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Gah! roheimiana, that stinks... too bad I didn't post sooner. Well, if anyone happens to see one, ebay or otherwise please let me know!

These hold special reverence for me because of where they came from: about 15 years ago, Jim Warren was closing out his office and Captain Company warehouse (they had been derelict for about 10 years, but if you had walked into them, you would have thought 30 with all of the '60s office furniture). My father and I pretty much got to cherry pick before everything when to legitimate auction the following week, but so did most everyone else who had slipped the movers $20 (or so I heard).

The Captain Company warehouse was (still is) located down on the pier in Brooklyn and was a hell of a place. The previous superintendent was a real genius and tried to re-rig the elevator, which was broken, to start working again, resulting in a fire that wiped out the first floor, so that everyone had to use the stairs to get upstairs. Now, in a five-story building of stuff, it was pretty much what you would expect-- the lower you got in the building, the less and less stuff was there to pick through (comic shop owners aren't known for their physique).

However, we went to the fifth, and sure enough, there was the mother-load. But, the last two Aurora build-ups were these two, and you would never have known the color now if you had seen them-- apparently they had been soot covered during the fire. They cleaned up beautifully and I've had them in my collection ever since. So ironically, in the end, I think I got the upper hand on Captain Company, who I'm sure were the monkey wrench in the works of many here.

Judging from those photos, you can see I have a pretty good collection of Aurora models know, but those are always the centerpiece.

So do you think I should replace the hands on both? Dracula is also missing his bats, which I have the replacement parts for but haven't done anything with. Should I leave them "as is" and keep it all original or what? I'm really not concerned with the value of these-- I realize what the street value is based on other build-ups that have sold, but these have a greater sentimental value. With Frankie, it will be easier to have a replaceable part that is removable, but on Dracula, I'm afraid it's pretty permanent.

True enough. I've done just that with the DRACULA model-- painted up the missing parts to spec and left it next to the actual model.

It's an original, but it's not a factory build-up, just a regular one. Paint job was by good friend/sci-fi expert Marc Zubatkin.