1994 Beach Head

One of the reasons I maintain this site and write voluminous amounts of words about G.I. Joe is that it also serves as a means to preserve memories.  When I first started doing this, it had only been three years since I had last bought vintage Joes at retail.  My childhood playing days were only slightly more than a decade removed.  Memories were fresh and vibrant.  So, I started to write them down.  In the twenty years since, many of those memories have faded away.  But, since I had recorded some of them, my recollections of earlier days proved a mnemonic device to help keep some things recallable.  But, some details are now lost to time forever.  I can tell you for sure that I picked up a 1994 Beach Head at retail sometime after 1994.  I am no longer certain, though, if I also found the 1993.  I know that the color differences on Snow Storm were enough for me to realize that two figures were different versions.  But, I no longer remember if I found the 1993 Beach Head at retail.  Even my review of that figure from 21 years ago makes no mention of my first acquisition.  I am certain of my 1994 figure, though.  But, we'll get to that detail later.

One oddball relic of my 1990's collecting days is that I never really got around to properly sorting all the boxes, cardbacks and paperwork that were included in various retail purchases.  As I was still in school at the time, I didn't have room for everything and only kept the boxes from the Shark 9000 and the Cobra Parasite.  Into these boxes, though, I stashed the full cardback of every figure I bought at retail.  I had kept filecards as a kid and still had them around.  But, but the mid 1990's, I realized that I missed out on the full cardbacks.  (There was one, random, full Torpedo cardback that was in a cabinet behind the bar in our basement.  I don't know why.  It was probably there for more than a decade before I got around to rescuing it.)  It was not a mistake I'd make a second time and I kept all of my 1990's era figure cardbacks fully intact and stored them in the Parasite box.  At various points, I took them out of that box and put them into another.  But, the stack of those cardbacks was maintained and not co-mingled with other, later acquisitions.  This has given me a decent record of which figures I bought at retail during that time.  (Though, not all of them as several cardbacks from 1992 and 1993 did disappear: likely as inadvertent additions to a trash pile.)  These figures are complete with price tags which help me place them into various acquisition spaces.

It is here that I am assured of my 1994 Beach Head.  First, I recall the yellow vest.  It was something difficult to reconcile at the time. (As were the yellow weapons.)  But, once I found a niche for the figure, he then worked.  I also have the cardback for the figure stashed among my other acquisitions of that era.  And, it is the 1994 cardback.  I'm pretty sure I found him at a Toys R Us near Cincinnati, OH back when I frequented a couple of stores in the northern suburbs.  Regardless, though, the yellow vested version of this figure was my first exposure to the mold and became a player in my small collection of the mid 1990's.  

The centerpiece of my 1990's collection was the Shark 9000.  For some reason, I was interested in both maritime combat as well as underwater adventures.  Finding the boat at a local K-Mart for 1/2 price certainly helped that, though.  My initial crew for the Shark 9000 was standardized.  The included Cutter was at the helm.  The 1993 Keel Haul was in the command seat and controlled the on board combat operations.  The 1994 Shipwreck took the third seat and was the onboard combat diver.  (He might also hide away in the torpedo hold if the 1993 Duke needed to be aboard for any reason.)  The 1994 Dial Tone manned the gunner's position in the turret.  I needed my gunners to be able to communicate and I really liked removable helmets for them.  The crew was completed by the two side gunners.  One, on the helm's side, was Ice Cream Soldier.  The other side was home to this Beach Head.  I didn't like how shallow the gunner's stations were, so I always bent the figure's knees to get them closer to the weapons they operated.

From here, the Beach Head was a nameless, faceless gunner.  He's often die, hit by stray bullets from the more deft Moray gunners.  Sometimes, he'd be able to clear out the back of the Moray and prevent a cadre of Eels from going overboard to cause havoc.  But, more often than not, he was the anonymous casualty of a battle.  A guy who had a job and died doing it.  During the mid 1990's, angst was the word of the generation.  But, personally, I saw it more as futility.  You could work hard, be successful and still have it all not matter.  And, that's how I viewed most of the guys who fought Cobra.  They'd fight hard, die quickly and be forgotten and replaced by another person without the Joes giving it a thought.  I explored that expendable human life notion quite a bit in those days.  And, even today, I'm left with struggles about the the insignificance of a single person.  I even think about old Joe collectors who dominated some early forums and discussion places and have since passed on.  With one exception, I'm about the only one who remembers their names and contributions.  

