Moose Party String Lights $10/ set

Lighthouse Party String Lights $10/ set

Trout Party String Lights $10/ set

Racing Party String Lights $8/ set

Fruit Party String Lights $10/ set

Pizza Party String Lights $8/ set

Caribbean Catch Party String Lights $8/ set

Redneck Beer Party String Lights $8/ set

3 dif Beer Party String Lights $8/ set

Beer Brown Party String Lights $8/ set

Beer Green Party String Lights $8/ set

Beer Clear Party String Lights $8/ set

Lizard Party String Lights $8/ set

Grape Party String Lights $8/ set

Big BBq Party String Lights $8/ set

Nun Party String Lights $8/ set

Sun & Moon Party String Lights $8/ set

Lamb Party String Lights $8/ set

Lobster Party String Lights $8/ set

Moon Party String Lights $6/ set

Duck Party String Lights $8/ set

Alien Glow Party String Lights $8/ set

Rose Party String Lights $6/ set

Skull Party String Lights $6/ set

Football Party String Lights $7/ set

3 dif Sports Party String Lights $8/ set

Basketball Party String Lights $7/ set

British Flag Party String Lights $7/ set

American Flag Party String Lights $6.00/ set

Italy Flag Party String Lights $10.95/ set

Mexico Flag Party String Lights $6/ set

Puerto Rico Party String Lights $6/ set

Irish Flag Party String Lights $10/ set

German Flag Party String Lights $10/ set

French Flag Party String Lights $8/ set

Quebec flag Party String Lights $6/ set

Cactus Sombrero Party String Lights $6.50/ set

Pepper Party String Lights $6.50/ set

Flamingo Party String Lights $6.00/ set

Surfing Party String Lights $7/ set

Shamrock Party String Lights $6/ set

Flip Flop Party String Lights $6.00/ set

Santa & Christmas Tree String Lights $8/ set

Cocktail Party String Lights $6/ set

Snowman c7 Party String Lights $8/ set

Santa c7 Party String Lights $8/ set

Sea Shell c7 Party String Lights $8/ set

Cactus c7 Party String Lights $8/ set

Return Policy

This is a serious offer for the book or movie rights to this story. Paypal payment signs the deal.  I bought & sold Pez dispensers for 11 years. I am able to write this now, as it has been over 10 years since I made any real buys & I do not sell pez dispensers any longer.   *** I will run this listing for 1 year. *** Over an 11 year period of selling Pez I earned $4,530,899.00 Gross Sales. In the event that I ever end up on Oprah selling this book, these numbers can be substantiated with the tax returns for these years.  Year #1 = $191,817.00 gross, Year #2 = $291,902.00 gross, Year #3 = $448,277.00 gross, Year #4 = $754,069.00 gross, Year #5 = $569,330.00 gross, Year #6 = $426,163.00 gross, Year #7 = $552,277.00 gross, Year #8 = $412,758.00 gross, Year #9 = $253,844.00 gross, Year #10 = $331,459.00 gross & Year #11 = $299,003.00 gross. This 11 year time frame represents once things were up & running, through final closeout of the bulk of the remaining inventory. These numbers were taken from the tax returns for each year. In Year # 4 a couple of my employees actually received Thousand dollar bonuses for a few of the really crazy months. Yes the 4th year was also the year I earned $50,000.00 in one week. This was also the year my accountant called me & said, "Do you realize you are going to make $750,000.00 this year". It was all pretty crazy, going from $35,000.00 a year to Pez Money. I accomplished all this by seeing something, then throwing everything I had at achieving the goal. Remember I started with less than $3,000.00 You also would be safe in assuming that because I sold 4.5 million dollars in Pez over 11 years, that the amount I bought was closer to 2 million dollars. As my markup averaged 100%. Because my records on pez bought are not as good as gross sales, I am only able to say it was over 1 million. As about 1/2 of my buys were cash. I know that I spent over 1/2 a million cash on over 1/2 million dispensers in mostly Hungary, approx 70 trips (Hungary, Slovenia & Austria) averaging $9,000.00 per trip on product alone. Hotels, flights & cars were usually paid by credit card. *** denotes new entries. This listing is for the Book or Movie rights to How I Made & Lost 4.5 Million Dollars Selling Pez or Scott & Gunther vs. me! Here's the pitch; how a small town machinist goes from 20 plus years in the shop at $35,000.00 a year to spending almost $500,000.00 in one year on Pez dispensers. Then loses it all ( I lost over $250,000.00 in the Color Wars alone) & pulls it all out by selling the story on ebay. The story begins with me at this computer remembering the events of the past 20 years.  I believe it is a good story & I refuse to narrowly define what is possible. After all I gave up normal a long time ago when this adventure began. Normal would have been to stay in the shop with 24 years in already & like 3 of my brothers till retirement. But no, I decided to take a risk & take the adventure of a lifetime. Do things I had only dreamed about, yet did not really believe were possible. Big deal, I got smacked down by the big bad corporation. So what are you going to do roll over & just die? Or do you have the guts to take inventory, realize what you now have to offer & take positive actions in that direction. So yes I am so far out of my comfort zone that it is a speck in the rear view mirror. This is a serious offer & I will give it 100% as such. If I fail, I want to at least have failed knowing I gave this effort everything I had. Laugh if you choose, it's ok. Though for those of you who know me, you know I have never been influenced by what other people thought was possible or "normal". Further thinking outside the box is my special super power. Life is to short not to take chances. This morning one of the people who helped me put on the first California Pez Convention died. For me this is an affirmation that risk & stepping out of your comfort zone is what life is all about. As long as you are alive anything is possible. Including a book written by sj glew. The whole PEZ story is really about operating below the radar & exploiting a very large corporate loophole. Seeing something clearly that it appears nobody else can see & acting on it. Trying to stay one step ahead of the game. Acquiring as many pez dispensers as possible, as fast as possible, before my personal profile as a dealer closed the window. Doing a very delicate dance with maintaining a cash flow to continue buying & not becoming the biggest bulls eye out there to Scott. In the end a rather impossible task & I stayed to long at the party. It proved impossible to keep a low profile while selling the amount of pez dispensers required to raise the cash to complete the project. If I had had the luxury of buying everything at once, then start selling. That would have been a different story. Unfortunately I had less than $3,000.00 to start the project with & I had to earn, to keep going. So the aspect of what I had to do was always in direct conflict with what I wanted to do. Maintaining a low profile became impossible & becoming #1 on Scotts hit parade, inevitable. Maryann once said I could sell refrigerators to Eskimos. I have to tell you it really was not due to any skill on my part. I went from being in the shop for over 20 years where I was always worried about my job, to the adventure of a lifetime & Pez money. So selling was easy & fun, becoming more like show & tell about this adventure. Also you may think I bought pez so I could sell it & make tons of money. Incorrect, I did not buy to sell, I sold so I could buy. The money was only a means to the end, which was having lots of something. At this point I wish it had been all about the money. Unfortunately I have an estranged relationship with money, in plain talk I do not value it as I should. Though a warehouse full of product, that I value. Being somewhat compulsive obsessive (a double & triple, lock or light switch checker) lots or better yet all of something is what gives me a rush of excitement. I actually have no use for one of something, but 1,000 of something now you have my attention. Selling product is more of a validation that I was right about it all & not just nuts. When you spot something no one else can see, there are two possibilities. You are hallucinating again ( and none of us likes that), or you are a handsome & pretty smart fellow. The only real way of scoring is to complete the idea, sell it. If it fails you're an idiot, but if it works you are a genius. Selling is also a game all of it's own, one that the creative side of me enjoys very much. In order to achieve that one individual sale, a mechanism must be created. Individual mechanisms & an overall mechanism. The size or footprint of the overall mechanism is very important, as a large footprint is necessary to gain the visibility essential to success. The individual sale. Money is just a way to make things happen & push away problems. Pez money removed all feelings of vulnerability & gave me the sense that I was finally in control. Not true, but it did feel good anyway. We are currently in a recession & a pretty bad one at that. For me though, this is I believe the fourth one in my working life. The shop I worked in was Metal Stamping press repair. For the approximately 22 years I worked in press repair starting in 1970 to about 1993 it seemed like one long recession. One in the 70s, one in the 80s & then as I exited one in the 90s. Always being worried about job security in a non union shop, even though I was in a skilled trade as a machinist & welder. Even today as bad as things are here in Michigan, I still do not regret leaving the shop & going off on my own. When I worked for someone else my livelihood depended on them & there abilities. Working for myself my livelihood depends on me & my ability to generate ideas. Knowing that one idea stands between myself & the success I desire. Though it never really comes down to just one idea, in reality it is tinkering with the mechanism every day. Never giving up & never giving in. Every day 365 days a year coming into my office & working from 10:00 am till 7:30 pm. Finding something positive to work on every day that moves things forward. Where the pez project failed & eventually collapsed was the decline of forward momentum. In other words cash flow roll over. One dollar becomes two, two becomes four & so on. Cash flow & rollover rate stalled then started going in the other direction during the color wars creating negative momentum. Also the last 20 trips to Europe should not have happened as product cost was higher & retail for Euro pez was lower. To many people were selling Euro pez on ebay & at shows causing a price war. In short I had become to comfortable doing the same thing. I loved staying at the Raba & the routine I had there. The compulsive obsessive side of me demanded more pez. It was a form of self gratification carrying approx 9,000 Pez dispensers per trip home & adding them to the inventory. So I blinded myself to the reality that profit margin from the trips was no longer productive. In my defense, had the color wars not happened the pez dispensers from the last 20 trips would have actually been required to maintain the depth of dispenser on offer. Though with the collapse of the colors those trips were only a futile attempt to shore up something that was broken. I think in some ways I was also afraid to move on. The fear of leaving something you know for the unknown, wanting things to not change. There was also the problem of leaving Pez Money. Crazy good money that just made life so much easier. Pez Money #1.  I started my Pez Business with less than $3,000.00 & over the next 10 years earned well over 1 Million dollars. This is easily true as I also spent over a million dollars buying Pez dispensers. Pez Money #2. Pez money is crazy good money. Got a problem throw money at it till it goes away. Going from the shop to Pez Money was a wild & crazy ride which created in me a kind of natural high. For my entire life until Pez Money I had not been a happy person, always fighting demons in my head. Then for almost 10 years my head was clear & I was happy. I loved buying & selling Pez, it came natural to me. My new found happiness & excitement for life spilled over into everything I did with Pez. So you see Maryann what you were seeing as a really good salesman. Was actually someone who had found happiness for the first time in his 43 years of life. Until those 10 years I had no idea what it even felt like to be happy. I never understood happy people before that, they always seemed like some odd foreign entity. Though like any high, even a natural high that lasted 10 years you always come down. I spent the next five years very depressed all the old demons returned. Now though, I have found a middle, a kind of neutral place that I am very comfortable in. Pez Money #3. Biggest single purchase anyone ever made from me, Michelle at about $30,000.00. Largest single transaction / payment I made for 1 group of dispensers $150,000.00. Biggest overall sales from 1 convention $30,000.00. Also there was one week where I made about $50,000.00 Pez Money #4. I originally paid cash out of pocket for my 2 level warehouse. A 40 foot by 70 foot 16 foot tall pole building, with cement floor & wrap around upper level. After the color wars though this also was refinanced. I kept changing the design on Larry & Larry just said " we can do that, let me dream on it over night". One thing I did though really made him a bit crazy. The building was up, waiting to do the cement floor. Well I had the brilliant idea to use my brand new power washer to cut the hill at an angle I liked better. I did this taper to the hill by the side of the building, an area 5 feet by 70 feet long. The end result was a muddy mess & a flooded warehouse. Larry was nice about it but made it clear to me I should run things by him in the future. Pez Money #5. Paid cash for on a new jeep. Thank you Michell Lorenz as one purchase from her paid for it. I bought this jeep after my son bought one. I had him call his salesman & ask him if he had a rag top with a stick. He said he did, so I had Josh tell him I would take it. The salesman drove it out to my house with the papers for me to sign. He left & I had a new Jeep. Pez Money. Pez Money #6.  Gave each one of my 3 children $10,000.00 for a car. Even gave a lady who worked for me a bit under $2,000.00 to repair her car. Pez Money #7.  Bought a 2 ton white cube Truck, named Dumbo. By just walking over to a salesman & saying. I like that truck call my bank if they like it, I'll take it. I noticed the truck while buying a sandwich at a Subway next door. Called a salesman over, gave him a business card, pointed at the truck & left. Pez Money #8.  Built a new house, while not having a job. Pez Money #9.  Supported my wife's horse enthusiast life style, including during the 10 years 3 new horse trailers & new trucks every 2 or 3 years. Pez Money #10.   Flew business class & 1st class approx 30% of the time to Europe. Pez Money #11.  Paid $700.00 to $800.00 per trip for car rentals approx 70 plus times. Pez Money #12.   Hand carried over $550,000.00 cash between the USA & Europe to buy Pez. This over 1/2 million does not include the product bought during the color wars from German Andre which was an additional $250,000.00 dollars. This also does not include money spent in Canada & the US buying pez which was easily $200,000.00 dollars. Nor money spent on the Pez guns, pins easily $25,000.00, handbooks, full page advertisements monthly & twice a month in Toy Shop magazine & many other things. Pez Money #13.   Actually referred to a $10,000.00 buy/purchase from Mike Mitros for toys as not much money. Pez Money #14.   Spent approx $30,000.00 on hotels around the world. Pez Money #15.   Bought a brand new Scotts ( yes I bought a Scotts with what Scott considered his money. Oh the irony of it all) tractor lawn mower @ approx $5,500.00. Thank you Gary Doss, as one purchase from him was the money I used to buy it. Pez Money #16.    At one point had 5 employees each making $10.00 or more an hour. Pez Money #17.   Actually took 2 one week vacations. One to Martha's Vineyard & one to Seattle Washington. This is worth saying because they are the only non work related trips or vacations I have ever taken. Pez Money #18. Put on the first California Pez convention out of my pocket. As the only way there was money to give Beekman center was because I payed for everything no  reimbursement. I drove out to California but flew 5 more people out to help, paying for flights, rooms & food. Bought & paid for all prizes & miscellaneous that came up. Pez Money #19.  Donated approx $500.00 in prizes for every convention I attended. Pez Money #20.   All of this brings me to the big, WHY? Why do people who pay $200 to $2,000.00 for a single dispenser not require certificates of authenticity or letters of Providence when spending this kind of money. It really is wonderful that there is so much trust in the pez collecting community, but come on now it really does invite larceny. With the huge amounts of money that changes hands at conventions or private transactions, it is really amazing that the amount of bogus items has been kept as low as it has. I'm just saying if you spend one or two thousand dollars on a single dispenser, there ought to be at least a letter accompanying it from the dealer swearing it is authentic. You know the people who say money won't make you happy. Well that is a load of crap. Money pushes all the crap in life that distracts you away  & Pez money was the best. Here's to hoping that maybe a national news cast like Fox News or CNN reports on how some crazy guy is trying to sell a book or movie for $250,000.00 on ebay. Unlike an image of Jesus on grilled cheese or corn flakes shaped like Ohio, some attention to this listing might actually peak some interest. If a nut is the uniform of the day to get this done, well no problem. At 58 years old, balding with a pony tail & 8 inch beard, I think I can pull crazy old man off,  if that's what is required. Actually I've been thinking that a picture of me in an overstuffed recliner, legs crossed wearing a Hawaiian shirt & pink bunny slippers would make a great cover for the book. Maybe the chair should be surrounded by 5 foot piles of Pez dispensers also. Afloat in a sea of Pez dispensers. The Color Wars part 1. Within these writings I will refer to the color wars. What this phrase represents is a 2 to 3 year period where my involvement in buying & selling Pez became an open conflict with Scott, the guy who ran Pez USA at that time. For years I had been a thorn in his back side, that was just out of reach for him to remove. It was not until I contracted for just under 20 exclusive special color variations & approx 8 different Crystal Pez, that he finally saw his opening. The Color Wars, are the time period when I received these dispensers started selling them & Scott reproduced over 1/2 of them & started selling them also. The Color Wars refers to the clash of that product in the collector arena & how that battle for sales affected both of us. The Color Wars part 2. Black Santa. In reality the Color Wars may actually have started almost on day 1 on my first trip to Ormoz. As it was there when Marcos gave me that first Black Santa that the wheels started turning in my head to create color variations. It was also with the sale of that Black Santa that my behind first appeared on Scott's radar. Marcos first created the Black Santa with the thought process that some children in America might like an accurate representation of Santa for them. This was his Job to create & propose various ideas. Several different samples were produced by him & sent around the corporation to see if others agreed. Which is why other Black Santas have been bought from other locations than Ormoz. The feedback & this may shock you, was it was to controversial. I honestly believe they felt that the majority customer base would be offended. I don't know, possibly this may have been the case in 1990 when the project was first proposed by Marcos. Though surely today in 2009 this is not the case & to me it is long over due. For me Marcos was a visionary. There were at least 3 versions of the Black Santa from the early 90s, & this was where that spark that later became the Color Wars first kindled. Although it was the Pink Rhino MMM that was the actual trigger & when I decided to actually do the project. If I remember right John the cool pez man Devlin was going to pay about $700.00 for this item. I had been talking to German Andre about this idea by then for a while, but when John was ready to pay that kind of money I decided the project was a go. My logic was surely people who till then had been paying at minimum several hundred dollars each for color variations would jump at $25.00 each. With how much I had to invest to get them & how much each one cost $25.00 was what I needed. This was also a fraction of what people paid for colors prior to the arrival of mine. What I ask you to understand here is. Yes $25.00 each was over 100% profit per. I had to buy approx $100,000.00 worth of other pez items just to be taken seriously & get to the point of buying the colors. The color project alone was a $150,000.00 investment. Had things gone as planned, it would have taken 5 years at least to sell it all, which meant tying up $250,000.00 total for 5 years. Which meant interrupting cash flow & the roll over rate of capital. Plus at that point $150,000.00 of it was borrowed using my companies line of credit. Not to mention the cost of operating my pez business, which was very high. So for all these reasons $25.00 each was the number required for a five year investment. When $25.00 turned into $10.00 then $5.00 & finally $2.00 or $3.00 each, well you can see how things kinda went south at the speed of light. *** The Color Wars part 3. Who & Why. The product bought for the Color project & the product I was required to buy from German Andre in order to have the privilege of buying the colors I desired. *** Texmex/Mextex, whichever. This dispenser was done with a Tan face so it could be the first Hispanic Santa. I was reluctant at the time to go with another black Santa out of deference to the ones that had preceded it. Today the decision would be different I would have done Black head glow in the dark hat & beard. The Tan face was half hearted I should have made him the way I really wanted to. *** Detys. Don't Eat the Yellow