The Find

So the story goes I was visiting a buddy who was serving time in the Goodwood Correctional Institute. Yes, I do that sort of thing all the time. But the powers that be needed to conduct some kind of roll call that day and none of the prisoners were available for visitation. With Goodwood a stone's throw away from Parow (not really, but any excuse will do), I decided to make a pilgrimage to the main branch of Factory Toy Shop.

Back in the day, but definitely post '94, Factory Toy Shop was the last place surviving GI Joe stashes could be found. Celebrated items like the Thunderclap and Sky Raven, and not so celebrated items such as the Radar Rat and the entire Battle Corps line from '92 could be found there, typically at dirt cheap prices. I only wished as a 13 year old I had the financial clout I now have as I would have bought up everything that bore the letters 'GI JOE'. Hindsight=20/20. But on this fine Saturday morning on the 20th of March 2010, I went into the store knowing full well that even Factory Toy Shop's backlog of old stock had been depleted over a decade prior. I was just going in for old time's sake really, not expecting to buy anything at all.

In the boys' action toys isle, on the floor beneath baskets of old Mighty Max stock lay a dusty old box. Emblazoned on the black top flap was the word: Tomahawk. I wished I could have had an out-of-body experience at that point to note my reaction, and the overt double-take as the realization dawned. At first I thought 'empty box'. And then I picked it up. At second I thought 'repackaged box, filled with broken bits of junk'. And then I saw the once-familiar factory tape intact. At third I thought this is too good to be true while noting that they were asking for a paltry R230 for it. Needless to say I did not let it out of my grasp until she was paid for and resting on the passenger seat beside me. On the way home I kept fondling the box in disbelief. Sure, she had seen some sunlight in her 22 years of shelf-life, but the box was in an acceptable condition with no bumps or dings or scratches or scars. With any luck, that held true for the contents as well.

I think long before I reached home that day, I had decided not to open it. Not only was it a killer find, it is also my favourite GI Joe vehicle ever produced. I obtained a loose one in my early 20's and, love it as I do, I still have no desire to troop build the vehicle.And yet, they were typically featured in pairs... This just brings me to the conundrum: To open or not to open?

I do not collect Mint in Box toys. I can think of nothing worse than owning these fantastic toys, but at the same time not. Owning the potential of toys, if you will, but in reality only owning a collection of colourful boxes. Crushed under the weight of not being able to open them for fear of ruining the commodity. I suppose it's different if you have loose specimens to enjoy and play with, and hell, if you have the means, why not? Curate your own museum of boxed items, celebrating exactly how lucky we were as children to have this stuff in the kind of abundance we did. It's not within my financial reality to do this however, and so the one Mint in Sealed Box Tomahawk in my collection begs a whole host of questions: Do I open it? If so, under what condition?  My unconceived  son's thirteenth birthday, assuming he digs Joe? My deathbed? Am I being a little too dramatic? Should I even care? Would the maximum joy to be had from the damn thing be for me to do it now, while I live for my hobby, before my life gets swept up in real world concerns? Should I just forget about it, push it to the back of the cupboard and forget it ever happened? Should I make a Youtube video of me backing a car over it?