HAMPTON FALLS — Walking into Pasternak Antiques, it's easy to spot something among the thousands of pieces of 20th-century furniture, Americana and odds and ends that you'd like to bring home. But when the "Toy Hunter" walked in, he walked out with about 100 pieces.
Jordan Hembrough, who hosts the Travel Channel show "Toy Hunter," is a collector who's been professionally buying and selling toys since he was 16. On his show Wednesday night, he endeavored to make $35,000 flipping collectibles at the Comikaze Expo held at the Los Angeles Convention Center.
He was able to do so, in part with the help of Jeremiah Pasternak, who owns Pasternak Antiques on Route 1 in Hampton Falls.
As a kid Pasternak and his father, who started the collection business, would go into toy stores and buy loads of whatever was on clearance, many times $20 or $30 items marked down to $1 because no one wanted them. Toy Liquidators in North Hampton was one of the places during the 1980s and '90s that Pasternak frequented, often coming home with "obscure things from movies people don't even remember."
In that time, before the current heyday of video games, toys were much more popular and every movie would have its own line of action figures, he said.
"That's the stuff we'd end up buying, and that's the stuff now that's generally worth more than the big name stuff everyone remembers," he said.
So he contacted the "Toy Hunter" to see if they'd be interested in any of his collectibles and they were.
When the TV crew came to his warehouse last fall, they left with between 50 and 100 items, including paying $2,200 for a set of toys that factored in Wednesday night's show.
Some of the loot the Toy Hunter purchased included a set of old ToyBiz action figures to go along with corresponding original blueprints from the artist; a toy of the Fantastic Four's Galactus, who "literally came to a planet and sucked all the life out of it for lunch," and a set of Snailiens. Pasternak said the crew spent nine to 11 hours filming for four minutes of footage on the show.
Pasternak said he's going to be featured on another upcoming show after the Toy Hunter contacted him again in Florida, where he spends his summers. He said to his knowledge, he's the first "Joe Schmo" to appear twice on the show.
This time the Toy Hunter was coming to see the recent finds he's made over the winter. Pasternak, who went to Hampton public schools before attending Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter and the University St. Andrews in Scotland, said he spends nearly all his time when in Florida on the Internet and at flea markets and yard sales scouring for deals. In the summer, he brings his take back to New Hampshire to add to the warehouse.
"I'm on Craigslist every day throughout the state looking for that diamond in the rough," he said. "You've got to make the rounds and do your homework."
He said if he comes across something he really likes, he'll buy it. But he's also looking at the market. "That dictates what I buy and more importantly what I pay."
"If I'm at a flea market, in a matter of an hour I'm looking up 30 to 60 items on eBay," he said. "Sometimes he'll come across something he might not otherwise buy, but after seeing the price online he'll think to himself, "This is 25 bucks and there's five of them that sold on eBay for $150 in the past month. Then it's kind of like I have to buy it."
"It's hard to leave that much meat on the bone for somebody else to make," he said.
Source: www.seacoastonline.com
Jordan Hembrough, who hosts the Travel Channel show "Toy Hunter," is a collector who's been professionally buying and selling toys since he was 16. On his show Wednesday night, he endeavored to make $35,000 flipping collectibles at the Comikaze Expo held at the Los Angeles Convention Center.
He was able to do so, in part with the help of Jeremiah Pasternak, who owns Pasternak Antiques on Route 1 in Hampton Falls.
As a kid Pasternak and his father, who started the collection business, would go into toy stores and buy loads of whatever was on clearance, many times $20 or $30 items marked down to $1 because no one wanted them. Toy Liquidators in North Hampton was one of the places during the 1980s and '90s that Pasternak frequented, often coming home with "obscure things from movies people don't even remember."
In that time, before the current heyday of video games, toys were much more popular and every movie would have its own line of action figures, he said.
"That's the stuff we'd end up buying, and that's the stuff now that's generally worth more than the big name stuff everyone remembers," he said.
So he contacted the "Toy Hunter" to see if they'd be interested in any of his collectibles and they were.
When the TV crew came to his warehouse last fall, they left with between 50 and 100 items, including paying $2,200 for a set of toys that factored in Wednesday night's show.
Some of the loot the Toy Hunter purchased included a set of old ToyBiz action figures to go along with corresponding original blueprints from the artist; a toy of the Fantastic Four's Galactus, who "literally came to a planet and sucked all the life out of it for lunch," and a set of Snailiens. Pasternak said the crew spent nine to 11 hours filming for four minutes of footage on the show.
Pasternak said he's going to be featured on another upcoming show after the Toy Hunter contacted him again in Florida, where he spends his summers. He said to his knowledge, he's the first "Joe Schmo" to appear twice on the show.
This time the Toy Hunter was coming to see the recent finds he's made over the winter. Pasternak, who went to Hampton public schools before attending Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter and the University St. Andrews in Scotland, said he spends nearly all his time when in Florida on the Internet and at flea markets and yard sales scouring for deals. In the summer, he brings his take back to New Hampshire to add to the warehouse.
"I'm on Craigslist every day throughout the state looking for that diamond in the rough," he said. "You've got to make the rounds and do your homework."
He said if he comes across something he really likes, he'll buy it. But he's also looking at the market. "That dictates what I buy and more importantly what I pay."
"If I'm at a flea market, in a matter of an hour I'm looking up 30 to 60 items on eBay," he said. "Sometimes he'll come across something he might not otherwise buy, but after seeing the price online he'll think to himself, "This is 25 bucks and there's five of them that sold on eBay for $150 in the past month. Then it's kind of like I have to buy it."
"It's hard to leave that much meat on the bone for somebody else to make," he said.
Source: www.seacoastonline.com