Today, though, this figure isn't much used.  I prefer the 1993 paint job and will use it when I want a rendition of later figures to be the subject of a photo.  So, aside from photos specifically for this profile or a later photo feature, this 1994 Beach Head is rarely used.  Had my Shark 9000 held up to the heat better, I'd probably have it on display with this figure among the crew.  Instead, the multiples I have of this yellow vested figure sit in a drawer, awaiting the time when I need them.  At some point, I'm going to resuscitate my Hovercraft and that will, likely, open up more avenues for photos with this figure.  Until then, he sits tucked away in a closet with the rest of my collection that rarely sees the light of day.

The one upside to the 1994 Beach Head is that he includes the same weapons as the 1993.  The same was not true of the 1994 Alley Viper, the only other full repaint in the 1st wave of 1994 figures.  Sadly, though, Beach Head's weapons aren't great.  They are bright yellow and include an eclectic assortment of weapons.  There is a 1988 Spearhead rifle, sans the strap, as the centerpiece weapon.  Then, he includes the weird double pistol from the 1989 Recoil that simply never made any sense.  He has the requisite 1988 Shockwave Pistol along with a knife, spring loaded launcher, missiles and a stand.  With the yellow vest, this Beach Head is better matched to his weapons.  But, today, black versions of the 1986 Beach Head machine gun are cheap and easy to find.  And, this figure looks much better with that and a black V1 Beach Head backpack than he does any of his included gear.

Beach Head is a mostly new mold.  He features the legs from the 1988 Shockwave: just reversed.  This mold appeared in 1993 and then got this repaint in 1994.  Right after this, the mold was sent to Brazil.  There, Armadilha was released.  This was a new Cobra character that used the 1993 Beach Head mold.  The colors are similar to the Hasbro version from 1993.  But, they are different when compared.  (Check out my profile on Armadilha to see the difference.)  The figure probably works better as a Cobra.  But, the colors are so close to the Hasbro release that it's tough for me to see them as different characters.  For those who don't much care for the 1993 Beach Head figure, though, that may be less of an issue.  While it's a near certainty that Hasbro had the mold during the 2000's, it was never used.  Even the Convention Shockwave was given legs so Hasbro didn't have to look for this mold.  While there's a lot that could have been done to make this mold pop in terms of alternate color schemes, the reality is that it made no sense to force this as Beach Head when the superior 1986 mold was available.  While I'd have loved to have seen this figure repainted, I would have been about the only one and three uses for it are good enough...even if they are all very similar.

For many years, I considered this yellow vested Beach Head figure somewhat rare.  This was entirely driven by the fact that in 1999, I was corresponding with an influential collector and dealer.  He had been active through all of Joe's late retail years and possessed an amazing collection.  Yet, he did not have a yellow Beach Head.  I'm not sure why.  But, it was one of the final figures he needed.  At the time, carded 1994 figures could be somewhat difficult to track down.  So, I had my feelings of rarity reinforced by observation bias.  Even as the figure started to appear with frequency in later years, I held steadfast to the notion that this was a "rare" retail figure.

And, to be frank, he kind of is.  While not rare by any means, the 1994 repaints seem to be less prevalent than other 1994 figures.  And, 1994, in historical terms, probably saw the lowest retail production numbers of any Joe year.  Collectors, though, regarded the 1994 series with ranges of hatred to complete indifference.  So, the figures remained available and cheap (especially MOC) through the 2000's and into the 2010's.  But, in the last few years, supplies have started to dry up and collectors are finally seeing the downstream effects of the low production numbers.

That hasn't, though, translated to super high prices.  While it can still take a while to find a mint and complete 1994 Beach Head, you can buy them for under $15 when they do appear.  In fact, it seems the more common 1993 figure is the more desirable and commands a premium while the 1994 is relatively ignored.  Even carded versions, when you can find them, run under $40.  Considering the lower production runs of 1994, that's probably a pretty good deal.  But, with the market crumbling, it will be interesting to see if the skyrocketing prices of 1993 and 1994 figures are able to sustain themselves or if they will fall back into historical norms due to the fewer collectors who specialize in them.