GI Joe Collectors Club Exclusives

I want to take a break for a moment from posting about 3D printing.

For a long time I owned a spot on www.adventureteam.com. I still do in a way. That is, the space is hosted for me for free by its owner. But I lost the ability to update it. I have tried contacting the owner, but have gotten no response. I’d just like FTP access again so I can make some necessary updates.

The GI Joe Collectors’ Club has been a stalwart champion for the past couple of decades of the GI Joe collector. Not just a club, it produces a newsletter magazine each month, now with full-color comics with stories from both the 3.5″ Real American Hero line, as well as the 12″ Adventure Team line.

With membership each year, costing $44.00 per anum (US Domestic – more in other countries) we get 12 issues of the newsletter each year, plus they put together a free bare-bones figure (either 12″ or 3.5″ depending on your preference.)

Then for an extra cost (not cheap, but these are custom items in a low-production-number run, so costs can’t be what you’d expect to find at Toys R Us) you can purchase an accessory set for the free figure which usually consists of an outfit and a collection of gear.

This year the figure is special because it’s the 50th anniversary of GI Joe. And the club has put together this free figure:

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He’s a Man of Action with hard hands, celebrating the 50th anniversary of GI Joe.

Later, you will be able to purchase this accessory set:

gi-joe-collectors-club-50th-accessory-set

It’s a fairly pared-down set, featuring a Man of Action outfit with a special gold dog-tag and a “coffin box”. No price has been announced.

I wanted to post this because this figure has met with some criticism in online forums. Mostly because this set is not as elaborate as some have been over the past few years.

But when people make the claim that the club is mainly interested in 3.5″ collectors (and they certainly do some great things for that group) I’m a bit annoyed.

Look at this photo I took this morning: (Please ignore the bad lighting. I was in a hurry. I’ll reshoot it later.)

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This is, from left to right (by my memory… will fix errors later) the 2013 Comerade of Action (with his beautiful outfit), the 2007 Arctic Adventurer (with his gear),j the 2011 Man of the Sea (with his accessory set), the 2008 Man of Asia (with gear), the 2010 Urban Adventurer (with gear including a skateboard, yo!), the brilliant 2012 Man of Evil (with mask and disguise outfit making him the Lost Adventurer), a very small-run exclusive 2011 Stealth Infiltration Figure (still wrapped so far), another short-run figure (I forget the details on this one, if someone can help me out, I’d appreciate it.), then comes the MARS Henchman (a figure available to conference attendees) from the Spy Island 2010 Escape From Spy Island (which itself is a work of absolute genius!), then the 2004 exclusive Aged Adventurer (the gear set is hidden behind the group) and finally the 2003 Counter-Culture Adventurer. (Not shows is the Foreign Adventurer who is currently busy posing for my new Jetpack.)

Not shown are all of the coffin-box figures they created such as the Land Adventurer, the Sea Adventurer, Air Adventurer, Talking Commander, AA Adventurer, AA Talking Commander, because they are currently in storage. But you can see them here:

http://sean.adventureteam.com/gijoe/new-at/new-at.htm

Also not shown here is this: (the only Convention set I own because I attended in 2010):

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(Let me just say that if no other AT sets were created after this, I’d be fine with that because this was the pinnacle!)

Add to this the Convention exclusives (not cheap, but amazing) that they create every year, which also usually come with an attending exclusive you can’t get elsewhere, I really don’t see how anyone can say this club doesn’t cater to its 12″ fan base.

Really!

 

 

 

4 thoughts on “GI Joe Collectors Club Exclusives

  1. Hi Sean, the name of the figure behind the bagged one is another “Backyard Patrol” figure without the bag but this time boxed. It’s the 2012 Foreign Air Adventurer.

  2. Sean, Love your site, I’m not as into the rockets you’ve been printing as your Joe stuff, but they do look really cool. Nice work. I was wondering if you’d seen the Club figure for next year which was just announced, a re-make of Mike Power with two atomic(bionic) legs a light up eye and a completely new head sculpt doing away with the Ken head. Anyway while they are offering a pretty cool add on set to go with Mike, they do not seem to be offering his signature Hand Helicopter. Now I know nothing about 3-D printing, but seems to me this type of thing is a natural for the process, in either an exact replica or an updated version as was wondering if you might do a commission for the figure or if you knew of someone who had the hand copter available as I need one for my vintage figure anyway. I know you did that set for Cotswold which was really cool and was thinking you’d be a natural for this type project. Be great if you were.
    PS, you had teased another set you were going to be involved with for Cots? what became of that or is it one of the ones they have/had available already??

    • Yes, I saw the new Mike Power announcement. I was at the con last year when they announced the glow-in-the-dark figure, and I thought that was pretty cool, but updating Mike would be awesome. I really hate it, though, when people say he had bionic legs and real feet. Uh, they weren’t real. They were colored to be real so he could wear things on his feet with pants and not be conspicuous. Ever look at mio-electric hands of today? They are made to look as skin-like as possible to detract attention. But that’s an argument for another time. (Also, if you watch “Ex Machina”, the robot in that had “real” hands and feet even though she had unapologetically machine-like arms and legs. I never understood what people were talking about when they complained Mike had real feet on artificial legs. He did not.

      Anyway, sorry to digress. I’m excited about the new Mike too. I could indeed make something like his copter blades, but my guess is he will NOT have that functionality, since it is very likely only the head sculpt will be a new part, using existing Joe body parts (in clear) for the arms and legs that will be bionic. So the spinning hand will likely not exist. I hope I’m wrong, but I know a thing or two about how the club creates its figures by re-using existing molds wherever possible, because making new parts is hugely expensive.

      I don’t think an exact replica would work well. Those can usually be found on eBay for not too much money. An updated version would be totally in order for an updated Mike. I think you can count on me to make something for him. And if there is demand, perhaps sell one on Shapeways or somewhere so people cay buy good prints of it.

      As for Cotswold, I’m still working with them on some ideas. Keep watching their facebook page. We are working on something now. However, the set I teased some time ago, is not currently in the works. I put that aside for the moment, as my interests shifted away from doing things for Joe and making things for me, such as the rockets and UFOs I’m currently working on, as well as very detailed models of the new Thunderbird 1 and 3.

      But I will get back to that set, since I liked the concept so much.

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