Snow. No regets yellow head snowman with a comic backstory done in initials. He was perfection. *** VooDoo Mama. Black head Witch. Again no regrets she was awsome. *** David W. Kinda weak. Brown face lion meant to bring reality to the dispenser. Should have done a different character for this one, yellow witch & orange snowman. Like Pez Pal boy & Girl in Black. The only good thing about this dispenser is it's name, an homage to David Welch & his contribution to the hobby of collecting pez. All price guides really need to stop using the carpetbagger name misfit lion & call it by it's correct name. David W. *** Pinky. Named after the Pink Elephants a drunk might see. Dark nose because he has a snoot full. *** Diablo. Black Skull. Just a no brainer, the name & the color. ***                 . Orange Snowman. no great shakes can't even remember what I called it. ***  Jaundice Witch. Yellow Witch. Almost a good idea. Original concept being that naturally an old witch would have jaundice color skin. *** Pal S, J, &M. I loved these three dispensers, I think they were my most creative dispensers. Glow in the dark heads with Hip-Hop hats. Named after my kids Steph, Josh & Moriah. *** Black & Brown Ice Bears. Great pieces. I loved them. I think I called them Bear C & Bear D. Bear D was the brown one (I Think) named after Donna a really terrific person who worked for me back then. Bear C was named after my grandson Corey. *** Shell Gas Pez Pal, Gold, Blond, Silver, Gray & Orange Hair. This was German Andre getting creative. Lamely using the gimmick of different colors of hair like it was a huge deal. Still I was forced to buy this also as a precondition to getting the colors produced. *** Original 8 Crystals. My idea including the name. Early on in the color project I asked about clear head dispensers, Crystals. I was told it would be to difficult to do. Several months later Andre said, "Hey remember those Crystal head dispensers you wanted, I got them for you 8 different Ghosts & new Zoo". Quite a few of these original Crystals have the imperfections stated as the difficulty in making them. Air bubbles in the clear plastic. *** Original Neon Psych Hand & Eye. The first of what was to follow. The original or preproduction run for this item. *** Buyout of  Joes trucks. From Joe & Dave. Also the rest of the loose trucks, Andre (the Snake) was selling behind there backs. *** Buyout of  Colors. From German Andre. A very large wooden crate of loose colors, Andre (the Snake) had produced on the side & was selling behind my back to other dealers undercutting my prices. He said it was overproduction & if I did not buy it. He would sell elsewhere. I knew better but the price was cheap & it helped defray some of the losses so I bought it. *** Shipping Containers full of Body parts. Approximately 36,000 carded body parts I was forced to buy as a precondition to getting the colors produced. I hated this deal, I think I paid 25cents each. In the end it was one of the smarter things I was forced to buy in the color project. I gave the away as inducements to buy at certain dollar levels & elevated sales quite a bit. Also face it at a quarter each in the end I was not going to lose money. So yeah even though forced to buy them I came out ok on these. I could have moved double the amount I bought. *** Funny story about these & other body part from this time period. The Funs (a chain of novelty & collectibles stores; Big fun, Uncle Fun & Sister Fun) which is how Mike Metros referred to them. Anyway the Funs also bought a container of body parts from German Andre. While at the Raba in Hungary, I came down for breakfast one morning & had an urgent fax from Mike Mitros. In it he was asking if I could help stating that the container of body parts that the Funs had bought was hung up at a customs port of entry. I had made the whole process look so easy that the Funs thought anybody could do it. I can't remember what I told Mike, probably that they should hire a broker. I have no idea if they ever got that container cleared. *** No I did not offer my broker to the Funs. No I did not share the customs number or any of the things I had learned or about which ports of entry were best. I'm kinda superstitious in this regard. I figured I only had so much luck in these matters & giving some of it away would not be wise. All by myself I was already running the string pretty thin. *** Did you know that the original idea about body parts was that they were like Make A Face? This was actually said to me by Marcos & Ljuba (Ormoz Slovenia) in one of the hush hush talks we had. Marcos was all excited about this really big new project he refered to like Make A Face. Obviously corporate thinking was body parts were somehow a way to capitalize on the fact that Make A Face was always said in books to be the Holy Grail of pez dispensers & at the time selling for 2 to $3,000.00 each. *** Shipping Container full of ; Aral Gas Pez Pal 2 dif color hair & pez dispensers with body parts. carded side by side & parts on dispenser. I was forced to buy this also as a precondition to getting the colors produced. *** Shoulda Coulda Woulda. Pez Boy & Pez Girl Black head. Actually any male or female dispenser in every ethnicity. *** Shoulda Coulda Woulda. More C class trucks. ********************************************************* *** All time Fantasy. To have control of a Pez injection molding facility for 1 day ( 12 hours ) & get all the product created. Minimum of 10 injection molding machines. My selection of non licensed molds for heads  & minimum of 20 colors of plastic pellets. I would create HEADS ONLY. All the heads created within the 12 hours would remain as components (not assembled) for assembly by me later. Three days prior to select molds & plan the 12 hour run. Pez Corp of Austria that is my Deal, I will trade you the $250,000.00 debt, from when you ripped me off, for this 12 hour fantasy. *** You pay the cost of my flight to the injection molding facility to be used. You pay for 5 nights at a hotel. You provide food & transportation. I am allowed 3 days to select any unlicensed head molds I choose for the 12 hour production run. No limits on how many unlicensed head molds can be used within the 12 hour run. No limits on how many colors can be used per head mold. In effect I control with no interference the 10 injection molding machines for one 12 hour shift & the employees who operate them. I pick the molds to be used (heads only) & the colors to be used. I control all aspects of this 12 hour production.  No assembly of components for these heads will be done. Heads will be shipped as loose components. You ship the entire production to me here in Dewitt Mi. at your expense & you handle customs. I will also be allowed to shoot as much video of this production as I wish in the 12 hour time period. I will have complete authorization by you to duplicate & sell this video in whole or in part. I will have authorization to use the word PEZ with or in conjunction with the sale of the video & all of the unlicensed heads produced in the 12 hour production. An unlicensed head is any mold where the character produced is wholly owned by Pez Corporation. *** Gunther Leitner will be provided as my assistant. Gunther & his car are my transportation. Gunther will assist me in any way I deem necessary for the 3 days of preparation (selection & transportation if required of molds) & actual 12 hour run of injection machines. Gunther will help with coordination of the workers, 2 six hour shifts nonstop, also the movement of molds & plastic pellets to be used. All molds selected & pellet colors selected will be prepositioned before 12 hour production begins. Gunther & everyone involve will at all times be friendly & helpful. *** Then you do not, I repeat do not copy this production, it is considered exclusive to me & me alone. Further you do not interfere with or impede the sale of this production. Again the ripp off was; you sold a client/me product with assurance it was exclusive, then recreated that product ruining my reputation, also sold copied product at a low enough sales point to ruin the investment of that client in your product. *** Here is the big question how many major companies in good faith sell a client product. Then immediately take action with the intent of destroying the client & his investment in there product. Pez Corporation I only know of one company that has ever done a thing like this & you are it. You keep thinking that this behavior by you will be forgotten & go away. It will not. This is why I told you that this listing will remain here for 1 year. This is why it is now most of my website. This is why I told you the hitch hiking story, to show you my resolve. I will not go away & will continue to shine as bright a light as I can on your actions. In what reality do you think what you did as a corporation is acceptable. My suggestion to you is to take the deal or take me to court because I will not be silent. Pez Corporation you with malice of forethought destroyed a client & his investment in your product. For his crime of believing you as a company had any honor. There you go that ought to be enough to sue me, lets get this issue in front of a jury. *** The thing is though you will not, because your lawyers have told you that you would lose. You would lose in the court of public opinion & you would lose in court itself. Besides with provable pain (here's a hint my tax returns alone clearly show the fallout from your actions) & suffering damages you could easily be out 5 to 10 million. No your lawyers have told you to ignore me & hope it goes away, that any action by you would only elevate what you did, hurting your Corporate image. Now isn't that a hoot, if everybody knew what Pez Corporation actually did in the color wars to ruin me, that knowledge could in fact hurt Pez Corporations public image. That is one Scott & I never figured on. The Color Wars took both of us out & now they might hurt the puppet masters themselves. Pez Corporation you need to man up, so I can beat you in court or just settle this & be done with it. Hiding is not the third option. Please be reminded, This listing in its entirety is now also on my website. So trying to get this listing removed as a third option is now a waste of time, because I will not remove it from the website & only I can. *** To the reader who is a bit puzzled by the previous paragraphs. I have been writing this for over 2 months now & I felt it was high time one aspect of this listing was spelled out clearly. No dancing around it, bluntly & without fear. When Alex died it made me realize again that half measures are stupid & that risk is what life is about. Death means Game over, so why not be all in. How do I ever expect Pez Corporation to man up if I don't. So there it is in plain words that even Pez Corporation can understand. I will not go away, what was done was wrong & Pez Corporation you will correct it. To be continued, on & on & on & on. I will be relentless. Pez Corporation you will not destroy $250,000.00 of my hard earned money & expect me to let it go. It is not just an investment gone wrong. Pez Corporation you intentionally took action to destroy my investment in product you willingly sold me. This will not stand. You will rectify your actions & make restitution. *** Though having no money left, I do require that you initiate the lawsuit. I will defend myself & I will be more than happy to do all interviews that come with the lawsuit. Let us get on with it. You will lose both in court & in the court of public opinion. I have one more condition besides restitution of the $250,000.00 investment that you Pez Corporation intentionally destroyed. You will stop all legal proceedings against Gary Doss immediately as a show of good faith. I owe Gary Doss, he bought me a lawn tractor. *** At this point Pez Corporation you need to ask yourself does this guy sound like he is going away? Does this guy sound like he thinks he is holding a losing hand? The answer is no. As this all played out in plain view for everyone to see. The list of witnesses to what was done by you is roughly 5,000 people, everybody who collected pez at the time. Scott McWhinnie is my first witness. I can't help but feel this is like fishing. The hook is now in the water. Pez Corp your move. ARE YOU GONNA TAKE THE BAIT ? *** You might want to have another talk with your lawyers. I believe that they will tell you $250,000.00 in restitution is cheap. You are eventually going to pay that much or more in lawyer fees & court costs alone. Plus you will get the added bonus of the publicity & that is priceless. You know you can not justify your behavior to a client who bought your product. Pez Corporation you need to face up to your bad behavior as a company. ************************************************************* Personal History. Let me start with a little background. I am an obsessive compulsive with a very addictive personality. By the time I met Kathy at 19 years old I had already done the following. Used marijuana, Hash, Tar, LSD, peyote & Morphine. Injected crystal meth, Dysoxine & Heroin. With LSD it was always a race to see who could go crazy first. As in tripping all day then dropping again when my friends wanted to. With Heroin you either can't do it because it makes you to sick or you can & never should have. My saving grace was I was to poor & honest enough not to get addicted. Insertion on background. I am the second oldest of 5 boys, no girls. My mother died in my early 20s. My father worked for Fisher Body in Lansing. When I was 18 years old he had a job all lined up for me, from which by the way I would have been retired for 10 years now. I showed up for the interview barefoot, needless to say they went a different direction. My whole life has been like trying to fit a square peg (me) into a round hole. There was a period of time when I worked as a Machinist at Campbell inc press repair that I wore a straight jacket to work & a 1950s air raid warden helmet at work as a hardhat. Yes a Straight Jacket the kind you get in the rubber rooms of a loony bin. I bought it at a medical supply company & cut it so I could wear it backwards like a jacket. On the chest area like a row of medals I had 4 gold Catholic medals. Symbolism or just acting out, you be the judge. By the time I met Kathy I had been in & out of the Marine corp. I joined the Marine Corp in 1968 to escape my life style. By 1969 they decided it would be better if I went home ( schizophrenic with something something tendencies) & remember in 1969 if you had a pulse that was good enough. I had also been in & out of  a treatment program & held an audition at a mental hospital. When I met Kathy I was a full blown alcoholic at 19 years old. We have been together since the day we met (as in living together) , within 3 days she smacked me up side the head & I haven't had a drink or anything else since that day. It did not take God or a group to quit, just the fear of a good woman. The first year Kathy & I were together we slept with the light on. It took over 20 years to clear my head & become a better person. It is not an exaggeration to say Kathy is a very patient & good person. So now that I have established my bonifides & you can see how (obsessive compulsive with addictive tendencies) it made perfect sense to travel once a month worldwide to find pez dispensers. The transition was very natural for my personality type. Side story. After traveling in Europe for about a year, where at the time everybody smoked. I had the genius idea that I could start smoking again but only in Europe. Well of course it didn't work. Within a year I was again 2 packs a day. After a few years I quit again using the patch. Problem is like Dick Van Dyke & the gum, I still over 10 years later wear the patch. Collecting has taken on different forms. In the 1970s I began buying/collecting toys & cereal premiums later boxes also. My kids rarely got the prizes in cereal. Being somewhat compulsive obsessive this has taken on different forms. In the early days I used to drive around Michigan looking for cool closeout items at toysrus & collecting cereal premiums. Generally I was in an accumulating period. In the mid 1980s this led to Micky D premiums. Accumulating & making sets, usually 6 of each. This also required driving around the state because as usual I could not confine myself. I began buying all the leftovers I could find. While doing this I noticed nobody was paying attention to the cases & cases of leftover happy meal boxes, so I bought all I could get. This phase of things peaked when Josh & I decided to do a convention. So we loaded up 2 mini vans full of happy meals boxes & headed to the hotel. We set up our room & overflowed into the hall. What we didn't realize was on rare occasions a special group from Micky Ds would also come to this convention unannounced & just set up to sell really cool stuff. When room hopping started everybody thought we were them. Massive amounts of old happy meal boxes, cheap, we must be them. Word spread like a wild fire & chaos soon followed. The hotel actually tried to shut us down, even still we sold out & drove home that night with 2 empty mini vans. Another project or scheme that I had going around the same time was cereal premiums. Mailing away for the free toys or items you got for sending in upcs. You know the limits they now put on backs of cereal boxes, that was me. In a one year period I redeemed over 30,000 items from cereal companies, mostly Kellogg's. After doing it for about a year I realized there were no limits to how many toys you could send away for. So I started buying upcs from the refunder ladies, by running ads to buy them in there news letter. I also began working weekends at 3 recycling locations. Through these methods & a small inheritance from my grandmother I accumulated a huge amount of upcs & original cut off the boxes forms. At this point I put my plan in action, I spent every night for months filling out forms & licking stamps. The avalanche of stuff that started to arrive caught our little post office by huge surprise. Finally they just started calling & saying we have 5 bags of stuff can you come & get it? This went on for months & months resulting in that line on Kellogg's forms that limits how many you can mail away for. As I said, that was me. I don't think until that 1 year period anybody had ever really taken it to that extreme. The big difference with the first 2 project & pez were. With Micky Ds & the cereal premium project my timing was perfect. I saw the loophole exploited it & got out at the right time. With the 3rd project pez dispensers, I saw the loopholes. Different product outside the US & warehouses with huge amounts of old inventory. Well as usual I exploited the flaw in the system & accumulated all I could. I mean come on traveling to Europe once a month for years & years, even I thought that was extreme. Where I fell down was, at the point where the massive amount I had accumulated was starting to run out, I couldn't let it go like all the others. It had become a life style & the money, the money was just to good. Kathy & I used to call it pez money, even today my frame of reference is. Well it isn't pez money. There was one more factor at play, I had grown to love these odd little dispensers & the relationships I had with the people who collect them. I broke the cardinal rule, "don't fall in love with your product". The dance was over but I didn't want to leave. If I had & had put that $250,000.00 into my next project, Party String Lights. I can't begin to tell you how different thing would be right now. Though if I had, I probably would not be trying to write a book about anything right now & you would not be reading this. So we will both watch together & see how this all turns out. If I do sell this as a book, I plan to invest at least half of it in Party String Light inventory. With the rest I will try to make a small dent in the Pez project bills. So I got creative. Have you ever heard the phrase, "Don't get creative" Well the second part is it will bite you in the backside. So following form I spent all I had & all I could borrow on what would have been my fourth project. Me I thought this can't miss, people have been spending several hundred dollars each on color variations. They are going to jump at $25.00 each & they did for a month or two. I had not factored in the things I could not control, Andre, Scott & Gunther. The result were not pretty & I should have Known better. If this was ever made into a movie I think Robin Williams would be perfect to play me. For Scott, I think the guy who plays the dad on Psych would be perfect. For Gunther not sure. Helicopter bob by Bruce Campbell. Dave by Dennis Leary. Dead Al by Steve Buscemi. John by Bob Balabon. Again if this was made into a movie. I would make it from the perspective of me sitting on the side watching the movie being made & flashing back to different aspects of what was being filmed or me at the computer as I am now writing the story. The more I think about it Christopher Guest (best in show) & his whole mocumentary group of players would also be perfect for this.  The Beginning #1. Canada. This all began with a trip to Canada buying Canadian cereal boxes for my collection. While there I noticed a big 5 foot tall clown rack of pez dispensers. After looking it over I noticed that on it were things like Rhino Melody makers, Duck Tales & Tom And Jerry. Doing toy shows in the US I was aware of dealers like Sue & others who were selling these dispensers for $25.00 each. Realizing I could buy them up in Canada for $1.50 & sell them at toy shows & in Toy Shop magazine for $10.00, I cleaned the rack out of non US dispensers. What followed was big success in both. My toy shop advertisements went from about a dozen dispensers on a page of other toys I was selling. To Two full page advertisements every 2 weeks of almost all pez dispensers.  