Wheeling and dealing - back in the day...

SublevelStudios

Sith Lord
Joined
Oct 17, 2013
Messages
2,598
Came across some old photos and a catalogue from when I used to be a dealer in the very early 90's.

Started collecting in 1989 when I was in art college, just buying loose figures from the weekly flea market in Newcastle-under-Lyme (where I first met the infamous Lee Bullock!). Then started going to carboots and local toy fairs. A mate and I quickly decided to do a couple as traders with some doubles of stuff we had and took it from there. We did it for 4 years. I enjoyed it a lot, the banter, the finds, and the buying and selling. Some great years. Then came girlfriends and cars, drinking and the start of my career. Sold the collection and bought a Pug GTI 1.6 :)

These are some photos taken in 1994 at one of the Cheshunt fairs. These were quite a jaunt for us being in Stoke but well worth the trip. You'll notice in one of the shots a MOC Sise Fromm - this would have had an asking price of about £25. We had it for AGES and it never sold. Wasn't until we did a deal on all of Droids MOC's that we got shot of him. When you here people say you couldn't give the Droids figures away, they're telling the truth!

SUblevel1.jpg

SUblevel2.jpg

SUblevel5.jpg


This is the last catalogue we produced. We did one very six months or so - no internet back then so these were great selling tools outside of doing the fairs. I've added a couple of pages that showed the 'was - now' sale prices.

subcat1.jpg

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And this is me circa 1993 - this was my dad's garage that I converted into a stock room/office. Laid it out like a little shop :) can't find any pics of it other than this one. You'll notice the Palitoy figure display to the left - minus the Vader head at the top. And yes, I'm smoking a fag in there!!! :eek: (And I had hair!).

sublevel_mark.jpg
 

Joe

Grand Master
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What a fantastic post! Love it! I'm sure you are to blame (or to applaud) for turning a fair few kids into early collectors! That lad walking way with a Speeder Bike looks well happy!

Great stuff mate, it's nice that you've continued to use the sublevel name over the years too!
 

sith-smith

Grand Master
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Odd, the moment I saw the first picture I immediately thought 'Ah, Cheshunt!!'

That used to be an amazing show 8)
 

SublevelStudios

Sith Lord
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Oct 17, 2013
Messages
2,598
Grant_C said:
Amazing Mark.

Were you at the one in Chesent in July 1995?

Possibly, we'd moved onto doing a collector/sci fi magazine then with Jason Joiner called Dark Times (will dig some pics out) and I think we had a stand there selling it - and also at Stevenage.
 

Grant_C

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SublevelStudios said:
Grant_C said:
Amazing Mark.

Were you at the one in Chesent in July 1995?

Possibly, we'd moved onto doing a collector/sci fi magazine then with Jason Joiner called Dark Times (will dig some pics out) and I think we had a stand there selling it - and also at Stevenage.

Mate- id love to see that. :)
 

lejackal

Grand Master
Joined
Jul 1, 2015
Messages
8,518
Awesome pics, standout item on the price list is the French, presumably Meccano, Leia for £90 :shock:
Even adding inflation that's a bargain! Oh my misspent youth :cry:
 

SublevelStudios

Sith Lord
Joined
Oct 17, 2013
Messages
2,598
lejackal said:
Awesome pics, standout item on the price list is the French, presumably Meccano, Leia for £90 :shock:
Even adding inflation that's a bargain! Oh my misspent youth :cry:

REDUCED TO £75!!!!!!! :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock:

:(
 

chrisfnx

Jedi Knight
Joined
Feb 3, 2008
Messages
382
Cheers for the photos. I used to go to Cheshunt in the late 90s, still got my carded Luke Storm Tri from then. I got it off a guy from Europe I think. He had lots of mint tri logo stuff for sale. Thanks again.
 

SublevelStudios

Sith Lord
Joined
Oct 17, 2013
Messages
2,598
Grant_C said:
Mate- id love to see that. :)

This was the mag, we did a test issue before (Issue Zero) and that sold out of all 500 copies, we ploughed all the profit into producing this one with full colour cover. It bombed and we didn't even cover the costs so we pulled the plug on it. Again, this was the days before the internet and magazines and fanzines were all we had. It was great putting them together though :)

DARKTIMES.jpg


This is a pic of us with Jeremy Bulloch at the Elstree day where we sold the promo issue (me on the left) :)

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We also designed and produced the free brochure for the Elstree event:

elstree.jpg
 
Joined
Feb 15, 2014
Messages
186
SublevelStudios said:
Came across some old photos and a catalogue from when I used to be a dealer in the very early 90's.

Started collecting in 1989 when I was in art college, just buying loose figures from the weekly flea market in Newcastle-under-Lyme (where I first met the infamous Lee Bullock!). Then started going to carboots and local toy fairs. A mate and I quickly decided to do a couple as traders with some doubles of stuff we had and took it from there. We did it for 4 years. I enjoyed it a lot, the banter, the finds, and the buying and selling. Some great years. Then came girlfriends and cars, drinking and the start of my career. Sold the collection and bought a Pug GTI 1.6 :)

These are some photos taken in 1994 at one of the Cheshunt fairs. These were quite a jaunt for us being in Stoke but well worth the trip. You'll notice in one of the shots a MOC Sise Fromm - this would have had an asking price of about £25. We had it for AGES and it never sold. Wasn't until we did a deal on all of Droids MOC's that we got shot of him. When you here people say you couldn't give the Droids figures away, they're telling the truth!

SUblevel1.jpg

SUblevel2.jpg

SUblevel5.jpg


This is the last catalogue we produced. We did one very six months or so - no internet back then so these were great selling tools outside of doing the fairs. I've added a couple of pages that showed the 'was - now' sale prices.

subcat1.jpg

subcat2.jpg

subcat3.jpg


And this is me circa 1993 - this was my dad's garage that I converted into a stock room/office. Laid it out like a little shop :) can't find any pics of it other than this one. You'll notice the Palitoy figure display to the left - minus the Vader head at the top. And yes, I'm smoking a fag in there!!! :eek: (And I had hair!).

sublevel_mark.jpg


think that is me with the red top on! god you must be old lol
 

Woolyniner

Jedi Knight
Joined
Aug 3, 2015
Messages
342
Interesting stuff, back in 1993 where people buying from you as collectors only, or would you still get people buying them as originally intended? What I mean by that is did you have people buying items off you to open from the packaging and playing/displaying like it was 1983 still?

I'm just wondering when the second hand star wars market went from toys to be opened to toys to be collected and preserved.
 
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