The collector returns: The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles Adventure Knife

No updates for a very long time, uh? I’m really sorry but I had a lot of other things to handle within the last months. But now it’s time to present another item of my collection – the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles Adventure Knife!

Sure, this can’t be a very impressive blade for a collector of knifes and it isn’t a screen prop but a piece of merchandise. But it is a nice package with some unique details like the Morse code on the back of the knife handle. I heard about a letter of Young Indy as a part of the set, but it wasn’t included in mine. If you know more about it: let me know! Bought it via Ebay in the United States, it seems to be almost unused.

The war decorations

Sometimes I noticed some small details while watching the TV series which made me do researches for backgrounds and further informations. So the following props are a result of two scenes seen in the episode “Young Indiana Jones and the Treasure of the Peacock’s Eye/London/Egypt, November 1918”. Indy and Remy return to London just after the end of WWI and talk to each other on board of a vessel and at a London train station.

There are two service ribbons visible at Indy’s uniform and those little bars in red/green and yellow/green were the initial point of my researches. It took some time to find the corresponding medals and some months to get all of them. So here are the Belgian Croix de Guerre (War Cross) and the  French Médaille militaire (Military Medal) and their corresponding service ribbons, all bought via Ebay in France.

The Box of the French medal contained a hidden surprise – two (train?) tickets of an unknown date. More informations about them needed!

But hey, all these dangerous war adventures in Europe, Africa and the Middle East and only two decorations? Nothing is so hard as man’s ingratitude…

The Young Indy “Choose Your Own Adventure” books

Wikipedia says:

Choose Your Own Adventure is a series of children’s gamebooks where each story is written from a second-person point of view, with the reader assuming the role of the protagonist and making choices that determine the main character’s actions and the plot’s outcome.

That’s it. Alright, there were eight CYOA adaptions of TV episodes including The Valley of the Kings, South of the Border, Revolution in Russia, Masters of the Louvre, African Safari, Behind the Great Wall, The Roaring Twenties and The Irish Rebellion. I bought them via Ebay and Amazon Marketplace in the United States, Sweden and Australia. The books also contain nice illustrations and an interesting glossary.

 

Young Indy’s ‘airman starter kit’

The following items aren’t props in the proper sense. It’s fictional stuff Indy could own because of his adventures as an air recon man in the Lafayette Escadrille, to see in the “Young Indiana Jones and the Attack of the Hawkmen/Ravenelle, Germany 1917” episode. So let’s take a look:

The book “An Airman’s Outings”, published in the plot’s year, contains the eyewitness report of a pilot who’s flying a Sopwith 1½ Strutter, the type of recon aircraft Indy is using during his missions. Written under the pseudonym “Contact” the author’s real name is known by now. I think this one could be the perfect read for a rookie like “Henri Defense”!

Also very useful: A technical drawing of the Strutter…

…and an isometric map of Northern France, Belgium and Southwestern Germany:

Bought via Ebay in the UK (book), the United States (drawing) and France (map).

The MOTION PICTURE magazine

To get the following item was probably the most effortful and complicated research I ever made as a collector. But let’s tell the story step by step. At first its appearance in the TV series’ episode “Young Indiana Jones and the Scandal of 1920, Part 1/ New York, June 1920”:

So I had to research first: Was that MOTION PICTURE magazine Young Indy’s romance-to-be Margaret “Peggy” Peabody is reading in the train a real or a fictional one? There was a magazine of that name in history but even its headline font was identically equal to Peggy’s publication I couldn’t find that yellow cover in the whole year’s issues of 1920, 1919, 1918 or earlier. It was a pure coinfidence that I finally discovered the right one. And that’s the reason why I didn’t find it for months:

Yay! The time traveller returns!

I had a new goal – to find an issue of January 1923. It took another couple of months until I explored a copy of it at the marketplace of Amazon US. But the seller in California offered shipping within the United States only. Damn! I got in touch with my Facebook friends overseas and after some toing and froing we found a solution. A dear friend of mine from Costa Rica let her sister in Florida receive the delivery (in a second attempt after a failed delivery because of a wrong adress), took it to Central America as she visited her and finally send it to me. And so: Here it is!

The magazine contains interesting insights into the silent film era and some funny small advertisements.

And a last question: Who is the kid on the cover? It’s a real famous one – Jackie Coogan.

Young Indiana Jones Chronicles – The Soundtracks

To get the four published volumes of the TV series soundtracks required an European shopping tour. Volume One and Two are easy to buy and often available on Ebay or the Amazon Marketplace. But it’s even more tricky (and usually expensive) to find the third and fourth issue. So I bought the CDs from German, English and Dutch sellers. Thank you!

Read more about the content here.

German Sticker Album of 1993

Some days ago I bought a complete German sticker album at an Ebay auction. It contains 150 stickers with production photographs of the TV series.

The last page and the backcover contain interesting informations about the prices at the time of the publishing.

2 Deutsche Mark (“Deutschmark” – DM) for the empty album, 20 Pfennig (= 0,20 DM) for a sticker with additional shipping charges. As the DM was replaced by the Euro, the irrevocable exchange rate was fixed for German Mark to Euros as DM 1.95583 = €1. So about 17-20 Euros for a complete album – more than I paid last week. A bargain!

The DVD box sets

Okay, these ones are basics. So I don’t want to write another boring description of the content with all the bonus documentations and stuff. But there is a nice story how I got them.

I live in Germany and these box sets were never published here. Amazon Germany offers an import option from the UK but why not order directly there? The customer accounts work everywhere and besides that it was much cheaper to buy the DVDs at Amazon UK. So far, so good.

Just a few days later I received the parcel from merry old England. But the package seemed to be opened (Any custom authorities? The Secret Sevice? I’m going paranoid…) and Volume Two of the box sets was absent. Damn! The wrong decision to buy that way after all?

I contacted the guys in the UK, told what happened and what shall I say…without any further discussions I received another box (Via express delivery! Without any charges!) and a credit note of £6.00.

THAT’S WHAT I CALL CUSTOMER SERVICE!!!

The Tom Swift books

Young Indy is a lucky guy – he loves the Tom Swift series of books and dates the daughter of the writer! So we meet Edward Stratemeyer aka “Victor Appleton” in the “Princeton, February 1916/Spring Break Adventure” episode. There are two volumes visible in the TV series, “Tom Swift and his Electric Runabout” (published in 1910) and “Tom Swift and his Sky Racer” (published in 1911). I bought them via Ebay in the United States for a fair price and in a good condition.

The Pro Set trading cards

The biggest problem to collect the full set of trading cards was to get the original binder. It was only available in the United States with horrible charges for shipping to Europe. But one day I saw a fair offer and now the Pro Set cards are safe in their original home. There are 95 story cards, 8 “Hidden Treasure” cards, 10 3-D cards and a 3-D viewer which I own three times meanwhile.