After that first trip to Canada I attended my first Pez convention in Cleveland. Not to sell, strictly as an observer, to see what was going on. I became aware that these conventions even existed because of the little classified adds run by some guy called "John the Cool Pez Man Devlin". I had notice his little classified add of 2 lines trying to buy pez for about a year. I up to then thought "this guy is some kind of weirdo". Who calls himself "the cool pez man"? This guy has to be some kind of geeky nut. After that first trip to Canada I notice another add under his for the Cleveland Pez Convention. At the time there were maybe 3 advertisements in Toy Shop Classifieds concerning Pez on a regular basis & that was it for Pez. John the cool pez man, John Laspina & Dave Welch. I always noticed The cool pez man, I mean how do you not notice a guy calling himself the cool pez man, But this month there was a classified for a convention.  I decided to drive down for the Saturday part of the Convention. When I arrived the first thing I noticed was that it was a very small affair. The main sellers or tables were David Welch, John Laspina, Sue Sterfeld & I believe this is where I first met the guy with the freaky name "The Cool Pez Man". There were other dealers but these are the people who stood out to me. My intention was to just observe then leave, which is what I did. Dave Welch appeared to be the big deal, the guy everybody wanted to be a friend of. Dave is a good friend, but I have to admit I'm never quite sure where he is coming from, until recently when I received a very nice email where he opened up a little & gave me the advice of a friend. (On a personal note: Dave unlike your experience, with me a verbal & faxed agreement/contact was broken. Things didn't just go south as things sometimes do. People took direct actions in direct conflict with known agreements. In other words Scott & Gunther directly & consciously reproduced the Colors with the intent of causing my investment to suffer from there actions. I will probably never think those actions were acceptable.)   John Laspina seemed to be the guy who wanted everybody to like him, which turns out fine because everybody indeed likes him. Sue Sternfeld was the show, the person who commanded attention & was completely on her game. That freaky guy who called himself "the Cool Pez Man" Him I remembered. He was the most genuinely nice person I met in my entire involvement in Pez & a friend for 10 years. Through him I later met & grew to care a great deal for Marryann Kennedy who for me was the mother of the hobby of collecting Pez. When I decided to put on the first California convention the cool pez man was there & helped in any way he could, asking for nothing in return. Thank you "John the Cool Pez Man Devlin" the hobby has always benefited from your involvement.  At that convention I did buy 1 thing, a box of smurfs from Sue Sternfeld. Today I don't remember why, but I was so mad about something concerning this purchase that I drove 1 hour past my turn north back to Michigan. I had almost made it to Indiana while fuming in my head over something about this buy. I never bought from Sue again, though I did sell a bunch to her, including I think a thousand dollar bubble man. So in the end all worked out fine.  After my first trip to Canada, my first pez convention & my first advertisement containing pez, I realized a couple things. There was a demand for pez dispensers not available here in the US & that this product was readily available just across the border in Canada. What followed was my primer for the European trips. For about a year & a half I traveled to Canada every month to buy Pez dispensers at Zellers stores. I went to every store in the Ontario Province (many multiple times), I know this because I had a list of all the stores. Before I was done searching for pez in Canada, I had traveled from Toronto to Saskatoon & later even British Columbia by way of Seattle.  My trips to Zellers in Ontario became so frequent that the stores thought I was the regional rep for Pez. To them I was this guy meticulously going through the racks reorganizing them. I always left the racks looking good & very organized. They must have just not noticed I was buying bags & bags of Pez dispensers retail as I left. I didn't start buying from the wholesale distributor of pez dispensers in Canada until later.  It was at toy shows While selling Pez in the early days that I started hearing stories about Europe & Pez Warehouses. I met a lady, I think her name was Mary, she whispered a story about a place called Kolinska in Slovenia. She said it was a warehouse, that had a store also, where you could buy pez. I also was told by Dwayne D. about the train trip he and his girlfriend took in Eastern Europe & how they brought back Silver Glows. Feeling like I had enough info, Josh & I planned my first trip to Europe. I scraped together just under $3,000.00 & we were off. I really can't remember today if the first trip was Kolinska or the crazy drive through Eastern Europe of 4 countries in 2 days. Either way the game was afoot, shoe factories, border guards, crazy driving & pretty bad food. Flashback #1. Flight to Ljubljana. After waiting all night on benches in a small corner of the Vienna airport finally it was time to board. We walk out onto the airstrip & are directed to board Sky Kings plane. Pilot copilot & 4 seats for passengers. One of the seats occupied by the overweight male stewardess handing out sandwiches from Rubbermaid containers. This did not look good. The flight turned out to be quite similar to a ride on a scary roller coaster with the male stewardess in your lap more than his own seat. Something to do with flying over the Alps in winter in a small plane, wind currents, downdrafts & low altitudes. We drove clown cars down through the mountains after that. The single most beautiful drive you will ever take is a winter drive from Vienna to Ljubljana through the mountains. The air is crisp & clean. The scenery unmatched anywhere in all my travels. Whenever I think of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen it is that drive in winter. Though driving clown cars through serious mountains can be a harrowing experience. We arrive in Slovenia after taking our first & last clown plane ride. I will never get on another small plane for the rest of my life. Honestly people say this & are usually exaggerating, But I literally thought I was going to die on that plane. After spending some time to regain our composure off we went to Rent a Clown Car. Josh & I had already decided we would not be using the return ticket to Vienna. Here's something you may not know. You can rent cars in Eastern European countries & drive anywhere. But if you rent say in Vienna or Germany you must get special paperwork, which is checked at borders to drive into Eastern block countries. After leaving the airport we find our way to Kolinska the warehouse/packaging facility in Ljubliana. Really terrific people, they invited us in for espresso, saying they had no problem selling us whatever they had, that we wanted. Explaining what they had was limited, that Ormoz the plastics plant was where we needed to go. Two things to note here; they actually had quite a bit, though a month ago they had what I would drool for like rooster mmm, pig mmm, wyle, foghorn, etc. Second Pez corp downsized this facility, within 2 years they were selling soup & catchup. Anyway they said Ormoz had all the dispensers. Though this information came with big warnings & concerns by them. Ormoz you see is very close to Zagreb & Zagreb was at war at that time. The whole Cerbs vs Croates thingy that involved ethnic clensing. You see if you took a wrong turn near Ormoz, within 20 minutes you would have been smack dab in the middle of a war. That's not good. Second thing the road from Ljubliana to Ormoz they said was very dangerous, a lot of people were dying on it lately. Now I am really encouraged. The drive down was interesting, a bit hilly with steep drops at roadside. Though the real problem was it was 1 lane north & 1 lane south without even a yellow line to divide them. To complicate things even further drivers in either direction treated it as both lanes headed north or south at the same time. Remember this is me the guy the King of Austria thought was the worst driver in the world, who could not believe I was allowed to drive at all. Fair due though I learned my European driving skills in Slovenia, Slovak, Czech & Hungary. Just driving in your own lane on that highway was a duel with death. Of course we got lost. I remember screeching to a stop when Josh yelled that sign says Zagreb 20 miles. Whoa did I ever stop & turn around. We spent that night at some weird hot spring spa. Kinda cool if you like taking a swim in hot sulfur waters in a ex KGB retreat atmosphere.  Ex KGB Resorts. This place was actually pretty cool. At the center of everything was this old looking glass enclosed swimming pool with a brick changing room attached, surround by wooden cabins for rooms. Lockers the whole bit. It was the pool that was the big deal. The pool was fed by a hot sulfur spring, so you swam in hot sulfur water. Of course we tried it. It was a very unique experience & as we were lost when we found it, I could not tell you for the life of me where it was.  Ex KGB Towers. At the borders of most old Eastern Block countries there were at regular intervals Guard Towers. They reminded me of water towers here but flatter & more saucer in shape with windows & a wrap around porch. These were the big ones, there were also smaller one made of wood that reminded me of Park Ranger Towers over here. There were still a lot of cold war things standing in the early 90s. One more thing that always struck me as odd. After crossing customs leaving Hungary, you would get on the Highway to Vienna. At the first overpass on the side of the hill was this wooden building that looked like a club house. It was manned with Austrian cops of one sot or another in the early to mid 90s because I saw them. In the later 90s, they appeared empty. This area was the same area where during the Hungarian revolt against Communism 40 or so years earlier. Hungarians fled across the border into Austria to escape the tanks that the USSR had sent in to squash the rebellion. I've got to tell you about the toilets in a lot of old eastern block countries. You know how when your sitting doing your business here it is a straight shot down in this country. Well that portion is way forward in the bowl, your business in the old country quite often lands on a flat raised area like table & just sits there till you flush, sometimes it leaves, sometimes not. To further aggravate the situation, above the toilet in our cabin was an open propane heater. So it baked the toilet & its contents. Sorry if this bit of color grossed you out and the only reason I tell you is it really grossed me out. Next morning we arrived at the plastics factory in Ormoz. First thing I noticed was very long lines of cars at one side of the factory. After watching for a while I realized they were dropping off assembled dispensers & picking up components to be assembled. People from the surrounding community were doing home assembly of pez dispensers. Until that moment I had no idea this was done. Later I found out this at one time or another was how it was done at most injection molding plants in Europe. Which means just like the Queen of Austria found dispensers & components in the community around the factory in Linz. You to could find them in the communities surrounding factories in Pamplona Spain, Ormoz Slovenia, Gyor Hungary & early production in China. One thing you need to know is workers especially home assembly workers always have stuff in there garages.  Josh & I were admitted in & escorted to the upper level where the offices were. As we waited on the glassed in balcony, we were able to take in the view of the entire manufacturing area where production of components was actually done. In the dozen visits I made to this factory before Austria bought it outright & banned me. A few years after that Austria shut it down & moved everything to Linz & Gyor. Ormoz now makes brooms & dust pans. I always enjoyed standing there & just watching for about 10 minutes, before announcing I was there. The lady who ran the place greeted me & invited me into her office. I explained what I was hunting for. She called Ljubliana & was told she could sell to me. Before they showed me what they had I was introduced to Marcos. Marcos was there test shot guy & experimenter in chief. This guy loved his work. He took us to a cabinet which housed there collection. I later gave him a space gun & a shooter for there collection. Most facilities had a collection of one sort or another. In Ljubliana it was different dispensers on beam around the top of the a room in the warehouse. Seeing the collection one piece jumped out at me, it was a black Santa. Like I said Marcos loved his work, he was a very enthusiastic guy when it came to testing colors. Josh & I went nuts you'd think we had just seen an alien. We were told he had made a small run of these because he thought the company ought to do this. Austria had decided it was to controversial to produce. COKO an African caricature on the box for chocolate pez candy was ok, but black Santa was to controversial. This would be big news to aprox 20% of the population in America for whom Santa is actually black. So for me Marcos was correct, but I digress. Ljuba,the name of the lady who ran the factory. Ljuba told Marcos to show us what they had. Thumper copyright removed on green stem. I'm specific about this one because at the time John said he had doubts it was real & changed the stems for a while till he accepted them after finding out they had actually been sold at stores in Ireland. Which made me wonder who he might think had the ability to manufacture product outside of pez corporation. Until that specific situation I never even considered the possibility. That's neither here nor there though, it just made me wonder. Any who we got thumpers, dals, wyles & all sorts of good stuff. We were ready to pay & I do mean pay. Another phone call was made to Breda. Breda was the name of the gal who ran things at Ljubliana. Breda told Ljuba .23 cents each, direct deposit into the company account. So off to the bank we went so I could directly deposit the total into the corporate account. It was always this way in Slovenia, really decent honest & nice people to know. Before we left though Marcos came after us. He had a bag of dispensers he wanted to give us. In the bag were a few Black Santas, pink & lavender bunnies & some dino color variations. Also a couple of new dinosaur dispensers. We asked him to singe 2 of the dinosaurs, which he did while making jokes in Slovenian about being elvis. On about my fourth trip to see Ljuba she let me know before I got there that they had several hundred black Santas for me. Marcos had been a busy boy. On the drive down I became very worried about this just being way to many to exist. I even considered burning or burying a couple hundred of them by the side of the road, feeling the hobby would freak at so many. Well something happened & when I got there they said they could only let me have about 30 of them. They were beginning to get heat from Austria. A few trips later I walked in and some tall Austrian guy saw me on the balcony. As usual I had stopped to look out onto the factory floor for a few minutes. He came closer then said those infamous words "I KNOW WHO YOU ARE". Busted, he then turned & disappeared into an office. Seconds later Ljuba snatched me by the arm & yanked me into her office. Saying you gotta get out of here, I'll meet you at the coffee shop across the road in an hour. Feeling lower than a snake I left, all the while people who had become friends avoiding eye contact. When Ljuba got to the coffee shop she told me Austria had bought Ormoz. That the Austrians were on the warpath because Scott was going nuts about me. That everybody knew what I looked like & if she sold to me any longer she would lose her job. I never saw Ljuba or Marcos again & within a few years Ormoz was making dust pans. My combined trips to see Ljuba or Breda were about a dozen in all. Though a year after Pez cut off business with Ljubliana I did see Breda one last time, she had five hundred road runners or something so I drove down to see her & buy them. I guess this is probably when all the trouble began. I had to keep a really low profile in Europe & use a middle man to buy from here out. This is also about the time I started staying at the Raba in Gyor, only leaving to meet my guy or get something to eat. Gunther & everybody else wanted distance. They still wanted the over $9,000.00 per trip in cash please and there were way over 50 trips to Hungary alone. About a dozen to Slovenia at under $5,000.00 per trip. A few to Austria at under $4,000.00 each. Australia about $15,000.00 for one trip. Sweden about $9,000.00 one trip. Spain & South Africa were a bust less than $1,000.00 each. None of these figures includes expenses, this was just for pez dispensers. It also does not include containers or air freighted items. Most of what I got from Linz was moved to Gyor & that's where I picked it up. Yes they moved it to Hungary from Austria then I drove it back to Austria in duffel bags & flew out of Vienna. Nutty I know, but this is how things had to be done. By now nobody wanted to know me or be seen with me, everybody at the company knew what I looked like. I was issued a middle man. You know, go to such & such address. This is who you buy from, from now on. They told me to stay low, keep my mouth shut. They told me what Scott was saying, where he was & when he was is Europe. Flashback #2. Joshua & I driving all over eastern Europe ( Czech, Slovak, Hungary, etc) in a little clown car looking for pez dispensers & the factories. I had been buying store to store in Canada for years at Zellers, so I figured why not in Europe. I had heard about the silver glows from another dealer. Also a customer mentioned you could buy at the warehouse in Ljubliana. So we drove from country to country store to store with some success. Though trying to find factories was not so easy. We found a shoe factory, we found a look alike candy manufacturer, but not pez. So I stopped a taxi showed him the address on the packaging & we followed in the clown car, which led us to the yellow house in Gyor & my first meeting with Gunther. *** The company name of the Yellow House located in Gyor is Hungarocandy, Head of operations for the Yellow House was Gunther Leitner. I say was as I have no idea what his title is today. Last I heard Gunther & Robby were making trips to China setting up & overseeing pez operations there. I asked the Queen of Austria what Gunthers title is today when she emailed about this listing, but she never responded after that. I suppose I could fax him in Austria (011-43-732-3882-222 or 011- 43-732- 84244-88) or in Gyor (011-36-96-410-790) but somehow I don't think he would answer me. Inside the yellow house we were talking to the people who worked there about buying some pez dispensers, when a man in a plaid sports jacket came out of an office. He approached the conversation listened for a bit then introduced himself. Getting no recognition he said "Don't you know who I am". Then he said "I know what you want, I'm the guy you need to deal with". He turned grabbed a postit,  wrote something on it & signed it. He gave us an address & said go here. When we arrived at the address, we showed the postit to the guard & the gates opened. Once in the warehouse the manager snapped to & took us to a pile of boxes containing older dispensers. We selected what we could afford & paid Gunther. I believe though that he was very disappointed. Being one of my first few trips, we only spent a few thousand dollars. Not a lot of money in the beginning, as we were just figuring this whole thing out. Though from my point of view a very successful encounter, we got a little of everything. The trucks sold out in days so within a couple weeks, I went back to Gunther on a trip just for Trucks. Border crossings #1. The truck trip. This trip was intended to be a quick trip of just a few days. In & out just to get more truck dispensers. As I said they sold out in just a few days, which shocked me. The rest of the dispensers I bought on my first meet with Gunther were hard to find but I had had them before from Canada. The trucks though were unknown at the time as they were exclusive to Hungary. They had been created at Gyoroplaste when old C class truck molds had been reused when starting up the factory. So I flew in & out of the Budapest airport. On this trip Gunther sold me apox 3,000 of the C class trucks. Orange, yellow & pink cabs with black stems. Man was this exciting, early days, a really rare item & they sold very fast. This was also the first time I stayed at the Raba. Bagged the trucks, checked out of the hotel & drove from Gyor to the Budapest Airport. Turned my car in & went to the gate to check my bags. This is where things went horribly wrong. At check in I was greeted by a cold war throwback customs inspector. He wanted to see my bill of sale, though what I realized the next day was he really wanted a bribe. Problem was I never got a bill of sale from Gunther, again that whole gray area of business thingy. Boris says to me after a long conversation, " well just check in take your flight & your bags will follow later". Yeah right Boris I don't think so. Delta offered to rebook me tomorrow same time no extra cost. Great, got my car back, took my bags & drove back to the yellow house. Luckily Gunther was in Austria so I was able to talk an underling into writing me up a bill of sale. Not wanting to fool around with the hotel for just one night. Cost of room plus tips to get the duffel bags up & down from the room. I decided to just spend the night in the Mickey Ds parking lot, as I had noticed earlier that truckers used it. What I had not realized was that a lively trade went on all night also by prostitutes. I'm all for free enterprise but early in the morning a group of them & there pimp woke me up. Business for the night had died down & I think it was time for another type of business. Doors locked I was out of there & at the airport in record time to spend the rest of the night. Next morning at check in & no Boris. I mean no customs guy at all. There I stood with a difficultly acquired bill of sale & nobody wanted to see it. I showed it to Delta & they could have cared less. On my way to the gate I spotted ole Boris watching me from around a corner wishing for the good old days. Boris, pimps, prostitutes & Mickey Ds. Just a quick trip in & out that I would never forget. Prostitutes. Being from the Midwest, until I started traveling in the old Eastern block countries. I had no experience with Prostitutes, let alone aggressive ones. My first exposure to this was Josh & my first trip into Hungary. At that time approximately 1994 there were nearly 3 miles of roadside stands along the main drag before you got to Gyor. These stands were open 24 hours selling clothing, stuffed animals, fruits, vegetables, pop, garden gnomes, just all kinds of stuff. The stands were frequented by travelers & long haul truckers. Before they cracked down it was also one of the main areas of prostitution & let me tell you it was not subtle. If you stopped & got out of your car you were approached at least by 3 different women. Later once the new freeway opened & killed the roadside stands, the girls moved to just outside city limits of Gyor on the main road. In the summer it got pretty interesting, thin material slacks that were more like black panty hoes, very tightly worn. Out & out flashing by lifting there tops as you drove by to get your attention. This was the case outside a lot of the bigger cities in the old eastern block countries we traveled in, in the early days of my travels. Not to mention nightly activities at Micky Ds on the highway to Budapest. There was also a Gypsy woman (Gypsies are looked down on by most Hungarians) that had a group of girls in downtown Gyor who always approached me on the way to Pizza Hut. Sometimes it was like running a gauntlet. I never cheated on Kathy in any way shape or form. Though being male & not dead I did find it interesting. The single most interesting encounter was while walking to supper. I was approached by an absolute stunner of a woman. Who asked for a cigarette & invited me in the bar to buy her a drink. If ever I was truly tempted that was the time. Quickly though I heard Kathy's warnings in my head, how THINGS would shrivel & die if I did. I quickly gave & lit her cigarette, then almost ran to the restaurant. Besides I had strict rules about dealing with people on the streets in Europe, that was not to at all. To the point of if approached, actually telling one person to get away from me. Never robbed even though quite often I had almost $10,000.00 cash, in my trouser pockets. By keeping strictly to myself & protecting my personal space, I really never had any problems. Border crossings #2. I swear to god these three eastern European border guards were in the booth hitting each other. Finally one stepped out & he was not happy with all the bags of pez dispensers. He made us dump them all out & show cash receipts. By the way these guys were carrying machine guns. I noticed when bagging it all up that some of it had vanished, but you usually don't argue with machine gun toting eastern European military. Austrian gun toting military ok, but not eastern European, especially not in 1992 only a few years after the wall came down. Old military habits & points of view die very hard. Anyway we were again on our way, though not before they said don't do this again. We did but not ever again at that crossing. Border crossings #3. 