Dallas Vintage Toys & Jordan Hembrough

*not sure if this should be in toy discussion or not*

I was just thinking about how the vintage Star Wars collecting hobby is viewed by the greater public and these two figures came to mind.

I've heard a lot of weird things about DVT and JH and I was wondering what kind of take you guys have on them? (without getting too rowdy lol) I've just noticed that DVT is cast in a negative light semi regularly on older episodes of The SWCA Podcast and although they seem to support Jordan (maybe Steve can chime in on this) a few times they made reference to one of his accociates that had been involved in a scam or two.

I also recall some negative mention of the owner of DVT on more than one podcast but once again it seems this all took place long before my awearness of the hobby.

After a few google searches I was having trouble finding any concrete information so I thought I'd ask.

I've only heard rummours as well. I try and stay clear of all the drama.

Yeah I'm just curious because DVT has one of the craziest inventories on the planet and I wasn't sure if there was some sort of unspoken boycott lol not that I'm really trying to buy too many moc's right now but they have a lot of other items as well.

I haven't ever dealt with either personally but Dallas Vintage Toys does seem to be a frequent topic for scandals

Like Clint , I stay away from dramas . If a seller has a questionable rep I just avoid them - I would rather wait to find the same item from someone else .

I know both stories well.

I'll start with Jordan. He owns a collectible store in New Jersey (I think), called Hollywood Heroes. He was also the host of a reality show in the same vein as American Pickers called Toy Hunter, where a camera crew would follow him around the country (and sometimes abroad), following up on tips of collections for sale, then later on showing what he paid and how much he could flip it for. Jordan has friends and enemies in the hobby, but overall, before the show, was fairly low key. During the show, which was heavily scripted (like Pawn Stars, many items he 'bargained for' were either not for sale or already sold to him when they taped it), he drew criticism for blatantly lowballing people, and coming across like a stereotypical used car salesman. He really came under fire when he found an old couple with 130 MOC figures, including TWO full sets of 12 backs, and an ESB Fett and POTF Luke Stormtrooper, and gave them an incredibly lowball offer of $15,000 (ie. $115 per figure), which they accepted. He then promptly graded them for an additional $5000, and sold them for MANY times what he paid for them. ONE set of 12 backs alone got graded at AFA 90, and he sold that alone for $20,000 (leaving him with another 118 figures including another set of 12 backs and the Fett and Luke). Online discussions were not very friendly towards him for this, as you can read here.

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Right around the same time, someone popped up on Rebelscum and SWFUK calling herself Kennerbabe - a 14/16 (depending on the source) year old girl with an affinity for cutting herself on Twitter and claiming to be selling a bunch of figures as an apprentice to Jordan. Jordan backed her up and gave his blessing publicly. Very weird when it turned out Kennerbabe was in reality a 34 year old man. Jordan tried to put as much distance as he could between himself and the situation, but it raised a LOT of skepticism about him and his business practices.

The whole thing got shut down on RS, but you can follow the entire history on SWFUK here.

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She started out with a set of Palitoy 12 backs. By page 4, her connection to Jordan was established, on page 15 Jordan says "KB has been relieved of her duties", and then on page 23 it gets really fun when it's revealed she is a he.


Anyway, on to Dallas Vintage Toys.

There used to be an old toy magazine in the 90's and early 2000's called Lee's Action Figure News & Toy Review. Shaun Neinast got his start posting classifieds in those magazines, buying and selling vintage SW from his basement. Over time, as his business grew, he developed an online presence and sold a lot through ebay. It soon became apparent he was very often selling repros, recards, etc., for top dollar, and not divulging that to his buyers. He developed negative feedback, but was extremely aggressive in taking items back and giving full refunds in exchange for dropping that feedback, which kept his record looking relatively clean. He eventually started an actual store in Dallas, which has now evolved into DVT, but still has a reputation for the occasional scam. He has impeccable feedback now, but that's because he got banned on all the forums for his scamming ways, and NO ONE who knew who he was would buy anything from him. Ebay only tracks feedback from the last year, so you'd have to dig through his multiple name changes and go back through thousands of feedback to start getting all his negatives. He is one of the most notorious scam artists in the hobby, and that's why you can only find negative things about him. If you perform a search on RS for Shaun Neinast, decadetoys, dallasvintage toys, etc., you'll see countless threads about him.

Hope that helps.

Ian

Damn Ian just dropped the FBI files on these guys lol thanks so much. I didn't want it to look like plain hating so I'm glad you came in with the substantiating links. That second Jordan story is out there. I just rememembered hearing something on the chive cast about a guy who was know for molding his own repros was working with Jordan to make him a life sized yak face for a convention booth display. Not overly subtle.

Nothing to add to Ian's excellent summary. That guy is like a vintage knowledge vault.

Yeah stay right away from DVT, those guys are dodgy as hell. The Kenner Babe thing is really bizarre and I still can't work out what exactly was going on there. I've had a few contacts with Jordan and I do actually like him.