G.I. Joe VAMP 10% Off at Bargaintown in 1982
Going page by page by page through newspaper of the eighties in search of Hasbro’s G.I. Joe toys sometimes leads to unusual discoveries. For example, this December 23, 1983 Bargaintown ad where the VAMP jeep is shown but not mentioned by name. As you can see, without any text identifying G.I. Joe in this ad there was only one way to find this: A dedicated and focused search. I may just go insane by the time I finish this project.
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- “Stars of the season” in 1985 (battlegrip.com)
- Hasbro and M.A.S.K. (battlegrip.com)
- “American Defense” Only at K-Mart in 1987! (battlegrip.com)
That’s why I quit once I”ve found one decent version of each figure or vehicle in newspaper ad line art. For GI Joe ’82 there’s only one or two ads you need to collect that have the bulk of all the figures and vehicles (if all you want is the line art). Sears and JC Penney ran some great ones on the week of black Friday in ’82 that made extensive use of line art and covered most everything from the line. I am sure you’ve already figured out by now that the best time of year for newspaper ads was the two weeks starting with Black Friday of any given year.
I’m also sure you’ve figured out that the GI Joe line art is derived from the ’82 Hasbro Toy Fair catalog. If you compare the art in the ads to the photography in the toyfair catalog you’ll see they match up exactly. You probably already know by now where to get scans of the catalog (PlaidStallions).
This is my collection of GI Joe ads from ’82:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BxaN67oIwYWacENJLUJYWWI0V0k
The ones titled 82_k25nov_jcpenney and 82_K25nov_sears are the two I am talking about that have pretty much all the line art from the line.