Advertologist Randy Jones Vintage Advertising Character Collector

[00:00:00] Randy Jones: so displaying our collection I really like to get stuff that I can put out if I can't find a spot for it I might save it you know away and then maybe switch things out a lot but I like to keep things to where I can see them because that to me it's like if you have a collection it's nice to have it out and enjoy then just like oh I have this great collection and sitting in like 29 tubs in the garage I mean I guess some people that's their collection and they can't put it all out but I mean I like to obviously I like to display it so it's always you know because I walk in the room and I see that I remember oh I know when I got that I remember where that came from you know it's like there's a lot of like stories like they're all telling you things when you see them hi my name is Randy Jones and I'm a collector and also a vendor I would say mostly a collector well we started out collecting actually VW toys in my late 20s and then I found a magazine Smithsonian magazine that was a article about advertising collectibles and so I started collecting those and pretty much sold off my VW toy collection and then focused on advertising so the majority of the collection from that point on became advertising characters which is a lot of what you see here and and then since then I've also gone into collecting advertising spray cans and interesting things that kind of fit with the vibe of the collection and also recently started collecting these marks characters called Marx's I like stuff from the past I like graphic art I do a lot of printing and design I work in printing so a lot of what I see it's more visual and I like the advertising because they're all kind of different shapes and different like forms and you can find print you can find three-dimensional things advertising displays so it kind of opened up a whole nother perspective on like collecting as opposed to like just like figures that were all kind of the same size and stuff like that and I don't know I just like graphic art and just like looking at the stuff that they used to do back in the day compared to the what they're doing now it just has a certain feel that they just can't capture anymore so I probably started collecting in my early 20s so that's been what 40 over 40 years and I was mostly just collecting and then I'd always buy some extra things that I liked and then maybe I just didn't want to keep anymore and then I ended up doing a show probably in the mid 80s and found out that I could find other things to sell so that kind of gave me an outlet to buy other things but still look for my collection and also be able to pay for the collection by selling other things that other people collect where do I get my things from I mostly go to the swap meet like on a Saturday I go to a local college swap meet I call it the junk swap where you have like people buying out storage units or clearing out houses or just people showing up to sell their things and then usually on a Sunday I've sometimes sell at some of the shows once or twice a month so I would usually go there and I'll shop in the morning for a couple hours and then after I'm done shopping I'll set up where like I think full-time dealers since I work during the week I don't have access to going to like shopping during the week like estate sales and stuff like that so that's kind of my shopping in the morning at the show and then I set up and sell and then if I'm not selling then I'm usually out of there by 9:30 or 10:00 but I try to get there as early as possible and of course online too every once in a while but it's always nice to go find things originally where they came from or you know out there in the field collecting has changed a lot from when I started I mean when I was collecting there was no internet there was no email there was only phone calls and magazine called toy shop that would come out once a month where people would advertise kind of like a Craigslist you had to do like phone auctions or you had to call the person to buy it send them a letter people would send out want lists so it was a lot different back then it just took a lot more time and I think a lot of times there were more shows to go to and the stuff was more out there and that's where we shopped at and then as slowly as the internet progressed and eBay came around then all of a sudden now everything was available on the internet so that changed everything from like searching all over and going to antique shops and stuff like that you have just go on the computer in the beginning there was like all this great stuff and then it kind of became harder to find and then actually it did a weird thing where a lot of the stuff that used to be hard to find became easier to find so the value of some of the things that I would have spent say I bought a advertising character for $200 now they were everywhere and they were $40 so you know from an investment standpoint it kind of like ruined some things but then on the other hand there was a lot more rare stuff that would come up of course then you would just bid against everybody else so whoever had the most money would win and then now everybody's got a phone so everybody knows the value when they see something they just scan it with their phone and it's kind of changed that for the newer collectors I think they more look