Topic: Top 5 pieces of memorabilia in your Stooge collection

[BenStooge9]

What are your top 5 pieces of memorabilia in your Stooge collection?  I'll go first...

(not in order)

1. Cut signed by Moe, Larry, and Curly w/nicknames & last names.
2. Pillsbury Moving Picture Machine
3. 1959 Stooge Puppets
4. Moe Howard signed check
5. 1980 Esco Stooge Statues

[middlenamewayne]

Lemme think now...

1. The original bowl used for Moe's haircut. (CGC GRADE: 9.0 - Excellent Condition)
2. Ted Healy's liver (CGC GRADE: 1.4 - Poor)
3. Larry Fine's comb (CGC GRADE: 10.0 - Never Used)
4. Shemp Howard's car (CGC GRADE: 9.6 - Never Driven)
5. Legal rights to unpublished "Joe DeRita Diet Book" (CGC GRADE: N/A - WORTHLESS!)

(Okay, I admit it -- I wasn't actually thinking!)

  - mnw

PS: I've sold all my collector stuff, but I REALLY used to have:

1: Press Kits for most DeRita-era features (I still have photocopies)
2: M,L&C "flicker rings" from 1950s gumball machine
3: The 1st 3 or 4 issues of the DELL "4-Color" comics series in excellent condition
4: Castle Films 8mm B&W home version of "Three Little Pigskins" (still have this)
5: Sheet music for a song from "Hollywood Party" (no Stooges on cover illo, dangit!)

[curlysdame]

Great question, Ben!  Lemme see...

1.  An original studio 8x10 of Curly dressed as a Dough Boy from "Gents Without Cents"  (stamped and sniped).
2.  M/C/L signed USO card, with full names (dated on the back).
3.  DVD copy of The Stooges, in color, and behind the scenes + home movies (from Joan).
4.  1934 giveaway photo of The Boys (in character, and straight), with pre-printed signatures.
5.  Comics #5 and 6, of the St. John series. 
 

[falsealarms]

I can't believe Joan was selling signed Moe checks for, what $10, $20, $25 dollars in the early-mid 80's. Talk about a sweetheart of a deal -- I wish I was around back then.

[Dunrobin]

I can't believe Joan was selling signed Moe checks for, what $10, $20, $25 dollars in the early-mid 80's. Talk about a sweetheart of a deal -- I wish I was around back then.

Just for the hell of it I checked those prices on the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank's web site to see what they'd need to be today to remain equivalent, using 1984 as the original pricing date.  They would be roughly $20, $40 and $50 respectively.  The Fed's funny money is worth only half of what it was worth just 25 years ago.  

[middlenamewayne]

I can't believe Joan was selling signed Moe checks for, what $10, $20, $25 dollars in the early-mid 80's. Talk about a sweetheart of a deal.

Literally a "sweetheart" deal -- there were tons of checks and they had no real sentimental value for the family, so the price wasn't that amazing, but neither did she HAVE to go to trouble of making them available to fans at a reasonable price.

OTOH, at around that same time, I recall seeing a shredded copy of one of the St. Johns comics already being offered at a collectors' market for what was (to me as a young 'un, at least) a ridiculously elevated price - somewhere in the $30-$50 range as I recall. Since I bought near mint copies of the first DELL issues (pee-yew!) around then (probably at the same flea market) I know I got 'em for next to nada

  - mnw