GI Joe Prototype to sell for $600,000

GI Joe Prototype to sell for $600,000
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Source: The New Mexico Channel

G.I. Joe Prototype Marching To Auction Block

Original Doll Expected To Bring $600,000

POSTED: 3:18 p.m. EST January 31, 2003

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — It’s a G.I. Joe so expensive, it could break even the Pentagon’s budget.

G.I. Joe creator Don Levine is going to sell his hand-carved prototype for the world’s first action figure.

It will go on the block in July and the auctioneers figure it could bring more than $600,000.

If you don’t have quite that much money, Levine is selling some of his other G.I. Joe stuff, including the first handmade figure with movable limbs.

That’s worth an estimated $75,000.

Levine created G.I. Joe 40 years ago as an executive for Rhode Island-based Hasbro toys. He said the name came to him while watching an old black and white movie called “The Story of G.I. Joe.”