A recent flea market adventure…

(Retelling this story from social media, to put it somewhere a little more static.)

Our local flea market just had its second weekend of the year, and almost immediately upon arriving, I came across this fella…

A ventriloquist dummy of Paul Winchell's Jerry Mahoney in its oriignal box sits on a flea market table next to an electric guitar, with green grass in the background.
A ventriloquist dummy of Paul Winchell’s Jerry Mahoney in its oriignal box sits on a table next to an electric guitar, with green grass in the background. Jerry has white skin, red hair, and red lips. He is wearing a light orange suit jacket, a red bow tie, darker orange pants, and brown shoes. His eyes, which look black in this picture, are looking all the way toward the right. The box is weathered cardboard, with a green section on the end of the box that says “Paul Winchell’s NEW” on the top half. The electric guitar is blue and white, sitting on a maroon soft case.

For the uninitiated (and those who can’t read the original box he’s sitting in), this is Paul Winchell’s Jerry Mahoney. I’d never seen one of these anywhere but in one of the first Sears Wish Books I’d looked at (though by that point, the Charlie McCarthy and Jerry ventriloquist dummies they sold were not as well-constructed as this one).Now, I don’t actually collect ventriloquist dummies, but I have a friend who is a huge fan, so I messaged him immediately with this picture, to see if he was interested. As it turns out, he was, and I managed to facilitate a PayPal deal between my friend and the seller, which was pretty cool (I do like the future sometimes…).

As the seller was carefully laying Jerry in his box, there was something of a bittersweet moment. The dealer wistfully said “So long, pal…” to Jerry (perhaps hinting that he’s had Jerry since he was a kid, but I didn’t ask). Without missing a beat, Jerry responded, “So long, asshole!”

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3 thoughts on “A recent flea market adventure…”

  1. I'm pretty sure I made the first comment on Scott Crawford on Cards so I'm pretty jazzed to be first here too. Curious to see what you come up with here!

  3. Oh man. You'd have to kick down a 89UD Griffey or 85D Gooden to let Jerry sit shotgun in my car. That dummy freaks me out.

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