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KOA = King of Austria
If Pez Corporation had children, say two sons they were KOA & Pez Outlaw. One was the good son, KOA Johan Patek. KOA was the good son, protected & could do no wrong. Pez Corps other son was Pez Outlaw, the black sheep. One son KOA played by the rules, he was a good boy. The other son Pez Outlaw, not so much. Pez Outlaw was the difficult son, very defiant. You just knew you were going to have to deal with Pez Outlaw one day. Pez Outlaw was tolerated, while useful.
Both sons worked very hard for 10 years. Both sons made a lot of money for various individuals at Pez Corporation. One son KOA was rewarded & got rich. The other son Pez Outlaw had to be sacrificed to maintain harmony with the stepson Scott McWhinnie. Scott in our little story was the redheaded stepchild. Then Scott was also cut loose, after all nobody in the family like him anyway.
For me everything that KOA has ever sold is suspect. Reason being the items I have mentioned & color variations unique to him. Plus I had & sold approx 2 million Pez. Key word 2 million, all gone. Good god man 2 million & I ran out. No way in hell he has or had more than 2 million Pez. This guy should have run out by now.
Just
because KOA lives in Austria does not make it legit. To the contrary
his location provides access. There are people you respect who could if
they wanted confirm my suspicions. Problem is there livelihoods are
linked to not saying. Pez Outlaw Diary has no such links, ties or
reliance's. Pez Outlaw Diary is absolutely independent, therefore able
to say the unspoken.
KOA has been tampering with Pez for 20 years & it is known. Brown Mask & Hat Green Hornets are his creation. He has been caught by other dealers more than once, but it is handled quietly. I mean how would you feel if you realized many vintage pez in your collections that came from KOA were tampered with. Pez Outlaw Diary is the only Pez book that will talk about this.
KOA absolutely never had a kind word for my company & never missed an opportunity to undermine it. Two people were at the source of almost every rumor that my pez were fake, Scott McWhinnie & KOA/Johan Patek. Most of the rumors that my Pez were FAKE pre Scott McWhinnie originated with KOA. He probably never knew that I was aware of that.
KOA felt I had no business operating in his Kingdom. Are you aware that KOA was paid to be at conventions in the 1990s. Free everything, room, tables, fees etc, I believe even travel. KOA was the definition of arrogant in the Pez Dictionary. Of course he felt an entitled right to tamper with PEZ.
Upon hearing of the finds I was making in about 1994, the first words out of KOA's mouth were. He is having these made. Really that's the first thought you had, you being supposedly the King of finding old product? Ask the same question or spread the same rumor for over 5 years without raising the obvious question. Why do you automatically suspect anyone who finds large amounts of pez of having them made. Over & over the same refrain. Answer you must know something about the subject.
KOA & his minions were the first to try & discredit my product. My entire time selling Pez I fought against these rumors & I know where they started. His initials are KOA.
Here's something to think about. I had over 2 million pez dispensers. 11 years and I Sold out. I bought and sold more Pez Dispensers than anyone ever in the hobby except Pez Corporation. Past, present, to date, I owned more Pez Dispensers in my 11 year involvement than anyone except Pez Corporation. I bought and sold by far more Pez Dispensers than John Laspina, David Welch or Johan Patek. It's not even a contest. If you combined everything John Laspina, David Welch & Johan Patek have ever owned, I believe I still win in combined total. While they were receiving Pez Dispensers by the box, I was receiving them by the pallets and shipping containers. I spent in excess of 2 million dollars on pez and overall own at least 2 million Pez. Like I said it's not even a contest. All of which are gone.
Yet KOA is still selling the same stuff & he's had same amounts longer. over 20 years. appears to be an endless supply of older pez. I've seen the house nobody is allowed in. I've heard the cases where he was caught. I've seen molds he owns. I to was offered injection molding machines. Difference is I declined. Otherwise I also never would have run out. Funny thing is KOA himself & his friends always accused me of making my own.
I believe very strongly
that KOA at the very least made or had made components for older pez.
Why else did john tell me he got it wrong a couple times.
Fact. Those shoes KOA sold for years were from reuse of the Make A Face shoe mold.
Fact. I too had molds offered for reuse, at a price.
Fact. stems from one item heads from another item & a new mold
came within a breath of being done by a small time player. I believe KOA
actually did it.
