The Crawford Institute of Pop Culture Collectibles

Welcome to the Crawford Institute of Pop Culture Collectibles - the Green Section!

As you enter the building, this is the first area to the left. It consists of a wall section about 10' long, as well as two large towers, each 3' by 4'. It was originally intended for Lord of the Rings/Hobbit goodies, along with Harry Potter and Indiana Jones. Because of the amount of space, some other smaller lines, like Pirates of the Caribbbean, Robocop, Firefly, Back to the Future, Monty Python, and a couple others are currently in this area, but I suspect these will be fluctuating over time.

This is one of the two towers - two towers, get it? This is largely an Indiana Jones tower, but there's some other goodies as well.

This shot is looking toward the wall between the two towers. The one on the right is mostly Harry Potter, but also has quite a mix of other stuff. Again, ignore the floor under the towers, where I'm mostly storing stuff right now in a pretty haphazard fashion.

Separating the green and gray sections is one of the four windows in the building.

Below the window, there's a Sideshow Premium Format Nazgul, with a framed poster for the Firefly game behind it. Above the window is a frame poster by Drew Struzan commemorating the Indy anniversary.

Let's start with the wall, top shelf, where you'll find a bunch of sixth scale Asmus Lord of the Rings and Hobbit figures. This includes the complete fellowship. There's also some space for a couple additional releases soon to be here.

The Twilight Witch King is one of my favorites of the bunch.

On the next shelf down, there's a combination of sixth scale - Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings. The Harry Potter figures are from Star Ace, while the Lord of the Rings remain Asmus. You'll see more Star Ace Harry Potter on one of the towers.

This set has some great figures...some not so much. But it's one of those that really looks great when it's all together on the shelf.

While the first half of the shelf was Potter, the second half is Lord of the Rings and Asmus. One of the nice things about the Asmus body is you can get a decent bow firing pose out of it.

Yes, he's skewering him.

The next shelf down is largely Lord of the Rings again, this time with Gentle Giant busts. I have the full series, with one exception. I picked up the regular release  Goblin King, not the one with the extra little goblin. In this first photo, you'll see the busts along the bottom, where they run the entire length of the shelf. The riser has several Applause figures here.

The riser continues with a mish-mash. The Lord of the Rings stuff, like the two figures from Toybiz, and the 'topper' for the Sideshow Gandalf Premium Format statue (you'll see the full statue on one of the towers) will stay, but the Sucker Punch bust, along with several others coming up, are there just for safety sake right now.

This is a few more of those items being held here to avoid breakage. Zorro, Phantom,  nd the little robot from Bad Robot will end up someplace else more appropriate eventually.

The same is true of the Mars Attacks bust (a great release from Gentle Giant that was an SDCC exclusive), the Hellboy, and the Skeksis.

The next entire shelf is dedicated to the Gentle Giant Harry Potter busts. I am complete on this set, and it comes with a great story. When I first got these all out, I was missing three tail enders that somehow I hadn't picked up - Fenrir, Wormtail, and the Voldemort with Nagini. As I write this, I've been out of work for a year, like many Americans during this mess, and I've been budgeting pretty carefully when filling in these holes. I managed to find a Fenrir finally that wasn't too bad a price, but I was still on the hunt for Voldemort and Wormtail. While Voldemort made an appearance on ebay occasionally, Wormtail was a tougher find. Turns out, he's the second lowest produced in the line (Finch being the lowest at just 400).

I found a Voldemort on ebay, but the price was just a bit too high for me. It had a make an offer button though, so I put in an offer. My offer was a little too low for the seller, so he countered, but his counter was still over my budget at the time. I figured that was that.

He reached out to ask "Are you THE Michael Crawford? The one that does mwctoys.com?" I said yes, and he told me that he had been reading my site for years, and it would be  great to sell something to me to fill in a hole in my collection, so he was happy with taking my original offer on the bust. He mentioned that he was selling his entire set of the Potter busts, and if I needed a Wormtail, he had one that would be going up on ebay shortly. While I really wanted to finish these off, I also am on a pretty tight budget for collection stuff, and had to decline. I told him I'd keep an eye out for the auction, and maybe at that point I'd be able to pick it up.

The box with Voldemort arrived a few days later...along with Wormtail, and a lovely letter explaining how much the site had meant to him when he was first getting into collecting. It was a truly amazing gesture, and I have to say it renewed my faith in our collecting fellowship and even in the world in general.

The did a few variants with this series too - the second Harry has the light up orb.

The bottom shelf is another mixture from the various lines - Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and Indiana Jones. It starts out with the Hasbro 12" Indiana Jones figures, and the third one from the left is a lot of fun. You squeeze his belly and he talks, and the rubbery mouth opens!

The Asmus wasn't the only company to do 12" Lord of the Rings figures. This shelf has a number of Toybiz releases as well.

