Looking back at my past videos it’s been a good ten months since my first visit to Doncaster, and this time I took @BlueHToys with me and of course said hello to @CosmicToys both of whom advised me on purchases! A haul video will follow, but last time I didn’t take footage inside and so I’ve gone the other way here to give you an idea of just how big this event and the venue actually are should you be thinking about going. Enjoy!
So it is the 30th of December 2023 and Mr Mark and I have decided to go to donc cter race course for within Doncaster race course there is a toy Fairing and um that was kind of what we aimed for um I dragged myself out of bed
That was all right though it was a wet and rainy day but we didn’t get too wet whilst we were waiting so that was good and we queued a little bit more to get in but actually we got in pretty quickly um In fairness to them you know the
Queue was getting longer as we were waiting hard to tell how many people were already in there but anyway we were sort of trumping at the bit to get in and uh eventually in we got of course so what I’ve tried to do with the
Video section here is is just do a sort of complete walk through of of the entire site and it is big I didn’t even attempt this last time I was there because last time I was there I only had a couple of hours um really you
Know because it took me so long to find the place Park up get in but there’s easy parking and free parking just outside it which was a dole um and we just crossed the road got in the queue went straight in having having paid our way in
Um and I’ve started hearing sort of one far corner of the sort of the main area and as you can see it’s just filled the brim with um you know cars all sorts of stuff donc cast is nice in the sense that it’s got a really good range
Of tables um there are tables that are sort of you know dedicated Railway type tables if that’s your thing there are Comics um but there is a lot of more sort of modern stuff or if you like more sort of modern retro stuff if that makes sense
So you might C caught a little glimpse of some Terra Hawks items there um but also a lot of models um either of Kit models or you know pre-made models and so on just saw some telletubbies nice there is you know anything and everything you can imagine has a home
Here and I’ve actually slowed down the speed of this walk through to 60% because I was charging along because I was conscious of the fact that I was going to run out recording room on my phone if I didn’t get M skates on um so what I’ve done is I brought the speed
Down a bit to try and reduce your your sort of motion sickness factor and I may not talk through all of this it’s going to take a good sort of 20 minutes but I want you to try and get a sense of just how much stock is actually brought into
This place for this event um if you go early bird then you can get in about a couple of hours before everyone else and just have a really good look around and you know have a sort of pick at what’s there and I think that a lot of um trade
To trade deals get done during that period for obvious reasons but you know just trying to show you here just you know the sorts of range of stuff that these stalls are all carrying so you know we we’ve had some Lego we’ve had trains we’ve had die
Cars um it’s quite a different feel to Bolton um I was chatting to Mark about this and it’s Bolton is a there are still a lot of stools at Bolton but it’s a slightly different field to it there there aren’t quite so many modern toys in Bolton I think it’s
Fair to say um whereas I’ve now got a little bit more of a feel for D this only second second time I’ve been but I had more time today I I still didn’t get around it all until about halfast 1 because I was stopping to chat to people which is one of the
Advantages um you know so I was chatting Thunderbirds and stuff with people and all sorts of stuff um and it’s just interesting to do that because obviously these are very very knowledgeable people I had a very long chat about U 31 with a very nice gentleman um and it’s quite
Interesting in the sense that a lot of the the people who are selling here do not have um cards you can take away with you so you know if you want to be able to buy from these guys you have to really make the effort to get there uh
Just seen Tracy Island if I see any more of those I’m probably going to have them coming out of my ears um it’s a sort of Star Trek model there um but you know anything and everything is represented here and it does go quite old you know
You can find some really really old stuff there was some uh Johnny 7 stuff that I saw and I thought of Mark when I when I spotted that um um there’s stuff like $6 million man as well um all sorts of things that will catch your eye and I
Saw so much stuff that I did not come away with and that’s not just a money thing Al obviously you know that is a factor um it’s also just the simple fact jr21 Thunderbird I just spotted now I know what they look like um there’s the
Sort of the the whole issue with just needing to make the choice and then trying to remember where it is on the floor to go back to it so it’s it’s one of those things where if you have a list it’s helpful to have the list with you I think because
You you’re going to need it if you want to really sort of uh address it now look who’s here take it say hello Mark hello check in the car going to and from B um so yeah I mean you know I I often go into these with a couple of things I
Want to get and I did get a couple of things that I meant to get but I also of course inevitably tripped across a few pieces where I just thought I have not seen that before I will probably not see that ever again therefore I should really get it now and that’s where
Things get trickier because then you sort of think to yourself well should I wait should I not wait what else might I see and then of course if you like me you end up running around like a silly beggar in the last half an hour when everyone’s just starting to pack up and