You have no idea about what has been going on for years.
You also would not believe the names of people who know it has been going on.
John Laspina actually returned a very large
order once stating my pez were fake. Yet John Laspina continued selling
KOA's Pez for way over a decade. Guess what little bird whispered those
words in his ear. His Blue Jean buddy KOA. Blue Jean Buddy is an inside
joke, John knows what it means. OK, I'll quit being a schmuck & tell you what that means. In the early days Johan used to make John run all over here in the US buying Johan Blue Jeans he could not find in Austria. John was required to perform these tasks to be allowed to sell Johan's Pez. I know this is true because John Laspina told me himself.
No, I am not saying Johan treated John like his B****. It may sound that way, but I would never say that. As we all agree, john is to nice a guy to say things like that.
Sure John my bunnies were on the wrong green stem, oops until you realized Ireland & well yeah they were just made that way later for specific distribution. You see John was on overtime stem watch. Three guesses why. KOA, KOA & KOA. In John Laspina's own words to my ears at the point of the green stem Thumper Hubbub. "He (Johan Patek) gets it wrong sometimes". John Laspina had to inspect everything he got from KOA to make sure it was right. This required John to correct mistakes made by Johan Patek, before he sold the Pez to you. I know because John Laspina told me as he changed the original green stems on my Thumpers to what he understood at the time were the only correct Thumper stems. Crazy thing was they as he found out later were already correct. He just was not yet up to speed on the peculiarities of Pez Corporation, shall we say after licence distribution methods. Which is another story entirely, as big a gun as Disney is, even they could not keep up with Pez Corporate maneuvers to continue selling characters after licenses lapsed. Disney, you can't be everywhere, can you.
Fact. Thumpers with stripes on cheeks, King Loui, Baloo, Mowgli, Blue Dumbo, Merlin, Road Runners, Wyle on & on were sold in Eastern Europe after License by Pez Corporation. How do I know. I bought a ton of each from Pez Corp after the Licenses had lapsed. If I hadn't bought what I did it would definitely have been packaged & sold in Eastern Europe. Even with all I bought massive amounts were packaged & sold. I missed a lot, I could not possibly buy it all.
Fine print. Primary licensee must sell existing inventory before license lapses, closeout or otherwise. Bottom line licensed product must be out of warehouses before license lapses or it must be destroyed. The most glaring examples Merlins, Blue Dumbo's, Road Runners. All sold years & years after licenses lapsed. In other words, Crazy Past There Expiration Date. Merlin's & Dumbo's actually manufactured & sold to me by Pez Corp years & years after licenses had lapsed. Existing or manufactured, both sold in violation of original licensing agreement.
It's all fun & games when it's happening to an Outlaw but when you find out how Pez Corporation treats other contracts, is it still OK? Disney, Warner Brothers, MGM etc. Pez Corporation has a history of treating contracts shabbily. Mine was Breach of implied contract. To you the jury I submit a pattern of behavior.
By now you all know I broke the law. Hell that's a major part of what this book is about. Titles Smuggling, Bribery, Blackmarket etc. Hard to miss, OH & that whole Outlaw thing. These disclosures are just to shine a broader light, illuminate as it were. Fuller Disclosure.
Do I want to go down this road? Yes absolutely, Like I have any choice $250,000.00 reasons to do it. That debt is a knife that hangs over my head every second of every day. So yes Pez Corporation we will continue until you do the right thing.
On this whole thing of John stem switching to correct Johan Patek's pez errors. Almost every dealer who sells a lot of pez switches a stem sooner or later. I know I did. The only thing that matters is if you put the correct stem on the head. Correct stem meaning, produced at the correct time with correct color & numbers etc. John Laspina always got it right & always does. There was nothing wrong with what he did, Nothing at all. The problem & questions arise from why he had to do it in the first place. That is precisely the problem, pure & simple. That & maybe a little more disclosure that the problem existed at all to the collecting community. The problem of a fuller sense of disclosure to collectors by people in the know though is shared by many, not just John.
Have you got your thinking caps on? Why would you need to be on patrol for incorrect stems from your major supplier? Also has anyone ever seen a Green Hornet With brown mask & Hat mint in bag? At the very least I believe one mold that combined hat & mask was used to make the brown variation. Otherwise show me one mint in bag.