Along the floor is some boxed goodies, starting with the ACI sixth scale Aragorn. I prefer the Asmus - he's on the top shelf - but some prefer the ACI.  The rest of the floor is occupied by the Sideshow Toys sixth scale release.

Now let's move over to the first tower, where there's lots of Harry Potter, plus some Pirates of the Caribbean, and a few other goodies thrown in for now.

While most of the DC stuff is going to be in the Gray and Red sections, currently I have the DC relates NECA quarter scale figures on the top of this Green Section tower. That may change, but it's handy for now.

I'm sure you've noticed that I eschew stands. Of all the figures, these NECA 18" ones have the most trouble standing. It's the jointed, articulated ones that have the issues - the rock steady versions like Lord of the Rings might be in more extreme poses, but they stay where they stand.

NECA did a fantastic job on the Batman Returns Catwoman, and they released two versions of the Penguin.

What will most likely be staying is the quarter scale POTC stuff.  The Jack Sparrow and his dad are NECA, but the pirate to their right is actually the cool SIdeshow Premium Format statue of Blackbeard, part of their historic series.

It might seem out of place, but this Sideshow Knight Who Says Ni is actually just above the shelf where the rest of the sixth scale Monty Python figures are hanging out.

I doubt the quarter scale Crow will stay here - I have some other Crow collectibles that will join him somewhere else eventually.  But the huge figure from Legend is likely to remain. He's not NECA - he was one of two terrific SOTA figures produced in this scale.

Here's those Monty Python figures I was talking about! There's some nifty band-aids too, and in back, in the center of this shelf, are the five boxed clean knights.  The sixth scale line is from Sideshow, but there's a smaller 7" scale line in front from DST.

Most of the Monty Python figures Sideshow did were from Holy Grail, but they did release Brian and Mandy from Life of Brian as well.

Along with the five clean versions of the knights, which are still boxed and in the center of the shelf, there were also five dirty, muddy versions. These are out on this end of the shelf, along with a nifty Black Knight mini-bust from Factory Entertainment. They donated this, along with several other items, to the CIOPCC.

This series is actually still quite cheap, and you can pick up most of the figures for $75 or less. They are well worth it.

Both arms and legs are removable on the Black Knight.

Behind the Monty Python figures we have a few Game of Thrones items. This includes the playset and the figures from the 4" Funko series, the entire Funko 6" series, and the McFarlane series as well.  I have some open space there on the riser, because I have three more of the McFarlane figures loose still to find in a box someplace.

Let's drop down to the next shelf, where the Sideshow Blackbeard from the sixth scale historic series resides.  He's the only figure actually on this end of the shelf, and I'm leaving some room for more ThreeZero Game of Thrones figures. In the background you can see they are standing on a plain, un-assembled wooden riser. I will be fixing them something more permanent, and rearranging them, soon.

Now we get to one of my favorite shelves so far - the Hot Toys POTC stuff. There are 10 figures they produced, and they are all here.

You know how there are figures that you realize, years later, are really under appreciated? The Hot Toys Angelica from On Stranger Tides. She really is an outstanding figure on the shelf.

I dearly love The Princess Bride, and had to get two of the Qmx figures to show off both portraits. NECA did the smaller 7" scale figure.

Now we get to the good Game of Thrones stuff - the sixth scale figures from ThreeZero. Like the Asmus LOTR or Star Ace Harry Potter, there's been hits and misses, but when you put them all together on the shelf, they sum of the parts has a greater effect than the individual figures.

This shelf is going to get re-worked quite a bit, once I build a proper riser for them and decide if this will be their final spot.

The next shelf starts the carded and boxed sets from the Character Options series from the UK.

The bus is a carrying case for the figures. On the next shelf down you'll see more from this line.

Around the corner are a couple smaller Harry Potter items.

And hanging from the shelf above is Scabby Joe! He's part of the Mez-itz pirate line, and was some sort of exclusive - con, club, I don't remember exactly, but he was an exclusive. How can you not love a guy named Scabby Joe?

I had a number of these risers left over from my old set up, so I thought I'd re-use them where appropriate. This one has the rest of the Mez-itz Pirates, along with a few of the Zizzle 4" pirates, a couple Disney 6" scale pirates, and three of the NECA 7" scale pirates. I've left some space open, since I believe there's some additional loose Zizzle stuff to be found.

There's some open space here as well, along with several more of the NECA 7" pirates, a couple 12" Zizzle pirates, and a carded example of the NECA Cannibal Jack and Disney Cannibal Jack.

Around another corner, and we have a ton of the NECA 7" Pirates. I don't have a complete set, but I do have the majority, and I believe I have all the unique characters.

In most lines, you'll see a watch or two. I have them for the Simpsons, Batman, Ren & Stimpy, etc. Here you'll see one for POTC from Disney, along with the large NECA Davy Jones and Mickey as Jack Sparrow.