50 boxes are not 3. On another trip Gunther sold me aprox 50 boxes of Silver glows. If I remember correct each box contained 24 carded Silver glows. At this point Josh & I were staying in Austria so back to our hotel we went. At the Austria Hungary border the Austrian guards required a bond on the 50 boxes to be refunded when items were checked in at the airport. So we went back to the hotel & down packed the 50 boxes into 3 boxes. When we got to the airport customs refused to refund my bond, saying 3 boxes is not 50. Where are the other 47 boxes? The scene escalated till what the Delta airlines rep saw when he walked into the room was. An American with a pony tail & long beard screaming at officials. Two machine gun armed Austrian border guards looking on at the ready & Josh petrified at the whole scene. Delta walked in calmed everybody down, gave Josh a couple aspirin & mediated the whole situation. I flew Delta Airlines from then on, they never failed to stand up for me in any situation. Border crossings #4. Kicked to the curb in France. Quite often flying in & out of Europe, flights were missed due to late arrivals. In many cases you would be booked next day same flight which meant you stayed overnight in whatever city your delay occurred in. Frankfurt, somewhere in Switzerland, New York (an ice storm) & Paris were a few of the layovers. France was the worst. Arriving from Vienna on my way home the flight arrived late. Here's a tip, if you don't have 2 hours for a connecting flight in Paris things get dicey real fast. Degaul airport is a sprawling facility with very old & very new sections thrown together in a very disorganized manner. Before you can check in you need to pass back through a huge funnel like areas to clear customs for international flights. At any given time 1/2 of the customs people are on break & the rest are slow. Very often you are at the back of a mass of people waiting forever, knowing your flight is boarding. On this occasion resulting in a missed flight. We were all sent down to baggage claim to rebook. Every other missed flight you were allowed to leave your checked bags, checked in. Not this time. For normal people this is not a real problem, one or 2 large suitcases on rollers & they were all off to the hotel. In my case though it was 5 huge duffel bags & by the time I gave up arguing over the absurdity of try to take them to the hotel all the shuttles had departed. To make matters worse I had to pay someone to help me move the bags to where he said I could catch a shuttle. When we got to that location, he quickly scurried off. Leaving me to realize I was now at an isolated area outside the airport under an overpass, with 5 huge pieces of luggage & no means of transportation. The only people around were military with machine guns. I thought here we go again. A little background here. For the first 5 years of my travels Delta had been partnered with Lufthansa which meant the European hub was Frankfurt. Let me tell you that is one really nice airport, modern, easy to move through, nice people & all the good food joints. So it was quite a comedown when they changed & partnered with Airfrance which is the opposite in every way. Slow, mostly old, very difficult getting from a to b (if you don't have 1 hour between flights, you are in trouble), mostly rude & confusing food. The military though was a huge surprise they too were opposite of every other military in Europe I had encountered. These guys were nice, helpful & generous. The French military whose job was to guard the airport, approached & asked me what I was doing. Expecting the worst I explained. They grabbed my bags, carried them to a better location, where they had a cab waiting & loaded them in. They had even told the driver where I needed to go & haggled the price he could charge me. So France not so much, but the military in France a good friend if you ever need one. Once in the cab I realized the guys had screened him also. The cabby was Indian & a really nice person. He offered to drive by the Eiffel tower if I wanted, so I could at least see that. Though still being in a very sour mood I declined, I just wanted to get to the hotel & go to bed, as it had been a very long day already. At the hotel he gave me his card in case I change my mind. Now I wish I had, it was a chance of a lifetime to see something very special. I checked my luggage in & headed to my room. Turns out this was a terrific hotel, great food & a terrific feather bed. I slept like a baby caught my flight the next day & made it home fine. This trip is where I learned my airport manners. Here's what I mean. From the moment you leave home till you are again home, you are in a mechanism of travel. To fight with it or get upset is a waste of time. You will depart then return & all that really matters is how you behaved in between. When you reflect on the adventure it is better not to have memories of going crazy on people. After that trip, I quite often watched as people went nuts on airport staff at the different malfunction that always occur. Then when they got to me I was patient, polite & understanding. Which usually amazed them because by now they were wore to a nubb. Lost bags in Austria, no problem. I'd just tell the people trying to help, no problem they usually arrive at my hotel in Gyor tomorrow morning. Same thing when arriving back home, as it actually relieved me of the burden of shepparding around my luggage. Delta always went to extraordinary measures to retrieve my luggage & get it to me. Here's an example. On the flight from Cinci to Vienna my luggage was lost more than 50% of the time. Delta/Austrian Airlines would always send it by cab from Vienna Austria to the Raba in Gyor Hungary the next day before noon. We are talking over 25 times they never failed me. My luggage was never permanently lost. It came close only a couple times. The bags were full of santa playwords. I remember this because I have a vivid recollection of speaking to a person in the lost luggage department in Frankfurt from home. Telling him, they are the big black duffel bags with strap handles & if you unzip them you will see hundreds of Santas. My luggage arrived a couple days later. The other time was the hundreds & hundreds of carded silver glows. On that one I got more than a little nervous as they were the whole reason for that trip. Also it was early days & I hadn't really figured things out yet. In short patience is rewarded when traveling. Be the one person who is not going nuts when your whole flight misses its connection. The people behind the counter really appreciate it & its fun to see the look of amazement on there faces. You will arrive at your destination, your luggage will be found & your blood pressure will thank you. Plus its way more fun to step outside the situation & watch the insanity, than to participate. In aprox 90 trips my luggage was never permanently lost & I always made it home. Border crossings #5. breaking it in cinci. black bags, green bags, springs. In my early travels I used standard military type green duffel bags. Not the little ones you see slung over one shoulder with ease. No, I used the ones that hunch you over & when full weigh a ton. You see the goal was 1200 pez dispensers per bag. A few years in I switched to a very large black canvas cargo type bag that zipped across the top. I always lined the exterior with 1 layer of cardboard & individually zip lock bagged each pez dispenser. *** One of the biggest problems I ran into was country of origin. *In the early days people working for the company would switch out stems with no country for made in Hungary stems. This was done with 10,000 to 20,000 dispensers. Honestly there was no other way, until I started using the made in Hungary zip lock bags. Old Smurfs were some of the items that required this procedure.* Also care had to be taken to put dispensers without country of origin in the middle near the bottom. Once problem dispensers were carefully placed, a box of 400 generic with country were poured over them. Like 4 inches of frosting to make the cake look good. This problem was later solved by having my zip bags printed MADE IN HUNGARY. This method worked terrific, except for one trip to get Merlins where I filled each bag to 1500 per bag. This was accomplished by tamping the bags & filling to brim. With 1200 per bag it is a nice loose fill that allows floating & can absorb impacts. The Merlin trip bags were tight & impacts had nowhere to go except into the dispensers. So about 30% were damaged, that's where I got all the Merlin heads. In Cinci sometimes I was transferred over to the Xray machine with my luggage. It was always interesting to get the questions from the person viewing the Xray. You see all they were seeing was 1200 springs, which presented a very odd picture & conversation. The luggage was so large that on one occasion it actually broke a large square of Plexiglas at the opening of the machine. I had a very odd conversation with one of the customs guys once. This was the guy who helped me find the correct customs number for what I was doing. Which as I said translates to plastic tubing. On one trip he was going through his list of what can not be brought into the US. When he finished I heard him say to himself, "If they are that stupid, I'm not going to do it for them". When I asked what he meant, he just said "it is there job to put there product on the list if they don't want other people bringing it into the country". He never mentioned this again in the years that followed. Trip 6. Traun. I left the US and arrived in Budapest on Malev Airlines on Sunday morning. Picked up my car ($900.00 for a Chevy Corsica) & left town, setting out to meet my contact. As usual, half of what was promised was there. Had to come back on Monday to for the rest. I now had the last of the Monkey & Dog Melody Makers. It appears that the last of existing inventory from Austria was gathered together in Hungary to be used in the old eastern block countries. Most of it having been produced in 1991 & 1992. The second infusion of older product for Russia came 2 or 3 years later when all production was halted in Slovenia & existing inventory was also shipped to Hungary. When I had finished in Hungary I left for Austria. As I passed through Vienna I stopped by to visit The King of Austria. This visit covered in other area. After visiting The King, I drove to Linz. Arrived in Linz, well actually Traun. The main headquarters & worldwide headquarters for Pez corporation is located in Linz/Traun. On the few times I stayed in Traun it always made everyone very nervous, especially since I missed Scotts visit to the same area only by a day or two. I stayed at the Hotel Traunerhof (phone 07229/3323) at $45.00 a night. While there as it was summer I visited a large flea market in downtown Linz. Saturday & Sunday between 8:00 am. & 1:00 pm. For directions ask for the Flo Market in Zentrum Linz. I found a gray space gun for $2.50. You can also visit a shopping center near Traun called Uno. On sundays between 6:00 am. & 12:00 pm. there is a flea market there also. CACDC.  Did you know that the first Pez dispenser convention in California was called the CACDC ?  Josh & I  called it the California Candy Dispenser Convention to avoid any issues With Pez Corporation. We did not want to have to get Pez permission or approval for any aspect of it. It was run as a nonprofit by Josh with all profits going to Beekman Center for there handicap riding program. A sizable donation was made which bought ground up tire turf for the indoor riding arena. I flew 6 or 8 people to California at my expense, While Josh & I drove out. All prizes were donated by me & they were really good ones like; Full size Pez Raft, Pez skateboards, Pez inflatable clown, Pez frisbees, Pez backpacks, Pez company hats & t shirts & a lot of dispensers. The reason I put it on was. There were a couple of guys out there who for a couple of years had been saying they were going to do it & never did. So Josh & I just went ahead & did it.  With help from "the Cool Pez Man" Skeet & Linda Rose, plus those 2 guys. When we finished that first pez convention we handed it over to those 2 guys free of charge & walked away. They then ran it for a couple years & sold it to somebody else. That first Pez convention was held at the Santa Clara Marriot on Jan. 6 &7 in 1995. While we are talking about conventions. You may not know but at Pez conventions very little dressing up or role playing goes on. Problem is Josh & I had bought some really terrific Gorilla costumes we were dying to wear. So we made a pact, at this convention we were gonna do it. We waited for Bingo night & strolled in, in costume. My Gorilla was pretty mild he climbed on the chair behind Kathy (my wife who was calling numbers) & helped her. Josh's Gorilla was the good one, all those years in high school plays kicked in. He ran around the room & helped everybody else. Never asked what everybody thought about it, but we had accomplished our goal of wearing Gorilla costumes at a Pez convention. So I can check that one off on my bucket list. Flashback #3. Australia. I had heard that the company distributing Pez dispensers in Australia had some older inventory. So I planned a trip. Kathy who had never shown much interest in my travels, decided she wanted to go. You see my trips consisted of long flights, lots of driving & hotels. If you could see it from the road, that was what sight seeing was. Except Gyor where I relaxed & got away from it all, but even there it was mostly the Raba & centrum. Downtown in Europe is referred to as centrum or zentrum in most countries I visited. Candy is zukor in Hungary, show a dispenser & say zukor in a store & you are directed to where Pez dispensers are. So Kathy decided she was going & I never saw anybody get a passport so fast. We flew to California, then took I believe it was Quantis airlines to Australia. The flight from California to Sydney was over 20 hours. Arriving in Sydney we picked up our car & drove to the hotel. This was the first country I had been in where they drove on the wrong side of the road. The drive to the hotel was insane. Once at the hotel we parked the car & did not drive it again until we drove back to the airport to leave. For the entire week we were there we took cabs. Kathy who had come to sight see used public transport quite a bit, she was off in one direction or another most every day. She had agreed not to rope me into her travels as she understood I had no interest. Though she did con me into some zoo or something & some hole in the ground called the Two Sisters. Point of interest, this trip took place the week Princess Diana died. I remember this because on the way home that is all that was on the airport TVs. The first company I visited JNH Toys had inventory but had recently lost the distribution rights for Australia. I often wonder if they sold all of it. What I remember that they had were Melody Makers & Duck Tales. They told me Millers distributing now had the rights. At Millers I found 4 cases of older dispensers But the rest was fairly current for the time. The good new was the guy who ran the place would ship pallets anywhere for cash. We set up a purchase of  just under $10,000.00 & my business was done. My business had taken about 3 days & I was hoping to just relax & walk around the city. Which I did but I also ended up on a couple of Kathy's adventures. Customs on the trip home in California was surprisingly no problem & the pallets arrived just fine. Though I did have to use my broker in Grand Rapids to clear customs. I really liked Australia & would visit again, Though next time I would lay over midway in Hawaii for 4 or 5 days. *** The name of the company where I bought the pez was Millers Distributing Co. from John E. This company also handled all the arrangements to ship the majority of what I bought via freight. Flashback #4. Sweden. The trip to Sweden was one of the neetest trips I went on. Gary Doss informed me that the Pez Pal Mariner had been released & was available only in Sweden. Gary sent me a photo image of the back of the Playworld card. From that information I planned the trip. I arrived in Sweden, Booked my car & Found a hotel. My stay was in Stockholm a very interesting & nice place. Next morning I went to Toysrus. Here's something you may not know, most of the bigger cities in Western Europe, Australia & Sweden have Toysrus. Even Linz/Traun had one. Toysrus is a good place to find Pez dispensers & ask about who the distributor is. In worst case scenarios it is printed on the back of the cards & you can hire a taxi, point at the address & follow him. After gaining/confirming the distributor address, also realizing the Mariner was not available at Toysrus.  I set off for the distributor, he informed me this was only available on the Ferry from Stockholm to Helsinki. As this trip was only about the Mariner I didn't buy anything from the distributor. Besides they really didn't have much, it was a pretty small operation. I arrived at Silja Ferry lines & was allowed to board the ferry & go to the gift shop on board the ship. There I met this really wonderful lady who ran things name Tuula. She said we have about 60 or so available but you have to be on board as a passenger & at sea before I can sell you any. I told her I really needed a lot of them so she checked & said she had 2 pallets at the other port. Off I went to buy a ticket. I booked a round trip, Tax deductible high end room. It was a room with an exterior window, so a view of the whole trip. This room even had a shower & a TV. Until this trip the idea of being on a large boat out in the middle of a big body of water left me a little uneasy. After this trip I realized it was more like being in a small city that happened to be a boat. We left port & the first group was delivered to the room, Where I began tearing them down To just dispensers & body parts. So they could be bagged for my luggage. I planned to carry half in my luggage & airfreight the rest. Once we arrived in Helsinki, I met with Tuula & used my credit card to pay for the pallets That were being loaded. She & I had to call the US credit card company to clear the purchase as it was about $10,000.00. Once all the paperwork was done she had ships personnel, dolly cart it all up to my room. I got a lot of puzzled looks because even though this was one of the good rooms/cabins, the 2 pallets pretty much filled the room. I spent the entire night in the cabin tearing down half into luggage & down packing the other cases. If you down pack playworlds correctly 3 cases become 2 cases. After down packing, cases had to be taped together into 8 cases per for airfreight. When completed I had 3 duffel bags full & 6 or 8 large packs for airfreight. In the morning we arrived back at Stockholm & I had not even left the boat. Aside from meals, a shower, looking out the window & packing.  