John Randle Bobblehead - FanHQ Exclusive

The 3rd bobblehead from FanHQ is this exclusive John Randle bobble.  Not only does it have Randle's iconinc facepaint, it also will talk - as it comes preloaded with 3 different phrases!  Love that HQ is doing some of this stuff right now!!  Nice to be able to add more bobbleheads to the collection even if they aren't giveaways!

Mike Zimmer Bobblehead - FanHQ Exclusive

Here's the second bobblehead from FanHQ this year - Minnesota Vikings coach, Mike Zimmer.  This ships later in June or early July.  Certainly appears AGP made this one - just like the Tom Kelly bobblehead from several months ago.  

Anthony Carter University of Michigan Bobblehead

 Here's a bobblehead that I had my want list for a while.  I knew of it but also knew it rarely became available.  Most of the older Michigan Wolverine bobbles tend to be like that.  I believe this was sold on campus.  He was a favorite of mine when he played for the Minnesota Vikings (ding ding, there is the MN connection).  It's even autographed on the back (something that won't be seen as I don't display them backwards).  

New Add - Brad Johnson Prototype

Pretty excited to add this one to my collection.  I had seen a picture of it (marketing flyer only) so I knew it was out there but since its a prototype, you can never be certain if it was actually made or not.  I had reliable resources tell me there were a couple of them and now one happily resides in my collection.  Introducing one of my latest acquisitions - Brad Johnson, Minnesota Vikings. 

Bud Grant Bobblehead

After years of discussion and negotiation, Bud Grant will have a bobblehead.  This is the second Bud Grant bobble, but this is the first one that will be produced for the retail market.  Check out this link for more information on the first one!  Grant will sell this bobblehead at his annual garage sale in a couple weeks.  The detail is quite remarkable and Im sure it'll be a fan favorite!  Obviously it has Vikings purple and gold, along with his dog Boom.

Hub Meeds Bobblehead

Former Vikings mascot, Hub Meeds, is one of the most recent Minnesota related bobbleheads to be produced.  Only 350 have been made and several will be autographed at an upcoming signing (this weekend I believe).  It's a great bobblehead, with awesome detail.  Minnesota Fan Store & Triple Crown Shows did a great job on this one!

New Addition - Bud Grant Bobblehead

I acquired this bobblehead a while ago and finally got around to getting some pictures of it.  I had only heard about this one from a buddy of mine who is a memorabilia dealer.  He had a picture of it and I was hooked.  Then he told me there were only 3 produced...ever.  I believe the 3 in circulation (really they aren't circulating anywhere) were prototypes.  The 2 guys that had them made, brought them to Bud to sign off on (after he originally gave the go-ahead).  Bud ended up not signing off on them so they weren't produced for retail sale.

I told my friend, if he ever got one or knew of one that was available, I'd definitely be interested in it. Luckily that day came and I was able to add it to my collection.  This one is priceless and I definitely spent a pretty penny but in my mind, its the star of my collection.

One of the latest additions to my collection - a Paul Allen bobblehead from Canterbury Park.  This is the second edition of a PA bobblehead from Canterbury.  Given the Vikings 3-0 start to the season I figured now was a great time to post this, even tho Adrian Peterson has been lost for the season and we won't hear PA famously say "AP is Loose!" - as long as you have this bobblehead, you can hear it whenever you want.  (AP is Loose is also the name of a horse at Canterbury) 

Paul Allen Bobblehead - Canterbury Park

Sunday the 21st of August is Minnesota Festival of Champions Day at Canterbury Park.  It'll feature 8 races with $600,000 in purse money up for grabs.  Canterbury Park is also giving away a Paul Allen talking bobblehead!  Obviously most of my readers will know what Canterbury Park is and who Paul Allen is.  If you don't, click the links. This will be PA's second Canterbury Park bobblehead.  A unique twist on this one is, its a talking bobblehead.  The first 4000 paid attendees will get the bobble and will be able to hear PA make his legendary call of "AP is Loose!"  You might think the audio is in reference to Vikings stud running back Adrian Peterson, but "AP is Loose" is also the name of a horse at Canterbury Park and is expected to run on August 21st!

I'm sure you'll hear PA make his iconic call this fall, but now you can hear it whenever you want - IF you get the bobblehead!  It's a great bobblehead and I can't wait to add it to my collection!!

New Addition - Chris Doleman

I've blogged about this bobble a few times already.  I was pretty excited when I heard the news of this one being released.  The York Revolution released about 10 days ago and from everything I heard, it was really well received.  Doleman, a former Viking standout is depicted in bobblehead form here wearing his high school jersey.  It even came with a personalized box as well!  Great bobble!

Chris Doleman Bobblehead

Back in March I announced an upcoming bobblehead date that a lot of Minnesota fans would be excited about, especially Viking fans!  Check that blog out here!

