Ninja Rap

When we first created the Donation Manifestation wish-list, I threw "ninja throwing stars" (or "hira-shuriken") right there at the top. I figured we would be getting one or two of these in every month. In the dozens of years I've been sorting Junk Store donations since then, we have not seen a single one of there. Not a one. Nunchucks, sure. Swords, no problem, but ninja stars... never.

Until today.

Sure, it is so dull it acts as more of a blunt object weapon than a blade, and I suspect that it was made to be more decorative than functional. I'm still happy to finally see one of these (it was donated in a box of broken action figures). Keeeyah!

worn only once - in 1990

Unlike music instruments (see my last post), wigs, weaves, and toupees aren't nearly as rare of a donation as you would expect, or hope. I guess an artist or teacher could use it for something, particularly a bald artist or teacher.

Along those lines, here is one of my recent favorites. The note that was taped to the packaging is in itself a great item for Tales From the Junk Store.

Cost over $500!?! You got ripped off!

And here is our old buddy Hans sampling the goods for us. Looking sharp, Hans.

Amped

Little combo amps are great and all but if we really want to rock we're gonna need some serious wattage here.

Actual musical instruments (aside from pan pipes) are a pretty rare donation at the Junk Store. Much more so than you would expect. An occasional saxophone piece here or maybe a ukulele there, but the big guns never seem to come in. And if or when they do, Big Merl and Top Cat have usually got them squirreled away at the home studio by sundown so I never even get a chance to shred.

fake boobs

When we first got these in, I thought they were actual silicon implants or something. How fun and creepy and silly...

But, upon closer inspection, they are actually prosthetic boobs for women who have had to have mastectomies because of breast cancer or what have you.

Not quite so much fun, eh? Yeah, I feel like an insensitive jerk for trying to somehow portray this donation as weird and freaky (which it still kinda is). I don't feel bad enough to not post it on the Junk Store blog, but I still feel bad.

Yellow Fuzzy Rider

Until I accidentally drop my new smart phone into the dumpster, we currently have the ability to make a quick video here at the Junk Store and quickly upload it to Youtube.

Like this:

Who is this fuzzy yellow tricycle rider? Is it hand made? Why is this so fascinating to me?

Look at those crazy legs go! Now take it viral, people.

Gotcha! The Sport

Check it out: it's the Gotcha! The Sport brand Commando Double Gun set.

Just like in that 80s movie with that guy from ER.

Made by Entertech, whom also made those realistic looking automatic water machine guns in the 80s.

We never actually did get a paintball battle going on in the sorting room.

the TI99/4A

May I present to you, for your consideration, the height of 1981 home computing technology, the Texas Instruments TI-99/4A.

"The Texas Instruments TI-99/4A was an early home computer, released in June 1981, originally at a price of USD $525. It was an enhanced version of the less-successful—and quite rare—TI-99/4 model, which was released in late 1979 at a price of $1,150. The TI-99/4A added an additional graphics mode, "lowercase" characters consisting of small capitals, and a full travel keyboard. Its predecessor, the TI-99/4, featured a calculator-style chiclet keyboard and a unique style ofASCII that lacked lowercase text."

We have here the console (with keyboard), some game controllers, some monitor cables, a few game cartridges, and a nifty vinyl cover. Not donated were such heavy-duty peripherals as the speech synthesis card, the 5 1/4" floppy drive, the thermal printer, the acoustic coupler, 32Kb memory expansion card, or the amazing tape drive that used standard audio cassettes as media.

This sucker might have costs you $525 in 1981 ($1249.50 in 2010 dollars when adjusted for inflation), but we couldn't sell this sucker for five bucks at the Junk Store this past holiday season. These spoiled kids with their PlayBox 180s and Nintendo X-Stations.

A lot more about the TI-99/4A and it's successors and predecessors over here.

TI-99/4A Game Shelf (feature such classics as TI Invaders and Munch Man) here.

slightly expired jackpot

I really thought that, other than a Polaroid camera with a few pictures left or maybe the occasional unopened by very expired film pack, I would never come upon a big score of Polaroid film again. They aren't making it anymore. It's all expired as of late 2009. It sells on eBay for a ton. It just wasn't gonna happen.

Then The Jammer sorted what looked to be a box of dusty paperbacks and looky here...

Hot damn! And most of these are two-packs! Were talking, like, 300 or so pictures here. And this was what the stash looked like after The Jammer took his cut. Sure, the film all expired in 2004 so the pictures come up a bit light and yellow, but I'm not complaining.

Old

It's a cold, rainy Sunday morning and instead of snuggling in a nice warm bed (like a toasty cinnamon bun) or eating a delicious brunch (like some toasty cinnamon buns), I have to slog it over to the Junk Store to participate in some "Vintage Sale" fiasco. Eight or so hours of watching suckers angrily hand over big bucks for for baggies full of broken sixties shit. And when they tell me the prices are too high I can't really argue. They are. But when you slap those seven magic letters on the label, the sky's the limit.

Not like in the old Junk Store days, when "OLD" was good enough...

America's Fastest Action Game: SHAKE

Any game that uses dice imagery to this extent must be great. I could find very little info on "Shake" on the interweb (or at least in the first few pages of a google search), and this particular near-mint copy of "Shake" was squirreled away upstairs in the ongoing vintage hoard stash before I got a chance to figure out how it is played. I did manage to sneak these two pictures and then steal the green dice, though, so it wasn't a total loss.

Wind-Ups Update

pop-pa-pop-pop...pop

While not the showers-of-sparks blasters we picked-up for July 4th 2005, still a good haul for a little decade send-off this past New Year's Eve.