I had no time left, including no time for sleep. I left a really good tip for the destroyed cabin & left with the small army of guys with dollies. Once we arrived at my car, I gave the guys there tip & off they went. I found a cab driver & we discussed the airport & what I needed to accomplish. He decided Cathe (I think it was) was the freight airline I needed. He also decided we needed a total of 2 cabs plus my  car to carry it all to the airport. Once the 3 cars were loaded he led the way to the airport, where he helped arrange everything with the freight company. He had been very helpful & got a really good tip. After they left & the freight was completed I was left with my luggage & one night remaining before my flight. I booked a room in a hotel near the airport & got a well deserved nights sleep. The trip home was easy peasy. The freight arrived no problem, thanks to my broker in Grand Rapids. The trip was a big success. Then a year later the Mariners showed up in Hungary for liquidation into Russia. Oh well it had been a pretty cool adventure. Bragging rights, great scenery & a boat ride.  Flashback #5. South Africa. This was one of 2 very disappointing trips. I flew from the US to Switzerland & from there to Johannesburg/Joburg South Africa. The flight was on Swiss Air a terrific airline though if I remember correct from Switzerland to Joburg took 18 hours, a very long flight. The plan was to spend 3 days each in Jogurg & then fly down to Cape Town for 3 days. Things went South immediately upon arrival in Joburg. The atmosphere at the airport was troubling, jittery is the only way I can describe it. Apartheid had ended but what I sensed at the airport, was made obvious to me later. After getting my bags I was approached by a driver, he said where are you staying? I told him I hadn't actually made a reservation but figured on staying in Joburg. He immediately began shaking his head & saying no no no, you don't want to stay in Joburg & recommended a Hilton on the outskirts of Joburg. So he drove me over to the brand new Hilton in Sandy. On that drive & a few others I got the picture. White communities with 5 foot brick walls topped by razor wire & broken glass. Trucks with workers in the back driven by white people. Even at the hotel it was apparent. The cleaning lady applied for a job, with no idea who I was or what I did. She pressed for a job based only on the fact that I was American. In the mid 90s Apartheid had ended but things were still pretty bleak. My driver helped me accomplish everything I wanted to check on within a day & 1/2, he was amazing. The answer was nobody who had any involvement with pez would even take a meeting. No pez was bought. Even though that Hilton was the best hotel I ever stayed in & I was scheduled to fly to Capetown in a day. I got the h... out of South Africa. I had the concierge book me on the soonest flight to Hungary. Where I surprised my contact by just appearing at his home out of nowhere. He quickly put together a load of pez for me. That done, I spent the next 4 days at the Raba, just decompressing from the experience of South Africa.  Gyor always had a very positive effect on me. Just walking the streets, having espresso, eating at Pizza Hut & reading Tom Clancy. Staying at the Raba was my place to re energize from everything. In Gyor I was like the invisible man. All my comings & goings were ignored, not speaking the language helped isolate me from everybody else. Which resulted in my favorite thing, people left me alone for the most part. I only miss one thing from the Pez years, besides Pez money. That is staying at the Raba, drinking espresso & walking to pizza hut, where the waiters knew without asking. Large peperoni pan pizza & Pepsi light. *** Flashback #6. Spain.  The trip to Spain held a lot of promise. Not since the Mariner did I have so much information ahead of time. A plastic molding facility had been operated outside Pamplona called Dulce Unzuay (this is from memory as I don't seem to have any written records on this trip.).  I knew this from some mint in cello molded Pez planes & a package from a dispenser. Josh hadn't been traveling with me since the early days but he had some Spanish speaking ability so we planned this trip together. *** After arriving in Barcelona we picked up our car & drove to Pamplona. We found a hotel & got a little more local info. The next day we drove over to the local Pez distributor. This info can usually be found on the back of carded pez at the bottom. As always if you are confused about directions in a foreign country, hire a cab & point to the address. When we got to the distributor we found that like most countries product was now imported complete. Used to be say like the case in Spain & Slovenia. They had there own injection molding facility & a confectionery facility that created the candy & package the final product. Now though the old confectionery facility just imported finished product ready for distribution. *** Realizing they only imported now & all the unpackaged old dispensers were gone we asked about Dulce Unzuay. We were told they no longer made pez dispensers at the plastic molding facility. Well can we call & go over anyway. The call was made. We were told no we could not visit & all old inventory was gone. Heartbroken we left & left Spain returning home the next day. Josh had to get back to school & I had other fish to fry. *** Mistakes were made on the trip to Spain. We never should have asked to visit the plastics plant, we should have just shown up. I learned early on with toys & Mickey Ds, never ask the question over the phone. Any company worth its salt is to busy to want to fool with some idiot on the phone. So being busy a fast no is always given so they can get back to what they were doing. Better to just show up & force companies to be people. On the phone a person can be a company. In person they can't. People always feel some need to be hospitable no matter who they are, if you have traveled several thousand miles to see them. Never ask an important question over the phone. *** Mistake #2, I did not follow up. Knowing that home assembly was used to assemble the Pez dispensers made at Dulce Unzuay. It always has bothered me that I never planned a second trip focused on canvasing the community surrounding the injection molding plant for components in garages. There is no doubt in my mind that the homes or garages of the people who did the home assembly have parts for Pez dispensers still. My guess judging from the time period this would have been done in, is that no feet dispensers is what was being assembled. *** The way to do this is. Locate yourself at a hotel in the immediate community surrounding Dulce Unzuay. Have the people at the hotel direct you to a local print shop that speaks English. Have that print shop create a flier in Spanish stating you are at that hotel & that you want to buy components of pez dispensers from when they did the home assembly. Walk around the neighborhood where the plastic plant was or is handing out your fliers. Put them in mail boxes & on car windshields. Let the hotel know what you are doing so people who respond can be directed to you. Plan on spending 7 to 10 days at the hotel. Have about $5,000.00 in Euros in the hotel safe to draw on as opportunities arise. Pay as little as possible for what shows up. Flashback #7. China. For Free #1. Stems should be shortened by 1 or 2 bricks. Partly because it would cumulatively save a huge amount of money for the corporation. Secondly it would make everything before it a new bracket of collectible, no feet, feet long stem, feet short stem & minis. Instantly everything in warehouses around the world would be collectible. For Free #2.  Go back to regional distribution items. Corp made a lot of money in that some items were only available in Canada & Europe. As a group dealers spent millions bringing those items in for collectors. Those dispensers were not thought of as common. For Free #3.  Close down any form of mail away program from corp, it only competed with dealers & forced them out & how did that work out for you. You don't advertise so the hobby & dealers are your advertisers by default. So quit trying to kill them. Be grateful that you have a small army of boosters & advertisers for free. The type item you sell by mail away is better suited as chase items in regular distribution anyway. It would create buzz with your retailers about your product. For Free #4. For generic items run random color variations. As in when a hopper gets low just dump a bucket of another color in. Allow the change from color to color, these will truly be one of a kinds. Stop recycling purges assemble & include them. Randomly insert all these items, again creating chase pieces. Stop worrying about what dealers sell these & other items for. As dealers bust there hump for you, this is there pay. Besides they usually spend most of it back with you for more product. You see those big sales are the high. Dealers are like addicts, they want to feel it again & the only way they can is by buying more. Also nobody hypes your product more than a dealer trying for his next big sale. For Free #5. Boys, girls & Santas in every ethnicity, again randomly inserted. For Free #6. Right now you have no buzz at all. In your efforts to control your product 100%, you have reduced what that actually is. You are well on your way to becoming just another candy container on that shelf fighting for real estate with stores. Instead of being the one that had myth & value. Restore the equilibrium of the hobby & dealers. By getting all the parts working properly again sales momentum will return to growth levels you saw before. Don't fight the hobby, use it. These are just some ideas there are a lot more. For Free #7. Create a 2 hour promotional DVD.  Show footage of all the manufacturing facilities in Hungary, Austria, China & USA. Show production, assembly & packaging. Show concepts future plans & interviews with workers. Also if you're still using those crazy trucks for delivery, include them.  Show how product is displayed in say Russia & Asia. Show different packaging for different regions. If you have a collection show it. Show some of the archive paper work for no foot dispensers, also any crazy projects that were or were not done. Distribute DVD as promotional item, say 25 upcs + shipping. I just realize that this DVD should be a line of 2 hour DVDs. One each on, Pez in; China, Austria, Hungary & USA. Then others on origins & one on point of sales world wide (what it looks like). This would give you 6 different for insertion, with 1 per case. For Free #8.  Create a new retro line for dealers only or as a chase piece. Using the new regular stems & any older molds for heads you still have. Example owl melody maker, all the older pals, ponies, monkey sailor, clown with chin & crocs etc. Utilize all color variations. Use all melody maker molds in all colors especially Rhino & Parrot. If you don't want to deal with the melody/whistle part, just grind off the part in the head mold that creates hole for whistle tube insertion, again on new regular stem. You could randomly insert these items in favorites box. Again creating great chase items. Think about it, if you have dealers going crazy at say toysrus, saying where's your pez dispensers. That simple act of asking & buying creates demand & awareness of your product to retailers. Retailer product awareness is huge in distribution & product placement. For Free #9. Stop recycling test pieces, purges etc. If you make it, sell it. Again by randomly inserting these dispensers into product lines. I don't care if it is a line you decide against, ship the test pieces as product. Any molds you have should be used for product, including the guns. Use all packaging designs, randomly. Use all available paper promo inserts, inserted into packaging randomly. Let the dealers & collectors sort it out. For Free #10. Bring back the body parts. 8 new lunatic character each in all colors. Characters & colors don't need to make any sense. That is precisely where you went wrong originally, you tried to make something sensible out of something stupid. Keep stupid, stupid. Stupid is its appeal, to do otherwise ends up just being lame. Again randomly insert a couple per 48. For Free #11. If enough items to randomly insert are created, start a randomly inserted line/selection that changes on a whim & has a configuration that is always something different. Dealers would buy them by the cases if it was done right. As a promo add 1 DVD (THE ONE WE TALKED ABOUT) per case & possibly to every case of product sold. For Free #12. Product placement is the biggest problem you have. Your display boxes are awkward, which makes it difficult for retailers. I know you want them to put them by the register, but is that what they want. that spot is usually reserved for impulse good profit margin items. To the point, you need to get your display boxes down to the size of candy bar boxes so that convenience stores, gas stations & wallyworld can put them easily in areas near checkout. Most stores have already created areas for large selections of gum, candy & candy bars. If you redesigned your display boxes to fit in these areas, odds are good you would finally find a consistent home with retailers. Instead of all over the place & often hard to find. Retailers are less inclined to reorder product they don't know where to put, or have to give much sought after & coveted places. It ticks them off. I can't tell you the number of retailers up in Canada who just threw away those big display racks. This could be accomplished by as already suggested reduce dispensers by 1 or 2 bricks. Shave the feet, a bit narrower & a bit shorter. Reduce the size of the heads 20%. Use more of a flat packaging. Then arrange head to toe by the dozen in a candy bar shaped box by the dozen. By this you will reduce weight (reducing shipping costs) & cost per dispenser for raw materials, which will also make your product more attractive to retailers. Finally the size & shape of the display box will tell the retailers where to put it. Also & this is a big one. You will by doing this, set your product apart from the clutter of other candy containers in that massive heap somewhere in the store. Finding uniform product placement from store to gas station and as you should know product placement is everything in retail. For Free #13. Remember if you implemented these ideas, your current inventory becomes a new category of collectible over night. Dealers would be very aware of this, so buying setting some of this inventory aside to sell in years to come would become the order of the day. You could even create a DVD showing the development of these changes, which at the same time would advertise the changes to dealers & collectors. Motivating them to buy cases of existing product. For Free #14. Another idea is an RV painted in all the Pez logos that travels to all conventions & promotions. This RV would be a great promotional item, everywhere it went as it moved it would constantly be promoting your product. A DVD of its travels would also be desirable & promotional. To make the RV promotion pay for itself, you could after one years use sell it my guess is to a collector. You could also scour the warehouses world wide for product to sell at these appearances. This global search process would also make a great promotional DVD. My guess is there are distributors globally who would welcome buybacks of older product in there warehouse or you could replace it with current more desirable product. For Free #15.  I could give you one year to help implement/flesh out these suggestions & create all the DVDs. I will not move to Orange or Linz, but will travel to help with the changes. The price is you buy this listing plus all expenses. Thinking really big & outside the box is the direction for a Pez dispenser phenomenon like you have not experienced yet. If you think the last one was big, you lack imagination. What I did before was without your help, just imagine what could be done actually working together. Actually last time took 5 years to get rolling & you fought me every step of the way. Working together I think it could be done in 1 year, then I'm gone. To some who may laugh at this suggestion. I say you are unaware of the hobbies growth & level of excitement during my years. Yes I think I could raise the bar from what was achieved before. My thoughts are think big or go home, & what you need is a guy who thinks outside the box. You know my price & I will only accept payment up front by paypal, then all expenses as we go along. *** For Free #16. Pez Pops PEZ CORP. IF YOU ONLY DID ONE OUT OF ALL THESE IDEAS, THIS ONE IS THE ONE YOU SHOULD DO. Austria you burden yourself with the necessity of sending people all over the world ( 1st Slovenia, then Hungary & now china ) to find cheaper ways to make something (dispensers) that truly is not who you are. You are burdening yourself with an unnecessary task. Create a very small pez type dispenser out of 1 pack of candy with a character shaped sucker head that fits on one end of the pack of candy, "Pez Pops". Face it, dispensers were only created after the fact, to boost candy sales. Pez dispensers are not truly what you are about, yet out of necessity they have become what you are about. With this idea you can free yourself at last from the burden of creating something that you only think after 50 years you must do. My guess is you actually make no actual profit on the dispenser itself. That the dispenser has become like the packaging a cost of bringing your true product Pez candy to market. Packs of candy by themselves have never sold well so dispensers were created to help sell the candy. Well if you put a lolli pop shaped like a cartoon character on one end of the pack of candy as a homage to your own product, I believe you could eliminate dispensers for approximately half of your candy sales. Cost savings would be huge, as each dispenser created runs probably .35 cents & you probably make no money on dispensers anyway. As opposed to a sucker heads cost of say .03 cents. You could even subcontract out the production of these sucker character heads. With this new line of product you could remove at least two sales obstacles. Product placement & Price point. With this smaller product line it would be no problem creating packaging that gets you on the coveted candy bar & life saver shelves in checkout areas of stores. On price point, lets face it current pricing of  Pez dispensers & candy are hurting sales. Eliminating dispensers for this new line of product could get retail of this new line down to about .25 cents. I understand packs of candy by themselves have very low appeal, which is why you created dispensers. I believe the same objective can be reached at a fraction of the cost by simply putting the head in candy form directly on the pack of candy. These candy heads could be made out of  Lolli Pop candy, little Chocolate heads, Gum shaped heads, Red hot Jaw Breaker heads, Sweet tart heads & even lickerish heads all mounted on one end of the pack of pez candy. Cheaply priced, Good product placement probability & No plastic at all, talk about going green. The real beauty of this idea is that you could eliminate most of the costly injection molding facilities you are currently running down to say just the one in Austria. You could maintain a specialty line of dispensers with candy from the facilities in Austria. While shifting the majority of candy sales to this new line. Think of it, eliminating 50% to 70% of plastic cost, cost of the number of  molds you would need to create & maintain and expensive travel time to the four corners of the Earth working on production of dispensers that you probably only break even on. Not to mention the fact that each confectionery facility that produces Pez candy could actually contract out in country for the various candy heads required. You could test market this new product line in the US & Hungary to get a feel for its potential. In Hungary I bet you Robby would know exactly how to flesh this idea out & run with it. By test marketing in the US & Hungary you would get a pretty good idea what global response to this new product line would be. Providing an indicator of how far to actually take it. Even if this idea caught on like a house afire, I would maintain a specialty line of plastic dispensers with candy as an upscale line for your product. If global sales hopes/requirements/projections could be met with the new line (Pez Pops), this line could carry the majority cost of operations & global profits. Remember cost of product & operations would now be reduced by approximately 50%. Leaving the line of what would now be the specialty line Dispensers with candy as pure gravy. As the new line, candy packs with heads or Pez Pops are now in the checkout area of stores. Pez Pops would be the perfect impulse item located in the impulse item shopping area, priced at the perfect impulse item price. If at all possible .25 cents is the ideal retail target price for Pez Pops. Mom is sure to let little Jimmy or Susy have a Pez Pop if it only costs a Quarter. As a quarter is the new nickel. Product placement of Pez Pops now accomplished through packaging size, the specialty lines location in the store is no longer a burden on sales. Now days Pez dispenser location in stores is killing sales as is the price point. Though if Pez Pops are carrying sales & finding a home in checkout this is no longer a burden. Actually the cost of dispenser with candy that is killing you now at $1.00 to $1.50 could be increased to $2.50 no problem. Just increase package size along with the number of refills & poor location of principal product line is no longer a burden on sales. As this item is no longer the workhorse, Pez Pops are. So being located in the toy area actually becomes an asset. Where else would a specialty line be & at $2.50 it is one of the cheaper items here. Remember though you can not turn this liability into an asset without Pez Pops carrying the bulk of sales. Making something old new again requires Pez Pops to shine a light on just how special it truly is. You can't have one without the other, they absolutely require each other for success. Also remember Pez Pop heads can be made out of Sucker candy, Chocolate, Jaw Breaker candy, Red Hot candy (for special characters like Tasmanian Devil & Yosemite Sam), Liquorish candy & Sweet Tart candy. My further guess is Pez Pop Heads could also be made out of & in all of  the flavors you currently make pez candy tabs in. By using the same compression process you use for candy tabs, I bet you could make the heads out of your own candy. Here again I think Robby who runs the confectionery facility in Hungary could be most useful. As a reader, if you think Pez Pops are a really terrific idea, you might be thinking. Why is this guy just handing over a good idea without getting something for it. The fun for me is the process of thinking something through, fleshing it out here & in my head. Besides having an idea is nothing without the ability to act on it. Idea hording is like reading in the dark, nothing ever comes of it. Also Pez Corps track record for paying for ideas is kinda thin. From my point of view, David Gs, Joes, & Keiths. Having your ideas used by Pez Corp & having it not actually cost you money is a BIG DEAL. The last group of ideas Pez Corp used that were mine cost me $250,000.00. Dave & Joes idea used by Pez Corp cost them $30,000.00. Keiths ideas used by Pez Corp cost him $25,000.00 & no Corvette for you. So speaking for all of us, I say, "Anytime Pez Corp uses your ideas & it does not cost you money. Now that is a good day indeed." Fake? #1. Why would a multiple million dollar injection molding company use a stencil or a stamp? Wouldn't you think it would be molded into the plastic? It was molded on the original small cars & planes. Is it just me or does this not make any sense at all? And why year after year do they keep coming, different types, different sizes. A seemingly never ending supply & assortment. Hey Andre is that you & your buds are you tricken us again?  