Good Job, Brain! - 149: Collect All the Things!

Episode Date: April 12, 2015

Gotta catch'em all! We celebrate trivia and facts about collecting and collectors: our resident Star Wars droid afficionado Colin quizzes us on eBay abbreviations, and our resident video game hoarder Chris regales us with the mysterious tale of Atari's real-life treasure of gold and jewels. What does a "vexillologist" collect? What about a "vapoludologist"? Karen witnesses how Disney pin trading gets seeded, and Dana's got a quiz on celebrities and the weird and specific stuff they collect. And are Grandma's Hummel figurines really worth something? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to an Airwave Media podcast. Hello, workshop of Wordsmiths and Wombats, wanting wantons and waffles. This is Good Job, Brain, your weekly quiz show and offbeat trivia podcast. Today's show is episode 149. I'm your humble host, Karen, and we are your quaint quartet of courtly kings and queens that constantly conquer countless collection of quizzes. I'm Colin. I'm Dana.

And I'm Chris. That was a listener submitted. That was good. I've had chicken and waffles, but not wantons and waffles. Just yet. I was like, they're not usually positive about us. We're not usually kings and queens. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And you said it was listener. I was like, okay. Right, right, right. We are your sworthy. Swampies, swaggering, yes, drimy. That's true. They're never that positive.

Right. So nervous nitwits. We'll still read, though. It doesn't still, yeah. Right, right. It's just clearly it can come from us. Without further ado, let's jump into our first general trivia segment, Pop Quiz, Hot Shot. Here I have a random trivial pursuit card,

and again, it is the 90. version. Oh yeah. All right. And again, it is 1995. I got to randomize these more, but here we go. You guys have your Morning Zoo Radio

Buzzers. Pink Wedge. What Watergate vet advised radio listeners to shoot at federal agents heads, quote, because they've got bulletproof vests on. Whoa.

What? Colin? Is that G. Gordon Liddy? Yes. Yeah. Oh. Intense. He's an intense guy, yes.

No one would accuse him of being a subtle, subtle dude. No. Here we go. Yellow. What online retailer got a flood of sales once it changed its name from cadabra.com? Dana. Amazon.com. Amazon.com.

Formerly known as Cadabra. Brown Wedge, what Saturday Night Live New Age therapist joked when you assume you make an ass out of Uma-30? Chris. Why, would that be Stuart Smalley? Stuart Smalley. Gosh darn it, people like me. Orange Wedge, what was the something white that Pamela Anderson wore to wed Tommy Lee in Cancun? Wow, that is 90s.

Colin. I'm going to guess a bikini. Correct. Oh, yeah? Yes, all right. I was going to guess a cigarette. Rapper. One Nation issued fatwas requiring beards for men,

forbidding women to wear white socks and making kite flying illegal. Colin. I'm going to guess Iran. Incorrect. Chris. Saudi Arabia? Incorrect. I don't know.

95. Something top of all. Lebanon? We just keep naming them. It is Afghanistan. Oh, okay. All right. Last question, Blue Wedge. What Austrian skiing sensation was dubbed Das Monster and the Herminator? Oh, it was...

Colin. Herman... Correct, yes. Yeah, yes. Nelson? Nelson? Oh, no, he wasn't. He was... Harry Mielsen? Harry Nielsen. Herman Kane. No, I can't remember his last name. Meyer?

Meyer. Mayor. Mayor. M-A-I-E-R. Herman Mayer. Okay. Doss Monster. Wow. Good, almost memory of that. Yeah. Yeah. If we were, you're in 95. Your 1995 knowledge is very good. Yeah. All right, good job, Brains. Well, listeners, you can't see this, but on the table, there are a bunch of these Star Wars droids that Colin brought with him. Yes. You know, you know, I love to collect Star Wars figures, and in particular, my sort of the sub-specialty is I love all the robots. some of the droids. It's kind of difficult if you're in an apartment to collect every Star Wars figure.

I've certainly spent the most effort and display space and sadly money on the Star Wars droids, in particular even of the subspecialty of the subspecialty. Wow. These droids I've got in front of me here, you see the little three-legged ones.

You know, like we've got our friend R2D2, probably the most famous. I know that. The one that looks more like a garbage can than it is. Yeah, yeah. Garbage can or a mailbox maybe with a little roundhead. Yeah, these are, these are astro-mec-style droids.

Okay, all right. Within the Star Wars universe to really nerd out. Rather than the humanoid style. Yes, yes, like C-3PO, you know, who would be, he's a protocol droid. So he's made to look like, you know, more humanoid. And the astro-mec and also the agro-mec droids, you know, they were designed to work in and around spaceships and in and around farms and things like that. And many times throughout the podcast, we've heard.

about Chris's undying love for collecting video games. Indeed. I actually hit a really interesting milestone in the old collecting business. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I've been working on buying all of the licensed NES games, the games that were made for the Nintendo Entertainment System, but that were actually approved by Nintendo as opposed to the ones that weren't approved. Right, so the official list of licensed games.

Now, there's one that I've mentioned on a very old show called Good Job Brain, and probably, I think, in year one called stadium events that now costs about $8,000 just for the cartridge. I'm good. I think I'd rather have $8,000. However, I did just finish acquiring everything that isn't stadium events. Oh.

