This Toy Hunt Was WILD! Victoria's ULTIMATE Hobby & Toy Fair — Fall 2024

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: well if it looks like I'm in a rush it's because I am I gotta get over there and buy something before somebody else buys it so let's roll the credits and I'll tell you how my weekend went once or twice a year I'll take the time to make the trip out to Vancouver Island to attend Victoria's Ultimate Hobby and Toy Fair now while it is considered a regional show it does take a bit of time for me to get there because while I live in Vancouver it's out in Vancouver Island it does take four or five hours for me to get there and that includes driving taking the ferry driving again to get to the Toy Fair when I get to Vancouver Island and there's also some time that you need to wait for the ferry because you've got a reservation and you got to get into the car lineup in order to get onto the ferry and of course it takes a bit of time for me to load the car as well with all the stuff that I'm gonna bring because me and my buddy usually go there and set up as vendors and we end up staying for the whole weekend but overall it is such a blast well you know it's a good show when you haven't even arrived yet and you get a complete horde trooper okay full disclosure I picked up my buddy Peter before we headed off to the ferry and he happens to be holding one for me so alright it's a good start already so see you at the show the show takes place at a venue known as the GR perks recreation center and the whole venue is somewhere around 26 or 27 thousand square feet so you can really get a lot into this place this show has been running since all the way back in 2008 I've been a vendor since 2017 it does have generally over 200 tables every single show so you can find everything from vintage stuff modern stuff lots and lots of toys plushies crafts whatever video games VHS is anything it's just all there in one place under one roof so you come in for the vendor setup and this is what it looks like before the vendors are all set up so just imagine what it's gonna look like when the whole place is packed full of vendors full of toys so after a little bit of a time lapse you see some of the vendors start making it in and we're starting to fill up a little bit here this is our booth right over here before the setup has fully begun so all of this stuff is gonna eventually come out of the bins and get set on to display hopefully some people come and buy some stuff in the past I found some really great scores there this was the place that I found that near-complete boulder hill from the mask line I've gotten some palatoy action force stuff there I found some GI Joe holy grails there not just from the 80s but also from the 60s and 70s there's some really good transformers items I've got in the past just huge scores of stuff star wars you name it and after a bunch of time setting up here's what it looks like much thanks to my buddy Peter who did a bunch of this and got some stuff in the back there bunch of stuff here on the grid wall and of course we closed off with Delta 17 on the end so we'll see how much of it gets moved and how much budget I have to spend and buy some of my own stuff when all is said and done so let's hope for a good show not everything fit on the tables so some of it has to go below anyway at least we'll have plenty of stuff to restock as things get moved throughout the weekend one of the things I'll want to mention is that while there was a lot of foot traffic it'll be a bit inconsistent throughout this particular video because most of my filming was done either right when doors opened or as things were quieting down later in the day or even during the vendor setup as that was when I could leave my booth for longer stretches of time there is quite a lot to see so I'll do my best here to give you all a feel for what kind of stuff that we saw [00:04:10] Speaker ?: We'll be right back. [00:04:40] Speaker 1: Another big highlight was getting to meet some great YouTube slash ToyTube personalities that I don't always get a chance to interact with. So I was wondering when T-Fanpage101 was going to show up at this show. I'm right here. How did this happen? Is this a crossover episode? I don't know. Something like that. Is it good meets evil or evil meets good? Oh, did I just do the same thing? It's one of those. One of those things. One of those things. All right, cool. Well, don't buy all the good stuff while I'm away. I might need a bathroom break. I might need a lunch break or something like that. [00:05:34] Speaker 2: I'll definitely make sure that you're here and I'll wait. [00:05:37] Speaker 1: Sure. Before you buy all the good stuff. Yes. Then I'll undercut all your prices anyway. All right. So I'm walking around the show and I see Transformers Guru, ToyTuber Extraordinaire, this guy. He's looking for me to point to somebody else. This is Vangelis. [00:05:57] Speaker 3: Hi. [00:05:59] Speaker 1: Sorry. [00:05:59] Speaker 3: I'm watching for, you know, spies. [00:06:03] Speaker 1: Spies. Spies. You got... You don't have enemies. I know