G.I. Joe

It is Fourth of July weekend so I thought I would touch on a American icon toy of the 1960’s, G.I. Joe produced by Hasbro and first hit the market in the summer of 1964. It was sold as a toy designed to take rough play of boys not a collectible… today it is a sought after collectible with many copycat versions on the market.

When G.I. Joe was first introduced it was novel in that it basically was a “doll” for boys! My brothers had the original military introduction and I was not allowed to touch them because they were for boys (according to my brothers) of course I had my Barbies which were designated as “girl toys”. The original outfits and accessories were made to last and had amazing details.

As the USA became more and more anti  military with the Vietnam War  (or military action) Hasbro was able to make the marketing switch to the next generation called the Adventure Team. These were the beginning of “Action Figures” which now are so common place on our toy store shelves. The gadgets and accessories are wonderful and could be a collection in themselves. I find the costumes are not quite the quality of the first generation.

In 1978 the 11 1/2″ series was cancelled and slowly sold down off of Toy Shops of America. Before we realized it he was gone but not forever! In the early 1980’s GI Joe resurfaced and a new set of collectors began. GI Joe was back but now in a scaled down version to 3 3/4″ in size and made up mostly of plastic with everything molded. Being of the original generation (old) I am surprised how many young collectors contact me and only talk about this size as a collectable some not even aware of the original “Action Hero”.

I started buying up collections not knowing what I was doing from ebay and was amazed once I got into this collectable to find how much product was out there listed as “GI Joe” but actually were just wanna be’s…yes I did not do my homework and got stuck with alot of bogus dolls. I have spent hours and hours comparing tags, boots, labels and dolls and have yet to list even one complete GI Joe online or put in the gallery. This week my dining room table as been taken over with several generations of GI Joe trying to get sorted. (pic)

GI Joe was introduced back in the larger doll in the 1990’s but I find many of these too look like characters from wrestling channel vs military servicemen… what do think?

Resources I found easy to use with alot of good photos are:

GI Joe Official Identification and Price Guide 1964-1999 by Vincent Santelmo

Warmans G. I. Joe Field Guide by Karen O’Brien