Swan Lovin'

And now, to cap off a tremendous year of donation sorting, photocopy sneaking, doodad hoarding, and general junk piracy, may I present to you, for everlasting glory upon the internet, the greatest Junk Pirate photo of all times:

I really don't know if any commentary could possible do justice to the creepiness and yet tender loving emotions of the old lady in her kitchen caressing a swan photo that I like to call "Swan Lovin". It probably is even better without any context, even if that context is just how I came across it.

This picture was one of literally hundreds of old photos featuring some guy's transformation from little kid into old man (the most recent photos were from the 1970s). These photos got donated in two giant trash bags in December of 2005. As amazing as this is on its own, many of the pictures featured this guy hanging out in nature with various swans, ducks, and geese. Minds were and continue to be blown.

In fact, the cover of Junk Pirate issue #10 was a goose portrait photo from the same collection. That issue (some of which is reprinted in the Junk Pirate Volume One book) featured a bunch of photos from those trash bags.

Swan Lovin ended up framed and available at the December 2006 Junk Pirate art exhibition. I think it sold for like 8 or 16 bucks. I didn't even scan it or anything. Luckily for me, and all of us, the person who bought it, artist Lisa Romero, was nice enough to scan it for me.

Happy New Year!

Snakes! Snakes! They're everywhere!

What's worse, dozens of small shedded snake skins, or one giant one?

Twist this fool's cap back

More awesome toy guns! The little beauties are heavy steel so you feel like a man when you hold them. And the cap-ammo is available over at the Walgreens down the road. 

S.C.R.E.A.M. : Shredded Cash Rules Everything Around Me

It's is not all that uncommon for us to receive donations of cash... shredded cash that is. Finely shredded US currency that somehow retains a bit a seeming value even though it is really just worthless shredded paper. As a kid I used to think that if I just had the time, I could reassemble enough bits to make me rich. Nowadays, shredded money just reminds me that our unshredded money is still just paper that symbolizes credit and has no real value. Since we ditched the gold standard (1946), and eventually the US Treasury refused to exchange currency for gold (1971), paper money (and coins, too) has value only in theory.

We usually get little bags like the one above or sometimes it's used in a paperweight or pen or something. But the tenuous conceptual hold of paper to value really hit home when some dude donated a couple of trash bags full of shredded cash.

Worthless. Or would you pay 25¢ a handful? 

Shredded cash is fun as a novelty, and could be a useful art supply or perhaps make for decent insulation. I guess it is better than no cash.

MEGAPHONE!

If you think that I won't answer the telephone using a megaphone, you have no idea  how bored we get working at here the Junk Store.

Pea Shooters

New additions to the Junk Pirate Weapons Stockpile:

A whole grip of Techy-Gloks. With plenty of rubber pellet refills. Not quite as powerful as a pump-action b.b. shooter, but this due quite nicely for defending the loading dock against donation hags in their silent hybrid cars. 

The pellets even load into these realistic clips. Just like a big boy gun.

The Cap'n

Another breathtaking piece of Junk Store original artwork. 

I call this one "The Cap'n" and he's running this ship from here on out. 

Sort Dice Good

After a hard day of smashing mugs and precariously stacking bags of scrap fabric at the Junk Store, I like to unwind with some smooth jazz and a fat pile of mixed dice. Nothing soothes my jangled nerves like making little piles and rows of dice.

There are so many ways you can group them. Color, size, material, number of sides, cleanliness, or any way I want them. Once I add any new additions to the collection, I then put them all back in baggies and jars and then back on the shelf until tomorrow. 

The latest in audio technology

Someday soon I'll take a picture of the 8-track playing Robot, but until that day comes we can all still rock out and rock on with this massive box of classic tracks.

It's all here, man. Cheap Trick, Deep Purple, Steppenwolf, Floyd, Zepplin, the Stones, the Beatles, Thin Lizzy, Ram Jam, Neil Young, and even some George Carlin comedy tapes. And if you think the Junk Store isn't equipped with the latest in stereophonic playing devices, you obviously aren't hip to the scene, man. 

Not only do we have a deluxe 8-Track player hooked into the sorting room Hi-Fi system...

but we're also rocking this fashionable "portable" two-speaker 8-track player with AM/FM radio antennae. Sure, it doesn't take batteries, but with enough extension cord (harvested from the office aisle endcap), you can carry the heavy tunes with you down the block, man.

Damn My Eyes

Look out! We've been seeing lots of good Eyes lately...

Do these go into the eyeball collection, or the rubber ball collection?
Eye N Eye N Eye N Eye N Eye


I was very  pleased to see the warning embossed into the back of this eye-bubble container.


Trip Out.

Doll's eyes: Worth their weight in gold.

And we conclude with the above image of the psychedelic eye bin from the Junk Pirate Archives. See you next time. I'll keep an eye out for you. And so on. 

Manifest Destiny (in magnet form)

We've got another collection on our hands.

Ever so slowly we are trying to accumulate and complete collection of all 50 state magnets. To up the ante a little bit, we are only including magnets that are shaped like the state itself (unless it is somehow really cool, then we'll include it. However, only state-shaped magnets will represent the actual state). USA! USA!

Heck, we'll even include some Canada, Mexico, or even Europe if they get donated.

Since Washington D.C. is technically not a state, we'll have to settle for this US Capitol shaped magnet. 

Connecticut and Illinois both currently have two representatives. 

I'm not too happy with Montana's magnet, but it will have to do for the moment. We're also having trouble getting all these magnets to fit together in the shape of the continental US since the magnets aren't really standardized in scale. That and I really have no idea which state goes where other than the the three on the West Coast.