you don't have enemies. [00:06:06] Speaker 3: I don't have any enemies as of this morning. [00:06:09] Speaker 1: As of this morning. [00:06:10] Speaker 3: We finished the operation. We got them. [00:06:14] Speaker 1: Watch out for those Decepticons. What are you hoping to find at the show? [00:06:18] Speaker 3: I'm not really sure. I'm going to sort of have an ample around at some point, hopefully. I'm trying to not fixate on anything until I've sold something. I want to come out in the plus. [00:06:32] Speaker 1: This is my buddy Sam and he's going to tell us about this awesome foreign Megazord. [00:06:37] Speaker 4: So this right here is the Victory Mars Robo from Kyukyu Sentai GoGo 5. It was a series that was adapted into Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue. There's all our guys right there. This thing has a secondary crawler mode for walking on, like, asteroids and moons and alien planets. And probably Mars, since it's in the name. He's also got, obviously, the big robot mode, splits into the five vehicles. This little shuttle thing launches off of the spear and it was quite a good deal. [00:07:04] Speaker 1: And you did that all in one take. I promise we did not rehearse that. So, have a great show, buddy. [00:07:10] Speaker 5: Thank you. [00:07:27] Speaker 1: And some of the vendors there really had some good high-end stuff. All these carded Joes. Some really rare Lego. Freaking amazing to see all this here at the show. Checking out the Cherry Bomb Toys booth here. They've always got the big wraparound set up. They are the hosts of the show. So, they definitely know how to do good presentation when it comes to some of this stuff. Well, all of the stuff, I should say. So, I'm at someone's booth here. And what do I see? But, an amazing Imperial attack base complete in the box. And above that, we got Jabba the Hutt's set there in the box as well. Where do you find all this amazing stuff, man? [00:08:13] Speaker 6: I literally hunt down people who have stuff from, like, 40 years ago and no longer want it. And when they hear about my massive collection, they always try to sell me something or dig out something for me. So, always on the hunt. And, in the back there, is an X-Wing Fighter Battle Damage from Empire Strikes Back, complete in the box with inserts. Wow. Well, easy. So, all three sets have their original inserts and all parts in the collections. [00:08:46] Speaker 1: Easier said than done to hunt down collections. Once you see it all like this, it's very impressive. Thank you for your time, sir. There's also some friends that I don't really get a chance to see a whole lot and really only get to interact with them when I go over to the Vancouver Island region to, well, see them and toy hunt together. Okay, hold on a second. The show just started. Did you buy all the good stuff already? [00:09:07] Speaker 7: Absolutely. I always buy all the good stuff. So, you save nothing for me? That's right. Absolutely. So, should I just... Ken gets nothing. [00:09:14] Speaker 1: So, should I just go straight home? Yes. I mean, all right. You can do all your stuff for free. I'll just go cry somewhere. Yeah. All right. All right. I quaffed my hair up just for you. What kind of a... Oh, I know. You're trying to one-off me. What kind of deals do I get now that I'm here? [00:09:28] Speaker 7: What kind of deals do you want, Ken? Come on. [00:09:31] Speaker 1: Oh, I get to name my price. [00:09:33] Speaker 7: Well, I like that deal. That's a good deal. You're happy. That's the deal. You know, it makes me happy. [00:09:39] Speaker 1: We're going to go off camera for this one because I'm about to pull some shady stuff right now. [00:09:45] Speaker 6: It's Sunday morning. I don't even know what this means. [00:09:48] Speaker 1: Is it true that you like toys? [00:09:51] Speaker 5: Toys with bacon? Yes. [00:09:55] Speaker 1: All right. Apparently, I've asked the wrong person. By the way, that's the guy that runs the show, apparently. [00:10:01] Speaker 6: I'm just here as filler. My wife does everything. She's amazing. [00:10:06] Speaker 1: Okay, so I'll go be nice to her. You go get me a hot dog or something. This is one of those purchases that I wasn't planning on, but when you see that kind of a price, and you know that Samhain didn't get released in the original Ghostbusters line, but got released in the Extreme line, and at that price, sealed and carted, I think I got to make a bit of an impulse buy over here. I picked it up from my buddy Sean, and he doesn't want to talk on camera. He's trying to hide from me, but I'll just take this and carry on with my day or carry on with my weekend. So I guess you know which item I was rushing to grab at the start of this video, because that was the one. It was a good price. I couldn't really say no. There's something you don't see every day. I used to be a closet fan of Popples, but now that I know they're cool, I'll just let everyone know that I'm a big fan of them. And of course, this G.I. Joe Adventure Team Intruders on the card still. Very cool. Look at all this amazing cop stuff. Frickin' awesome. Buttons