So that's 670, no, sorry, 676 of 677 games. That's awesome. Yeah. When you get it down to just that last one unicorn of a, yeah. Yep. It's as complete as it's going to get. So with you two, collector, what do you call? Horder sending?

Yeah, exactly. That's how it's listed in the... It's a more respectable name for... The medical books. This week, we're going to celebrate collections and collectors all around, and especially you guys, because you guys definitely are, I think... I'm serious. Yeah, you guys are serious business.

So this week, we're talking about collections. And I got one from Spain and two from Japan. I've got a couple from... Israel and ass a vagina I've got a planet from Poland But I'm from Sudan I'm from Fidji or a respect You know I can't believe

I'm telling everyone that I know That every step in my collection Is the place we could go So whenever I hear about I mean even though I collect video games And I've collected I've actually collected a lot of things in my life Like, I should start out by saying that, I mean, in, like, first grade, like, some kid was telling me at recess about, quote-unquote, valuable rocks, you know, and introduce me to the idea that, like, rocks had names and that you could collect rocks.

And that was what just, you know, the light bulb goes off in my head. And the next thing I was collecting rocks, and I collected coins, I collected Mad Magazine, and I clicked the He-Man figures. Finally, I settled on video games because it's my career, and I might as well just merge the two. But whenever somebody talks about collectibles, I always go to the quintessential example in my brain, which is, if you, I'm going to put it this way, if you grew up in America, and he grew up in the 1970s, 80s, 90s, at some point you probably had anywhere between zero and two grandmothers. And there is a good chance that one of them, maybe even both of them, you'd be at your grandma's house and you'd be playing around bored. whatever it was you were doing and there would probably be in the in the living room um like some sort of a hutch or a cabinet and if you if you even got within the same orbit as this thing if you even breathed the same air in this cabinet immediately it would just be like stop

don't go near those those are the humble figurines those are worth a lot of money and you'd look in there and they'd look at these like crappy caps. Cabbage Patch Kid looking at porcelain, you know, like six-inch tall sort of porcelain figurines of children, the children-type things. Exactly the sort of toy that you want to take out and start smashing them together over there. So what was up with these Hummel figurines? What are they when they come from?

What is up with them? Everybody's grandma seemed to have these things. And importantly, were they really worth a lot of money? It does begin with someone named Hummel. But what was interesting, and I did not know, is that Hummel, is that Hummel, is not the name of the maker of the figurines. It's not the name of the company. Ah, interesting, right?

Artist? The plot thickens, yes. Well, the company is Gable, G-O-E-B-E-L, established by Franz Gable and his father in 1871 in Germany, and they were just a maker of porcelain objects. Now, in 1909, Berta Hummel was born in Bavaria, and she was an artist, she was an illustrator. She actually went to art school at that time.

She's legit. Yeah, which not a lot of girls did. At that time, that place, and people really thought she was going to go on to a huge art career. And then surprising everybody, she joined a convent after art school and took the name Sister Maria Innocentia. And she joined the convent and basically just started teaching art to the local children in the schools that the convent ran. But in her spare time, she kept drawing. And she had kind of landed on drawing very colorful, very detailed, gorgeous illustrations of these round-headed Cherubic children at play. So, by now it's the early 1930s.

The other nuns kind of realize, oh, hey, you know, Berta Hummel's drawings, they're really good. We really like them. And she's just, she keeps them to herself, you know? And but the nuns convince her, or I don't know if they convince it or do her, do they just do it? They send them to a publisher. Publisher gets very interested. And so they're actually books that are pretty popular of Berta Hummel's illustrations of children. And also postcards, like art on postcards in the 1930s.

really big, and it is in postcard form that Franz Gable, make a refined porcelain, encounters Hummel's illustrations, and makes an overture to Bertha Hummel and to the convent, basically, like, oh, we want to be the official licenser. It was a licensed product. We want

to license Hummel illustrations and make porcelain figures of your illustrations. Interesting. So, what's also happening in Germany in the 1930s? Can't think of anything. Anything else. Yeah. So Berta Hummel was not a fan of the Nazis

And she actually did some political cartoons that were criticizing them And Adolf Hitler became not a big fan of Berta Hummel Not happy with her There was a Nazi-run state magazine that wrote a article about her And said that there is no place in Germany for artists like her Who make German children out to be brainless sissies Quote brainless sissies And and quote hydrocephalic club-footed gobblings

so Hitler not into Hummel figurines at all Meanwhile the Nazis are seizing a lot of religious institutions And they took the convent that she was a part of And they took over a lot of it And they actually took 50% of the revenue they were getting from The Hummel figurines But luckily so much revenue was coming in That's the only thing that actually kept the convent going

Burda Hummel's health declined And shortly after World War II ended She died at 37 years old of two And now that was about the time that Hummel figurines really started to take off because World War II is over, a lot of American soldiers are stationed in Germany and they find these Hummel figurines, which are very popular there. And they're like, oh, these are perfect gifts. Oh, they're small. They're very unique to Germany. We can send them home for mom and sis, and they'll love them and they'll think they're so cute. And they start sending these things home. And this is how we start seeding in America, all across America, this first wave of. of Hummel Figurine Collectors. And this is really one of the first, if not the first, like popular culture post-war collecting. You know, the war is over.