Well, tomorrow is the day!  The York Revolution will be handing out 1500 Doleman bobbleheads! Unlike some bobbleheads, the likeness to Doleman is spot on.  As a Viking fan and Doleman being a favorite of mine, this bobblehead looks awesome!

Chuck Foreman Bobblehead

I got this bobble from a buddy of mine.  He told me about it and I figured I'd use it as trade bait to get something else I wanted.  But then I saw it was autographed (with inscription) and knew I was keeping it.  The gold really pops against the Viking purple!  There aren't a ton of Viking bobbleheads, but this is definitely one of my favorites, highly detailed and quality made!

Sneak Peek - Chris Doleman Bobblehead!!

The Vikings (as with all NFL teams) don't do SGA bobbleheads.  There really is no need, they don't do giveaways in general as most teams sellout all their home games without the promotion angle. However, some other professional and semi-professional teams do giveaways of football players.

Minor league baseball teams are the best at coming up with completely awesome and unique bobbleheads.  As one minor league marketing manager told me, "creativity is the life force of minor league baseball!" That simple message speaks volumes about the promotions most teams do during the summer.

Luckily for all Minnesota Vikings fans and bobblehead collectors, the York Revolution is giving away a Chris Doleman bobblehead this summer.  Doleman went to school at York High, (technically, William Penn Senior High School) and obviously went on to be one of the best Vikings of all-time. It's the Revolution's 10th anniversary so they are doing some wonderful giveaways and Doleman (depicted wearing his York High football jersey) is one of the best!

Book your tickets now to get to York on June 3rd!  The first 1500 people will get the Doleman bobblehead.  Here's the link to buy tickets to the giveaway game.  And lastly, check out the picture below, pretty sweet football related bobblehead eh!?!  SKOL!!!

Twinsfest 2016

Twinsfest 2016 has come and gone.  I wasn't nearly as fortunate as I was last year or even the year prior (it's first year at Target Field).  It was still fun and I took advantage of a few decent deals.  I went into it thinking about different things I'd do, but the major focus of Twinsfest is the autograph seekers, the lines they stand in and the areas the players sit in, ready to scribble their name hundreds of times.

I have to think, even tho the Twins would love to keep Twinsfest at Target Field for several more years, the whole 3 day event would be much better served at a larger venue.  I think US Bank Stadium would be a great fit.  I've been fortunate enough to see detailed plans and maps of how the Vikings plan to draw larger events like Twinfest and it almost makes too much sense.  Everything is so clustered at Target Field, since the Twins can only truly use the space behind the dugouts and the Club level as everything else is outside.  And moving this event to a bigger space such as the Vikings stadium would help solve several issues.

Twitter & Facebook lit up with pictures and posts from the weekend and it was fun to see a lot of baseball related stuff in January!

Updated Want List - Part 5 (Football Bobbleheads)

Next up focuses on a few football related bobbleheads I'd love to add to my collection.  None of these will be easy to find...actually its very unlikely I find any of them, but that's what makes collecting so fun, right?  The hunt is on...

Fran Tarkenton is first, this is an extremely rare bobblehead as he's wearing a white jersey instead of a purple one.  I believe there are only 10 of these in existence.  

Up next is a rare Vikings generic bobblehead from SAMs.

Lastly, another Holy Grail for me, Bobby Bell University of Minnesota Graduate bobblehead!

Memory Company Bobblehead - Vikings

Here's another Memory Company bobblehead, this time, its the Vikings edition.  I know there are a couple Twins bobbleheads as well.  This one is from 2001 and I believe there is a second edition from 2003.

Review of my 2014 Goals

Did I achieve much in 2014?  Let's find out.  Back in January 2014 I wrote a blog called "2014 Goals" and in August I made a "2014 Goals - Additions" post.  Click the links to review them!

I had 15 goals in total.  Let's see just how great 2014 was!

1. Get a couple more Twins red base bobbleheads.  These are given to season ticket holders and currently I have roughly half of them.  There are some rare and hard to find ones, but I'll do my best to hunt them down.  (I found several more and believe I have the complete set now)

2. Find 1 ecumen bobblehead (for a price I'm willing to pay).  There are 10 total.  I figure if I find 1 a year, it'll only take me 10 years to fulfill the set!  I know I can buy most any of them on ebay for $100 per...but I'm not interested in shelling out that much cash!   (Crazily - I found all of them and all for really good prices!)

3. Find the 1991 World Series set.  Again, I can pay good money to get this off Craigslist or eBay, but will wait it out until I find someone willing to take what I feel is a fair offer.  (Found this set on Craigslist, more to come)

4. Much like the previous "Goal" I'd like to find the Twins Managers set.  (Bought this one with the 1991 set from the same guy!)