The comparisons are crystal clear to me. An awful lot of people have an awful lot of questions. Yet nobody dares to say anything. Personally I think it is because so much of many big collections are full of the Kings Pez Dispensers, that it is a lose lose situation. How do you expose the myth without destroying the hobby.
To be very honest with you I have no idea what KOA is up to today. Last I heard he had his brother fronting for him. KOA ran into the old problem of same face to long selling the same thing. So what to do, what to do? Well you put a new face on it, you pull back. The tell now would be. Don't look for the seller. Look for the product. Find the product, you find the new face.
I list or identify a lot of KOA's pez in red in the vintage price guide, chapter 16. You'd be huntin for someone who sells many of the items. Maybe would make you a deal on 25 to 100 of one item type, possibly saying they would suspend there own selling of that item for a year if you bought them. Sucker! What really happens is they have someone else sell that item for the year. My day it was John. Or they will sell off book, not openly. I'm not paranoid, actually I hate ta say it but you are that naive. It really is that bad.
Here's the thing, I'm not positive KOA controlled the molds or the production. Two things make me question that. One I explain in 2 paragraphs. The other is the Pez Gun situation I go into in Chapter 11, next chapter. There is though a third reason. That is the rampant entrepreneurial spirit or greed of different individuals at Pez Europe, Hungary & Austria. Crazy greed heads is not harsh at all. Stuff I saw or was offered was unbelievable. Fabrications, injection molding machines & places to operate them.
Let's say KOA is not the producer & there is a man behind the curtain.
I know he sold the production so he must have been pretty much the only buyer for the producer. This could be after hours at the factory by a top exec or high ranking foreman. There is also the real possibility someone connected to Pez past or present set up shop outside the factory, this is more likely. Injection mold machine access to or "borrowed" molds.
I know if this mystery person exists & it is not KOA, I know KOA controlled the output for 10 years. At about 10 years something happened. The evidence is the orange pez shooter & space Gun "FIND". After that, Hell who knows & to be honest I had my own problems in 1998 till OH right now. I've been kinda busy, you know severe depression & trying not to lose my house. Simply put trying to survive the FRAUD by Pez Corporation. So kinda busy, no idea what Johan Patek is up to right now. Probably on a beach somewhere enjoying his Millions.
KOA slipped up once, writing in a Fax. KOA wrote. "I KNOW WHERE YOU GOT THEM, BE CAREFUL WITH THEM". Them being a pile of unpack-aged Green Hornets. Yes I ran a scam on KOA trying to get a better deal on 100GH through a friend. Not connected, just want to say Hi to an old friend Mike Mitros. That statement also indicates a fear on KOA's part that he was losing control over something or someone.
Before I tell you about my first audience with the King of Austria. I'd like to share some purchases I made by mail in 1994.
7-26-1994. $1,055.00 for 30 1980s orange Pez Space Guns
8-16-1994. $1,085.00 for 30 1980s orange Pez Space Guns
9-09-1994. $3,000.00 for 30 Zorro, 30 Yappy Dog, 30 Monkey Sailor & 30 Mimic the Monkey.
10-7-1994. $2,800.00 for 40 Goofy B, 40 Pez Pal Sheik & 40 Pez Pal Pirate.
I bought Sheiks from him before I started buying from Dead Al. In total my guess is I spent $10,000.00 to $15,000.00 with the King of Austria. That's not counting what I spent with John Laspina who fronted for the King here in the USA. John in the 1990s was the main US distributor of KOA's Pez Dispensers. My words, John was KOA's US Distributor.
When I first met the King the thing I remember most is, he found it very difficult to hide his contempt for me. It was very clear he felt I was trespassing on his domain by buying pez dispensers in Europe. On one trip I just showed up at his flat. I waited outside till he drove up on his motorcycle, then just walked up to him & introduced myself. Where he said I know who you are. What are you doing here. I said, Well I wanna buy some of your pez dispensers. The King then replied, What if I hadn't showed up. My rely, Well I would have missed you then wouldn't I. Reluctantly he took me upstairs & showed me his very impressive pez collection of rare pez dispensers, sculpted pez prototypes, pez prototypes & pez molds. We then had to go over to his other house to fill my Pez dispenser order. I drove, to which he commented, they let you drive at home. At the other house I was told to wait on the other side of the hedges that surrounded the place. While he went in to get the pez dispensers.
