No, You Can't Always Get What You Want

A vintage Hasbro AT Sea Adventurer - the HOLY GRAIL of my G.I. Joe dreams!

Oh my Gosh!  I finally, after like... only 40 YEARS... finally scored a complete G.I. Joe Adventure Team Sea Adventurer!  But now I'm financially all tapped out for this entire month.  And probably the next one, too, actually.  Because I had to dip into next month's fundage to acquire the ginger haired beauty pictured here.

Yes, unfortunately, my vintage toy budget really isn't as big as a lot of adult toy collectors, I'm afraid.  I wish I was rolling in dough, to buy both new AND antique toys, but like a lot of people, sadly, I simply am not a Texas oil baron.

Now, mind you, I'M NOT COMPLAINING OR DOWNING ANYONE ELSE who just happens to have more toys than I do.  Just stating facts, ya know.  'Cause I don't know about anyone else, but the price of collectible toys has really skyrocketed in recent years, has it not?

But I'm talking about a vintage toy that is roughly four decades old though, right?  Right!  Which means it's not always easy or cheap to come by, thank you very much!

At any rate, when I was really little, there were, at first, only three G.I. Joes in our house.  My older brother and I were incredibly luck enough to get Talking G.I. Joe Commanders for Christmas, and my younger brother got a Sea Adventurer.  And I loved my G.I. Joe to death.  Seriously.  Because by the time I was through with him, his fuzzy "Life Like Hair" was pretty thin in several places, and I don't have the slightest idea where that "rare" shoulder holster all the first AT Joes came with ended up.  Let alone the Lebel Revolver that fits in the holster.

But I was so little way back then, you know.  I don't even know for sure how old I was, or whether it was the Christmas of 71, 72 or 73.  I have since guesstimated that it must have been one of those years, based on the fact that all three Joes were hard handed figures (and not the later "Kung Fu Grip" versions that didn't come out until 1974), and the Talking Commanders my brother and I had didn't have the Green Beret style pockets that collectors clamor for nowadays (so my very first G.I. Joe was almost certainly not received on the Christmas of 1970 either).

So to this day, I don't give a big flying crap about the number or configuration of pockets on those vintage Talking G.I. Joe Commander jackets.  Oh, I've since acquired a vintage TC Joe with that jacket, but I didn't jettison one of the later run square pocket jackets, just to make myself feel like I'm keeping up with the other collectors (Joneses).

At any rate, I had no plans whatsoever to have to scramble this month to move hell and high water (because my wife said I could have it for an upcoming birthday present, but was NOT especially enthusiastic about helping me free up the funds for it - the poor, beleaguered wife of a MAD TOY COLLECTOR like yours truly, that she is), but when I saw that the Sea Adventurer was on offer in a Facebook group, I guess I just freaked!

I guess, because... that younger brother who got the Sea Adventurer for Christmas back in the early 70s... he never even played with it!  That cad!  That rube!  That... brotherly... person....  IN THE NAME OF TOYS, MAN!   That beautiful, fuzzy red headed Sea Adventurer sat in its pristine vintage box in a chest of drawers in our tiny room (that us four boys shared).  Yep, two sets of bunk beds in a really small room, with one closet and one chest of drawers.

So from time to time, I'd ease that drawer open and just stare at that beautiful G.I. Joe Sea Adventurer.  And I usually only had SECONDS to cop a look, because if my red headed younger brother (who is still mom's favorite, and yes, that's why "Santa" got him the sacred carrot topped SA), he would GO NUTS!

Okay, okay.  We were both really little kids, for crying out loud!  And it was his toy, of course.  But my dopey younger brother (who's actually pretty smart and has a good job, a great wife and two super kids, AND a nice house nowadays) really never played with it.  I think I even heard him whine about it a time or two!  Which is something that, as an avowed adult collector of any and ALL eras of Hasbro's G.I. Joe... I of course, absolutely, totally and completely CANNOT fathom!  I mean, what self respecting kid back in the day WOULDN'T have loved a red fuzzy headed, sixth scale G.I. Joe in a pristine Sea Adventurer box?  Sheesh!

But... I guess I opened my younger brother's sacred drawer once too often, to take a peak at his G.I. Joe (though I SWEAR, I never even got to touch it).  Because one day, that beautiful G.I. Joe Sea Adventurer was simply... gone.  And it never returned to our house.  NEVER.

This brown haired boy was maybe six years old then, and if so, that younger brother would've been four.  And as far as I know, my mother GAVE that figure away!  Oh, the PAIN!  Because red headed glory boy had no interest in it, for God's sake!  But like a typical four year old, he apparently did not want anyone else to have it....  So even though I love vintage G.I. Joe Talking Commanders, Land Adventurers, and Air Adventurers, I've always had a soft spot (no... a gaping wound, of something suspiciously similar to unrequited, deep seeded love, way, way deep down inside) for Sea Adventurers.

I've since acquired various reproduction SAs, but in over 40 years, I have never even so much as laid eyes on a vintage Sea Adventurer that wasn't just in pictures on the Internet.  I only hope that when it finally arrives, I can repair that bald spot on the chin, without having to have the whole head sent away to be re-flocked.  Which is yet another reason why collecting vintage toys can be so freaking pricey!

Still... I don't know why my younger brother was allowed to keep his Sea Adventurer in that pristine vintage box in his drawer in our tiny bedroom.  My old man is ex-army, ex-air force, AND ex-police chief; a real man's man hard ass (and I guess I'm bragging AND complaining here), who looked like Billy Jack, or Robert Conrad from the Wild, Wild West.

So naturally, all the furniture and even the curtains in our house were regulation Olive Drab, US military "army green" when I was a kid - just like on the local base where he worked most of my young life.   Even the exterior of the house was painted OD green, for crying out loud!

Anyway, my father would stand there with a big black trash bag, on Christmas morning, and if he thought something ought to be added to the trash to be burned in the garden (like my brand new Talking Commander box, with that beautiful vintage artwork, that I BEGGED on my pajama clad knees on Christmas morning to be able to keep), he would do just that.  With cold as steel military precision.  So, my then brand new Talking G.I. Joe Adventure Team Commander box simply... went up in smoke.  In the stark, cold, barren winter time garden, way, way up at the end of the back yard.  All those long, long years ago....

Oh the pain!  The pain! 

So, I can't wait to see my new... old... new for me, G.I. Joe Adventure Team Sea Adventurer, complete with vintage shoulder holster, Lebel revolver, short black boots, AT dog tag and nice, complete uniform!  No box, of course, but as a toy collector, either as a kid or as a kidult like yours truly, sometimes, you just have to learn what the Rolling Stones said so well, way back in the day:  "You Can't Always Get What You Want."  Boy, ain't that the truth!