The Lucky Centurions

     Today I would like to start off with an old saying that we've all heard at some point in our lives: 'sometimes it's better to be lucky than good.' Although I would like to take all the credit when I hit a homerun, I would be be doing myself a huge disservice if I didn't recognize that luck plays role in the auction game. Through being lucky, we gain knowledge that will help in future buys. Now would be a good time to introduce my next topic. This is one of those times where luck shined down on me and I bought these guys:

     What you see are The Centurions. They were made by Kenner in 1986 and were adapted from a cartoon series that aired in 1986-87 and only lasted 60 episodes. The cartoon featured three 'good guys' named Ace McCloud, Jake Rockwell, and Max Ray. They fought against the evil cyborgs Dr. Terror and The Hacker. The Centurions had special battle suits, that were teleported to them from their space station, for any situation they faced. Although their cartoon series was short lived, the action figures are wildly popular.

    As you can see from the picture, The Centurions action figures came with a massive amount of accessories. You attached these accessories to the action figures to create their battle suits. One rule of thumb when dealing with action figures is this: accessories are almost always more important than the figure itself.

     That last sentence is the perfect lead in to how I aquired this lot. It was a typical Monday night at the auction house. I had my eye on only one section of the room. There was a table with about fifteen 1-gallon plastic Zip-Loc bags stuffed full of toys from the 1980's. There was everything from GI Joes, to Transformers, to MASK, to Thundercats, to Masters of the Universe. There were also bags full of just the accessories from the aforementioned. I figured that I would win these bags for around five to six dollars a piece. Then, right before they were about to be auctioned off, in walked Jason, my arch nemisis. Jason and I go head-to-head on all things action figure. Needless to say, we butted heads yet once again. The bags were choiced out and Jason won first choice at forty dollars(yes, I ran him up that high).  He took one bag and they started again. Jason then won second choice, for thirty dollars(me again!), and he took one bag. I ended up winning third choice for twenty-two dollars and fifty cents, and I took the best bag just loaded full of GI Joe and Transformer parts. Right then, everyone around Jason and I started bidding on these bags like they were full of gold. Bags that were somewhat worthless were selling for fifteen and seventeen fifty a piece. I think everyone just got caught up in the excitement because they were literally taking bags that weren't worth what they were paying.
     When there were seven bags left I had top bid of eight dollars and won the next choice. I scooped up the remaining bags and ended the frenzy. In those seven bags were included the topic of this post, The Centurians.
     Now I had no idea the value of that bag until I got home. It turns out that very picture above was worth a top bid of $65. That is just over eight times the money, which is always a homerun in my book.