I found a lot of things odd about this house with the tall hedges that the King seemed to not want anyone to see or go into. The situation reminded me way to much of when I was a kid buying drugs. Same deal you waited at the curb while someone else went in. The questions I had are many.
Like I've said. I'm not Brand New. This ain't my first rodeo.
Why did he need a second house? That he nor anybody else lived in.
What was in that house? I know he owns old molds, Because I saw some of them.
Does he own an injection molding machine? There would easily be room for one in that house. I knew people in Hungary that repaired injection mold machines. They really would not be that hard to get, if you had the money & the king has tons of money. It's like I have said the minute something becomes profitable to do, it will be done. Even I know where to buy machines, people who can create the molds & how to buy plastic pellets. It's all about the money, if you have it & if it is worth doing.
Upon completion of the deal it was pretty clear to me that I should not show up here again. The deal this time was to get rid of me & that I should buy his Pez dispensers from john here after. You know as nice as john is to everybody, I never got a warm fuzzy feeling from him either. Though a couple years later the King did offer me 100 green hornet Pez dispensers saying he would stop selling the rest for 1 year if I bought them.
One more thing here about the Green Hornet dispenser. The king offered me 100 of them, no big deal he's offered a lot of people 100 Green Hornet. What you don't know is at the time I thought the price was to high, so I had a friend email the King & offer him a bunch of Green Hornet. This I agree was a stupid & childish thing to do, but his reply is the interesting thing. He replied to my friend. No thank you, I know who you got them from, be careful with them. What a very odd thing to say & yet very interesting thing to say. The King also indicated that this person my friend must have gotten them from, must need money pretty bad if he sold to him. All of this just sounded way fishy to me even back then. Who was this mysterious person who was taking a big risk selling the Green Hornets & why would you need to be careful with these dispensers.
Which brings us back to the big "find" of pez shooters & space guns. Say I lived in or around Linz in the 1990s. Say also that I am very aware of how much money no feet Pez are selling for. I also know people who work at Haas in the warehouses that house old molds. Mix that with money, patience & the ability to keep my mouth shut. With the right amount in payments all things are possible.
Next we get to money. The King has been selling the same dispensers for about 20 years. I sold for 11 years & made 4.5 million gross in that time period. My high end items generally sold for $25.00 each & sets at around $10.00 a set. The Kings dispensers were low end $25.00 each, high end around $1,500.00 to $2,000.00 each. My point being over an approx 20 year period, he must have made 5 to 10 million dollars. My guess is 10 million easy. Being conservative say around 8 million dollars, you can do many things in Austria with 8 million dollars. Remember bribes to do things are as low as $2,000.00 for people with influence at Haas.
You are correct in thinking I have a problem with the King. To many things just don't add up. While we're at it here is one more. For 11 years I sell pez making a lot of money, people who run pez get jealous & run me out of business. For 20 years the King sells high end rare dispensers making twice as much at least & nobody bothers him at all. By the way he does it in the very capital of Pez. Same city, same country should anyone be annoyed. Yet somehow his business goes untouched, nobody notices or cares. ODD! That's not the Pez corp I've come to know & love. There are many people here in the US who have been sued by Pez who would agree.
I guess none of us paid the right people the right amount of money for immunity.
Yet for 20 years he has sold rare old Pez in quantity untouched. You might think well it was Black Santa, Bubble boy, or some other rare item only you had that made Pez focus on you. No, The King also sold every one of these items, plus many many other rare colors etc & in quantity. So why is the Kings business sanctioned & others are not? Are only Austrians allowed to sell Pez & make millions? Have a lot of corporate insiders benefited from his continued business & $millions$? Have to many people at Haas done things in association with the King that if he were bothered would not be good for all concerned?
I've just got a problem with how people in Europe get away with murder selling Pez items to American collectors & dealers. I've seen it first hand over & over & over. See Chapter 9. The Rogues Gallery for just a bit of the obvious items I'm talking about. So yes I have a problem with it & I wish others would just open there eyes. It's all there to see, you just need to look. Same product year after year for almost 20 years. Never runs out. Millions & million of dollars made & to be made, so running out is bad for business. Has the money, is after all in the exact location where it is possible.
