Jabba The Hutt by LEGO Birthday Flea Market Find!

Yesterday was my birthday, and one of my favorite things to do (...brace yourself...) is go to the flea market. So I went! I had originally intended to go alone, since 'alone time' is a rare commodity when you have a toddler, but my cold cold heart melted upon looking the forlorn faces when I headed for the door, so the Mrs. and my intern ended going with me after all.

The very first vendor we stopped at had a few ziploc bags of random LEGO bricks and a few minifigures. The vendor is someone who is there every weekend, and is so old you might be convinced he has been there every weekend since the dawn of time.He is also near impossible to understand, due to being born before America was even a known continent or due to being over ten thousand years old. Perhaps both. Seriously, this guy might sell you a Mogwai if you knew the right password.

Anyways, within one of the ziploc bags I noticed this Jabba The Hutt 'minifigure'. I love 'mega' sized minifigures and I have longed for a Jabba for a long time, so I was almost willing to pay the whole eight dollars he wanted for the bag. A good price, but I have enough random bricks.

So when I discovered through hand signals and grunts and cuneiform that he was willing to sell the figure alone, and for a mere dollar, well...Jabba isn't the only guy who knows a good bargain when he sees it.

This is the first Jabba the Hutt LEGO minifigure. There is a modern version available now, with more accurate colors, paint applications etc. But there's something charming about this plain-jane version from 2002 that is irresistible. The sculpt is top notch, his tail is in two parts which afford a surprising amount of posing options, and he even has a belly button! Other than the lack of paint, I think this version is superior to the one available now.

I was also able to find most of a Batman minifigure - and he appears to be from the first series of LEGO Batman releases. Unfortunately I could not locate his cowl in any of the LEGO ziploc bags the vendor had. I did however find Two-Face's hairpiece. So for fifty cent, I have a slightly greying Batman. Which is apropos since it was my birthday and I will neither confirm nor deny a few grey hairs.

"She'll never guess your real age when you use 'Just for Batmen'"