We have disposable income, there's stability, there's peacetime. Like, you can start blowing money on stuff like this, and people start putting together Hummel figurine collections. So by the 1970s, Hummel collecting is in full swing, and it's at its peak. Then you start to get the sort of irrational behavior that starts with any kind of collecting genre,

is that the maker begins producing, you know, mass quantities of so-called collectibles, because they know they're going to sell tons of them to collectors who are buying everything. Completeest. Right, because obviously, you know, Hummel's stuff keeps going up in price forever, so you clearly got to get on this. And for a while, the figurines did really have some value, I mean, especially the ones that were made in the 30s, especially the ones that were made in the 40s. They really did.

Like how much? Like roughly. Oh, oh, I mean. any, you know, $500, $600, $700. Okay, okay. They could be worth, you know, the good ones could be worth a lot of money. All right. Get up into four figures pretty quickly for some of the really desirable early ones.

But the 70s and really the 80s was it's peak. What happens with all collectibles like this, they all follow the same path, and what happens is the people who collected them start dying. And, but the problem is, and of course it's silly because grandma loves these things, and maybe your mom loves these things, but that this, you know, us, you know, we who are sort of inheriting a lot of the stuff now, we do not value them anywhere near as high. They're kind of cheesy to us.

Like, they're not actually things that we want. They're kits. Yeah. And as soon as that starts happening across the board, prices plummet. So right now with Hummels, we're in this interesting transitional period where the, the quote unquote book values of these things, you know, the price that's still in all the price guides. And the actual amount of money you get if you try to sell it are wildly out of

whack. There's an official Hummel price guide that you can go buy. And it's just like oh, you know, the Mary Wanderer, this early Hummel figure, that's worth $200. There was just an auction to sell for 10. There was actually, I found a live auction that just took place

in November 2014 in Ohio. It was somebody's advanced Hummel collection of thousands of pieces that they were auctioning off. Everything. It's like, oh, this one, this book value is $240 and this sells for 15 bucks. Then you might say, well, Chris, maybe nobody showed up at this auction in Ohio.

No, the really rare stuff, the really rare ones, the ones that are really actually hard to find, those did go for book value and sometimes even outsold book value. Like there was one that was listed for $4,000, and that went for $47.50. And in fact, the gable figurines that seem to have held their value a little bit better are the Disney ones, the license to which they secured in 1950. and they've been making them ever since. Those have gone down too, but not as much because people, you know,

in our generation, still want to go buy Disney stuff. Yeah, yeah. And speaking of Disney. What? I want to preface this. A couple weeks ago, I talked about this on the show before. Mouse Adventure, which is a puzzle

cryptography scavenger hunt in Disneyland. Yeah. That happens twice a year. And, of course, a good job, brain listeners, Ryan and Colleen, uh, who first invited me last year, I think, or maybe two years ago to be on their team. And I've been on their team for like the last, I don't know, year. We had our spring 2015 mouse adventure out of a hundred or so teams. We placed second place. Oh my gosh. Wow. And this is, this is a thing where like, we're just happy if we got to

finish. Totally. Totally. The quest, because it's, it is hard. It's a lot. It's a lot. lot of this is the most hardcore of the hard core and it's like 90 degrees outside yes you're slogging around Disneyland um the the funny thing about uh becoming friends with uh listeners Ryan and Colleen is that they are so into Disney pin trading oh Disney pin trading they kind of opened my eyes I knew I know Disney parks had pins like I know people collect the pins and whatever but but this is so hard course, so let me set the scene. We were in Disneyland. Ryan and Colleen are like, hold on, let me, let me check, let me check on the pins. And we walk to Rancho Zocalo, which is the Mexican restaurant in the park. I mean, next to Thunder Mountain. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. In Frontierland. And this is at night. And I kid you not, I thought I was walking into like a drug deal. So, so it's at night. Yeah. There's these tables outside. Rancho Zocolo, just people with bins and binders and little flashlights.

Shite, like, what you got? What you got? It was so weird. Pintraining is a very big deal. And these pins are kind of like enamel, decorative pins, maybe like average size about an inch that you can pin on a lanyard or a backpack. It has a little back. Right.

It wasn't until 1999, part of the Millennium Celebration that the Pin Trading, it exploded. There's always been pins, but Walt Disney World and Disney Parks started kind of, gave the push, gave the push to people to pin trade. And how they did it was... Yeah, because if they can get that rolling, they can sell a lot of pins. Exactly. What they did was they would supply cast members, employees in the park, with a land yard with a bunch of pins. And if you, as a park goer has a pin, you can just go up to a cast member and be like, hey, can I check out your pins? And you trade with them. Yeah. And they have to.

