Lindsay Whalen Legacy Collection - University of Minnesota Head Coach

The Lindsay Whalen University of Minnesota Head Coach SGA bobblehead was given away on March 1st 2020.  

Lindsay Whalen Legacy Collection - Minnesota Lynx

The Lindsay Whalen Minnesota Lynx SGA bobblehead was given away on February 22nd 2020.  

Lindsay Whalen Legacy Collection - University of Minnesota

The Lindsay Whalen University of Minnesota SGA bobblehead was given away on February 10th 2020.  

Lindsay Whalen Legacy Collection - Hutchinson High School

The Lindsay Whalen Hutchinson High School SGA bobblehead was given away on February 2nd 2020.  

Lindsay Whalen Legacy Collection

I blogged about this set last summer but needed to set it up again and remember what a bobblehead giveaway actually is like.  The Lindsay Whalen Legacy collection.  These are the last 4 bobbleheads that were part of a giveaway in 2020 before the world flipped upside down.  The Gophers sold a bobblehead mini-plan that featured these 4 bobbleheads and tickets to 4 home games in February and March of 2020.  The next 4 blog posts will feature up close pictures of each one.  

Neal Broten Golden Gophers Bobblehead

 This had been towards the top of my want list for some time.  I always have said the hunt is whats addicting.  The more you hunt, the more you find (crazy, right)!  Having 2 little girls means I'm hunting less and less but try to find new avenues of how to hunt.  And then sometimes they just come to you.  I was able to buy this one from a fellow collector and a very reasonable price.  

As is typical, the more you hunt, the more you strike out too.  But at this point, striking out is irrelevent.  But completely worth it when you find something you've wanted for a while!  From pictures, I knew this one was pretty detailed, but seriously, the detail is amazing!!  

Lindsay Whalen Set

 Lindsay Whalen is one of Minnesota's most beloved hometown heroes!  The University of Minnesota captured her throughout her years from high school to now.  This was a giveaway set last winter, not many were produced and even less people knew about it.  Definitely a hard set to come by as I haven't seen many of them.  

The set features Whalen wearing her hometown Hutchinson jersey, her Gophers jersey, her Lynx jersey and then her as the coach of the Gophers Women's basketball team!  Definitely a nice set, good detail, well made and of course has the state outline as the base!  

New Addition - Nick Leddy

The New York Islanders gave out 10,000 Nick Leddy bobbleheads back in February.  Being a local Minnesota kid as well as a former Gopher it was "easy" for me to add this one to my collection, even tho he's wearing an Islanders sweater.  I've contemplated getting another one and customizing it with Gopher colors, but we'll see.  I have a few other custom projects in the works right now.  

2015 Yearly Recap - Part 4

For those of us who are married or have significant others, this might be one of the most important posts you read on this blog.  Jess is very supportive of my hobby, when she's out in the summer and hits a few garage sales looking for whatever she looks for, she always keeps an eye out for bobbles or sports stuff for me.  She's found a few good deals too!  But, I certainly return the favor as well!  I've picked up several items (usually they are clothing related or purses) with her in mind.  I've found genuine coach wallets/purses.  I've also found giveaway type clothing items she likes (the Twins bomber and stocking caps) and even a Gopher cardigan that she absolutely loved.

Re-read this one all you want!

My Second Custom Bobblehead - Glen Perkins

Several months ago I blogged about my first custom bobblehead.  I learned several little tricks while doing my Mauer custom bobblehead.  At the time I had ideas of specific customs I wanted to try. Even tho I still have those ideas, a couple other ones jumped to the front of the line.

Everyone knows my passion for Gopher Sports.  Being a U of MN Alum...maroon and gold always get my attention. I blogged about this specific bobblehead back in 2014...the final SGA bobblehead the Twins did that season, Glen Perkins.  After doing the Mauer bobblehead, I kept looking at the Perkins bobblehead, but his arms in front of his stomach caused a huge problem as I figured it'd be extremely messy when trying to paint around/under/over and in between that area of the bobblehead. Luck would have it...I received a broken bobblehead I bought from eBay...the arm was out of socket, but easily glued back into place and it looks just like new.  I found a couple extra Perkins bobbleheads and about a month ago started the process.  The first part - breaking his arms from the sockets they are glued in.  Once I did that cleanly (enough) the customizing was on.  See a side by side look of Glen Perkins, his SGA bobblehead and Perkins in his Twins uniform with his Alma mater's colors - Maroon and Gold.