They do start to pack up a little bit before the closing time of the show because of course they want to get away at the end um and they’ve got a lot to pack away and it probably took them like an hour to set up in the first place so
You know bear that in mind that you’ve got to get there in good time if you want to see everything that’s just the way of it um so I obviously I will do a separate video on what I actually ended up picking up some of which were was
Intentional some of it not so much um another interesting thing that I discovered today which maybe I sort of already half knew is that some of the the people who are selling here are not really selling as a business they are there selling sort of surplus elements of Their Own Private
Collections because anyone can get a table here you know you just pay for your table and then you’ve got your table for the day that’s it um so it’s it is a way to sort of you know if you had lots of spares or something and you
Didn’t know any other way to do it and you didn’t fancy paying um you know auction house prices and so on you could get yourself a table get yourself set up and sell s through that it’s it’s an option and as you can see you know there
Are all sorts of people selling in all sorts of manners you can have a really good rumage through lots and lots of boxes um you know and try and spot something and it was quite funny because I early doors I I spotted um an old
Corgi Bat Bike um in in a in a sort of f random5 pound box and so I passed that on to mark because Mark’s doing quite a few some bobs with his um Blue Harvest toys Channel at the moment to um you know to sort of uh do up some of these
Um the older B Vehicles so I thought he’d probably appreciate that one so I so i i s grabbed that but that was one of those classic examples where had I not taken a moment just to really sort of scan the box of stuff I wouldn’t have
Called that at all because I wasn’t looking for it for myself CU I’ve already got an example of it so you know it’s if there’s more than one of you I think that helps if there’s one of you who can look for something that the other person’s looking for that helps
Even more I mean there are lots and lots of things I see as I go around these um these tables where I sort of think oh I know who’d like that and then it’s question of running back and trying to find them and direct them in that
Direction but I mean even now I can see stuff on this footage that I didn’t notice whilst I was there it’s just it’s mindboggling how much there actually is to take in so I think it’s good to get to know the sort of people that are
Likely to carry the stuff that you want because otherwise I think it’s actually quite difficult sometimes to really track it down in the time that you’ve got available to you um I mean I suppose in a sense you know I’m kind of making the case here for for rocking up early
Doors and actually doing paying a bit extra to get in on the early bird because if you’ve never been here before and you want to have a really good look around that would probably give you the best chance of actually being able to kind of mentally take it all in see I’m
Not even out the main hall yet I’m about halfway through the length of this video I’m not even out with the main hall um assuming this is lined up right I quite like this stall here lots of DX lots of tre lot of space 1999 didn’t buying you
It but again it’s the sort of thing where I know that if I come back the OD are it’s going to be the same people because you know the people who go to Doncaster will be the people who go to Doncaster now that being said there’s more than one
Doncaster um ex you know exhibition during the year so you know whether or not they’re all there every single time I that I couldn’t swear to you but um you know it’s it’s possible it’s possible that that that is the case um and I’m quite sure that a lot of the the
Commercial sellers will tend to to turn up to everyone because they kind of shoot themselves in the foot if they didn’t um if everyone else is there you know um so quite a few of those this is the sort of the kind of Railway end of
Things I think it’s fair to say but again you know it’s not there is there is no rhyme and reason to it in this sense um you know anything can be anywhere um you just have to keep your eyes above you that’s a magic roundabout
Figure I just caught my eyes I was going around didn’t get it um but there are so many things to catch your eye um and off this main hall there are um I would there are a couple of little areas which are sort of off to
The side of it which aren’t perhaps as obvious but then there are two other bigger areas which which you can’t really miss but you have to kind of aim yourself at nice um dinky Thunderbird 2 luring on the top shelf on that stall there um so so as you can see you know
We’re getting into the getting into the more modern sort of um stocks here and I did I did I did chuckle to myself cuz I heard one that allowed go Pops at one point um in reference to Funko Pops of course which for me hold absolutely zero interest whatsoever I would hold my
Hands up to that one um but for him the most excited I’ve ever heard anybody about Funko Pops BL him so that that that made me chuckle um and you do hear some fascinating conversations as you wander around you just sort of pick up on little fragments and I was saying to
Mark that I heard somebody mention that they were sort of getting a sort of a starting train set for like you know £1,200 or something and you just think wow you know it’s there’s obviously a lot of money in that sort of Market if you’re an Enthusiast for that
Sort of thing and this is what this place does it just caters to all sorts of different enthusiasts you know um people with really deep deep knowledge of the sort of stuff that they’re looking for I could I heard people hunt that who were hunting for particular
