The Earth toy mall...what happened?
- Thread starter Rock
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Yeah I noticed that a few months ago. They just do cases now. Their site seems to be the same business as Collectingwarehouse.com. Same items, stock photos, prices and chat system. Wholesalecases.com closed shop and directs all shoppers to Collectingwarehouse.com. Interesting.
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The Earth closed their shop doors in 2008 and went completely online, they still had a lot of cool stuff in their inventory on the site for a few years including a great coin pre prod find but gradually it all seemed to dry up and a lot of the other toy line sections on the site vanished and before long it just turned into more of a collecting supplies store 
Bit sad really as they did indeed unearth (no pun intended) some amazing items over the years and their reputation and finds are a huge part of Vintage Star Wars collecting history.
Bit sad really as they did indeed unearth (no pun intended) some amazing items over the years and their reputation and finds are a huge part of Vintage Star Wars collecting history.
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My wife and I met in 1998 and she quickly learned about my love of Star Wars and that I collected the vintage toys. The following Christmas, to my complete shock she gave me a minty fresh, boxed Speeder Bike. Now this was back before the ebay boom and as far as I could tell from my own little bubble, there weren't a lot of places to pick up old Star Wars toys, let alone boxed items, outside of the random garage sale. Long story short she tells me about this store close to her hometown that had all these old toys in the box and that I should check it out sometime. Of course it was The Earth. We ended up settling down in Cincinnati, just about 10 minutes away from the store. I spent many days after work sifting through the loose bins and grabbing a MOC here and there. Even if you weren't buying it was just great to look around. A tiny shop, stuffed to the gills with toys that would just bring back all kinds of memories. The people were great and helpful, always had smiles on their faces. Kathy I think her name was, seemed to always be there and was really nice to deal with.The Earth closed their shop doors in 2008 and went completely online, they still had a lot of cool stuff in their inventory on the site for a few years including a great coin pre prod find but gradually it all seemed to dry up and a lot of the other toy line sections on the site vanished and before long it just turned into more of a collecting supplies store
Bit sad really as they did indeed unearth (no pun intended) some amazing items over the years and their reputation and finds are a huge part of Vintage Star Wars collecting history.
As Joe stated they did close up their brick & mortar a few years ago. I remember driving up, parking my car on the street and walking up to the front door when I saw the sign that they had closed up shop. That was a disappointing day for sure. I never dealt with them when they went online as I kind of got out of collecting around that time. Sad to hear that it seems they're basically out of the game these days.
If you never had a chance to visit their store, it was a pretty awesome place. You always left there feeling good.
Cheers!
Mike
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I was there for the opening. Same weekend as the Men Behind the Masks convention in Cincy, IIRC. They had the Star Wars Hummer parked inside the store, and Kenny Baker was walking around. And I didn't have a clue about anything beyond POTF2 junk and absolutely could not appreciate anything they had for sale.
i have bought several prototype items from them throughout the years , but that was always online. they where all non-SW related .
-james
-james
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I wish I had made it over to visit, I only really heard about them just before the shop closed but have bought a few items from their website since, there was a nice thread posted here with some pictures of the shops final days, check it out:
http://forum.rebelscum.com/t1009229/
http://forum.rebelscum.com/t1009229/
That's right, I forgot about that. It was parked in the window on the left when you walked in. I think they eventually converted that space to an office/cubicle. I always wondered how they got the Hummer in there in the first place.
Cheers!
Mike
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The Earth scheduled their grand opening the weekend of the Sci Fi Expo in Dec 1997. That's where lots of newsgroup folks met for the first time. The grand opening was more of a catered party just to establish their existence because most of the cases were pretty empty. Luckily a couple of people took photos that night.
In these few photos you can see the likes of Bill Cable, myself, Chris Maybury, Chris Fawcett, Dan Bradley, Ron Salvatore, Rob Amantea, Alex Bickmore, Andrew McGinley, Steve Hoffmann, John Wooten, Kirsten Schaulin (sp?), and Gary Tucker. Plus a few OSWCC folks that Bill might remember.
http://forum.rebelscum.com/photogallery/data/500/scan0001261.jpg
http://forum.rebelscum.com/photogallery/data/500/scan0005151.jpg
http://forum.rebelscum.com/photogallery/data/500/scan0003121.jpg
Here's an old webpage done by Rebelscum's Chris Holoka of the convention itself. This was pre-Rebelscum as evidenced by his link to Philip's old "wiseacres" site, the predecessor to RS. Philip was there as well.
Science Fiction Exposition
It's amazing the link to the convention itself still works! Usually this stuff disappears into the aether of the internet forever.
Cincinnati Sci Fi Expo Celebrating the 20th Anniversary of Star Wars
What an awesome weekend that was. Some of us even hit up a few Kenner leads to boot. Plus we hit Trader's World and visited Don Gibbs' famous booth there.
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It is uber-cool that they kept that site live all this time.
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Those photos are great, thanks for posting Chris!
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Never made it to the Earth's retail store, but I remember they had the Star Wars Hummer displayed at their booth at the Toy Expo in Fort Washington PA in October 1997.
I can identify a couple other folks in that first linked photo. Christine Getrost is the gal at the far left with the curly hair. The younger kid is named Ski but his last name eludes me. Both were OSWCC members. Christine still attends an OSWCC meeting now and then. Olden times...
I loved ETM. They were my default first stop for any loose vintage Star Wars. I always felt like I got slightly higher quality pieces from them than Brian's Toys... and generally for a slightly better price. The accessories were nice too.
I now have some Ebay sellers I trust, or just get lucky with auctions... but I miss the days of having that one, dependable dealer.
I now have some Ebay sellers I trust, or just get lucky with auctions... but I miss the days of having that one, dependable dealer.
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Wow, that was a long time ago. I can't believe the link to the show still works.
I'm wearing my infamous Rice Crispies hat.