Yes I have a problem with it. I make half the money the King does. I get squashed like a bug. I buy approx 1/2 million worth of Pez product directly from Haas in 1 year, in an attempt to do business honestly & in the open. That inventory is then destroyed by Pez USA & Haas. This is done because I annoy Pez USA, yet the king's business dwarfs mine & he survives still. There are no accidents, only reasons why.
Me I'm just trying to figure out why. This book as I've told you is about my journey, it is also my attempt to find closure. If I sell the book, I will finally be able to pay the debt incurred from trying to do business in partnership & cooperation with Pez Corp. After I pay the $250,000.00 debt, none of this really matters any more.
To me paying that debt is closure, that & only that. Me I get a $250,000.00 debt. The King he is allowed to continue to earn millions. I don't like how I was treated as something insignificant & how my business that took 20 years to build was tossed out like yesterdays garbage.
It seems if you are not Austrian, your business is not allowed to survive. So yes I find the favoritism objectionable & we will continue to turn rocks over until I find what I am hunting for. I believe many people at Haas have benefited from the Kings millions. Why else would he also not have been impeded. I also think the King knows a lot concerning people at Haas, so the King does not stumble. It also does not hurt that the King now has a great deal of money, people are often blinded by money.
Don't even get me started about the Owl Melody Maker Pez dispenser, that was never released. Yet produced in large enough quantity that the King seems to have one for all comers for approx 20 years. Let's add this one up. Haas spends thousands creating multiple molds for the Owl. Haas then does a run of this item. Yet does not release any portion of this run & liquidates the run for pennies to the King & only the King. Talk about something that defies logic.
Bubble boy was released after selling for about $800.00 a pop. Last I knew the Owls sold for at least that much. So why wasn't The Owl MMM released in the mid 90s also, if they still had the molds. Exactly who has the molds? Are they in private hands? The Green Hornet Guy?
I could understand a test shot of say 30 or so Owls, but not the amount that have been sold over the last 20 years. He never seems to run out. That fact alone is what bothers me, he never seems to run out of this "initial purchase" of dispensers. As I have stated I had 5,000 of many items from my initial purchases & I ran out in less than 10 years. Yet the powers that be in Austria look the other way. To many things just do not add up if you look at them logically. If you remove the impossible what is left must be true. The King Has No Clothes.
That must make me stupid. I use a broker in Germany who places 1/2 million dollars in orders in 1998 with Van Melles. Haas accepts the orders & produces the product, which is then shipped to me. Less than 6 months later the product is duplicated using samples of my own product so that Pez USA can destroy the value of the Pez dispensers I bought from Haas. Ask yourself, how would you feel about that? All the while the King goes about his merry way, unnoticed.
A problem in the kingdom. I think it was those long disposable pez regulars. It was handled Quietly by the big 3. By handled I mean conversations were had & the Pez dispensers were withdrawn. Why didn't they tell you?
While writing this story people contact me & comment on the story or ask questions. I just received the following statement/question. I decided to put it here. "I sold my collection for top dollars when I found out about the inventory of rare pez that is sitting in Austria and offered to be sold to me by a dealer everyone knows in Austria. I also found out that the other main author of the pez books knows all about it and has never mentioned it while he advertises to buy and sells knowing the prices are inflated due to the inventory in Austria and the collectors pay high prices for items that there are thousands sitting in warehouses but they are in cahoots and cannot release them without prices tanking."
I am withholding the user ID of this person due to the explosive nature of the statement. Though I am using it, because I know certain aspects of it to be true. Large quantities of older "RARE" no feet Pez dispensers were offered to me also by the King of Austria. Yes there is a very well informed person who in the past anyway, was very closely allied to the King of Austria & knew a lot about the King and yes this person is an author.
The very large quantity of pez guns that flooded the market should have been a tell about what this questioner is saying. Dealers sometimes own an inventory of Pez dispensers by being the only client the seller sells that product to. I believe that is the story on the pez guns. The inventory for whatever reason was liquidated out from under there only client to that point. The King. Either that or German Andre had a hand in it somewhere.
I want to play Nostradamus here. In the future, year unspecified. There will be another large find of orange 1980s pez space guns & orange pez shooters. When this happens it will be verification without dispute that someone is using the old molds to generate these items. How can I be sure this will happen? Greed. It worked once & they got away with it clean. They will not be able to help themselves. It's like the bank robber who keeps robbing banks. One it is what he knows how to do & two it is where the money is.
