunch.

I've said many times that my favorite episode is "Ghost of General Lee" but a close second would be "Carnival of Thrills."  It has everything that makes a great Dukes episode; stunts, fighting, stunts, love stories, races, stunts, and a happy ending involving stunts.  This figure is a great representation of Bo in his Carnival jumpsuit.

You only saw Bo in different clothes a few times.  Once he wore this jump suit, and that time he returned to Hazzard from driving NASCARs.  You pretty much have every Bo appearance when you get his three figures.  (Ok, he and Luke did wear police outfits once.)

I really like the design used in the episode.  We also got a few 1/64 diecasts with the Carnival of Thrills designs from Johnny Lightning.

I like the inclusion of the 01 on Bo's suit.  Just like on the show.

Again, FTC added the Dukes logo on the back of the jump suit, and again it really works.  I think it's funny that no character ever says the words "The Dukes of Hazzard" a single time in the series.  Only Waylon says it, and not too many times.

Now let's compare the figures.  Bo is ready to break a record jumping the Gen'ral and win the circuit cup.

The more I look at them, the more I like the inclusion of the logo on the jump suits.

Here are all six figures in series 3.  Again, series 3 is an exclusive to Entertainment Earth.  You can only get these figures from them and if you are going to order them, why not support the DukesCollector blog by first clicking on the EE logo on the right of this blog.

Boss and Abe are rarely ever seen together.  And when they are, there is usually an odd straight line going down the screen.

That is a police force that would make any county proud.

Daisy's deputy hat is the same as Enos and Cletus's.

Three great looking Daisys.

And three awesome Bos.

Love the logo.

Luke feels a little left out that his cousins got three figures and he only has two.  But it's ok.  Boxer Luke from "In This Corner Luke Duke" was one of my suggestions to FTC, but I'm not complaining.

If you would have told me two years ago that we would have 15 different Dukes of Hazzard figures, 9 of which are in 2 sizes, I would never have believed you.  We have all of the major characters and 6 variants.  This is amazing.  Figures Toy Company and Entertainment Earth are great companies. Dukes of Hazzard fans are very grateful that they went after the license and were granted it from Warner Bros.  Thank you to everyone involved in creating these great figures!