at it like what the value is than what they like and to me it's always been I like to buy things I like whether a matchbook that's two dollars or an ad figure that's fifteen hundred dollars it's it's not about what it's cost it's about what does it mean to me or our collections my thoughts on um how it's gone over the years for my 40 years of collecting when I started of course there were already collectors and dealers and stuff like that so I had a couple guys that were kind of my mentors that I would go to the shows with and I think they were always just old school where they would go out and find stuff they had to you had to put the time in you had to know people you had to hear about things go to garage sales go to estate sales and even when the state sales then you didn't even know what was there it was just an ad and a paper and so then when I started kind of getting more into collecting and they were still doing the same thing I think the older things started phasing out and I think the collectors as it progressed in my timeline started collecting different things so a lot of the stuff that the older collectors were selling like cast iron toys weren't very popular Charlie Chaplin toys weren't very popular that kind of thing that's moved on to like the mid-century stuff and now that it's even moved on to another section now it's all 80s and 90s toys a lot of big collectors on those and those are really hot and even the stuff in the 60s and like Flintstones and that they're still collectors but not as much as much as there was so and it's gotten a lot easier so it almost like easier to get things makes it seem like they're not as important but that's kind of why I like advertising because it's almost like timeless so like an advertising character from the 50s is just as relevant as it is in the 90s or 2000s [00:07:54] Speaker 2: you go to the flea markets now and you know there's like this new generation of young kids and things like that I mean is that is that something that you know you would see often or is it just [00:08:05] Randy Jones: no I mean back in those flea market days people just brought stuff out they didn't have any real way of researching stuff you know like if you found a box of I don't know jars or say say beer cans you just had to go I mean there was lots of books back then you know in the 80s and 90s everybody did books but you you'd have to buy a book to look through to see a value and now it's like they just you you grab your phone and you take a picture with google image and it tells you all this more than you need to know about it so it's like it's changed a lot so when people were selling back then it's like it was their guess you know I know I mean a five dollar can a 25 dollar can a hundred dollar can they wouldn't know the difference so you might say how much are these and you would just pick out the ones you wanted [00:09:02] Speaker 2: what have been the highs and lows as it relates to collecting and vending [00:09:08] Randy Jones: personally yeah highs oh I mean the highs always when you find something that you didn't know existed um I mean I think that's why everybody at least I get up and go to the swap meet at 4 in the morning 3 30 in the morning 5 in the morning it's like it's not what you got yesterday it's what you haven't found like people are always going like well what are you looking for I'm like I haven't found it yet you know and it's like I never know like you it's like a treasure hunt you never know like what you're going to find you know what's going to turn up or what someone else is going to find you know that's part of it too you know it's like everybody else out there looking for the same thing too so that's kind of the high you know I mean when someone finds something that you have to sell them and they really appreciate it or something they're looking for that's always a good feeling and I mean it's just a good if you if you have a lot of good friends that are collecting it's always fun to share stories and stuff like that I mean the lows I don't know I don't think I've ever had any time when I felt like oh this is I don't like this I don't want to do this anymore I mean it can be overwhelming at times you know sometimes you say to yourself I don't need to buy any more stuff I don't need anything but it just slowly creeps back in and you end up looking for more stuff you know I mean when you're a collector it's easy because you're collecting one thing so if you don't see that one thing you just move on to the next but when you're a collector and also a vendor you're almost shopping for everybody else too so the more things you know about the more opportunity there is to buy something and then turn around and sell it or have to store it till you sell it I enjoy the people I mean you know talking to people getting to know people that collect similar things or and also the adventure of like learning about new things that you didn't know about or finding other people that are passionate about the things that you have you know that can appreciate it like you can talk to people about your stuff and they'll like you someone might come to the house and to repair something and they'll just walk in and they'll be just like like what the hell is going on around here but it's nice when someone comes in and says oh my gosh you know like and then you have that conversation and it's like