It has now been almost ten years since the big "find". I predict the new "find" is coming soon. My guess is the production has already been completed. The biggest problem the makers of this new find have is this. I was the last guy out there buying in such large quantities. To my knowledge nobody exists today who is willing to buy thousands of something, let alone the money to do it. My guess is they are quietly searching for this new buyer at this very moment.
If they can not find a group of buyers to take it all. I believe they will try selling it in small amounts. Piggy backing off the last find. like it is the same group of pez guns. This would actually be the smarter way of doing it. Pretend you are somebody who got stuck with a bunch of the Pez Guns from the last "Find".
I also believe that this sale will come out of Germany or Austria.
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| The Kings shoe |
Tricky area we are entering now if the shoe mold for Make A Face was used for production of shoes in the 1990s. What other molds were used? A never ending supply of the Kings shoes existed. Well collectors needed them for no feet Pez. Yeah Ok. Collectors also wanted or needed that never ending supply of the kings dispensers. Same group year after year. Never ran out.
I'm just saying the shoe mold is the tell. The ongoing use of it, says older molds can and will be used. You just need to know the right person. Who has the molds and an injection molding machine. An older injection molding machine is actually perfect as that is what was used originally.
Yes I believe someone has X number of Molds and an injection molding machine. Rather I think someone did in the 1990s. It could have been the King himself. Though I kinda doubt it. Other pieces of info don't fit that scenario.
I personally think it was most likely someone who worked at Pez Austria or repaired there injection molding machines. I think the King and this person had a deal to make shoes and other Pez dispenser components.
My guess is this person rarely strayed from exclusively making stuff for the King. Though I do think he did a couple times. Things the King said make me think he worried about his type of dispensers turning up. Always like he knew exactly who they came from. With follow up comments like. You need to be careful with those.
The exact case in point was the Green Hornet Scam I ran on him. Trying to get the price down on the hundreds he offered me. I had a friend press him with a large quantity for sale. Never batted an eye. Indicated he knew where they came from. That the guy must be hard up for cash. Followed by. You need to be careful with those.
I would also add the following.
It is common practice that old injection molds are bought & sold, then shipped around the world. Examples. F&F cereal premium molds from Australia ended up in Mexico for general sales production. Pez 1980s Space Gun molds were sold to China or was it Taiwan. Whatever. The Spacegun molds were then use for production & sale of a spacegun which shot plastic rectangles. Last I heard that set of molds was possibly in Mexico. Point being, injection molds move around.
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| My shoe |
Anyway. Mimmic The Monkey Left. One of the Kings dispensers. Though I would ask you to look at his foot wear. He's sporting one of the shoes I had manufactured. I contracted with a guy to have the mold created. Then to have the shoes produced.
Over the years I bet you I had over 20,000 shoes made. I believe I sold the shoes for a buck a shoe. Note my shoes have a smooth front. No dent like toes. I did this intentionally to separate them from the Kings shoes. I wanted there to be no doubt in anybodies mind that I was having these made.
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| Mimic The Monkey Pez Dispensers. Some of The King of Austria's Pez. |
The fact that the King of Austria never seems to run out of "RARE" pez dispensers, is possible verification of this questioners statements. You tell me, "Are the pez dispensers on offer today by the King of Austria the same ones on offer in 1995?" If so there truely must be a lot of these Pez dispensers.
Here is where the questioner & I part ways. A Very Large inventory of older Pez dispensers does not necessarily destroy the value of a collectible. As long as the production is not ongoing production of that pez dispenser. At one point I could sell as much as 6,000 to 10,000 pieces of any Pez dispenser. The qualifier being I sold $75.00 Pez dispensers prior to my obtaining that Pez dispensers for $25.00. The King has always controlled the flow of his "RARE" pez dispensers into the market place. Much like the flow of diamonds are controlled by one or two diamond houses. Now provided he does not lose faith in the value of the inventory he controls or (in my opinion) the control of that Pez dispenser inventory, like the pez guns. Everything will be fine, but if the King loses faith in or control of that Pez dispenser inventory, that is another question.
