just ran into this little tidbit http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/pages/Moldville-Mold-a-Rama/156515454416041 this guy has a running disney version of the mold a rama machine and if enough interest is sparked he wants to run a subscribers club, he has some rare and awsome molds so follow this guy we NEED this to happen, it will make collecting MARs alot easier, whomever this person is gets my utmost respect for being a team player and not just scalper scum I would LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE to be able to do this (but I don't have a mold a rama machine ...... yet )
http://www.moldville.com/ this is the site, I'll post up to date info for the lazy but contacting/following on facebook is what will get this running so shoot those email if you hate facebook
Liked. love those machines. I had like a gorilla or something from the St. Louis Zoo back in the 80's
i sent a few questions to the man behind the machine, and this was his response: didn't kirby say these machines are upwards of $10,000? and that's not including the cost of molds and the casting materials that you have to buy in whole pallets/barrels. plus maintenance by mold-a-rama specialized engineers. oy vey!
I think it may be cool to see a series of mold-a-rama inspired vinyl figures, like a kaiju standing on a rocky base with it's name on it. I love these things and was super happy to see the machines still operable in Chicago.
That is pretty freaking cool. Wonder where he got the Disney machine from. He's gonna kill the collecting market though....lol. Unless he puts a mark on them or something kinda like the Bullmark reissues.
I was reading about the Disney molds that were in the park recently on another board, I'm curious to check out what he has.
In some of the places where they still have Mold A Rama machines in active use, they have been using some of the Disney molds....but only like Mickey Mouse. I'm interested in seeing some of the more obscure characters be re-released.
"He's gonna kill the collecting market though....lol. Unless he puts a mark on them or something kinda like the Bullmark reissues." if anything he is gonna help the collecting market,older pieces tend to be non existant and not just rare as the material these are made out of has been improved over the years,original worlds fair or disney pieces were more likely to melt all over the dash board than to make it home also they were far more brittle I've never seen an old piece without at least a good crack in it, I would love to shell out the money on some old stuff but when your never sure if it can make it through the mail safely you tend to shy away, also these machines were never meant to be limited or anything they were meant to pump out MARs till there dying breath and his machine looks like it's still got some breath in it also I'm sure he'll be molding these in bright modern colors where as the OG's were ridiculously dull colors or just undyed off white
also I've got a pretty spiffy collection, but alot of people can't travel around which is the only practical way to collect other than peer to peer trades, and with the limited number of collectors trades only go so far
I should like to join in this fun. Thanks for bringing this to our attention --- my eyes will be peeled --- and thanks Ultra999 for going the extra mile.
I have some of the older Disney ones and they seem pretty solid...no cracks at all. But yeah, dull as a dust bowl colors. I might be down for a subscription.
Anyone manage to jump on one of those subscriptions before they were all gone? Must admit that I wasn't expecting the sale to go the fleacebay route, but anyways. The mail-away service is a great idea, but I guess I will have to wait for some individuals to come up for grabs if they do. I am eager to see some shots once the figures start coming in.
wait, what? he auctioned off the subscription?! wow, i would've thought that those who inquired about it early on would have gotten some sort of notification. well, that's disappointing.
Sorry guys, I should have posted the correction. There was a 'change' due to some licensing issues over the Mold-a-Rama name. No worries, it is all still a go. But after speaking with him, I urge everyone that is interested to email him directly so he can gauge the actual base out there and have you on record. From what he has told me all is still going to take place soon as the machine arrives and he can things running. I'd really like to get in on this, but not sure if I could afford the subscription fee all in one go up front. Would anyone be down on splitting the subscription up among a few people?
Is he expecting $260 off the bat from people? It's a great idea and all, but I'm imagining that that's kind of an outlay for many of us. 'Praps we could suggest something like quarterly dues. Or a monthly, to be paid however many weeks in advance. Be kind of him to offer a flexible fee schedule of some sort. I'd be into some sort of fund pool, but that could get sticky if we all had to choose between which week was "our" week to get the toy... Dunno. UPDATE - I went ahead and wrote to the guy for a general update and got back an interesting and thorough update. Connection re-established I penned him a quick one about fee concerns. Here's his reply:
He won't have to mark the castings to make sure they're unique, whatever plastic he uses will undoubtedly be at least a different color form whatever other edition or installation. I just sent him a note about it.
yeah, it looks like it is all coming together and will available very soon. I am still not fully sold on the subscription though, but only because of the cost, I love the idea itself. If people did want to pool still, we could arrange a pre-assigned week-to-week basis to avoid conflicts, and I am sure that this would inevitably result in a few swaps later on to everyone's happiness.
Update: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dl...78071&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT#ht_938wt_1167 Year subscription, 4 left http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dl...31025&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT#ht_976wt_1167 Quarterly subscription, 7 left (8 before I bought one)
I've been in contact with Moldville Bill, and I'm pretty sure the above number of subscriptions listed are more an eBay ease thing than an actual amount remaining. Myself, I signed up but skipped the auction site/PayPal world completely and arranged to just pay for a years subscription over a few months on a friendly installment plan. If that sounds good to any of you who might be on the fence, you should shoot him a line: bollman@mdslaw.com In addition, I decided to delay gratification and have him mail me the goods once every few months, saving me a bunch of money and getting 16-20 new toys at once. When we were little we didn't buy one plastic army man at a time, we bought a whole bag of 'em! Granted, a sack of plastic farm animals still only costs a buck at the DollarGeneral...