Wagons and sort of particular variant of something in a different color they’ve not seen before um I picked up yet another sort of battle King that had a slightly different color interior and I stopped myself in the end because I just thought no that’s not a that’s not high
On my priority list right now but you know you do see all sorts um and you may be getting the impression from some of this footage that it was very busy and yes it was very busy at points and in certain places um there are some sort of
Bottlenecks um inevitably I suppose you know if there’s particularly popular stall um that’s attracted a lot of attention that can happen certainly um but generally speaking it all kind of moves fairly well you know um one thing I should mention here and um I I I no it’s a a card
Reader on on one of my sort of walk paths there because a lot of these places will only take cash um but equally there are some that will take cards so ideally you need both um you can get cash from the front I believe um but Mark was looking for cash machines
Locally as we were heading in and he couldn’t really immediately identify any so there is a slight question mark on that front that if you do arrive without any cash you may find yourself a little bit more limited than than you might like so it’s probably best to be bringing both with
You um oh Airwolf helicopter how do I missed that sorry um but this is exactly my point this this is actually one of the slightly frustrating um points of doing this exercise is that when you come to watch your footage back your your eye immediately spots stuff that
You didn’t because I mean I was literally on my feet from half1 through until nearly 3:00 and I had one can of drink and nothing to eat all that time so I was probably a little bit sort of giddy by the end of it it has to be said but this
Is the nature of the place you do kind of get swept up in it and carried away with it when you’re trying to desperately trying to take it all in and figure out where where the stuff that you’re interested in actually is sitting and again I think people do tend to come
Back to the same sorts of places CU there was a guy who stool I remember from last time which ironically I didn’t look at quite as much this time but he was in the same place so I think people probably try and get similar similar
Haunts if they can each time um I don’t know how the system works in terms of allocation but maybe you can ask for a particular spot I don’t know um somebody you might tell me in the comments perhaps you know what what the case is with
That um but that gives you an idea of how much more there is because that’s a sort of Gap so that that’s a side area there away from this main hall area that I’m looking at here and that is just you know there’s there’s a whole other section there with more tables more
Stuff um this guy still I like he’s got quite a few sort of um Star Wars stuff again there’s I am getting to that point now I think where I’m starting to look for what I would call light upgrades um I’ve I’ve got a couple of small Star Wars diecast items that are
Banged up to all heck because I’ve had them for years because they were mine um but of course this is the ideal sort of place to look for fresher examples of ones that you grew up with so if you’re trying to display them um you can actually get a better example of them
Than than you’ve got already you know for your display purposes obviously you can hang on to your Originals for sentimental reasons if nothing else um but it’s it’s sometimes nice I think just to be able to upgrade some of the stuff that you’ve actually got out so
That you can be sort of happier that you’ve got a sort of you know a better looking um display if that’s something that’s important to you obviously so I’m getting down now to the bottom corner of the main hall um so this is only the main hall um this is the bottom corner
Of it and so I’m going to do a jump cut in a second and bounce to um a different section so here we have that side area that I was talking to you about um and this is just the first one of them there were a couple of little sort of
Offshoots um so again lots of sort of um diecast toys here didn’t get a huge look at this section actually probably a section I should have devoted a bit more time to but I think there were some people still setting up when I when we arrived
Um so I didn’t see so much of this some really nice helmets in this section here um various bits and bits and Bobs not quite as heavily populated I mean it’s interesting because I mean in theory they could they could probably get more tables in there some couple
Nice be- Wings there on display um and he had some Star Wars cardbacks as well that Mark was interested in I believe at one point um and then we get into the first of these sort of secondary areas where there’s a little bit slightly heavier concentration of of cars and things here
As as you can see you know there’s more and more stuff here um but I think you just got to be prepared to put in the footwork I mean when I when I arrived there I sort of said to myself right I’m going to actually walk around and try
And take it all in this time and actually sort of get around everywhere but even then it took me a long time because you get chck to people so I wasn’t I didn’t actually start filming until later in the afternoon of course some Britain space stuff there
Um and so it was only sort of later on that I started filming like this so you know this is kind of mid-afternoon when I was just trying to catch people before they started fully packing up and you know and it was still going full swing
There was still a lot of a lot of stuff happening um and I was just trying to get around it all just so that I could show you guys just the sheer scale of what Doncaster is um you know as you can see you know there these Transformers