The final shelf in this tower is dedicated to Harry Potter. Around three sides are the Mattel series of action figures. Most of this I have loose, and I'm not quite complete, but I do have all the unique characters. I kept a few carded to show off the different styles of packaging.

The best part of this series was the beasts, including the Troll and Aragog.

It seemed like a good idea to hang the Quidditch playing figures from the shelf above.

One of the rarest figures in this line is the carded Hermione to the left in the photo below. This figure had a new, much more realistic head sculpt.

I have many of the Character Options (popco) figures loose, along with some boxed play sets on the next section. This was an interesting line, perhaps the best kid's themed figure line that was produced for Potter.

That brings us to the second 3' x 4' tower in the Green Section. Please ignore the huge Balrog on the floor - he's not going to be there, but I have no idea at this point where he can go.

On the top shelf we have some more big items, including the Sideshow Premium Format Indiana Jones. I have a second version of this in my home, with the hatted head on. The Robocop is also the Sideshow Premium Format statue, and the Mickey as Indy is a Disney store release.

Three of these four are NECA quarter scale figures, while the fourth - Gollum - is a Sideshow Premium Format statue. You can take the upper body off and replace it with the Smeagol upper body you saw earlier in the wall shelves of the Green Section.

The only figure sure to stay here is Harry of course. The other two will be moving to areas more suited to them eventually. All three are from NECA.

This Robocop is from NECA, as is the Gollum and Bilbo. The Indiana Jones Monopoly game is particularly cool, with a real wooden box.

On the next shelf, I put together a special riser for the Indy Adventure Heroes.

The horse and Indy in the center were a mail away exclusive.

These two statues are from Kotobukiya, and in the center of the shelf is the complete set of Hasbro Mighty Muggs for the license.

This Indy is the closest thing we've every gotten to a good 6 - 7" action figure.

I need to add a few more things to this section, but the SDCC boxed set of six figures in the Hasbro line is well worth having a good spot.

Around the corner we have more Harry Potter, this time from NECA.

As usual, I've kept a few things boxed and carded to show the various types of packaging NECA used.

To the left is another Disney store Indiana Jones. This one was based on the attraction, so the likeness is more cosplayer than Ford.

Earlier in the tour we saw a bunch of the Star Ace Harry Potter figures. Most of these were my second tier, although I really do love their Hagrid. Across from that shelf, on this tower, are my prime time players. Behind Hermione is the Mirror of Esired.

The two Dumbledores are both excellent figures, easily good enough to be on the shelf with the Hot Toys Fantastic Beasts figures.

Old Man Indy, with his refrigerator...

The Sideshow Indiana Jones line included the Temple of Doom version. One of the Ark's is from Sideshow, the other from Hasbro. And in back, you can see the Medicom Young Indy, not a favorite of mine, but still worth having out.

While the Sideshow figures are under appreciated, it's the huge diorama they produced that was the standout of the series. The Hot Toys Indy is hanging out, and various other sixth scale goodies are dispersed around. Look closely and you'll see Belloq picking out around the back.

This Kermit is here for the Indy connection. There are actually two versions of this figure, the second with a darker pair of paints and more golden idol. That Kermit is with the Muppets in the Purple Section.

The figure and back drop below is from the Hot Toys DX (as was the figure in the previous diorama), but the alter itself was the Sideshow version. I prefer this one to the Hot Toys.

The figures in the Sideshow Indy series were generally decent, but the big stand out was their Dr. Jones Senior, seen here with his son riding in a WWII Germain motorcycle and sidecar.

The next shelf is a true jumble of variety. It starts with Back to the Future from Hot Toys, including both versions of Marty, Doc, and the original Delorean.

There's also the new series from NECA of 7" BTTF figures, along with various smaller Deloreans.

There has never been a ton of Firefly product, but there is the terrific Qmx sixth scale figure.

Both Funko and DST did action figures. The prop replica gun is from Factory Entertainment and is the light weight 'stunt' version. I also have the heavier, more accurate version in the house.

The cap was an official version of Jayne's knit version, and the bust was from DST as well.

The Robocop statues on the top shelf probably gave it away, but this is where I currently have the Robocop collectibles as well. This shelf highlights the Hot Toys releases, but also has some 4" versions from Hiya. The first 12" figure on the right is the very first release from Hot Toys, which was the 10th figure in their MMS series.

The ED209 was the second release from Hot Toys, and in back you can see some carded Hiya Toys 4" figures.

I don't have a ton of Robocop stuff, but you can't have a collection without the McFarlane Movie Maniacs release.

On the bottom shelf, we have the full collection of the Hasbro Indiana Jones 4" line (except for the SDCC exclusive, which you saw earlier on the shelf above). The first couple photos have a few loose figures including the mail away exclusives, with various boxed and carded stuff behind them. The entire shelf is then dedicated to the rest of the line, all carded and boxed right now. It's hard to see all the stuff in photos, since you have to alter angles to see certain boxes behind certain figures, but it's all there.