You have to be careful as there are people in Europe who by location feel a sense of immunity to create items & pass them off as old items. German Andre & all those little plastic cars with black pez stenciled on them is for me one example. I bought a ton of them from him once, they all arrived soaking wet. I believe this was a method to make the pristine new yellow header cards on the bags look aged by 20 or so years. I do not believe for a minute that all those little plastic toys with black pez stenciled on them are real. Other items created in the time period that these are supposed to be from DO NOT HAVE BLACK STENCIL FOR PEZ. On the real cars & planes the pez is molded in the plastic. When you understand who German Andre is, it makes more sense. Also what he actually does for a living & what his network of distribution is. His real business is buying & selling closeout type items in Europe. All sorts of collectibles & toy. Which is why he knew who to contact & bribe to get my pez projects done. In short he knew how to game the system so large shipping containers of product that technically should not, did. He is very hands on. By this I mean through the hiring of people he knew how to make 2 containers into one. Who is better situated to buy large quantities of small plastic cars & trucks. Create packaging. Have each item stenciled & because it comes from Europe it has the air of authenticity. Also because it comes from Europe nobody in the US has or can get any frame of reference on the items. Further being situated in Europe Andre feels immune from any repercussions on his dealings. Knowing Andre as I do (at best questionable morals) there is no doubt in my mind he is making these items. The Pez coin plates & The plastic light up signs with the word PEZ on them also came from German Andre. The coin plates are the ones with peter pez holding speedy g. The lights were the aprox 2 foot long, Triangle shape if viewed from the end, with yellow caps on each end & a cover made of white plastic with the word PEZ on them. Would Andre have the connections, ability & desire to make these items. Yes. You have to remember he feels he has immunity from retribution, because of his location & the fact that he really only sells to dealers. So the dealers are the ones whose reputations are on the line while he remains anonymous. Well till now anyway. I bought a lot of these items: coin plates, cars with pez stenciled on them & the light up pez signs. I was always assured they were real, so I sold them as real. In the mid 90s I had no reason to believe otherwise, but after years of doing business with German Andre he lost my trust. It's one of those situations where piece by piece as you learn more & see more you understand more. One deal alone may look a little funny but you have no reason to doubt so you let it go. Realization only comes when the accumulation of things is to big to ignore any longer and it finally dawns on you that this guys word can not be trusted. The final straw was when other dealers informed me that he had produced a large quantity of the colors for himself & was undercutting my wholesale on these items to them. So after all of this WHY did I buy a very large wooden crate of loose colors from him & let him lie to me saying they were production over run? It's simple, he only wanted $1.00 each. There was & is only one thing you can take to the bank with this guy, he always delivered the product. I bought the loose colors & another crate of joes trucks because at $1.00 each I actually had a good chance for 100% profit even after Scott made his. I also was in vendetta mode, trying to flood as much product into the hobby before Scott released his. Hoping that Scotts sales would suck. I figured every collector I sold to was one less sale for Scott. This was in the end one small victory I achieved in the color wars. Scotts sales on the Misfits did suck & that inventory of dispensers sitting there meant he had some explaining to do. I also believe poor sales of the Misfits was part of what was used to ease Scott into retirement. Again a small victory considering the down side for Scott was being nudged to retirement. For me the down side was I eventually lost everything. So even though I claim I won a battle in the color wars, Scott won the war. After being the #1 pain in his rear for over 5 years, he slowly & methodically removed me.  You may wonder why in this story when referring to the color wars between Scott & myself, I use phases like: He destroyed me, I eventually lost everything, etc. This is not an effort on my part to solicit sympathy. Rather it is more like when I was a little boy & we used to play Cowboys, good guys & bad guys. Inevitably while playing Cowboys somebody would start yelling " Mom he won't take his dead's", meaning you shot him & he refused to lay down & play dead. Well in the color wars between Scott & myself it was like playing Cowboys. To state it less accurately or smooth over how losing affected my life would be the same as not taking my dead's. He won so I am taking my dead's. I have no ill will toward Scott, actually I kinda admire him. In all my dealings with Pez he was the one honest man. The other day I was thinking what a remarkable Forum it would be if one day he and I sat down at a Pez convention to swap stories in front of you all. One catch though for me, I would only consider doing it once I had released this as a book. With a published book in hand I would consider it fun, without this as a book I would not. By the way there are 2 Andre's, the other one likes yo yos & honestly speaking I do not believe the yo yos are real either for all of the same reasons, as both andres are two sides of the same coin. *** Fake? #2. Blue hat Santa. One of the items offered to me in Hungary was a Santa with a blue hat. When I inspected a sample of this item, I noticed that the hat had a rough feel to it. I asked if the hat had been cold molded. Eventually the truth came out, an employee had taken a hat mold home & was using it as a cold mold to pour the plastic/resin in, to make the hats. I passed on this item, I had enough trouble already without this blue hat Santa. *** Fake? #3. Woodstock with feathers. Another item offered to me in Hungary was a Woodstock with black line feathers on his head. When I inspected a sample of this item, I noticed that the Black lines for the feathering had a dull look instead of shiny. Nobody would admit it but it appears that after I asked if they had any Woodstock with feathers that people had actually taken the time to hand draw the feather lines with a black marker. I turned this item away also. Later when I let Josh do a trip with a new girlfriend he wanted to impress, they tried to pass Woodstock off again. Josh called all excited after picking up the pez dispensers saying how lucky he was to get them. Boy was he mad when I told him about them. The Woodstock's were turned back once again. ***The final story was written on these fake Woodstock's when the yellow stems which had country of origin (Hungary) were needed for some Smurfettes which had no country of origin. As mentioned earlier, country of origin on dispensers or packaging was required by US customs. Until I had the Made in Hungary bags specially made these switches were sometimes required. If one of the duffel bags held 4 boxes of Pez dispensers at least 2 boxes per bag had to have country of origin on stems to cover the 2 boxes that did not in each duffel bag. This was always one of the tense moment for me when clearing customs, before I had the Made in Hungary bags. *** The other major problem was licensed characters like Disney. Again it required each duffel bag to be topped off with 2 boxes of generic unlicensed (Pez corp original heads) characters with country of origin. US customs always required 2 Tylenol & 2 Tums as this was always the most gut wrenching part of any trip, getting the product by customs. *** Importing Problem #1. Technically no pez from Europe should have ever been admitted at all, as Pez USA had the sole right to import. Pez USA blew it by not listing pez dispensers on the customs list for non import. I'm not sure how this factors in but Pez USA being wholly owned through I believe a post office box is the other problem. How does a Us company owned by the Euro parent company stop import of Pez dispensers sold to you by its parent company. In effect they sold it to you so how can they stop it. *** Importing Problem #2. Licensed characters are licensed for distribution by region or country. So a license for distribution in Europe is not a license to sell that item in the US. So technically Duck tales for example were licensed by Disney for distribution say in Europe & Canada, but no license was ever granted for The US. So bottom of the duffel bag was always required with a 2 box top off of generic dispensers. *** Importing Problem #3. Country of origin is require on all product imported into the US. Technically on the item itself, but custums was ok with the Made in Hungary bags. I assured them that all dispensers would be sold in that bag to the collector. These 3 reasons were why custums was always such a freaking nightmare to me. The wrong customs official at just the wrong moment & $10,000.00 down the drain. I also found it useful to stay awake for 30 hours or so before arriving at US customs. Appearing tired & wore out solicited a small degree of sympathy, which helped set the mood for the encounter. So yes everything from how the bags appeared, how the bags were packed, paperwork receipts, customs number & how I appeared (tired & keeping my nervousness in check) all figured in. Everything had to be orchestrated exactly. *** All these reasons were exactly why when my luggage was lost I was always the happiest little clam in the room. I'd just shoot through customs handing over my customs form & be on my way. Now it was Delta Airlines problem & Delta never had any problems & never lost my bags. Delta holds a lot of sway at customs. Example, sometimes having 5 huge duffel bags on a huge cart a Delta person would help me at customs, on every occasion that they helped no secondary inspection. Without delta always a secondary inspection. Flying Delta was no mistake & doing customs in Cincinnati was also not an accident. Also everything always goes smoother when people know you. Oh yeah you're that lunatic who hand carries thousands of pez dispensers, crazy but harmless. Question #1. Remember all those guns. Well at the time I sent a couple of them off for testing. Seems to me things got awful quiet all of a sudden about the time those test results were supposed to be finished. FACT #1. At one point I was in negotiations to remake the spacegun. The molds still existed & that was prior to the big "find". This was during the time of the colors, we got as far as how much per gun & an eyes on confirmation that the molds were available. Question #2.Why has there always been such silence from people who know things? People wrote books , news letters etc. Yet if you mention things your a crackpot in a newsletter or banned from online chat. You know the Canadian, no not that one. The one who liked horse racing. He once said to me "It's like printing money". Well I did not appreciate it, at the time I was to busy taking cover so Scott couldn't get a beed on me. Me I think there is so much money involved that it scares the heck out of people. Stick pins, tin stuff, plastic cars, yo yos, & regulars to mention just a few. People who know aren't saying out of fear it would crack the illusion. Well for starters. Question #3. part 1. Guess why I still have over 20,000 small ziplock bags with made in Hungary printed on them. Answer. Dispensers in Europe are not require to have country of origin printed on them. So for US customs purposes all loose dispensers had to be in these bags. The people at the Raba thought I was nuts when 15 or so cases of loose dispensers had to be taken by them up to my room. Then I would disappear for a couple days only coming out for food. At which point they would help me load 4 to 6 duffel bags into my car. Until later when the rules changed & I had to pay for the bagging & pick up the duffel bags on the way to the airport. They felt I was drawing to much attention at the Raba with all the moving of cases of dispensers up & down at the hotel.  Question #3. part 2. The other reason I still have 20,000 bags with MADE IN HUNGARY printed on them. At the very end of my involvement with Pez  I was sort of into the mini pez dispensers. My guy in Hungary informed me that the stems for the mini dispensers were made in Hungary & that they could put any head I wanted on them. At that point this sounded like a good idea as the old controversy of what is real & what is not had been made foolish by now. So we began negotiating a deal for 20,000 pieces as that was the minimum offered. At that point running low on bags I ordered 30,000 more. The deal fell through, though not before the bags arrived. FACT #2. The rings & money clips are fake. They were & may still be made by a guy on the east coast who works in that type of product. FACT #3. Back when I had the no feet Donalds on the blue stem. The guy who contracted to design & produce the shoes for me bought hundreds of them from me along with 3.9 batmans. Then bragged he was gonna make blue capes & voila no foot batman with cape. Fun Factoid #1. I traveled to Europe buying Pez dispensers more than 70 times. To Hungary alone 60 times, Slovenia approx 10 times, & Austria approx 10 times. On more than 2 occasions at the same time & in the same country as Scott. Was sure at some point we would cross paths for one of those awkward moments, but we just missed each other. Countries visited buying dispensers also included, Hungary, Spain, Germany, Austria, France, Slovenia, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Slovak Republic, South Africa, Australia & Sweden. Fun Factoid #2. I believe I set the worlds record for Pez dispensers hand carried in duffel bags from country to country, at roughly 500,000 dispensers carried. Fun Factoid #3.  Bought & sold over 1,000,000 pez dispensers. Again that is a conservative number.  Fun Factoid #4. Did you know that those metal cloisonne pins you get at the conventions & gatherings all started with the pins I created as promotional items. The first pins were Peter Pez, The Stewardess & Coko. These were created by me as sales promotion items, buy X amount of product get a free pin. Back then the people running the conventions thought these were pretty cool so I told them who could make the convention pins for them. Confessions time. I also created the Pez money clips & rings or rather designed & hired them made. The coolest Peter pez ring was a marriage of the pin & ring. I had the pin guy make a small 1/2 inch cloisonne of Peter pez, then I had the ring guy put it in as the setting for the ring. Pins created were CACDC pin, 2 dif peter pins, 2 dif stewardess/candy lady & Coko. As I've said Coko was the real character used on the box for chocolate pez in Hungary in the early 90s. The pin was an exact reproduction of that character. Fun Factoid #5. It was Late in the day at one of the conventions. I had this big ole box of dispensers (approx 800) & was beginning to think about all the stuff we had to pack up. So I dragged the box to the middle of the convention floor & dumped it. Well I never did that again, cause the chaos that followed was like a real life cartoon. People literally went flying on there bellies face first into that pile, then came up with as much as 2 arms could carry. It was a dangerous thing to have done on reflection but then again it was one of wildest things I ever saw at a convention. Fun Factoid #6. Helicopter Bob. This guy was connected to Pez corp USA. He & one of his buds found a bunch of stuff in one of the buildings there, pez pal cops & golden glows were two of the more notable pieces. Well they got the stuff out of there & began selling it to john & other dealers. So I'm at a show in Atlantic city & up walks Helicopter Bob, he says hey I have 200 cops do you want to buy them?  I said sure & we settled on a price, so off he goes to get them. Well all the way back he is busy selling them one by one for $5.00 each more than he agreed to sell them to me for. You would think this kinda thing was uncommon, when actually it was more the norm. From Helicopter Bob to the 2 Andre's to Dead AL to the Austrian gun brokers, there was always more & in addition backhanded dealing going on. Ole Bob was just the first in a long line, I remember him saying to me " if you don't quit yelling & cussing at me I'm not gonna sell to you anymore." Finally I think he was hearing me. Total amount spent with this guy only a couple thousand. Fun Factoid #7. German Andre. The kind of guy who greets you while hiding behind a pole or something until he is sure you aren't mad at him. I think the guy lived in constant fear that people he was doing business with would find out everything he was doing generally speaking or everything he was doing to you behind your back. You would contract say for 3,000 pieces each & he would make 6,000 pieces. He would then deliver the items you contracted for & you would start selling & set your price. At this point he would quietly contact other dealers & undercut your price to sell the extra ones he also made. Then when he had gotten what he could out of the overproduction he would offer you the rest at super cheap saying he had no idea pez corp did an overrun & that he felt it was only right that I should have them. This guy was a real piece of work. So from the beginning the colors were not my exclusive as promised, had I known the deception from day one, I probably would not have felt as deceived when Scott made the misfits. Total amount spent with this guy $300,000.00. Fun Factoid #7, part 2. German Andre is also the guy that facilitated the production of Joe & Chicago Daves trucks (the black or silver cab, glow in the dark trailer, red or orange wheels) , which Scott also later copied. Andre followed the same format here. He produced what they ordered, plus the same amount for himself to undercut there sales. Later I ended up buying a 2 ton truck load of what Joe & Dave had left & the remainder of Andre's (a couple thousand loose dispensers) "overproduction".  How did Andre do it? Well he would get the quote from Van Melles of say X per carded dispenser, then he would double the order & charge you 5X per dispenser. There by getting his for free, plus 3X immediate profit. Then in the end when he was done undercutting your sales, he could sell you the leftovers or "overproduction" at cost & still make 100% profit. Fun Factoid #7, part 3.  here's a little background. In order to even get the opportunity to do the deal on the colors there were 3 other deals I had to do. As in if you buy these I think I can get them to do it, over & over. Like the container full of body parts (aprox 36,000) from Asia or somewhere. Remember how I used to give away body parts when you spent various amounts on dispensers, well this is why. The gold, silver, white & gray hair pals w/body parts playsets. A mess of smashed aral & mariner playsets. Also a load of dispensers & body parts carded on one card. This is what I had to do to get the privileged of buying the colors. Fun Factoid #8.  Spanish Andre. For this guy the short version. yo yos yeah that's all of them. oops I found more, oops I found more, oops I found more. After about 3 times you give up. Guess what I think yeah oops he is still finding more. "Finding" Total amount spent with this guy less than two thousand. Fun Factoid #9.  Dead AL. This guy was one of the worst & biggest liars I ever bought dispensers from & that is saying a lot when you factor in german Andre. Though in the end he was harmless & kind of a tragic figure. But you know what I liked this guy, he died of what I believe was a drug overdose of all things. I say of all things because he was the most accident prone guy I have ever known. Power tools on walls while remodeling with catastrophic & predictable results to his arm. I bought thousands of no foot dispensers from him before he died & he always promised that that was everything. Promising this is all, this is everything & if it isn't may god strike me dead. He really said those words. It was not & God did. Again all things said, I liked Dead AL. Total amount spent with this guy $30,000.00. Dead Al. Deal #1. 150 Maharajah @ $20.00 each = $3,000.00. & 150 Captain Hook @ $20.00 each = $3,000.00  total spent in Deal #1 was $6,000.00 Dead Al. Deal #2. 200 Practical Pig nf  @ $7.00 each = $1,400.00 & 150 Sheik @ $20.00 each = $3,000.00 & 250 Mickey nf  @ $2.00 each = $500.00 & 250 Donald nf @ $2.00 each = $500.00  total spent on Deal #2 was $5,400.00 Dead Al. Deal #3. 