Ed "Big Daddy" Roth Tribute Thread!

[horrorhunter]

I won a couple of eBay auctions for Roth German Surfer Helmets made by Roth artist Mark Harmon.

This is the classic version (red, yellow, and white, on a black helmet):












This is the "Black Ops" version (black on black):
















Here's a pic of Mark Harmon with Ilene Roth's son Cody who's wearing one of the helmets:



These are new items and are authorized by the Roth estate (Roth's widow Ilene), so they bear the Roth copyright. These are plastic German WWII novelty helmets with metal spikes. I usually prefer vintage collectibles but these are infused with that '60s Ed "Big Daddy" Roth vibe and they really resonate with me. Mark has created a striking tribute to Big Daddy's memory and the '60s Fink/Hot Rod/Surfer aesthetic. They scream '60s Monster Kid Fink Army for me. Mark threw in a couple of large "Ed Big Daddy Roth" decals since I bought 2 of the helmets, and officially welcomed me to the Roth Army. These and a few other items are making this a great Christmas here at my monster-cave.

[Mike Scott]

So, Cody is Ilene Roth's son, but not Ed Roth's son?

[horrorhunter]

So, Cody is Ilene Roth's son, but not Ed Roth's son?

Ilene was Roth's fourth wife, so I assume Cody is her son from a previous marriage? I just know what I've read, and I'm certainly not a Roth expert. I grew up a Monster Kid in the '60s and had a few Rat Fink vending charms and a couple of other Roth items, and I like the look of the helmets.

[Hepcat]

I won a couple of eBay auctions for Roth German Surfer Helmets made by Roth artist Mark Harmon.

Mark has created a striking tribute to Big Daddy's memory and the '60s Fink/Hot Rod/Surfer aesthetic. They scream '60s Monster Kid Fink Army for me. Mark threw in a couple of large "Ed Big Daddy Roth" decals since I bought 2 of the helmets, and officially welcomed me to the Roth Army.

Great stuff! If you're in touch with Mark Harmon, maybe you could provide him with links to this thread and this other Roth thread:

http://www.universalmonsterarmy.com/forum/index.php?topic=17103.0

Perhaps he'll join UMA and treat us to some of his memories and insights.

[horrorhunter]

Great stuff! If you're in touch with Mark Harmon, maybe you could provide him with links to this thread and this other Roth thread:

http://www.universalmonsterarmy.com/forum/index.php?topic=17103.0

Perhaps he'll join UMA and treat us to some of his memories and insights.

That's a good idea, Hep. I wrote to him about purchasing a green helmet so the next time I write I'll mention UMA. We need to recruit some new Monster Kid blood around here anyway. 

[horrorhunter]

Pics of my Roth Surfer Helmets on a couple of my monster masks:

[Hepcat]

Pics of my Roth Surfer Helmets on a couple of my monster masks:

Oh man, so cool! The Roth Surfer helmets look as if they were made for the monster masks.

[horrorhunter]

Grabbed a green Roth Surfer Helmet from Mark Harmon. Following are his eBay pics even though I didn't buy it through eBay.











I bought it directly from Mark to get a better price and avoid eBay's taxes. This third one is the charm for my little collection. BTW, the helmets are signed and numbered inside. This one is #635.

[horrorhunter]

This is an interesting eBay listing for Rat Fink fans:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/114622005358?ul_noapp=true







A plethora of Rat Finkery here, but 13 grand?!

$13000 for 500+ items is nearly $26 per item. The individual RF charms sell for around $20 each. The vending display cards sell for $50-$100+ each. I guess he's just testing the waters to see if someone with 13 grand to throw around is a RF nut. If he wants top price for these items he will probably end up having to break up the set and sell them individually, or at least in small lots. Do the work and get the money, or cut the price WAY down and move it to a dealer who will do the work. Anyway, I thought it was interesting enough to post.

[Hepcat]

If he wants top price for these items he will probably end up having to break up the set and sell them individually, or at least in small lots. Do the work and get the money, or cut the price WAY down and move it to a dealer who will do the work.

For whatever reason many non-collectors/amateur sellers think that if they're not getting top price, they're getting ripped off even if they've put in zilch effort to earn the top dollars.