The king said to me "You like to sell fast, I like to sell slow. We will see who was right." Some would say he was right as I no longer sell Pez, yet he is still standing. I say the King is a very smart guy & what if he sees a decline in the interest in what he holds & does not think values will bounce back. Will he then liquidate his inventory of Pez dispensers, to heck with the impact on values. You can only run a "long game" as long as the game is still on. Has he also stayed at the dance to long? It's like the guy who lives forever, at a certain point he must change his name & location. Otherwise people start to notice that he never changes.
This is also one of the reasons that the King uses other people to sell his Pez dispensers. The Author mentioned by the questioner was a beard for the King for more than 10 years. Providing a way to sell twice as many Pez dispensers at a time without it looking like that much. The King has also discretely wholesaled to other dealers, again allowing an increase in flow into the market without the appearance of flooding the market. He controls values through what he wholesales his Pez dispensers at. A dealer always adds on a profit to purchase price, thereby maintaining the Pez dispenser's value. So what if it takes the dealer 2 or 3 years to sell. Unless he quietly sells at cost to friends as a favor, he will hold out & value is maintained.
Look no further than the pez guns. I did not buy them all, I bought a lot but not all. Approximately 1/3 to 1/2 of what was liquidated were bought by other people. They were still selling what they bought a couple years later, because they were trying to maintain a margin of profit. Me, I lost my temper. I sold at cost & less than cost. Unlike everybody else I had had enough, it had happened like this one to many times. Most of the other buyers waited it out to sell, for pez values to bounce back a bit. Though they should thank me because by losing my temper & selling everything fast & cheap. The Euro seller was forced to sell the remaining pez gun inventory cheaper than they wanted to. I do not regret my actions in the pez gun matter, a symbolic lesson needed to finally be taught to Euro Pez sellers.
Next possibility. What if the king does not physically control all of the Pez dispenser inventory? What if the King does not control the mold or the use of those molds to make even more of his inventory? As was the case with the pez guns, in my opinion. How long does the real owner hold out for pez sales to pick back up before they lose faith as with the pez guns & just liquidate the pez inventory.
The recession has been rough for everybody rich & poor alike. At what point is some money now better to whoever controls the pez inventory than possibly hardly any money later. (Personal note here; in my opinion this is going to be a double dip recession & we are in the first dip. One word for you Dubai. ) There is a term among dealers in collectibles called "Dead Peoples Toys". This term means that the market or collectors of these toys are dead. With the economic decline everybody is re evaluating what to spend money on. This re evaluation goes on even or rather especially with collectors. Also reflect on the question, do you at 45 do or value what you did at 25. What we value or collect when we are single or do not have children changes once we have children & more responsibilities. This change in circumstance is intensified by economic realities.
So to does the potential group of collectors & what they collect. Every ten years what is collected also advances ten years. Right now if I am not mistaken toys from the 1980s are what is most in demand. People in there 20s & 30s collect there youth, fond memories, toys that let them relive that youth. So the number of potential customers for the 1970s has declined, as have the 1960s & 1950s. At about the 1950s & older you are getting into Dead Peoples Toys. Yes they are still collected but the amount of inventory you can sell into it declines along with the number of potential clients. Tougher economic times act as a multiplier on this decline, as less money forces people to get there priorities in order sooner than good times do.
The short of it being. As a dealer you should not let the size of your inventory exceed the group of potential buyers for that product. You have to sell into a market before the window closes. Every ten years, the size of the potential market for a fixed age collectible shrinks, & hard economic times speeds the process up. In the peak of my pez selling days I figured there were about 10,000 collectors of pez dispensers. Today I would say that number is no more than 5,000 pez collectors.
Just ask yourself these questions honestly. How many fellow pez collectors have said to you they are selling there pez collections? At a minimum the number of pez collectors coming in must match the number going out just to stay stagnant. What is current attendance at pez conventions? Is it the same as the peak about 1998? Is the number of successful pez listings on ebay rising or declining? Are older Pez dispensers bringing highs on ebay or is it closer to half of the previous highs? Not for me to say only you know these answers.
