My wife and I attended the 2023 Maryland Toy Expo yesterday. It’s held annually at the Maryland State Fairgrounds located north of Baltimore. We’ve never been but decided to go this year. There’s a monthly regional toy show held in nearby Greencastle, Pennsylvania. We occasionally go and usually find something to buy while we are there.
I figured the Maryland Toy Expo would be like the Greencastle Toy Show, but bigger and better.
It turned out I was half right. The Maryland Toy Expo was indeed bigger than the Greencastle Toy Show, but it wasn’t better.
I was disappointed with the overall selection at the show. Being that it was a statewide show, I expected to see a lot more items offered at the various booths. Funko Pops seemed to be the most popular items for sale in the various booths, followed by Star Wars action figures. The problem I noticed was that it seemed every booth had the same exact items for sale. I saw a lot of the same Funko Pop figures at every booth I looked at. I noticed this with a lot of the Star Wars action figures too. A lot of the booths were selling the same Star Wars Black Series 6-inch action figures as all the other booths.
In search of Hasbro Star Wars 30th Anniversary action figures
I was hoping to find some Hasbro Star Wars 30th Anniversary 3.75-inch action figures. These came out in 2006-2007 in honor of the 3oth anniversary of the release of the original Star Wars movie. I used to own some of them, but I ended up selling them after a couple of years. It’s one of the many regrets I have, albeit not a super-serious one. One of the reasons for going to the show was to buy some of the figures I sold. Not only did I not buy any, I didn’t even see any.
None of the dealers selling Star Wars action figures appeared to have any of them. Dealers at the Maryland Toy Expo seemed more focused on current Star Wars action figures, not toys that were released way back in 2007.
It wasn’t that type of show.
