Pop Culture League Challenge: Buying Blind

     Blind buys irritate me, but I can't seem to stop taking chances-from the $.25 gumball styled machines in the front of the big box stores to the fancy blind packed collectibles of now, it's very tantalizing. That drop of a quarter to win the expensive prize, only to discover you won... a ball of lint, basically. Or Cereal prizes, or Cracker-Jack Prizes. I've done them all.

     The expression is "Pig in a Poke"- you buy something sight unseen and hope it is what you wanted.

     So the Gumball style machines are where I think I started on this. I remember clearly my middle school library had machines that held blocky miniature football helmets or erasers shaped like spaceships and I still think that was odd. The Woolco or K-mart had a machine with replica rockets which were essentially a cardboard tube with a decal, a nose section and an engine section. I loved those.

     I don't really remember cereal prizes that I wanted, except maybe the cars from Wacky Races. I remember holding onto a Cracker-Jack toy for years that was a purple, flat, roundish six-legged bug with hex-nuts for eyes(as I recall it). Nowadays what you get in Cracker-Jacks is a temporary tattoo-something ephemeral and fleeting. The aftertaste of the stale caramel popcorn lasts longer. And yes, I realize I have just dealt myself another "old man card" by my use of the word "nowadays".

     The most recent Blind items I have dug into were the Minecraft Mini-figures. With the addition of a hot wheels minecart. I love it!

 and the Minions blind bags from MegaBlocks.

Proudly serving their new Big bad Guy!

and messing with his phone...

I picked a few of the blind-bagged Transformers 30th anniversary Chibi styled figured, but after my third TF Prime Optimus, they lost their shine a bit. My luck ain't that hot on those.

    Funny story- My local Walmart has blind-packed DC Bombshells.

I happened to notice that someone had meticulously opened every can and checked the contents looking for(I assume) Harley Quinn because she was not present-Yes, I looked, too. Who wouldn't? Anyway, what I did find, and bring to the managers attention were the three empty containers-someone had walked off with the figures and left the cans for another (unwary) person to buy. I pictured the mess for Walmart customer service and that luckless person and did my good deed for the day.

Other Blind Buyers

• Last Hometown makes a "case" for blind bags
• Green Plastic Squirt Gun shows his many and varied entries
• As does Alexis' Universe
• 20 years before 2000 found Garbage Pail Kids at Dollar Tree
• The Harvey Mercheum loves Lego bags
• GI Jigsaw emptied his wallet on Funko
• Toy-Break likes blind stuff even less than I do. 
• Copyright 1984 talks of MegaBlocks and cheaters
• The Toy Box discusses a hot topic of woe
• Another F Blog shares vintage stuff with us
• Erik Johnson Illustrator was a sighted witness to blind buying
• Calvins Canadian Cave of Cool hates blind bags enough for Toy-Break and me Combined
• AEIOUWhy struck it lucky with his most wanted
• and Marc Allie digs trading cards