The Claw Hand-Painted M.U.S.C.L.E. Figurine

I was barely paying any attention to a vendor's wares at the flea market recently, when a M.U.S.C.L.E. figure caught my eye. It LOOKED like an extra fancy M.U.S.C.L.E., like more of a keychain piece or something, not like a standard single color M.U.S.C.L.E. at all. I picked it up and noticed there were a couple more, and then I noticed they were original M.U.S.C.L.E. figures that had been hand-painted (and a damn fine job of it too!)

I was impressed, but not overly excited as I am not too crazy for M.U.S.C.L.E. figures these days. However I did dig through the pile (which also included hand-painted RPG figures) just in case somethign was extra special. Well, something in the pile WAS extra special:

The CLAAAAAWWWWWWWW!

If you collected M.U.S.C.L.E.back in the eighties, The Claw was either your favorite or in your top 5. I had an original pink Claw back in the day and always regretted getting rid of him when I got rid of all my M.U.S.C.L.E. collection. A few years back I found a green example at the flea market and he has held a spot of reverence in my collection ever since.

This hand-painted (no pun intended) example of The Claw is a thing of beauty. He was once an original pink (I at first thought about trying to remove the paint, then I realized what a great job the artists did and will be keeping him like this!) He has some points of wear but the pink showing through only serves to look like actual wrinkles or scars, so it isn't an issue.

The vendor had four or five of them and honestly I should have grabbed them all, but most were painted examples of figures I already have or could care less about, and a couple were worn from having been poorly stored and transported. But he only wanted a quarter each (ZOMG!!!) and in my ecstasy over finding The Claw (for a quarter!) I sort of glazed over and didn't think about how cool it would have been to have all of them. Oh well, maybe I'll find the guy again in the future and buy up the rest.

In the meantime I have The Claw and this guy,,,with claws. Not sure of his name but he was just too cool looking with this custom paint job to pass up. Whoever painted these guys knew what he was doing, at least until he somehow lost track of them and they ended up at the flea market for a quarter.