Here I do wonder whether whether or not some of this is sometimes people just selling their collections because they’re trying to to downsize or whatever you know um it’s it’s kind of hard to know the difference sometimes um because not everyone necessarily carries um loads of branding and so on each time so
Um I did at one point film Gareth at go Cosmic strangely enough um but I think I’ve I think I’ve missed the uh the section of the video because Gareth was was present and was very kindly uh Furnishing Mark myself with additional funds we could actually get some
Stuff um because even even though I came reasonably well prepared you know you you see stuff and I did get some bits from here which I’ll um I’ll show you in my my sort of pickups video and you know there is there is haggling
To be done um I think it’s one of the sort of the fun things about this nature and sometimes the haggling is freely offered without you having to ask other times you might have to PLU up courage and be a little bit cheekier um but generally people obvious generally
Speaking rather you know the people who are here are here to sell to you um they don’t want to have to take it all home again they don’t want have to pack it all up back up again so uh didn’t get the robotics many people who know me
Would would be surprised at that but I didn’t get the robotics cuz the boxes are really big very very cheap stuff though if you want to have a play with some robotics it’s very cheap um because no one seems to particularly care about it and Mark and I were having that
Conversation in the car as well actually it’s it’s you know how how did prices get set what what ends up costing a lot what doesn’t is it sort of real scarcity or is it sort of artificial scarcity because one time on eBay something sold
For a lot of money and that that sort of price level just kind of stuck there you know um because eBay is used as a reference source like it or not it’s it is used as a reference point for a lot of people’s pricing um see Millennium
Falcon there we getting into the last sort of section here probably getting G and G you here at this point but um ironically I came to this section late myself so it will slow down even more here because I’m looking through it trying to spot stuff that you know that
I haven’t actually seen to this point um there’s some nice Jets and stuff there I’m going to drag my son to this one day but um you know a lot of this hadn’t so seen to this point so I’m actually sort of doing this just to have a a look around
Myself whilst I’m trying to sort of film it in a sort of semi subtle fashion I mean the first time I came I didn’t really try and film because I wasn’t really sure what the rules and were but nobody had to go at me for just kind of
Holding a camera chest height and just when you’re wandering around um so you know I don’t think they’re too they’re too sort of anti- it particularly it might be it probably it would have been easier to do it shortly after I’d arrived um you know there was no two
Ways about it that would have been a lot easier had I tried to do that I think but you know it is it is what it is um and this does give you a more realistic feel for just how many people are are there but I mean you know there
Are people with Mobility scoops and stuff getting getting by in there pretty easily um the gang ways are wide enough for that and I smiled because there was a little dog being pushed in a pram bless it at one point just made me made me smell quiety to myself so that was
That was nice to see so you know there’s there’s there’s a lot of Tolerance everyone’s very good natured massively wide age range in there as well um you know from the very young to the very old attending to to to look for things which
Is nice to see as well um so all in all when all said and done you know it’s it’s quite donc cast is quite an easy place to get to um you know touch would have had a really sort of smooth smooth Road in um this morning and it was easy
Enough to get out of as well but it’s easy access off um the A1 and you go on the m62 and then drop down it’s dead easy um and there there are you there were people there were dealers I mean I saw a dealer from Wales was in there so I mean
You there’s a there are a lot of people bringing their stuff to Doncaster for you to to have a look at so you know if you wanted to try a toy fair and you at this end of the country this is definitely a way to go because you know
There is definitely a huge amount to see here um I even saw one of my my starbirds for the first time time um and some miks and stuff like that but again I just didn’t get didn’t get a chance to get back to them it’s quite annoying now
Um but again you know every time you go to one of these you’re going to have a slightly different Adventure every time it’s going to be that a little bit different you’ll see slightly different stuff you’ll see familiar faces um but it’s all good stuff it’s all good stuff
Um and you know some of it some of it is very bargain basementy stuff but other stuff you know is is better and pricing wise a lot of it is price to sell I I genuinely feel a lot of it is price to sell um other some other
Elements of it I think are possibly you know taking the Michael slightly but then you know if you do have eBay on your phone you can quickly check and get an idea um of whether or not it’s worth it but then of course you don’t have to pay pay postage when
You’re here you can just you just crack on and do it and it’s done and you don’t have to pay a FIV to get the thing to you um or multiple fibers if you want to buy more than one thing so it’s worth bearing that in mind if you’re wondering
About whether or not it’s actually worth the cost to actually get there and get in in the first place just think about your eBay postage costs over the last few weeks cheers for now and have a good 2024
1 Comment
I’ve had a table for the last year and they’ve pretty much given me the same spot without asking, they just like to keep regulars in the same place as much as possible.