Yeah. And they have to. They will trade you whatever pin they're wearing. As long as you're nice and not a jerk and, you know, fall in. Whoa. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so they kind of really push it. And it is a Disney approved hobby. This is, yeah, it's the weird thing because, like, you can't, it's like little kids can wear costumes in a Disneyland, but, like, adults can't, right? Like, Disneyland is very locked down as far as what you can do in Disneyland. You can't, like, you can't go into Disneyland and, you know, film a, movie you know what i mean like there's so many things you cannot do in disneyland but this is the really interesting thing where they just i mean they will let people haul

bins of pins into disneyland and conduct this commerce basically like they even have a little area for it of trading technically you're not allowed to buy and spend money right to another pin trader right and be like let me buy that pin off you yeah you can technically only buy from the disney stores, the license stores. But trading, yeah, that's the key. Three Donald Ducks for this. Yeah, but no money's changing hands. Yeah, it becomes a, it becomes like this sort of like, yeah, it does, it does

because you start bringing in pins in lieu of money and yeah, yeah. Yeah, because right away when you're like, oh, you could trade with a cast member, it's like, oh, buy the cheapest pin you can find and then go to the cast member and find the pins that you like. Yep. Yeah. So when I went to Walt Disney World, I did do that tour. And I went down into the tunnels, which is the staff kind of their systems, how they run Disney World is through the basement tunnels that only employees are allowed to go.

And also the people who go on the special tour. The thing is, I always thought when I went to Disneyland and I see all the employees with the lanyards and the pins, I thought it's theirs. Like you're like, oh, these are the ones I like and sure, I'll trade, you know, whatever. No, when they clock in, there is a little window and they are. a sign of a lanyard. There's a person to be like, this is your today's lanyard. They seed it. Yes. And then they wear the lanyard

and then working in the park and then when they're clocking out, they turn in the lanyard. And my guess is they're making a detailed what got traded, taking a list of what pins we started off with. I'm sure there's a master spreadsheet. Real good data.

Pins oftentimes are sold in sets or there's different sets you can make of the pins. So if they send a cast member out there with various pins of a certain set and then you trade for one, you're more likely probably to then go to the store and buy the pins that complete the set that is traded for. They can really manipulate that to, like, get some pins out there that would stimulate pin sales.

And the good thing is, the good thing is, you can never be a completionist with this. You're only, because there's so many of them. There might be some people out there who are. If you have the time and the money, time and money. The money, the money. I mean, oh, there's so many of them. Most people who are into this hobby, they really just collect the things they like,

the sets they like, oh, you know, like Ryan. He likes a stitch. So you try to collect all stitch stuff. And I'm just not a collector, but I do like to have pins that I personally like. So Orange Bird? So, yes, yes. I have almost all Orange Bird.

But here, this is one that Good Job, brain listener and my teammate and my friend Ryan give to me here and let me pass it around. I can't even see it, but Colin's eyes are buggy. It's, oh my goodness. This is, this, first of all, it's huge. It's like the size of a silver dollar, practically.

It's got mini mouse, and there's a little bubble on it containing material of some kind? Yes. So there is a special series called a piece of history, and it's not only a pin, it has a little plastic see-through glass.

globe that has literally a piece of whatever it was. In this case, of a building. Yeah, of a building. In this case, it is a Club 33 piece of wood. So it's a little shred of wood. A few tiny little shreds of wood. It's pretty nuts in terms of not just like your little pin or a little character. Like this has bubble and a piece of thing and they get really, really a ladder.

That's the thing. If you take that down to pin trading, they'll give you a whole bin of pins for that one. If you'll want, but I don't imagine. I imagine you'll ever get rid of it. Seriously, if you are in Disneyland and you're at night, especially, go by Rancho Zocalo and just observe. You're just like, wow. And there's kids and they're older folks, like, you know, just serious with the little

flashlight, what you got, which got you got. You had a little flipping of books. And it's like, whoa. It's funny. I had no idea that happened at Disneyland at all. Me neither. I was like, whoa. I was in the gift shop.

And there were a lot of pins there. And I was like, oh, okay, I guess they're pins for people, like souvenir things. But it's like, no, no, that's part of the thing. You can talk to cast members now about their pins. Yep. Who knew? All right, I have a quiz for you guys. It's about celebrity collectors.

So celebrities are people like. People who collect celebrities? No, it's about celebrities who collect stuff. They're just like us. Celebrities. They're also people. They're just like us with lots of money. And can afford...

Right, right, right. I'll give you some details on what they're collecting and maybe a little background on who they are and you have to buzz in and tell me which celebrity this is. Okay, all right. This singer has dated quite a few models, but that's not what he's collecting. He collects model trains.

Singer models. Dated quite a few models? Yeah. Colin. Justin Timberlake. No. No, he doesn't date. I guess I would say over, like, over 50 years.

He's dated, like, six models. Okay. Oh. Chris. Mick Jagger. No. Oh. George Clooney.

No. Singer? Leonardo. Oh, singer. Over 50 years? Yeah. I was going to guess Mick Jagger, too. Wow.

Yeah. Paul McCarty. It is Rod Stewart. Oh. Yes. He collects trains. Yes, he collects model trains. This Canadian actor, film producer, and film director has a huge collection of Gibson

guitars. And I looked, and he's not in any bands. Canadian actor, producer, director? So the Canadian part is a little bit of a trick, because you might not realize he's Canadian. He's on very American-ish type TV show. Oh, I was going to say, Mike Myers? No.