5. Come across a couple local celebrity bobbleheads.  The ones I have now, I only knew of about 1/2 of them.  So I'm not even sure who'd they be!   (I've learned so much about these bobbleheads and can't wait to continue to add to this eclectic collection!)

6. I'd like to get the Paul Krause and Bill Brown Viking bobbleheads.  I know I'll have to pay for these, and I'm fine with that.  I just need to pull the trigger.  (I finally pulled the trigger!)

7. I'd also like to find a Goldy bobblehead that I currently don't have.  Right now I believe there are 4 out there that I'd like to own one day.  It'd be nice to come across one of them in 2014.  (I found a couple more, there are still 2 I'd like tho)

8. I'd like to come across and Timberwolves bobblehead that I don't have, either a mini Crunch or Johnny Flynn.  I also found out I need an Al Jefferson.   ( I found all of these and believe I have all Wolves giveaways now)

9. I'd like to complete the 2013-14 Wild bobblehead giveaway collection.  There are 5 in total, I already have one (I'll blog about that sometime soon).   (I got the entire set, 3 from one guy and 2 from another)

10. Last, but certainly not least...I want to have fun hunting.  My wife asked me the other day if I ever think about the mileage and time I spend on bobbleheads - I do, I certainly consider that when making an offer for a bobblehead or selling one.  To me, the excitement is finding the bobblehead.  Getting lucky when emailing someone on Craigslist or finding something unique or cool at a garage sale.  And of course meeting people along the way.  (Of course I had fun...I always have fun!)

11. Previously I mentioned Minnesota celebrities...now I'd like to learn more about other random and miscellaneous Minnesota bobbleheads.  For example, Hermann the German from New Ulm, or Mrs. Farmfest from Morgan.  I didn't know about either of these until I either saw them in a picture somewhere or in a friend's collection.  (As I mentioned earlier...I continue to learn about these all the time!)

12. Collect all Lynx bobbleheads.  They have given away several, so its a nice little collection so far.  (I'm well on my way but am uncertain if I have them all or not!)

13. Learn even more about the Pepsi One bobbleheads and find the 3 announcers - Lee Corso, Kirk Herbstreit and Chris Fowler.   (I've learned a bit more about these, but still looking for more)

14. Been pondering trying to get a couple email interviews from a variety of people.  Perhaps someone at AGP (or formerly worked there).  Maybe some of my readers - let me know if you are interested.  And maybe someone with the Twins.  It'd be fun to see a start to finish process of how a bobblehead is chosen and then created and produced.  (I actually have talked to AGP and plan on doing a blog post about that sometime soon!)

15. Much like #10 to keep having fun, but this time its more about the blog than the collecting.  I've had a lot of fun blogging about bobbleheads and really want to continue that trend!  (Duh...doesn't the previous 14 goals pretty much answer this one?)  

Want List (Part 11)

Here are a few random bobbleheads.  The first is a variation of a commonly seen Fran Tarkenton bobblehead.  You'll notice the difference is he's wearing a white jersey compared to the typical purple jersey.  I believe the production run was limited on this bobblehead to...10, yep, just TEN!  Next is Ryan Suter when he played for the Milwaukee Admirals.  And last would be my final piece to my Pepsi One collection, Lee Corso.

Tis the season...

Springtime in Minnesota guarantees many things.  Mosquitoes, Twins baseball, planting season and garage sales.  Garage sales are always a good source of finding treasures, that is, if you are lucky.  Usually you just search through other people's junk!  I've blogged about garage sales in the past. Check out this post as well as this one.

I also wrote about my top 5 Garage sale finds from 2013.  Here they are again.
Number 1
Number 2
Number 3
Number 4
Number 5

Since its the garage sale season, I wanted to get a blog out.  Many sales are incredibly fair and some even beyond fair (those are the ones that just want their "crap" gone).  Other sales...are pretty much the opposite. I stopped at one a month or so ago, they had maybe 20 different bobbleheads, ranging from local stuff (Twins, Wolves, Vikings) to national stuff that didn't interest me much.  I believe the cheapest bobblehead they had was $14.  Not exactly a garage sale price.  It appeared that the owners simply went on eBay and found listings of similar bobbleheads and discounted their bobbleheads by a couple dollars...seriously...a whopping 2 dollar difference!  Obviously that one was a bust.  As I found last year....more often than not garage sales don't pan out, but it seems like when they do, they are well worth it! I'll write about the good ones later.  Until then...good luck hunting!

Mini Metrodome

I picked this replica stadium up a few months ago.  I wasn't really looking for it specifically but when I saw it, I figured it'd fit in nicely with my other mini stadiums - even tho it wasn't a giveaway.  This is the Danbury Mint replica of the Metrodome - featuring the Twins playing field (I believe there is also a Danbury Mint replica of the Metrodome with the Vikings surface displayed).