Decker Bobblehead

On July 8th, the St. Cloud Rox of the Northwoods League is giving away a bobblehead of local sports hero and former Gopher, Eric Decker.  Decker now plays for the New York Jets (previously played for the Denver Broncos).  The bobblehead is sponsored by Captial One 360 and 98 Country.  I haven't been able to find a picture of the bobblehead yet, but rest assured...once I do, I'll update the blog!  Check out this link for more details!

Thanks a buddy of mine, here's a picture of the bobblehead, sorry its so small, but thats what the Rox have on their webiste.

Want List (Part 3)

My want list today is pretty simple.  Any bobbleheads from the University of Minnesota.  I'll even take doubles and triples of what I have currently.  The picture below is of 4 bobbleheads that I don't have. There are others that have the M on them, I know Janel McCarville had a bobblehead while playing at the U - very similar to Whalen bobble below.

The first bobblehead is of Bronko Nagurski.  This was produced by the Big Ten Network (BTN) in a collection known as the Big 10 Icons.  It featured one "Icon" from each school in the Big Ten (at the time).  A total of 11 bobbleheads make up the set.  

The Goldy gymnast bobblehead was given out at gymnastic meets several years ago.  The Goldy hockey bobblehead was produced by Gold Country (as you can see on the plaque) and finally the Whalen bobblehead.  I know besides the McCarville bobblehead I mentioned earlier there is another Goldy with a maroon shirt (M on his chest) with his arms outstretched that I currently don't have. There are others out there, but these are my most desired U of M bobbleheads!

2013 Best Garage Sale Finds #2

This past summer I scored my second biggest find at a local garage sale.  I saw an ad on craigslist for a garage sale that included bobbleheads.  Luckily for me, I looked because the garage sale started the next morning.  I figured I'd run over on my way to work.  I'm so glad I did.  A couple people were looking around at all the items for sale.  I immediately found the bobbleheads.  The sellers had a huge collection of bobbleheads, not only sports, but comic bobbleheads, celebrity bobbleheads, minor league bobbleheads...tons of them.  I'd guess there were between 50 and 60 bobbleheads for sale.  I didn't look at them all, but they ranged from $1 to $3.  Perfect garage sale prices in my opinion.  I picked up several and asked if I could place them somewhere safe as I couldn't carry all the ones I was interested in.  The sellers were extremely nice and after I picked out the ones I wanted, we chatted about the Twins season (which of course in 2013 was terrible) and whether or not Ron Gardenhire should be fired or not.  Then, something wonderful happened.  They asked...would I be interested in other Gopher and/or Twins bobbleheads. Uhhh, duh, does a bear shit in the woods?  Of course I said!  And out came 4 more Gopher bobbleheads and 2 more Twins.  In total I picked up 16 bobbleheads for a total of $30.  The 3 best are displayed below.

It's in the details

My favorite bobblehead to collect is that of Goldy Gopher.  I graduated from the University of Minnesota in 2002 and I absolutely love my Golden Gophers.  The University put out a variety of Goldy Gopher bobbleheads in the 1990s and early 2000s.  Gold Country, a campus apparel store in Dinkytown also produced a few Goldy bobbleheads.  Many different sports departments designed their own version of Goldy.  You'll see my entire Goldy collection at some point, but the purpose of this post is to explain a bobblehead can look almost the same but as the title says...it's in the details.

At first glance these bobbleheads look the same.  Both are Goldy swimming bobbleheads.  I've had one for a while and I recently picked up the other at a local thrift store.  But when I compared it to the one I already had, there was one major difference.  As you can see, one has "U of MN" on the base while the other one clearly reads "Minnesota".  For my collection purposes even tho Goldy looks exactly the same, I will keep both of these bobbleheads because the bases are different. 

When buying bobbleheads, notice little differences like this.  I knew there was a Goldy Swimming bobblehead, but never knew there were 2 different versions!  

Garage sale turned Auction?

Earlier this year I responded to a craigslist post regarding a church garage sale.  The guy running the sale responded very quickly and sent pictures of the bobbleheads up for sale.  There were roughly 15 and of those I probably already had around 8 of them.  As I typically do (more on this in my next blog) I responded to see if I could buy them all (at a reduced price).  The guy responded and said he had several responses to his ad and didn't want to sell anything before the garage sale.  Fair enough, I set up a reminder for the sale, which started on a Saturday morning.  I arrived and much to my surprise...the owner decided to run an impromptu auction for the bobbleheads.  I knew this was bad news for me as I wasn't there to spend a ton of money.  There was one bobblehead I really wanted.  Usually I have an idea of what a bobblehead is worth and a range of its selling price.  This one - no clue.  I had seen it a couple times before but never saw a final sale price.  The one I wanted was the last one to sell...I bid right away...no one else bid and I got it for $5.  Check it out!