What I can say is, if Pez dispensers are like other toy type collectibles. The clock is ticking on the King of Austria & if he or who he buys from has a very large inventory of old pez dispensers time is running out. Another saying I like is "You're Going To Be Buried With That One". Meaning the inventory of product you have will outlast the time you have left to sell it. At one point I thought for sure ole Josh was going to have to bury me with some portion of those 100,000 Pez body parts I bought. Lucky for him I got rid of them all. Now it is Star Wars figures By Applause. Hey Mike I'm thinking about grinding them up with a wood chipper for landscaping or driveway material. What do you think. Kathy hates the idea.
I have no doubt in my mind, some Pez collectors will indeed collect until the day they die. The question is how many people will there be who collect Pez dispensers when you die, to buy it. Lunch boxes were very hot as a collectible in the early 1990s and yes there are still people who collect lunch boxes. I am sure if I had an original Lost in Space Dome top lunch box in mint condition I could get $350.00 to $500.00 for it. That accepted do you think I could get $300.00 each for 2,000 of them. No, and the reason is there are not enough collectors out there willing to pay $300.00 each. The pool of collectors for that item at that price has decreased in the last 15 years.
"I'm buying these & I am going to save them to sell later for my kids college education. This is something I heard more than once when I used to sell McDonalds premiums. When I would hear this it would make me nuts. Yes I politely tried to reason with the person.
Last I knew pez price guides reflected what a Pez dispenser currently sells for. Not somewhere between what it used to sell for (nor ten dollars over what the King of Austria currently wholesales the Pez dispenser for) & what it currently sells for. No a current pez price guide should reflect what a person could get if they sold that pez dispenser today. I hope & can't imagine this is not still the case.
In the end concerning The King Of Austria it is all a numbers game. Will his inventory of Pez Dispensers outlast the demand potential for that inventory? Will the King lose interest at some point & dump it all at whatever he can get? Not caring any longer. Say he loses interest. At what point if someone else has the molds do they tire of dwindling orders by the King & seek other partners for there product? Have they lost interest already & sold the molds to another country? Eventually circumstances for the King of Austria or his Patron will change. When that happens the dynamics of this group of Pez Dispensers will change. This is an inevitable fact. Time changes everything eventually.
Support the myth if you like, but in reality The Emperor is not wearing any clothes. The Myth of his endless supply of "RARE", "OLD" pez dispensers will come crashing down of its own weight. In my opinion the lie is to big to last forever.
Questions
When was a large group of no feet dispensers actually made?
When were the "FINDs" of Pez Shooters and Space Guns over the last 10 years made?
The whole thought process concerning rare color variations. Is a rare head color truly rare if at any time another can and would be made for a price?
Can a dispenser be considered rare if the mold still exists? When a few pennies of plastic can make it again?
These thing should be documented and verifiable before hundreds or thousands of dollars are spent.
Then there is the biggest one of all. This is plastic. When the value of a given dispenser makes it profitable to reproduce, it then becomes feasible to do. It could be reproduced identically with today's technology. Has this already happened? Indicators of this possibility already exist. Batman's cape showing that it has been thought of, at the very least. New parts for pez pals shows it has been nibble at around the edges.
With the PEZ Gun Find, I Chose Death.
Finally with the last time this happened, the orange spacegun & orange shooter deal, I lost it. The gun deal unfolded pretty much as I've explain they always did buying Pez from Europeans. A big initial buy, then wow there is more, then jees I'm as surprised as you, there are more. It would actually be funny except for the fact that it was always so much money involved.
The Europeans always figured each new pigeon was brand new. Unfortunately I was not, not to mention this gun deal fell in the middle of me trying to salvage my life while Pez Corporation was trying to destroy it. Europeans also have selective English speaking skills. If you agree Europeans understand English, If you disagree or ask questions non comprede senor. Once you start saying what Europeans like again, voila there ability to understand English miraculously returns.
Already mad as hell, I
sorta lost my mind when that tired, tired scenario I had experience so
many times before unfolded once again with the Orange Pez Spaceguns
& Shooters. Like I said I lost my mind. Finally having had
enough, I told the Europeans to go to HELL. Having already in my
possession a large group of product we went to war. The usual threats
by them, if you don't buy it we will just sell it to somebody else. My
response was I sold the inventory I had at cost & below cost
retail to Pez Collectors, thereby destroying the Europeans potential
market for there newly found product. I had finally had enough of the
European Pez Dealers & there "finds".
I was determined I would have there guts for garters this time. Just once someone would pay for this kind of behavior.
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