Two Amigos: Bullmark’s “BIG” vinyls
THE BULLMARK “BIG” VINYLS OF WARREN SCHWARTZ
It’s been an incredible year or so in the land of vintage Japanese toy collecting.. It seems new discoveries and purchases are happening every week as opposed to only several per year in our little circle. Wether it’s the economy or just dumb luck, we have seen some very rare pieces come up for sale over the course of the last two years. From vinyl to diecast, and from jumbos to tin, just about everything once totally coveted is popping up on the regular for all to have a crack at.
Uncle Warren Schwartz, aka as the Jock Ewing (of Dallas fame) of our little clan, has been lucky enough to score several of these rarities as of late, and he is no way hesitant to share the love with us here at TBDX.com. So, here’s a quick blurp and some really great pics of two of the greatest vivntage Bullmark vinyls ever created! Enter.. BULLMARK’s BIG vinyls.
Per Warren (with a little backstory about his vs. mine):
“The BIG Blazer landed on my house a few years ago. I thought this was probably unique which is to say, no “series”. I became aware of a large Zaboga which has been listed on eBay by a guy from Hawaii off and on for a long time. Then you scored the Big Zaboga (under the radar) a couple of months ago. Since then I’d been searching for why the belt had “buttons” on either side at the waist, but the guy from Hawaii said he knew nothing of any missing parts to the one he had on auction. Both this one and yours was listed on eBay, but I’d never seen one on Yahool. This one appeared in November 2009, with a box, holsters, and missile firing mechanisms attached to the waist.
It turns out that it was another “BIG” in the “series”, if there is a series. No missiles though.
When it arrived, the mechanism turned out to be the same one for the Blazer (duh) in a different vinyl housing. Since the Blazer had the missiles I tried them out in the Zaboga, and of course they fit like a glass slipper, ref Cinderella. The missiles were big-sized like the vinyls, and I’ll send you a picture of the standard rubber-tipped Bullmark yellow missiles for comparison, but more interesting is that the missiles have an internal spring for firing instead of the spring being attached to the firing trigger. This is cool.
So for the record here are the TWO AMIGOS side by side. For some reason the Blazers are not exactly abundant, but you can find them. And I have no idea why the Zabogas are hard to find, why they are usually missing the holsters, guns and missiles, and why we haven’t run into any other boxes except for this one with water damage. Mysteries are good, and usually someone knows the answers.”
Well, there you have it. WAIT….. Hold the presses. We think there might be a Mach Baron. You heard me… If so, we’re no doubt looking at another $5K toy. Below is the picutre featured on the Blazer box:
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