like boom boom. There's a good figure right there. And over here is the G.I. Joe section of the Cherry Bomb Toys booth. And a little bit of Star Wars here too. Well, Peter, which Dino Riders did you get? [00:11:23] Speaker 8: I got the Ankylosaurus. Came with a termite. And then I also got two loose figures of Cannon and Nimbus. [00:11:33] Speaker 1: Damn, man. You don't see Dino Riders a whole lot of these shows. Not at all. This is a freaking good score. And one thing I don't get to talk about a whole lot in these videos is some of the really great crafts people. The people who actually do like handcrafted items and just have an amazing niche and amazing talent in doing such things. So you got these massive Ewoks here, handmade by my buddy. And I'm going to get this right this time. Neil. Hello. Tell us about the process of making some of these, man. [00:12:05] Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a bit of a process. The core is actually plywood and then styrofoam glued on both sides and then carved out. And then all the fur attached to it. And then all the accessories. I've sculpted by hand and cast out a plastic. And hand-painted. Yes, each one is built from scratch. Even just carved with a knife, the whole thing. I don't do the 3D cutting with the styrofoam. I do everything from scratch. [00:12:33] Speaker 1: That's amazing. Well, thank you for that. We've got some talented people here at Cube Dudes. Here's some of their selection. It's my buddy, Bill. Why don't you say a thing or two about your Cube Dudes business? [00:12:47] Speaker 5: Well, I craft all sorts of paper products. Cards, prints, tags. I do artwork such as the Proton Pack over there. I know how to get it shot at. [00:13:00] Speaker 1: Which will do. Wow. All right. And he's right next to the Ewoks, which is awesome. [00:13:08] Speaker 5: Basically, anything that I feel like making, I make and see if I can get somebody to pay me more. [00:13:14] Speaker 1: All right. Keep the good work, man. [00:13:16] Speaker 5: Thanks. [00:13:17] Speaker 1: Anyway, as fun as all that was, let's jump in and have a look at my toy haul. I've already mentioned the vintage MOTU Horde Trooper that I got from Peter before the show. But he also picked up a few items from a friend who couldn't make it to the show. And in with that was this pair of Dino Rider figures that I've wanted for a while. There was also the Extreme Ghostbusters Samhain that I showed you all earlier. And on top of that, at the Cherry Bomb Toys booth, I got this vintage Tauntaun from the original Kenner Star Wars line, which is the standard version, not the one with the open belly. And it came with a complete vintage Hoth Luke Skywalker from The Empire Strikes Back. I also got this Mythic Legion's Ravenna from a seller named Aaron for a steal of a price. And another vendor named Brian was very generous and gifted me the 18 figures of Hannibal, Face, and Murdoch from the 80s Galoob series of toys. And these will go well with the Mr. T that I already own. This haul was actually a bit smaller than my usual ones when I come out here. But I still had a fantastic time and would encourage anybody to check out this Victoria, Ultimate Hobby, and Toy Fair 2-Day show, or any event similar to this if you happen to have one in your geographic area. I know I've done my fair share of these sorts of type of walkthrough videos, but I really do feel that Cherry Bomb Toys as a business goes above and beyond to make this special and that everyone is treated well. They'll do everything from have door prizes, a silent auction, and handing out bottled water for free to vendors to keep us refreshed throughout the day since we have to be there for the whole two-day event. And they have good relationships with food vendors across town, such that several of the key ones in the Victoria area come out to support the show and park with food trucks outside or with snack lineups at the back of the arena floor. Anyway, the goal here was to show you a good sample of the event, even if nothing beats coming out here in person. It's a very eclectic show, featuring all types of cosplayers and collectors of different tastes all around. Do take note that everything here is in Canadian pricing, so if something feels a little too high or too low, you'll know why. Ultimately, I was pretty excited to go to a toy show as it was my first one since JoFest three months before this, and the 200 or so tables that we had here were jam-packed with just about anything you could think of. The fact that it was a show that we ended up traveling several hours to makes it feel like a destination of sorts, and there's always that intrigue of what we may find and who we may run into. So stay tuned, because there will definitely be future walkthrough videos like this one right here on Toy Connections. Anyway, if you happen to like this video, you can have a look at another toy hunt that I did by clicking right over here, or for a look at some toy histories, you can click on this playlist right over here. Otherwise, thanks for watching, and I'll see you all next time. Take care.