300 Captain Hook @ $20.00 each = $6,000.00 & 125 Maharajah @ $10.00 each = $1,250.00 & 125 Sheik @ $10.00 each = $1,250.00 & 175 Practical Pig A @ $7.00 each = $1,225.00  total spent on Deal #3 was $9,725.00 I did one last deal with dead Al after he died. Mike M drove out to Bambi's house & picked up $10,000.00 worth of dispensers. It was the only way to complete the deal. Then Mike shipped the items to me. All I remember from this deal was when it was completed I had a large round trash can full of Mickey nf & another full of Donald nf. Bambi still has a bunch more. Fun Factoid #10. Bambi. This lady has or had around 10,000 to 15,000 of no feet dispensers. She is the hardest person in the world to buy from. Every time you get close to finishing a deal she spooks like a deer in headlights. Finally I just gave up, as it was just a massive waist of effort. Besides I learned a ways in that, again there was more every time you thought you got it all. Also her relatives have been taking small amounts out at a time (she has no idea) & been selling them for years to big name dealers (the guys in Florida). She called again about a big pile she said she had just last May. I never even considered returning the call. *** Dead Al & Bambi revisit. Today while thinking about stems, I thought I might bring up something that has always nagged at me. The no feet Mickeys with removable nose on the wire spring stems. Those stems always bothered me, I don't know who might have switched them or why but those stems never looked right to me. I believe Bambi bought all her no feet dispensers in barrels from Pez USA. I also believe it was through a closeout mechanism that sold excess Pez dispensers for use by carnival type setups. It is possible Pez just slapped a bunch of excess heads on whatever stems they had just to get rid of them. *** My problem is this. All of the Dead Al & Bambi pez dispensers were rough. At the least filthy & a fair percentage were incomplete broken or flawed. So I had to mess with them a lot. The majority just needed to be washed, cleaned with a toothbrush or have marks removed. Though about 10% had real problems, broken pieces or heads off. *** In the process of fixing, gluing noses, turbans, sheik head dress repair etc, I had a lot of opportunity to take a really good look at Mickeys head & stem. In my opinion they were never meant to be together. They fit together, though just barely & not very well. Reminded me of a bad idea to move something out the door. If it were me I never would have tried to pass that stem off with that head. The wire spring & kicker on head, had a heck of a time being compatible. I just never thought that dispenser was right or correct. The time period of stem production verses time period for that heads production, didn't match up either. It was like the stems sat in the warehouse till a bunch of Mickey heads with no stems showed up & two left overs were combined, regardless of exact compatibility. *** Two notes here. #1. The washing is why most Dead Al dispensers have rust marks on inner sleeves. #2. Combination Ink & pencil erasers are terrific for removing marks on heads or stems. Use the ink half of eraser to remove mark or lite scar (for deeper scars use a razor blade to shave area & prep for the ink eraser), then use pencil half of eraser to smooth it all out. Finally use grease from your forehead to bring back the shine. *** I know, I know. Collectors will find a lot of today's entries upsetting. Stems switched for stems with made in Hungary. Washing dispensers like dishes in the sink to clean them up. Razor blades & erasers used to fix dispensers. Using parts from a few dispensers to make one correct one. Oh yeah & gluing beaks, noses, hats, whiskers etc on dispensers. All sacrilege to collectors. Nobody wants to see the cow butchered, they just want that really great steak. In truth though somebody has to kill the cow, I have always loved that metaphor. "Somebody has to kill the cow". Dealers will never admit to these & many others that are necessary to be able to offer the beautiful dispensers you see at shows. Truth be told most do it. *** You want to know a sight that will really break your heart. Several times while waiting to get off a plane, I was able to watch my luggage being removed from the cargo hold. I sat looking out the window of the plane to see my duffel bags tossed from the hatch down onto the tarmac. At least an eight or ten foot drop. Now that will break your heart. Fun Factoid #11.  Gunther part 1. First contact, He Opens the doors. Gunther personally & in writing opened the doors to the warehouse to me. I used the avenues established by him to purchase most of the dispensers I bought in Hungary. Gunther was very helpful, I never would have found all the dispensers I bought without his help. I paid aprox $.85 to $1.25 per dispenser, so someone was definitely making money. Considering that I bought over 1/2 million dispensers & brought them home in duffel bags. Further considering that, I'm really not sure that any of that money actually made it to Pez corp. Even if it did dispensers cost at the time was $.25 to $.35 somebody made $300,000.00 to over 1/2 million. This is why I was so offended when Gunther betrayed me by making all the colors for Scott. After contributing to a massive retirement fund for 10 years, no respect at all. Not to mention the actual colors deal where I paid 10 times actual cost & was guaranteed exclusivity. The Austrian Queen recently emailed, which was nice of her, but she was under the impression that this was all about bubble man. So for those who may be unaware, the line of product that was copied was the entire "misfit" line. Yellow snowman, Orange snowman, black witch, yellow witch, tan santa, black skull, pink elephant, brown lion, 3 different neon pals with hats, 4 different hair color Shell gas guys, also the neon psych hands were mine first. Believe it or not I really had to scratch my head a bit to remember everything. So if I missed something, chalk it up to age. The reason I put so much money into this project was the inventory of older product in the warehouses had dried up. So if I was to continue I needed a whole new line of product. That being the case I poured all cash on hand & all I could borrow into the project. If I had a do over, I would have put that money into string lights & just moved on. I gambled everything on this group of deals, figuring everybody had been properly paid off over the years & in this deal by itself. Also believing a promise, by these same people. Nothing was ever written down, deals had always been done on handshakes, so to speak. For 10 years this had never been the kind of business that involved contracts. Remember my entire business was built in a gray area of  Pez dispensers. So it was not weird at all to send payments of $150,000.00 at a time on someones word, believing why would someone kill the goose that laid the golden egg. It never even occurred to me that office politics on a global scale would trump over 1/2 million dollars divvied up by less than 4 people. So when one of those people (Gunther) put his rivalry with Scott, above personal profit I was blind sided to say the least. I had just never seen the bigger picture. By the way I don't think Scott saw it coming either. Our personal egos were dwarfed by Gunthers ruthless ambition and in his view it was a twofer. The misfits/holiday colors rid him of two obstacles in his corporate trajectory. Besides he had other sources of side income, at least 3 that I know of and possibly Scott & I were obstacles there also. Fun Factoid #11.  Gunther part 2. Covert at Mickey Ds. I personally handed Gunther $2,000.00 for 2 trays of dispensers & some paper items he took out of the home office in Linz to sell me. The only known origins Mr. Majestic was in one tray. Some of the PEZ Items in This Purchase from Gunther. Mr. Majestic, Muselix, Obelix, Sparefrow, Orange, Pear, Gorilla. A bundle of aprox 24 gray regulars, the new design, never seen to that point. Paper items, mostly protoype boxes not used for peppermint pez. Maryann bought most of these paper items. We were in the car, he passed me the dispensers being very careful to keep the items below the dashboard & then I passed him the money. The whole time he is looking around to make sure nobody he knows is seeing him. THEN HE SAYS, "I DON'T KNOW YOU". I thought well that was an odd thing to say. He counted the money & said you can send me more later. I said, No that's it no more it is all I have on me, take it or leave it. He took it, then scurried off looking over his shoulder as he went. As he did it made me wonder, is this the guy who has been sending the packages to Dave all these years. It is just that, ("you can send me more later") made me think he was used to this. Fun Factoid #11.  Gunther part 3. Sacrificing your Rook. actually this is covered in Fun Factoid #18. Fun Factoid #11.  Gunther part 4. Business as usual. Gunther is the guy who opened sales & was in charge of Hungary to Russia. He then was in charge of facilitating & overseeing production of dispensers in China for the US market. The success of these things helped facilitate his further rise in the company. A few bodies left in his wake was not going to slow this guy down. The first time I met him he said " DON'T YOU KNOW WHO I AM" . Then he proceeded with a flourish to show me. He wrote one little post-it note (the one I sold on ebay about a year ago) told me to go to the warehouse & hand it to people. To a man they snapped to & helped me in any way I wanted. Impressive. Seriously color me impressed. Though don't be fooled, with pez dispensers it has always been & is POWER & MONEY. Preferably CASH. Fun Factoid #12.  Scott part 1.  His biggest fear I think & what I think motivated him against his better interests & eased his retirement. I think Scott was obsessed with the idea that I was making more money than him. At one point he was on the warpath in Europe at the factories, I mean really in my opinion getting crazy on the management over there. What he did not know is at the same time he was obsessing about me at the factories, I was over there buying dispenser from the very same people & they in effect were hiding me from him & telling me what he was saying & doing. This situation occurred on more than 2 trips. You see they did not like him & they did like me. These actions & his general manner I believe is why he "retired". You see Pez USA was owned at the time (probably still is) by Pez international. Sometimes people forget who works for who & just because you sell a larger amount of product that does not change. Also sometimes when you outsell your bosses, it make them jealous & envious. Which means if say you start trying to read them the riot act about something that has you, say a little crazy (me) they find a way to stop the noise. After all your not the one contributing to there retirement. Your not the one who say paid for there new house or car. Fun Factoid #12.  Scott part 2. Spy vs Spy. What you may not know is that during most of the time I sold pez dispensers, there were 2 or 3 people who reported back to Scott directly & indirectly everything they could find out about what I was doing. Bless there hearts, I believe they felt it was there way to get on his good side for purposes that benefited them. The reason I know this is because the Europeans told me what he was up to & why. They also gave me a heads up on what to avoid. Believe it or not for a period of time there were actual rules to this game. Fun Factoid #12.  Scott part 3. LET ME BE VERY CLEAR ON THIS. WHEN SCOTT COPIED THE COLORS HE DESTROYED ME. He destroyed my reputation & wiped me out financially. I had so much money tied up in the colors of all types that it was impossible to recover. My finances & business are still feeling the effects to this day. I willingly stuck my neck out way to far on this group of product by investing everything I had earned to date, plus borrowing $150,000.00. All these years later & I am still trying to recover from that one decision. At the time the only avenue that was left was to sell the remainder of the product at any price to recoup any portion of the money I spent. HERE WAS THE MAIN PROBLEM. With his production he was now going to sell his misfits to collectors at less than I paid for mine. It was perfectly executed by Scott to rid himself of his nemesis. Fun Factoid #12.  Scott part 4. The funny thing though is I believe it was his downfall as well. After producing the inventory for the misfits & the dispensers they led to. Scott had now stretched his neck out pretty far also & when sale declined enough I believe Gunther whacked him. You see the real puppet master in the whole thing I believe was Gunther. Andre negotiated the deal with Van Melles of Germany, who then submitted the orders to Austria for approval. By guess who? Yes that's right Gunther. Scott then proceeded to go a bit nuts on Austria about the colors. After he calmed down he decided if he created a competing inventory he could destroy me once & for all. Well guess who had to sign off on the misfits? That is correct Gunther. So in the end I believe Gunther played both Scott & me like a Fiddle by expertly facilitating both of our retirements from selling Pez dispensers. Both Scott & I were casualties of his assent to power at the company. In all honesty I believe Scott was the real target & that I was just a useful tool to that end. Here is why I never really held this whole episode against Scott. What he did he had every right to do, but Gunther did not. Gunther was the one who approved the colors & he knew full well I had been promised they would be exclusive to me. So when he approved the misfits he knew that promise was being broken & that is why I no longer play by the rules I mentioned in Fun Factoid #16. Fun Factoid #13. Cash is king part 1. Roughly 10 trips x $5,000.00 small trips in the beginning. For the rest over 50 trips $8,000.00 to $9,900.00 ( at the time under $10,000.00 cash was the amount you could carry & not have it be a problem & it always had to be cash ) per trip & this was only to Europe. The only reason I know this to be true is one guy actually kept records & stated at a certain point that this was my 50th trip & this only represented trips to do business with him. I also had about as many trips to Canada buying. Fun Factoid #13. Cash is king part 2. I know by now, you might be saying this seems a bit negative. Here's the deal & I only realize this now. By the very nature of what I was doing, it would have been more of a surprise if everybody I dealt with had been upright & honest. Some were & are good & honest people; everybody in Slovenia, when I bought there payment was often enough that I got the picture made at a bank & deposited in the corporate account. I also paid cost in Slovenia per dispense .23 to .41 cents per, nobody was skimming. Only the first few trips to Hungary were cost. The Dealer from Slovenia is a good guy, he bought most of his product from workers & owners after the production of pez dispensers was halted in Ormoz. The Austrian Queen seems to be ok also, but I fear for her because she has out of necessity to close a relationship with Gunther (say hi when you report this). You see several factors work against honesty & good behavior. Always cash only cash, so it is a cash business with very few records kept. The huge amounts of cash we are talking about, over the aprox 20 years this has been going on it has to be millions & millions & millions. My contribution in the worldwide black market of pez dispensers alone was in excess of 1/2 Million dollars & depending how you look at it over 1 million dollars. Example Canadian distributors were not supposed to sell to Americans, so a premium was paid & border crossings were tricky. Europeans were not supposed to sell to Americans, so a premium was paid & border crossings were tricky. People who worked at factories were not supposed to remove or create special items from factories or warehouses, so a premium was paid. That so much money is involved does not draw the best of human nature out of people. Some people in Europe feel a degree of freedom from repercussions when creating or selling items to Americans. Large amounts of money tend to motivate people & skew facts. I have to admit it. For approx 10 years I worked in a very gray area, so of course a lot of , if not the majority of people I did business with had a loose relationship with honesty & truth. So of coarse a lot of the things or people I talk about are not going to sound the most positive or big surprise in the end it bit me in the butt. In my defense I wanted out of that factory/shop very bad. I worked with rolls of asbestos, while welding for over 20 years. I would have done almost anything to get out of there. So asbestos or working in a very gray area trying to take care of my family, not a really hard choice. So we come to why would I make what appears to be a nutty attempt at selling a book, whatever it takes to take care of my family. You know Dave used to make comment occasionally when he thought I was behaving a little country or sappy. Well Dave that really is me. Fun Factoid #14. Best day of my life in pez dispensers. The first time I walked into a warehouse in Slovenia & saw all the wonderful dispensers that still existed & I could buy all I could afford & carry. Fun Factoid #15. The worst day. The day I received word Scott was going to copy & release at least 16 of the colors. Fun Factoid #16.  Transportation part 1. I have transported zep dispensers by boat, car, taxi, plane, by hand in duffel bags, I have received boxes, pallets & even several semi trailers full from Europe. There was this one delivery where the house was so full of dispensers that only a body width hallway was left from room to room & the barn & basement were also full. This was before I had my very own warehouse. Fun Factoid #16.  Transportation part 2. I always rented cars for travel; Drove on the wrong side of road in Australia, after which we parked the rental & took taxis. Hired taxis to lead the way or as dispenser haulers. Driven on sidewalks in one of the Slavic countries, can't remember which one. Also drove on the sidewalk in front of the factory in Linz. Driven through the center of Vienna, where no cars are allowed. And gotten about a dozen traffic tickets on the highway, all of which I had to pay on the spot with cash. The most beautiful drive though is the drive though the Alps down to Slovenia in the winter. Fun Factoid #17. Zukor. Can't remember if I mentioned this or not. Walk into any store that has food in Hungary, say the word Zukor & show a Pez dispenser & you will be shown where the pez are located in the store. Also I was given an Honorary membership in the Hungarian version of Sams Club by just showing my Sams club card. I think in another country Zukor was Cukor. Fun Factoid #18. Fruits of there labors. Here are a few of the things Pez corp people bought with there cut of the money I paid for dispensers. A new house, 2 new cars & a year abroad at college. These are only the big ticket things I know for sure. Fun Factoid #19. Guns of Austria. This is war. Ok the guns. I believe I bought approx 2,000 of them (sorry memory little foggy on these numbers). I believe there were over 3,500 in all. I spent over $15,000.00. Here is how it happened. Late in my involvement with selling zep dispensers I was approached about the "find" consisting of shooters & space guns. A sizable portion was offered & I was led to believe that was it. Then another portion & I was led to believe that was it. Then another portion & if I didn't buy them then they would be sold openly. By now this had happened so many times over the years, from day one this mantra had been repeated over & over & over. There was always more & if you did not buy it, they would sell it elsewhere. After being lied to so many times & losing $250,000.00 to pez corp & maxing out my last good credit card to buy what I had. Well I just snapped mentally. I decided to ruin there market by pushing all I had out immediately, setting the value of these guns at cost. You see at this point I had finally had enough, I had let way to many people behave this way & let it slide. So Guns once valued at $75.00 to $125.00 each now value roughly $25.00. Also want to mention here that in my opinion these guns are really only worth $10.00 each. Here's why aprox 5,000 of each already in the hobby. The king has more. The molds for the space guns still exist last I knew. For the right amount of money to the right person more could be made. Color charts on dispensers have always been kept. Why do guides rate value at more than $10.00 each. Example, in my handbook do you think I would have rated items I was selling at the time lower than my price for that item? No. So if the king of Austria wants $20.00 each, how could they possibly be worth less than $25.00 each in current price guides. This is just the obvious mechanics of how things work. Its like if I had a newsletter & was dependent on my good relationship with Pez Corporation for the info to fill my newsletter. How could I possibly print anything that would jeopardize that flow of information or fail to defend the corp & have them think me not a team player. So values & information are incomplete. Where this becomes a problem is other books & publications repeat these values & information making it what is thought. When in reality it is incorrect or incomplete. Fun Factoid #20.  The Austrian King of Pez part 1. When I met this guy 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 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 upon he said I know who you are. What are you doing here. I said, Well I wanna buy some of your 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 collection of rare dispensers, sculpted prototypes, prototypes & molds. We then had to go over to his other house to fill my 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 dispensers. 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 product 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, I think it was green hornets saying he would stop selling the rest for 1 year if I bought them. Fun Factoid #21.  The Austrian King of Pez part 2.  