I have a terrible clue for you guys. Horrible clue. Okay, all right. He has more than 24 Gibson guitars. Oh. Keeper Sutherland. Hey, that's good. Okay.

This film director, screenwriter, cinematographer, producer, and actor. Whoa. Collects TV show themed board games. And its favorites are Dawn of the Dead and Universe. I think that's Quentin Tarantino. Yes, it is Quentin Tarantino. Okay. Yeah, okay.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I remember reading an interview with him once, and he was saying one of his favorite experiences was playing the welcome back Cotter board game with John Travolta. Because there's like a little Vinnie Barbarito. Yeah. He's like, I got to get you to play this game with me because he's that kind of a nerd. That's so Quentin. It's so Quentin Tarantino, yeah.

This Academy Award winning actress's first name is Laura, as in Laura Ashley. And she is obsessed with collecting antique linens. Quillian. First name is Laura? Her real first name is Laura. Her real first name is Laura. But that's not her stage. Oh, Academy Award winning actress.

uses a stage name. Yeah. Meryl Street. No. Her real name is Mary. Oh. Laura. Okay, so who's got a, who doesn't...

She's kind of fancy and southern. Fancy and Southern. Yeah. Oh, like Lynn, that's why... Oh. Fancy and Southern. Catherine Hepburn. No.

Fancy. She's kind of more modern. She's younger than that. Southern. It is. Who is it? It's Reese Witherspoon. Oh.

She is fancy. I didn't know that wasn't her. Is that like, is Reese her middle name or just totally made up? It's one of her names. Okay. She has a lot of names. All right. So this, this artsy actor and director now, I would say, collects metal art.

And he spent about a million dollars on a rainbow colored racetrack painting entitled Entrape by Neo Rausch. Karen Just by your clues James Franco No But you're right You're right

You're right Artcy actor He likes metal art Metal art What else we know What else do you know what this person? He's an actor I think he's directed stuff now

Is it Shia Leboeuf No He also likes architecture Huh Karen Brad Pitt Brad Pitt Yes

But he collects metal art. I'll keep this one basic. This Australian actress collects Judean coins. Australian actress. Ancient coins. Ancient Australian. Nicole Kidman? Yes.

She's the only one. Yeah. Lucy Lawless, maybe. Naomi Watts. Yeah. Come on. Come on. Lucy Lawless.

Isn't she Kiwi? I'm sorry, Lucy Lawless. If she is, she is, she's not. I apologize to New Zealand. Yeah. They are not Australia. Yeah, they don't like that. Okay.

So, Nerdist booked this Oscar Award-winning actor on their podcast by sending him a 1934 Smith-Corona portable typewriter. Karen. Oh. Tom Hanks. Tom Hanks. Collector and aficionado of antique typewriters. He has an app now. Really?

Yeah. What is it? What do you do? It replicates the experience of writing on a typewriter on an iPad. Oh. Yeah. That's pretty cute. Yeah.

Like all the noises and stuff. Right. don't think you can, like, you can't, like, delete characters, like, get to X them out. I think I like that. I think he's annoying. Yeah. So this actor collects a lot of things, but one of his most notable collections is of clown pictures, including one supposedly painted by the murderer John Wayne Gasey.

Whoa. So he's a little goth. Actor and musician. Wow. Johnny Depp. It is Johnny Depp. Oh. Yes.

Good guess. Wow. It's like, makes sense. Yeah. I wonder if he has a room, like just a room full of clown pictures. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Like late at night, you're stumbling through Johnny Depp's house, you turn on the light,

and you just surround by clown paintings. And the like, place of honor is won by John Wayne Gacy. Yep. I fell down on a wiki hole reading about John Wayne Gacy. Oh, my God. Don't do that. That is brutal. Dark, dark, dark.

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And we're back. You're listening to Good Job Brain. And this week, we're time about trivia and facts about collections. So if you play Pub Quiz long enough, as we have, you will eventually run into the questions of the format, what does a blank collect? Oh, yeah. And, yeah, you get these a lot. Yeah, you get these a lot. And, of course, there are, you know, are some of the standard ones.

And then there are always the really weird ones that we have to try and reason out. You know, I have to say, like, the more I look into, like, these specialty terms and the specialty names for various types of collectors, you find one thing in common that virtually all of them were suggested by an enthusiast from within the community, which is why some of them tend to be a little cheeky, a little on the nose, maybe a little tortured in their linguistic. root. A little pat-y. I'm self-pat on the bag. Yeah. Right. You may have heard, what does a phromologist collect? And I did not remember this one, Chris. Do you seem to remember? Yeah. Cheese? Yeah. Cheese labels. Okay. I was like, that's a little bit hard to collect cheese. Yeah. Well, you know. So now, now you'll see a lot of these types of words show up on, on internet lists of crazy names, you know, that you did. Crazy collections that you didn't know, had names, those kind of things. I've tried to. I've tried to. I've tried to. I've tried. I've. I've tried. I've. I've. I've. I've. I've to I've tried to keep my list a little more pure here for you. So I've only included in my quiz words that are in OED, the Oxford, the Oxford English Dictionary. Yeah. Now, that does not mean that these words were not suggested by enthusiasts from their community. But this is a little more, I feel like it's passed a little bit of a higher bar. It's at least been around long enough to be accepted by the big book, if you will. So let me start off with one or two that

appear on a lot of trivialists, word lists. I hope you guys will know this. What does a philatilatilist collect? Philataly, Chris. Stamps. That is a stamp collector, philatally. And this is one of the older sort of specialty collection names. So, Philo, you know, is, it's in a lot of words.

