Island of the Misfit Toys

Over the past month I have managed to add two different cool Durham Bulls giveaways to my collection.  I picked up both items at a significant discount due to the fact that both items had some imperfections.  They arrived at my house and were set on the coffee table in my baseball card room away from the rest of my bobbleheads which are displayed on shelves.  My kindergarten son was playing in my baseball card room the one morning and equated the two broken items with the Island of Misfit Toys from the Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer movie.

Seems about right.  First, here is what I started out with when the Bill Evers statue and Jeremy Hellickson bobble head arrived at my house.  Let's start with the Bill Evers.  

The Bulls have been fortunate with their leadership on the field and Evers was a huge part of their success.  This item was a giveaway to celebrate the team's back to back International League titles in 2002 and 2003.  Those teams were anchored by players like Carl Crawford, Rocco Baldelli, Johnny Gomes, and current Bulls manager Jared Sandberg.  The statue part of Evers was actually in pretty good shape.  All the body parts are attached and there were no major flaws with the paint or finish being scrapped off.  Here's a glance at the back of the statue.   

The real problem with the Bill Evers giveaway was the statue.  Their is a little guy who sits on top of the trophy.  It came in the packaging, but was just not attached.  It is a small piece, so I had my doubts that this could be repaired.  For the price I paid for the item is was a good gamble.

The Hellickson bobble was just simply missing it's head.  While I was not a resident of Durham at the time of the Evers statue, I did live here during at the time the Hellickson was given away.  I even had a ticket plan with the Bulls that summer, so I should have ended up with this item.  My son arrived a little earlier than expected that summer, so Bulls tickets kind of went by the wayside.  Friends enjoyed the ticket and the bobblehead, but I knew I would end up stumbling across one sooner or later.  

Both the head and body of the Hellickson are in really good shape, but they are just separated.  I was pretty sure that I could figure out a way to repair both items.  I was patient, found collectors who had some experience collecting and fixing bobbleheads, and finally took action this weekend.  While Sally Strouthers once offered people a way to get a degree in gun repair, there is apparently no bobblehead repair program.  

Here was my final product.  Hellickson first with his head attached.  Looks like a really nice item.  

I also managed to put the Bill Evers statue together, but there was a little bit of a complication with that item.  Nothing that is making me regret it's presence in my house, but it has a design flaw.  The statue is still the same and I managed to fix up the Governors Cup trophy.    

Okay, so here's the problem with this statue.  First, the statue weighs less than the trophy which makes the item really top heavy and unstable.  The other problem is the hands of Evers on the statue....

The hands on the statue slant downward which makes it really hard to get the trophy to rest in his hands.  I could super glue the statue to the figurine, but I am not going to go there.  For the moment I will find I nice spot for them on my shelf.