I think it was those long disposable regulars. It was handled Quietly by the big 3. By handled I mean conversations were had & the product was withdrawn. Why didn't they tell you? Also why hasn't The Austrian King of Pez ever run out of anything. Year after year after year after year the same no feet dispensers & they never seem to run out. I'm just saying, he never runs out. He started about 4 years before me, yet I sold out of over 1,000,000 dispensers some of which I had over 5,000 each. I'm just saying. REALLY! Fun Factoid #22. The Raba. This is info Scott would have killed for. On every trip to Hungary, I used to stay at The Raba Hotel (great espresso) in the town of Gyor. I loved that town, if you get off the highway at the border it is about a 25 minute drive east. Nice hotel nice people & only a short walk away in the middle of town, a pizza Hut & a McDonald's. The hotel & the Pizza Hut got to know me pretty good, even if they did think I was a bit eccentric. You see Gyor is the town Gyoroplaste the injection molding company is located in. Along with the yellow house which is headquarters for all things east concerning pez corp. I had to keep a low profile. Again those pesky rules, because it seemed everybody from pez knew what I looked like. The best & most relaxing time I had traveling were at the Raba, that I miss. I also read a lot of good books at the Raba. If you added up all the time I spent at the Raba it would come out to about 10 months. In the beginning I  used to stay in hotels of the countries I was in, but after the first 10 or so trips I always stayed at the Raba. I used the Raba as my home base. Even if going to Slovenia for an overnight, I kept my room & returned to Gyor. You could easily day trip anywhere else Viena, Linz etc. Gyor was a nice quiet town where people pretty much minded there own business, plus after a bit they got used to me & what I was doing. It became normal to them, any questions they had, they had long answered in there own mind. It worked so why break in a new hotel. Most people in Hungary in the mid 90s were on the hustle trying to earn, so actually I fit right in. Fun Factoid #23. Planes. I usually flew delta & I flew a lot. Delta worked for the process so I didn't mess with it. You see whenever I found something that worked (like the Raba & Cincinnati) & reduced how tricky the whole thing was, I just stuck with it. What you may not appreciate is that I am a bit of a nervous flier & towards the end a downright nervous flier. As it seemed over the years to get worse not better. I always avoided window seats because you are not allowed to keep the shade down at all times & looking out the window played into my uncomfortableness with heights. So I always tried for an isle seat, so using the facilities was when I wanted. Plus it guaranteed on at least one side nobody would be seated next to me & it made it more like a room than a plane. With a window seat you can't avoid the idea that you are in a plane way up high. Fun Factoid #24. Borders part 1. Canada to US. Borders are tricky & always require Tums. For Canada I always used Port Huron everywhere else was harder. That said I got hung up there too more than once. Once they didn't want to let me in at all, finally they said we will let the pez dispensers go, but the flix no. Ok what do I do. We don't care if you put them on the sidewalk back in Canada but that's where you are going back to. Heck we shouldn't even let you bring in the pez dispensers. You see borders quite often depended on who you got so when you found a method that reduced the odds you stuck with it. So back to Canada I went, where I promptly put about 50 cases of flix on the sidewalk & never tried to bring flix in again. Fun Factoid #24. Borders part 2. Hungary to Austria. This border got better over the years but early on it could be tricky. A car filled to the gills with duffel bags, well I guess that is not just your luggage. Most of the time my ticket for a flight out of Vienna in 2 hours was enough. Sometimes a bill of sale was required. OTHERS NOTHING WAS ENOUGH. You would have to take out the bags open them, then pay a fee/ bond on the items. That bond was usually redeemable at the airport. After once having people at the Budapest airport try to confiscate the duffel bags & another time having to fight with customs people in Vienna over the bond. I just preferred to slide through the border. The Budapest thing, next day different people & I slid through. So never flew out of Budapest again only Vienna it worked. The fight with customs Delta  calmed everybody down & I slid through, always flew Delta from then on. So even though the border of Hungary to Austria was a stomach churner it was still the best way. Fun Factoid #24. Borders part 3. Europe to US. This was the worst border of all & had a very steep learning curve. It got better after a bit cause the people there got to know me. I was, oh yeah he is that guy who brings pez dispensers in. Still though all my ducks had to be in a row again Delta helped. Dispensers had to have country of origin on them or bagged MADE IN HUNGARY. There was a specific customs # that smoothed the way, believe it or not it translated to plastic tube. I had to have a bill of sale & if I could maneuver myself into user friendly lines. All in all it was always a crap shoot, because no matter what border if you got the wrong official it could be a nightmare. You always wanted to avoid officials over thinking it, that's always where the problems started. Once I learned I always flew into Cincinnati on Delta, it worked. Patterns could be the enemy concerning Scott, but for moving dispensers around patterns were good because people got used to you, they resolved all there questions & you were just that weird guy who sold zep dispensers. So the Raba, Delta & Cincinnati, don't mess with what works. Oh yeah & one more thing I always avoided sleep the night before arriving into Cincinnati, part necessity, part ritual & if you looked tired & haggard things always seemed to go smoother. People are kind by nature & tend not want to add to the burden of someone who appears to be wore out. For freight Grand Rapids never Detroit for anything or purpose, Detroit has a serious problem with over thinking things. Two more thing about duffel bags. I never permanently lost my luggage. It got lost a lot & I mean really a lot, but it always found its way home. Actually some of my best experiences with Cincinnati or New york was when my luggage got lost, because the airline worked overtime to clear it & get it to you. I loved it when my luggage got lost, those were peaceful relaxing days. Second thing. The first two duffel bags are or were free, the other 3 cost approx $150.00 each to fly & $20.00 to $25.00 to get from the curb to check in at the airport in Vienna. Fun Factoid #25. Was it all legal. My own brother said it was not. You know I don't really know. It has been 10 years so it really does not matter. It was tricky, as most the time I was operating in very gray areas. Did people I bought from give all the money to Pez corp, sometimes but it was rare. Did they give part of the money to the company, sometimes but not always. Did some steal the product, yes I believe they did. Most odd color variation in collections today did not have corporate approval to be sold. Even the black Santas were technically stolen as corporate did not & never would have allowed there release. So technically every color variation not mass produced for sale by corp is a stolen dispenser. As are many rare dispensers still sold today. When a guy makes a special piece & sells it into the hobby it is a stolen item. When someone finds or found a group or boxes of no feet dispensers & sells them to dealers. Do you think corporate sanctioned it, not very likely. One individual high up maybe, but it was not a corporate decision so it was stolen. But here's the deal. Pez corp has always been a funny company. US was owned by Austria through a drop box for years & may still be. The company itself & to many high up people have been doing a lot of dicey things for about 20 years. So many people who operate injection molding machines, manage injection facilities, run warehouses, head division or at corp have done hinky things that nobody says anything. Top to bottom enough people have sold dispensers without full corporate approval that nobody wants to legally open that can of worms. Yes some small fish are fired or pursued, but not anyone who knows where the bodies are buried. So as long as they get there cut or can't say anything cause you are aware of there adventures they look the other way or handle it a different way. As Scott was handle for becoming to powerful & hacking them off & being one of  the very few honest guys. As they handled the problem that was me. The company itself has done some pretty dicey things. The heck you say. Well for example the original King Louie, Balloo, Mowgli, Dalmation, Pooh, Thumper, Chip, Wyle, Road Runner, Merlin & Dumbo. The company quit production for America so they stopped paying royalties for the characters. What you may not know is when copyrights are not renewed a brief limited window exists for the remaining production to be sold. Well these characters were sold for years areas east of Austria, and years later I was sold some very fresh inventory of Dumbo & Road Runner. That's why I say gray area, because technically items are stolen, but if the company does not legally pursue it. Legally it is not. That omission of action on there part is a passive approval or acknowledgment of the activity. So things are handled different ways. For those of us who buy or bought dispensers in this gray complicated world. It is figured we will keep the secrets because if we don't we will be cut off, no more soup for you. Fun Factoid #26. The Big Question #1. If you had it to do over, what would you do different? The obvious answer is that I would not have created the colors & skipped the color wars. Here's the not so obvious answer. I would have confined what I bought & sold to just pez dispensers. No rings, pins, paper items, lights, plates, banks, cars, yo yos, inflatables, skateboards etc. None of it. Only actual pez dispensers. Everything else was just a money drain with little if any profit. Every time I diverted capital from dispensers to other items, it slowed roll over & momentum. It was like making a wrong turn & losing 20 minutes to a half hour on a trip. Time just wasted or in this case, money waisted. Two things kept diverting me from my goal. ONE. I have a creative side. I love the creative process. TWO. I felt I needed all that other stuff to flesh things out, have a better presentation. With time, looking back I now realize all that stuff was just a big waste of time & money. I should have just stuck to the core project Pez dispensers. In the end it would have been a leaner but more profitable project. Yes the colors were a big mistake all at once. Though of equal importance & probably proportion were the non pez dispenser items. My guess is I probably diverted a total of $250,000.00 over the years on pez items that were not dispensers. The smarter thing would have been to leave that money in the core project & keep rolling it over. All that stuff just acted like a money drain. The Big Question #2.  If you write this whole story here & all the Pez collectors read it for free. Why would anyone publish it as a book or buy it? The answer is, if only pez collectors are going to find this story interesting. I do not have a book. Currently my guess is way less than 5,000 people collect Pez & 5,000 sales of a book is dead on arrival. For this book to even approach being profitable or a good seller my guess is 250,000 to 500,000 copies would need to be sold. Here is the project the way I see it, if it is ever going to happen. Currently this listing has 3600 views & 99 watchers. For this listing to perform properly I need the view to get closer 250,000 on ebay. This would be the first leg going viral on just ebay. Next I would need it to go viral on the internet itself pushing views on ebay to closer to a million. Then possibly a cable news outlet would report on it pushing views up even more. Then & only then do I think that the higher degree of visibility could possibly interest a book publisher. Then it is Oprah time for me in a Hawaiian shirt, baggy jeans & Pink Bunny Slippers. Yes I would indeed wear Pink Bunny Slippers at any promotion for a book. I would even wear my teeth. You don't know me nowadays so just take my word, wearing my teeth is a big deal. With the beard & mustache nobody can tell anyway, so why bother. The dogs don't seem to care at all. When I go somewhere, which is maybe once every few months. Kathy always says, "You got your teeth in". Though for Oprah if she preferred I would leave them out. I could always ask I suppose, "Teeth in or teeth out". Here is what I learned from the whole Pez thing. Don't let the event in your life or project change you. Be who you are no matter who you are with or in front of. Be a miser, take the money home, all of the money. Live as modestly as you can, as no project or event lasts forever. Win a million it makes you crazy. You have to earn a million & lose it so you know how to handle it the second time. Has Pez Corporation lost it's way. The collector point of view is that this big international candy company is this really cool place that makes adorable odd candy dispensers, and you love them. My question is, Do they love you back?  Or Is this a case of unrequited love? Are you as a collector in a relationship with someone who takes & takes, but never gives anything in return? Collectors, Conventions, Newsletters, Blogs, Chat areas, Books, Price Guides & Dealers. As this company really does not advertise, as long as you are promoting PEZ for free, Pez Corp loves you. Cross them with words or heaven forbid try to earn some money & you quickly become personna non gratta. It is my opinion that collectors are in a very one sided relationship with Pez corp & even further are projecting onto it a false vision of what it really is. Don't take just my experience of losing $250,000.00 on an agreement that Both US & Europe went back on by copying What was sold as exclusive. Ask Keith who lost $25,000.00 dealing with Pez Corp. Ask Joe & Dave who lost there investment on the trucks when there exclusive product was copied. Ask Gary who is being sued By Pez Corp after approx 15 years of promoting Pez for free. Ask the Queen of Austria who says she has some really terrific ideas for dispensers, but won't mention them to Pez Corp out of fear the ideas would be stolen or if she did them, copied. Ask the cookie jar guys what they went through? What about the mail away items you paid $5.00 & $10.00 each for that were soon mysteriously being sold at Dollar stores. These are just the few cases that come to me off the top of my head. *** Bubble Boy. Bubble boy was an abandoned project. I was told by Ljuba in Ormoz that it had been designed for a dispenser to dispense bubble gum For Hubba Bubba or somebody. The deal fell through so he was abandoned. Ljuba & Marcos gave Josh & I/me each one. Once home while selling some of the pink & lavender Bunnies The Black Santas & Bubble boy came up. At the time there was this collector who was kinda obnoxious with his money. This guy would beat you with crazy amounts of money till you submitted. I had already decided to let the Black Santa go for around $500.00 but was very reluctant to let Bubble boy go. So this collector says, "Oh & I guess if I offer you $2,000.00 for him you are gonna say no". Well Josh was in collage at the time & paying for it Himself (he graduated with no debt, on a 4 year degree). Josh not being stupid said "if this guy is crazy enough to offer $2,000.00 for 1 dispenser, I am not so stupid that I won't take it". After Josh said yes, the guy chilled the offer to $1,000.00. Well that is still a lot of money to a poor collage student & he took it. *** After Josh sold his Sue Sternfeld contacted me & offered $800 to $1,000.00 for mine. I think we settled on closer to $800 & my Bubble boy was also gone. Hearing of all this David W. & the King of Austria who both had a dozen or so started selling there's. If I remember right the King was getting about $750 each for his. This is where Pez Corp comes in. Hearing that Bubble boy was bringing in this kind of money & causing such a stir. They decided he was not such a crap dispenser after all, so into mass production he went. Causing very hefty investments by approx 50 collectors to be wiped out. This should have been my warning to later not do the colors but I was smitten & trusted that if a promise was given it would be kept. The old scorpion & the river fable comes to mind. As with the scorpion, Pez Corp will bite you if it is in there interest to do so. *** Bubble Boy went on from his humble beginnings of a lost boy nobody except Marcos loved, as only a father can. To being released in figuratively/or metaphorically every color imaginable & Crystals. My apologies but you have me to thank for all of this: his resurrection from the dead, That he was done in so many colors, as this occurred after the Color Wars and the Crystals. **** The Crystallization of Pez Dispensers. The Crystals including the name all started with a conversation between German Andre & me. While discussing the proposed color project I asked Andre if it would be possible to use clear plastic for the heads of Pez dispensers. After checking with Pez Corp he said it was not possible as the technique would be problematic. Nothing more was said till later in the color project, when Andre said " Hey remember that idea you had for Crystals, Well I have about 5,000 for you"  in the Ghosts & I think it was the animals. As was talked about these early Crystals sometimes had small bubbles in the clear plastic, which had been one of the reasons my idea was originally rejected. *** On reflection I now realize That I was used as a testing ground for my own ideas to be later mass produced. A proving ground for perfecting the process & viability of these dispensers. As with Bubble boy I brought the product to the market place & proved it was viable. Then Pez Corp after no concept or development costs (as I paid for both many times over with cost per dispenser & advertising) took the ball & ran with it. So sorry but yes you have me to blame for the proliferation of colors in Crystals & solids in Pez dispensers. So to the Queen of Austria, I never really answered your question. I hope these stories about Bubble boy, The colors & the Crystals (they even took the name) helps & gives you some guidence. All this stuff is meant as the tease. If I ever hope to sell this as a book or a movie, I'm gonna have to show some leg. Who slept with who metaphorically speaking. And there was a lot of canoodling that went on. So from time to time, I will be adding to this. Thanks for viewing. *********          Other stories & personal notes.          ********** I don't think that I ever told you my hitch hiking story, from when I was in the Marine Corp. I decided one weekend to hitch hike my way home to see my girlfriend. A rather normal thing, except on the way back to Quantico Virginia I was arrested for hitch hiking on the Ohio turnpike. I spent the next 30 days in county jail because I had also forgotten to get permission from the Marines to go home. In short I did not have a pass. Because I was detached for schooling at an army base it took the Marines a month to realize I was gone. While in county lockup because I was technically AWOL (absent without leave) they kept me in Maximum security. This arrangement was fine with me as I had no desire to be in with the general population. So I read books & slept, until a mass murderer or some kind of murderer showed up. The jail needed my cell to house him. So off to general population they sent me. Not pleased at all with this turn of events, I took my first opportunity to object. When meal time rolled around I took the tin tray of food being handed to me through the bars & tossed it on the guard. Food fights on TV are a source of humor, in county lockup not so much. I was placed in the hole. The hole in this jail was a 4 foot by 4 foot metal closet type cell with a small metal stool in the middle fixed to the floor. After a few hours the guard came by & said we will let you out if you promise to behave. I asked him if I could go back to maximum security. He said nope general population. I told him I liked the hole just fine, after all it was a private room. For days they kept asking & I just told them I liked it in the hole. Finally after about 4 days the mass murderer was transferred out of county, so the hitch hiker was moved from the hole back to maximum security. I just thought you might enjoy the story. Vaguely related to nothing. The horse poo road. Back when I first started writing about all of this on the Pez Community Forum, before everything I wrote had to be approved.  I was telling everybody about the horse poo road project. About 3 years ago I used horse poo to raise the level of the trail through a section of the woods that kept flooding. Kathy having 7 to 8 horses living here provides a never ending supply of poo. Having to put said poo somewhere, I decided to raise a 30 foot long section by a foot or two. At this point I would like to report to the Pez Community Forum, the horse poo road is completed & a success. By the the way, no stimulus dollars were used on this project & one job was saved or created on this stretch of road repair. The new poo project. Currently the horse poo is being used to create a bed in preparation for what I believe are the coming Pumpkin Wars. Last year my granddaughter & I raised a pretty good size pumpkin. It took two people to lift it. This started the pumpkin project. Well Josh caught wind of what we were doing, so he & his son are now planning a pumpkin patch of there own. This is sure to escalate into the Great Pumpkin Wars of 2010. I am currently prepping a new pumpkin patch 8 times the size of last years, with my secret weapon. Four inches of horse poo on every inch of the patch. We'll just see who grows the biggest pumpkin next year for Halloween. My granddaughter wants one big enough to hide in on Halloween night. So when her friends say trick or treat at the door, she can say boo from inside the pumpkin. Please e-mail us with any questions BORSMENTA@MSN.COM SJ GLEW 5611 LEHMAN RD DEWITT MI 48820-9151