Saturday, July 22, 2006

Bobblehead justice.

Wow... just when you think you've seen everything...

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WASHINGTON -- David Wolf's passion is constitutional law; his hobby is collecting. So when the Washington lawyer discovered a listing on eBay that would round out one of his collections, he forked over $2,100.

It was for a limited-edition 8-inch poly-resin bobblehead of former U.S. Chief Justice William Rehnquist.

"I don't know if I can explain it," said Wolf. "I'm obsessive."

Wolf also paid more than $800 for a Justice John Paul Stevens bobblehead after he realized that the one he owned was missing the small golf club in the figurine's right hand.

Wolf's fascination with Supreme Court bobbleheads is part of a small but growing craze that began in the spring of 2003, when the Green Bag -- which describes itself as "an entertaining journal of law" -- put out the Rehnquist figure.

Since then, the quarterly magazine, which publishes examinations of legal issues alongside tongue-in-cheek diatribes, has produced bobbleheads of Stevens (fall 2003), Sandra Day O'Connor (2004) and Antonin Scalia (2005). Anthony Kennedy is due next month. The magazine gives out the dolls at random to subscribers.

Production will continue -- most likely one a year -- in order of tenure on the court, with David Souter next and continuing through the most recent appointee, Samuel Alito Jr.

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