talking about this like a fishing buddy that you went fishing with and so you're talking about fishing it's the same thing with the collectors so I mean I find that the most fun um I mean the collecting is fun uh but you can't take it too serious because it's just stuff I always say you know you you can't take any of this to the 7-eleven and get a free slurpee it'll just tell you to get out but you know collectors get it so incredible story of incredible finds I mean there's always been things like you're at a swap meet and you go and there's a crowd of people so you say I'm going to go this way and and then you find something incredible so I was at the Rose Bowl probably it was like three or four years ago and there's always been a robot called Mito Watch Company and they made a robot about that big and that's always been on my hit list and I've just never found one I mean they're retail around $2,500 and I remember way back before the internet stuff there was one at the Rose Bowl just in pieces sitting on the ground in like a cardboard tray and I asked how much it was and he wanted a thousand dollars then I was like oh in that time I wasn't really spending a lot of money so fast forward to about three years ago I was at the Rose Bowl in the dark I walked by its booth and he had this really neat giant mid-century fiberglass lamp of course it was dark so I thought it was pretty cool I looked at it I walked away I came back maybe another 20 minutes later because it's still dark because it was like at four o'clock in the morning I was sticking my flashlight under the lamp it's trying to get a good look at it and the dealer comes to me he says hey I've got a picture of it lit up so let me show let me show you what it looks like I'm like oh great so oh let me get my phone out because it's kind of funny so he he picks up his phone up and he pulls up his um photos and he's looking for the photo and in the top left hand corner I see a picture of this robot the mito watch robot and I said wait a minute I go where's that he goes oh it's in the front seat of my car really I go is it for sale he's like yeah I wasn't going to put it out till the daytime I said how much and he said 800 I said I'll take it so all that time I've waited I just finally got one that's just one of the there's one other story but that's probably the most like collectible [00:13:56] Speaker 2: wise just what happened to the lamp that you were oh I you know I didn't buy it I didn't buy it I just [00:14:00] Randy Jones: bought the the robot but it was like such a weird thing and and that happens a lot I'm sure a lot of people that are watching this will say it's like divine intervention or something like that or one thing happens and that makes another thing happen and because that thing is so far detached that happens it's happened a couple times where just a turn of events turn you into something or you know when you're at the swap meet making a left instead of a right so you just never know like that like jack-in-the-box head I was at Golden West it was sitting on the ground at a booth and I said how much is the jack-in-the-box head he goes five dollars I was like and I couldn't hear him very well I go excuse me it's five dollars I'm here you go another really good story of like divine intervention or whatever you want to call it is I was at a spleen market on a sunday and I was walking in a booth of a dealer friend of mine and then lady that was sewing next to it was a paper dealer so I walked around and there was a big box like a big hat box full of business cards vintage business cards and you know some of my graphics probably from the 50s 60s so I was just flipping through just looking I mean we're talking probably a thousand business cards I'm flipping through and I see this one with a donut on and I think oh that's kind of cool so I pick it up and I look at it and my whole body got numb and I looked at it and I re-looked at it it was my grandfather's business card from his donut shop business and it was his card and so I ended up getting it the lady actually I asked the lady to ask the lady how much she wanted for it and then the lady goes just take it so yeah so that's a real that's like a real you know it hits hard like that am I satisfied yeah I mean I think I'm really happy with what I've accumulated or my wife and I have accumulated over the years of course there's still things I want that I haven't got and a lot of times when you're a collector things get more expensive or unavailable so you have to kind of enjoy what you have but then there's also that part of your head that's like it's not what you have it's what you haven't found yet so a lot of that keeps you going you know on the hunt but yeah I'm happy I'm happy I mean I wouldn't want to start again because you know there's so many stories about how things came to be that it would just start all over I don't know if I would start over if anybody wants to find me you can follow me on instagram under tiki ranch t-i-k-i-r-a-n-c-h and then I also bend at the long beach antique swap meet which is the third sunday of the month and I do other swap meets here and there but that's the one I'm always at [00:17:19] Speaker 2: the third sunday of the month and I'll see you in the next one. The show is over come back tomorrow. [00:17:27] Speaker ?: The show is over come back tomorrow. The show is over come back tomorrow.