Love, friend of, lover of. It basically comes down to Atello, A-E-L-O, roughly means like an exemption from payment. Oh, okay, because that's what stamps were. The ultimate illusion is, right, the stamp means you've paid your tax. You've paid your, it's a really obscure one. Because that's, you know, you put the stamp on the, on the letter. It shows that you've paid the price to, yeah. Philatally.

Philataly. It goes back to at least the 1860s, yeah. The second one, shortly after philatily on these list, is always numismatics. What is a numismatist? Numismatist collects. Karen and Chris together Coins. Coins. Yes, that's right. I remember, as I said, I collected coins.

I learned that word. Oh, I'm a numismatist. No, you have a jar of pennies. Numismatist comes from numisma, numisma, both in Latin and in Greek, very similar word, which just means money, especially coinage, coinage in particular. Getting a little bit more ramping up in the difficulty here.

What does an iconophile collect? Iconophile. This is another old one. And don't overthink these. Don't overthink these. Chris. Paintings? Illustrations.

Yeah. Engravings in particular are very common. Right. Right. Icons. Religious icons. Those would be included. Right.

Images, illustratings, printings. Yeah. You know, painting starts to get a little fuzzy. Right. But just from icon, meaning image likeness. Right. We had this one at Pub Quiz one night, and I remember, Karen, you were particularly proud that we figured this out.

See, if you remember, what does a philuminist collect? P-H-I-L-L-L-U-M-E-N-I-T, Phil Luminous. Dana, I think. Matchbooks. It is matchbooks, match-covers, matchbox covers, right. Because we're, like, philatily fill, so that means love. So, lumine, it's like, well, you don't collect light, and you don't really collect fire. You don't collect light bulbs.

Like, what's an actual hobby that people do? And they match books. Yep, yep, you're right on it. That one's actually fairly recent. It's only back to about the 1940s is when they start seeing that one. The 19 years. Yeah, the 19 years. Right, right.

What does a vexillologist collect? This is, oh, Karen, Karen, right on top of it. It is flags. Yes, this is another one that will show up a lot at pub quizzes. There's no way to, yeah, you know it or you don't. And this one, you know, I think we tried to. reason it out the very first time it's i mean it basically comes from vexillum which means flag in latin so if you don't know vexillum in latin you're not going to reason this one out yeah again

a fairly recent one only to the about the 1950s does that one start showing up again from within the vexillology community all right last one this one's a little tricky i'll give you a hint on this one uh what does a delteologist collect delteologist and i'll give you a clue it comes from deltios, which is Greek, which is a diminutive for writing tablet. So, so sort of means like little writing tablet, deltologist. This goes back to about the 1940s. Oh, Karen. Postcards? It is postcards. Very good. Yeah, deltios, deltologist, postcard collection. It was like iPhones? Host it. Yeah, it was like smart watches. Right, yeah. All right, well, very good. All right. I think any, any and all of these can appear.

in your local pub quiz and have been OED certified real words. You know, what would be funny is, is I'd like to make up words for different random collecting things. So as I say, for almost all of these, just if you are a prominent member of an enthusiast collector community, just put that word forward. And eventually, if you get other people to use it, it'll stick. It's as simple as that. Put it in the newsletter. Yeah, that's right.

That's right. On your zine or your forum. So who loves e-books? Like, I do collect Kindle books, I guess. Digit. Digiblioblio. Electro. Electrobedliophile.

Yeah. That's a good t-shirt. It's a collector of e-books. What if you have a lot of steam games. It's like a... Hot water. Yeah. Right.

Vapal ludology. Steep. I'm a papal ludologist. What does that mean? I have a lot of games on Steam. Steam. This is Jen. And Jen.

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nintendo collecting is the hot thing now 10 years ago it was Atari collecting because the kids who were kids in 1970s are turning 30 and they're you know money they got money they want to recapture the games of their youth and much like ummel figurines we're seeing a big drop in the price of Atari games, not the super, super, super rare ones, you know, the real, like, kind of almost one-of-a-kind in some cases, which will still go for higher and higher amounts. But the ones that, you know, what used to be like, you know, a $4,500 game now comes in under $100 because people are leaving the collecting field. And the kids today want, they want Nintendo, they don't want Atari.

So I don't actually want to talk about Atari game collecting because there's another story about Atari collecting that is very, very popular in the hobby. Everybody kind of knows about it if you're into Atari collecting. And this is the sort of thing that Atari collectors just dream about and their wildest flights of fancy. And it's actually the story, not of video games, but of a small fortune in gold and jewels. Oh.

