My mouth waters when I hear the word! It's the closest thing beer has to chocolate milk. Boulevard Brewing Company out of Kansas City makes a pretty good one, Bully! Porter. Stouts are a little iffier for me, but I love and adore the Schafly Coffee Stout (out of St. Louis). When I used to live in Springfield, MO, I would order the "black sheep" at Springfield Brew Co and it would either be their Mudhouse Stout or their porter, depending on the season.
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Laptop Battery

You hit the nail on the head: they are meant to be collectables. The toy companies, especially those that do licensed stuff like Star Wars, figured out (no pun intended) about 15 years ago that the only people that make a real effort to buy licensed stuff are the hardcore fans. Average kids are happy with a few figures and maybe a ship or three, but the speculators (I rarely call them collectors because nearly every one of them I've ever met is in it for the money) are out there buying two of every figure and ship, hoping that in 30 years, their in-box X-Wing will be worth a thousand dollars - just as original 70's & 80's Star Wars stuff is today worth a pretty penny if it's in good condition.

Problem is, and ask any comic book collector (I've been one for 25 years), anything that explicitly says it's a collector's item *isn't*. A cover that states "First Issue Collector's Item!" is guaranteed to be worth less than cover price in a few years, with very, very few exceptions. These new Star Wars toys are the same way - the companies, and speculators, are banking on them being collector's items... but they're not. They're over-produced and have no rarity going for them - the number one factor in driving up the value of a collectable.

And because of the speculators, the kids suffer with mediocre, mass-produced garbage. I too, am a child of the 70's. I remember my Star Wars stuff fondly. You're not imagining things, the toys today are smaller and shoddily made. There are some exceptions, like the DC Universe stuff, but honestly, at $15 a pop, they're not for kids. They are, again, for speculators.

Thanks for confirming this Daniel. I'm sorry to read that it's just not me. I was hoping I was wrong and that the "real" kids versions were available somewhere else.

I smell a petition to George Lucas....

Dave,

Chalk it up yet again, products made today just are FAR more inferior than what we grew up on. Well, the only plus is that at least they're not made of hazardous lead or toxic paint products, remember the chipping paint from our hot wheels cars?

aHH, good times.

What are you talking about? There's tons of stuff with lead paint these days. Thank you very much China.

I do remember the ones you're talking about too though.

Hey Dave. I agree. The *only* good thing about the new toys is the likenesses seem to be a bit better. Sometimes I wondered if they had blind or thumbless people sculpting the heads on those things.

But remember how the light sabers would extend in and out of their arms? That was pretty sweet.

Yes, it's really unfortunate that this is now the standard. Our kids have to suffer on the assumption that manufacturers will sell more to collectors, who according to Daniel (above) know better than to fall for this.

Bring back the old school action figures!

Hello, perhaps its been a while since you last saw the toys from your youth, but I just wanted to throw in a few corrections to shed some light on the situation:

The original Star Wars action figures ("classic" or "vintage" series, as some people call the line) was produced by Kenner and the figures stood an average of 3 3/4" tall. I say 'average' because there were figures such as Darth Vader and Chewbacca that were slightly taller, and figures such as R2-D2 and Yoda that were slightly smaller.

In 1996, Kenner "relaunched" the Star Wars action figures under the "Power of the Force" line- these kept with the same scale- 3 3/4", but the sculpts were "bulked up"- Kenner thought they would attract a new audience to represent "extreme" versions of our favorite heroes and villians.

Within two years, fan complaints brought Kenner down to earth and they scaled the proportions back to represent more accurate representations. The line went through a few refreshes, and Kenner was bought out by Hasbro.

Hasbro refreshed the line for every new prequel movie and a few times in between each, all the while keeping the figures in pretty much the same scale as the vintage line from the '70s and '80s.

It has only been recently that for some unknown reason, the figures have indeed become slightly smaller.

And by the way- the original G.I. Joes- they were 1/6 scale, or 12" tall. Kenner also produced Star Wars figures at that scale, and in the 1996 relaunch, 12" Star Wars figures were available as well. Hasbro discontinued them around 2001, but Sideshow Collectibles has picked up the license and makes amazing likenesses with great detail. (Hasbro also recently launched a series of 24" figures)

G.I. Joe was "shrunk" to 3 3/4" scale as well- this you may remember during the eighties.

You may want to look at the Sideshow line if you'd like to collect some truly amazing things with your son!

This sound interesting. thanks for sharing.