Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea Toys

[horrorhunter]

I thought to blow the dust off of this old thread with a post about a recent eBay auction I was watching: https://www.ebay.com/itm/REMCO-TV-TOY-IRWIN-ALLEN-VOYAGE-TO-THE-BOTTON-OF-THE-SEA-SUBMARINE-EXPLORER-SET/174567664595?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2060353.m1438.l2649





Looks like it sold for around $780 after accounting for shipping and the painful tax that eBay charges now. There was a lot of interest in this with 38 bids and over 60 watchers. The buyer actually got a pretty good deal on this even considering the condition issues the seller didn't mention (surprise, surprise  ). This may not be the best time to sell expensive collectibles since so many people are struggling to maintain a place to live and put food on the table now. It's bound to lessen the amount of money flying at those auctions to some extent.

Looking at the playset on offer we have the basic VTTBOTS Sears playset from 1965 with a Submarine Explorer Set box from 1967. I noticed a couple of condition issues: 1) The Minisled is missing the guns and decal, 2) the vacu-form Octopus has the tip of one of it's tentacles broken off and there appears to be some discoloration and cracking on the piece. Also, the plastic "arrows" are missing from the divers' base bottoms but it's debatable if that's even a defect since most of those get removed so the figures will stand. There may be other problems but that's what I noticed by the pics.

Of course the seller lists "all in EXCELLENT condition"...*ugh*...typical eBay seller. Do your research before you drop big bucks on this stuff. Don't blindly take a seller's word for anything. Most eBay sellers don't even know a lot about what they're selling and they'll sugar coat anything to make a buck. Some of them will outright lie and defraud to make a buck. Know what you're buying and what it's supposed to have and look like to be complete. Anyway, I think the buyer still got a decent deal on this as expensive as these items are these days.

Just a word about the vacu-form Remco Octopi, saying they're fragile is an understatement. They crack if a stiff breeze hits them just right. The one in this auction is probably better than most I've seen over the years. Finding one totally undamaged with no other problems like discoloration would be a real challenge. And one in true high grade undamaged condition should fetch big bucks if similar high grade collectibles are any gauge. I know the market for these is nowhere near that for comic books, but if high grade Silver Age key comic books can bring hundreds to thousands of dollars then a high grade Remco vacu-form Octopus should be worth $200-$300 anyway. They would be as hard to find as the high grade key Silver Age comic in NM (9.4) condition (Overstreet grading), or maybe NM+ (9.6) on the looser CGC grading scale. The demand is much greater for the comics, but there were far fewer of the toys made.

[horrorhunter]

A couple of YT videos featuring my VTTBOTS playsets:

https://youtu.be/rc3eTJR176M

https://youtu.be/kDQvgCiUno0

[Mike Scott]

Amazing VOYAGE sets! Especially that custom one!

[horrorhunter]

A couple of YT videos featuring my VTTBOTS playsets:

https://youtu.be/rc3eTJR176M

https://youtu.be/kDQvgCiUno0

Just tried the YT video function. Success! I'm leaving the links in the post just in case of SNAFU. 

[Mike Scott]

Just tried the YT video function.

I just noticed that, too! Nice to be able to do that again.

Something wrong with our clock, though. Your post says Today at 8:49 PM? Did you maybe post at 8:49 AM?

[horrorhunter]

I just noticed that, too! Nice to be able to do that again.

Something wrong with our clock, though. Your post says Today at 8:49 PM? Did you maybe post at 8:49 AM?

I posted that at 1:49 PM. It's showing up as an hour behind for me probably because of Daylight Savings Time. It shows up differently for people depending on their UMA time settings.

[Mike Scott]

I posted that at 1:49 PM. It's showing up as an hour behind for

My post from around 3PM EST says 9:09 PM. Screwy!

[Hepcat]

A couple of YT videos featuring my VTTBOTS playsets:

Yay! Well at least the program here is finally allowing us to embed videos again.