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| Me (left) and Dennis (right) at Toylanta 2017.03.11 |
This is a new feature regarding individuals in the Major Matt Mason community - mostly long-time collectors. One of Dennis Widner's exceptional custom restorations is currently on eBay and I thought it would be a good time to bring him up as an introduction and for discussion.
Dennis Widner is a well-known fixture at toy shows, particularly at GI Joe conventions. He's known for his historically accurate 1:6 scale items as accessories to GI Joe. Prior to that however, Dennis was known to me as thetoysurgeon from the old MMM LISTSRV and Yahoo Groups - this was about 25 years ago so many of the new members would not know about him.
I had a Colorforms Alien Electron+ with unbroken wires that I received from a trade with Keith Meyer - it was unusual as it was in pretty good condition other than missing most of its paint and half of one hand. I had seen some of Dennis' work posted by others and reached out to him.
Dennis' Work
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Early Black-rubber - Before Image
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| Early Black-rubber - After Image |
Dennis is/was a meticulous toy restorer - if you've looked at the various techniques for rewiring and repainting the astronaut figure, you'll see that some efforts are somewhat more destructive than others. Dennis' work impressed me as he carefully cut along the body mold lines so when the rewiring is complete, it's impossible to tell that the figure has been rewired (well, he did loop the wire under the foot so you can tell if looking under the boot where he filled with epoxy). Dennis used stainless steel wire so the joints are a bit stiffer than stock. His paint work is also some of the best I've seen. His notes from back-in-the-day regarding the use of stainless steel replacement wire and other techniques, can be seen on the Figure Restoration Page.
In any case, I contacted Dennis - I think this was in the early 2000's - he was very busy with other projects but I made his list - it took a while to get the figure both to him and later back from him but the work was flawless. You really can't tell that the hand was defective and the paint was and still is perfect. Later I sent him a Xodiac and three Commander Comet figures - he came up with some paint variations to make two different from production - these are also still flawless. Here are a few images saved from Dennis' posts:
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John Eaton's Electron+ with replaced hand/repaint
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John Eaton's Xodiac, rewired/repainted
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Various Commander Comets rewired/repainted
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I hadn't heard from Dennis in years and I had heard that he retired from toy restoration (in fact he no longer takes restoration projects) but someone mentioned he was attending Toylanta/Joelanta 2017 which I happened to attend - so we finally met. The image at the top is from that meeting - always good to meet the "old timers" - original members of the various MMM groups prior to Facebook.
Here are some other examples:
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Michael Dunn's Alpha 7 replaced arm/rewired/repainted
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Custom Apollo figure
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Joseph Kerezman as an astronaut
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Matt Jenson's crew rewired/repainted
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And yes, I believe the green bearded one was the custom for
Joseph Kerezman. In total Dennis restored I think around 18 figures for various Major Matt Mason group members (so less than 20 - others were done for his own collection). He also produced these simple gray colored bases made to hold Mattel Astronaut boots by that slow in the base. Note that Dennis is no longer doing restoration so you may get ignored when contacting him about same.
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