We have talked occasionally about the great video game crash of 1983. Yes. Now, just prior to that in 1982, Atari was, riding high. They had more money than God. They had wild ambitions, crazy, crazy dreams about what they were going to do with Atari. And from a game design perspective, certainly, and certainly from a marketing blitz perspective, Atari's craziest game was called SwordQuest. Sword Quest. Sounds fantasy related. Yeah. But Sword Quest was sort of the evolution of games like adventure, you know, and it was a sort of, you know, action slash puzzle slash adventure type game. For the

the Atari 2,600, but it was not merely a video game. It was a proposed suite of four video games. Whoa. Crazy. Sword Quest Earth World, Sword Quest, Fireworld, Sword Quest

Waterworld, and Sword Quest Air World. Each of the Sword Quest games would come packaged with an elaborate comic book produced by DC Comics, which was owned by Warner Communications, which owned Atari. And this told the story, the backstory of the game, the

fanciful fantasy backstory of the characters, and beyond that, this was the promise that the SwordQuest game and the Sword Quest comic put together were an elaborate puzzle. Oh. And if you can put the clues together correctly, find the correct clues within the game that led you to clues within the comic book and entered your answer. You could get invited to a competition at Atari where you could win what of four prizes, one for each game. Earth World, the prize was

the talisman of penultimate truth which was a round talisman made of 18 karat gold in which were inlaid 12 diamonds and won each of the 12 birthstones of the zodiac.

A really big nerd needs A talisman massive it was worth in 1983, $25,000. Now, again, that's, that's, in today's dollars, that's about $60,000, but that's not accounting for the increase in the price of gold. It would be now incredibly worth a lot of money.

If you won, that's just one, that's just, oh, that's just one. If you won the Fireworld competition, you would win the chalice of light made of gold and platinum, also inlaid with diamonds and other precious gems. Waterworld, the crown of life, similarly, gold, diamonds, et cetera, $25,000 in 1983 money. And if you won the Air World competition, you would win the Philosopher Stone, which was a gigantic hunk of white jade inside an ornate gold jewel-encrusted box. I can't imagine why this industry bottomed out. It just seems on the face of it, so sustainable. It's so logical. So each of these, so now we're at 100.

thousand dollars in prizes finally of those four winners they would have a final competition and one of them would win the sword of ultimate sorcery itself 18 karat gold handle and a silver blade also encrusted with jewels and worth by itself 50,000 dollars is that impossible to make yeah well you don't use it it's a decorative sort it's decorative it's purely decorative And the prizes were all created by the Franklin Mint, which apparently at the time was also owned by Warner Communications. Okay. Wow.

So Tari holds the first contest in 1982, and it was so difficult that only eight people submitted correct answers of all the thousands and thousands of people who played this game. And one of them, a guy named Stephen Bell, won the talisman, the talisman of penultimate truth. the second game Fireworld they held the contest the contest was easier

in fact too many people won and they had to they had to whittle it down with an essay contest why you love Fireworld The Fireworld was the chalice of light The chalice An essay contest

Why I deserve the chalice of light I would be so mad I'm like this is homework Like this is all about chalices and video games and fire and now I've got to write an essay? So again, sparing no expense,

they fly 50 people to San Francisco. They actually had the contest visit the Holiday Inn in Fisherman's War. I know where that is, sure. And there was a guy, his name was Michael Rydout, and he won the chalice. Then everything went to hell. The game industry crashed. Retailers were stuck with unsold copies of Atari games

that nobody wanted, including SwordQuest. It kind of sucks the joy out of it Because you know you can't win the contest It's like the moment the contest is over You're like well I'm playing this game again See the game was still on Because they had promised these people

A shot at the Sword of Ultimate Sorcererate So they can't just stop it So Sword Quest Waterworld Was the third game in the series At this point retailers didn't want Atari games But Atari was still selling games To its diehard fans Through its mail order

Like Atari Club mail order business So they did, in fact, release SwordQuest Waterworld. And in fact, and that was one of the rare Atari games for a while that was going for many hundreds of dollars. They had the Waterworld contest. It was all in the box, and you could send in your entries. They only got as far as picking out the finalists, the people who had sent in correct entries for Waterworld. And at that point, Atari mailed out a letter to all the finalists, basically offering to settle. to buy them out and end the contest.

They said that they would pay each of the two, the two guys who would won Earth World and Fire World, they said, we will give you $15,000 to walk away. And then to all the people who were going to go and play in the Water World competition, a smaller amount of money. And everyone agreed to cash out and not go for, figuring, you know,

50,000 versus getting the sword, or versus a one in four shot at the sword, it reminds of I think that $15,000. bucks. So there was no final round. The prize was never awarded and SwordQuest Air World was never made. So where is everything now?

As recently as 2005 people tracked down Michael Rightout and he was still in the possession of the chalice of light. He still not. Safe deposit box. Enlightenment I don't think has come to him. Nobody has been able to track down

Stephen Bell but apparently he actually had the talisman of penultimate truth melted down and sold it for the scrap value of gold which is probably a lot of money at the time and as for the crown of life and the philosopher's stone and the sword of

ultimate whatever sorcery sorcery excuse me whereabouts unknown so they made them the contestants saw them the rumor is that the the Tremiel family the founders of

Commodore who bought Atari out the rumor has always been that they have had them in their possession. But that's never been proven and they've never been seen again. They're on the wall in someone's basement, someone's game room.

They're not even on the wall. They're in a box. And we have one last segment, Colin. Proceed to nerd out. Yes, Karen, I'm not only going to nerd out. I'm going to bring you down with me. So as discussed at the top of the show, I collect, spend much time, money,

shelf space on little tiny droids, these little tiny robots. So as with a lot of collecting figures or otherwise, you can buy stuff new in stores, but I buy most of my action figures on a little site called eBay. Is that safe? Yeah, yeah, you use money? I'm so far beyond whether it's safe at this point, Chris, like, it's like, that's, I'm not climbing back out of this pit at this point. Yeah, you know, fortunately or unfortunately, it's convenient, but it also means I got to, you know,

set up search terms and look out for resellers and not. pay too much, and maybe someone says a figure is rare, and it's not really rare. And so, you know, when you shop on eBay, you have only so many characters you can put in the title in the description. So there are lots of code words and keywords and abbreviations. Yes. And may I just say, having seen this before on eBay, even if you truly believe your item is in excellent condition, do not put ex-con in your subject.

I didn't even think about that. I have a quiz for you guys about abbreviations and terms related to action figure collecting on eBay. Oh, action figures. Yeah. Wow. Now, these don't necessarily, you don't have to know anything about Star Wars to get these. These would apply largely, I imagine, to many types of collectibles. Got it.

Possibly even video games, Chris, you may be a little bit of advantage here. We shall see how it goes. Let's find out how it goes. If I'm on eBay and I'm bidding and it's a, it's a little bit. a loose figure. What's a loose figure? What does that mean? Chris. It's no longer in the package. It is no longer in the package. Yes. And in fact, almost all of the figures that I buy on eBay are this kind. Because I, you know... It's not that the joints are loose. Right. Right. Or that they are of questionable moral character. All right. All right. Here we go. I'm ramping up a little

bit. What's a repaint? A repaint. I might say, yeah, that droid is cool, but it's, it is a repaint. Dana. The paint came off and they painted it back on? No, no. Oh, I know. Oh, go ahead. Karen. He talked about this with the He-Man. Yeah.

Like, it's the same, it's basically the same shape, but with a different skin. Exactly, right, right. It's what they would call in the collecting field. It's the same mold. He uses the same mold, so it's physically the same. They're just painted with a new color scheme. What does it mean, if I'm on eBay, I'm buying a new figure, and the seller tells me it's unpunched. This figure,

this figure, it's unpunched. What does that mean, Chris? It's the, um, so of course they hang the action figures on pegs and there's a little hole in the card to put on the peg, but you have to punch out the cardboard in that hole, um, to put the hang it on the peg. So if it's unpunched, it means the cardboard is still there. Oh my God, who cares? Oh, my God. Really? There is, so there are actually, they used to do that for Nintendo games. They didn't shrink wrap them.

They put hang tabs on the back of the box. And what you do is you'd flip up the hang tab. So like at the F.A.O. Schwartz or whatever, they're like hang it up behind the counter. And the game would be hanging there on the tab. And so, oh, man, people go nuts if there's a hang tab that's never been punched. Oh, yeah. Yes, these are all things to look for as a collector. All right, a few abbreviations here.

We'll close this out here. I will give you the abbreviation. You tell me what it stands for. What does V-H-T-F stand for? Karen. Very hard to find. Very hard to find. Yes.

Yeah. And I, you know, sometimes it is, sometimes me. Sometimes you're exaggerating. Yeah, these things are sometimes not quantifiable, which is great if you're a seller. What does M-I-S-B stand for? M-I-S-B. Chris is holding back here, I can tell. Oh, Chris.

Mint in sealed box. Mint in sealed box. The item itself is mint. The box is not necessarily described as mint in this particular case. Yes. The box could actually have damage. Yep. Yep.

The box could be beat to hell, yellowed tape, you know, window punched in. The seal's still on there. Yeah. The item. All right. And last one, last one. What does M-O-B stand for? M-O-O.

O-B. I might be buying a loose figure that is also M-O-B. Something box. Mint out of box? Correct. Yes. Mint out of box. Right. These are all just a little shorthand. These are occupying valuable real estate in my brain. You see a N-O-S a lot? Oh, new old stock. New old stock. Yeah. Like, this is brand new. It's been sitting in a shipping box. It never hits store shelves. No one's ever owned it. Yeah.

Wow. Oh, you guys. It's like so, yeah, so much of your real estate of your brain is for this hobby. That's awesome. All right. And that is awesome. Awesome. That's not what I thought you were going to say.

Yeah. I'll take awesome. Cool. Awful. What's sad and awesome? Awesome. Aw sad. All right.

And that is our show. Thank you guys for joining me. Thank you guys, listeners, for listening in. Hope you learned a lot of stuff about the weird cultures of collecting, names of collectors, celebrity collectors. And you can find our show on iTunes, on Stitcher, on SoundCloud, and on our website, good jobbrain.com. Thanks for our sponsor, Jack Threads, and we'll see you guys next week. Bye. When the creators of the popular science show with millions of YouTube subscribers,

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