I've had first hand experience in that regard myself. Circa 1998 I had an ad in Canadian Sportscard Collector magazine featuring my CFL want list. An older fellow contacted me saying that he had about seventy NM 1956 Shredded Wheat CFL cards that he'd saved from his childhood years. These Shredded Wheat CFL cards are about as scarce a post war set as one can (actually can't) find since they were included inside boxes of Shredded Wheat cereal and a kid had to convince his mother to buy Shredded Wheat which the mother probably knew the kid wouldn't eat since Shredded Wheat was more of an adult cereal:



PSA Population - 1956 Shredded Wheat CFL

His cards were of course not mostly NM. While almost all had sharp corners, some were somewhat off center. Much worse though from my standpoint they all had varying degrees of toning which puzzled me since they'd ostensibly been stored in the same place. As individual cards they would have fetched somewhere between $35 and $150 each with most closer to the low end of my range. Given the toning issue, there were only five or so I could have used for my own collection.

I told him so, but he was opposed to me "cherry picking" the cards I wanted. He wanted me to buy them all or none! So I bid him a total which worked out to $20-$25 per card. He felt insulted. He wanted NM guide for every card all in one shot! And like I say they weren't NM by either PSA's standards due to centering or my own due to toning. (PSA is all about centering while I'm all about toning.)

When I asked him how it made sense for me to buy all his cards at full price when I only wanted a very few for my own collection, he replied that he assumed I'd be selling the rest to my contacts. In other words, he wanted me to do his job for him while he walked away with the money up front! I told him that his thinking was ridiculous. No deal.

[horrorhunter]

For whatever reason many non-collectors/amateur sellers think that if they're not getting top price, they're getting ripped off even if they've put in zilch effort to earn the top dollars.

Yes, I've encountered this before as well.

In the late '70s-'90s I rented tables at a few small local comic cons and toy shows to sell off duplicates and things I had bought for resale. I would occasionally have someone wanting to sell things to me. Some of them I bought because the seller realized that I had paid table rent and was entitled to dealer status as such. But, once in a while some clueless person would bring several books and demand full retail for unrelated comics in various condition. More than once I had people demand full NM Overstreet for books that were in mid grade. They were turned down, of course, and sent on their way.

It's a tremendous amount of time consuming work to prepare a large collection for retail sale. Researching the values, bagging and boarding...just putting thousands of comics in alpha-numeric order takes forever, and price labelling the bags takes that much longer. That's the reason why dealers pay a very small percentage of retail for large collections. They have to account for the man-hours necessary to work them up for resale, plus whatever other overhead they have to try to sell them, and allow for a profit to make it worthwhile.

No wonder so many sellers use eBay now to move books- the overhead is only the 10% eBay fee plus the 2.9 % PayPal fee, and you only pay those when you make the sale. If you want to blow out books fast you just list everything at auction with a low minimum bid. You get less on average when you do that, but you have quick profit and cash flow. When I start selling small-time later I'll be selling almost exclusively on eBay, while buying mostly in person. People pay a big premium these days to sit at home and buy using their computer instead of getting out tracking the stuff down. It's much different now than it was 20+ years ago.

Bottom line is- do the work, make the money.

[skully]

Holy Crap!!!  And I thought I had a lot of Rat Finks!!  One of the cooler Rat Fink items I have is a large blow-mold type that was glued to a gumball display card, it seems to be cut flush in the back of it so it actually could be glued flat against the display card,  I've seen this piece being sold loose in a header bag that was probably a send-away product in the 60's. 

[Hepcat]

Ed Newton was then hired by Roth in 1964 both to design show cars and to create magazine ads for Roth's T-shirt line. The first ad designed by Newt was for the August 1964 issue #6 of Drag Cartoons. The same ad was featured again in the next two issues. Almost all of the designs featured in the ad though had been drawn previously by Wes Bennett:

Drag Cartoons 8 (October 1964)

I've been corresponding with Ed Newton to get his recollections and nail down sundry facts about his tenure at Roth Studios. In his own words:

It's kind of strange; but I was the first "non-freelance" artist to ever work for Roth Studios. In fact, Big D had no place for me, so I plunked my drawing board down in front of his desk! We shared a tiny office until he bought the place next door and got a much larger office space. I'm attaching a beat-up shot where (Drag Cartoons publisher) Pete Millar clicked off his Polaroid from behind Roth's desk.

I immediately noted that the hot rodder pictured at the top of his first ad bore a striking and probably not entirely coincidental resemblance to Newt himself!

[Hepcat]

Here's a not often seen "Big Daddy" Roth design with finished pencils by David Mann or maybe Ed Newton (I think):



Exquisite!

[Hepcat]

"Big Daddy" Roth's second shirt catalog from 1965 featured cover art by Ed Newton:



And here's a collage put together by Alan "Eye Bone" Eglington of "Big Daddy" Roth designs finished in pencil and ink by Ed Newton: