Toltoys Kid

Star Wars Update

We recently featured a rare example of the Toltoys Free 4-LOM promotion on a Yoda card, and now we have been spoilt again with this 41 Back Jawa above featuring the same front and back sticker combination.

Thanks to Martin Lacy and Jason West for bring this example to Toltoys.com

Local contributor Aussie James has also come through with the goods, providing us with a great image of the super tough New Zealand issue Toltoys Death Star playset.

The most obvious point of difference to the Australian version is the box, which has a two piece ‘board-game’ style lift off lid, as opposed to the one piece Australian issue which opens at the ends. The paperwork is also marked Toltoys New Zealand.

Will

More Ice-Creams!

Long time readers of this blog will know that licenced ice-cream items, and Star Wars in particular, are my favourite vintage items. So imagine the smile when the images below came down the line from Queensland, a few guerilla “on-the-run” snap-shots of a collection of original art-work and related items that remains for the time being anonymous…

The translite above shows a great set-up of the four Star Wars Popsicle wrapper flavours. Han does not look pleased about being Raspberry….

The next image is another translite of the original art used on the front of the Peters / Pauls infamous Jedi Jelly ice-creams.

Followed by a hurried shot of another major element of the box art, the actual ice-cream!

And a translite of the completed product and wrapper!

The final translite above is one I knew I’d seen many times, and after a quick search I found its final resting place (flipped) on the side panel of the Star Wars Popsicle box, see below…

The last two items are a real treat, a very tough poster and the complete sticker set of New Zealand Tip-Top Star Wars R2-D2 Space Ices…

And the complete run of 16 sticker premiums…

I’m indebted to a very special Toltoys.com contributor from Queensland (who knows who he is!) for all of these great images, thanks mate!

Cheers,

Will

The MYER LEGO National Building Competition 1984

By 1984 LEGO had already cemented it’s place in the psyche of kids all over the world with fantastic products, lead by the now-classic Space series.

The time was right for the company to move in for the kill by staging building competitions in major department stores. I remember well the excitement and hype surrounding  the MYER Melbourne competition, without the fun of actually having the opportunity to participate myself.

No such problems for Toltoys.com regular contributor (and former child) Paul Naylor.

Paul’s construction abilities were on display for all to see in the Queensland state competition in 1984.

Paul wowed all and sundry with his very impressive spire work, just checkout the serious tower-envy from the kid on the right!

The envelope please…..

How hyper would you have been as a kid to see that turn up in your letter box?

Ahhhh! Close but no cigar. Still, who need’s Denmark when you can have Space LEGO?! And where are you Nigel Newton of Leongatha? Bring forth this Portable Cassette Player of which we have heard so much.

My email is on the top right of this blog

Thanks so much to Paul for these wonderful photos and scans.

More Star Wars from the 1982 Waltons Wishbook

$60 was a lot for a toy in 1982, hell it’s a lot for a toy today. Just as well then that you received one of the all-time great play-sets for your cash back in ’82, the Kenner Millennium Falcon.

Walton’s caption writers went off the deep end in this one, declaring the Falcon to be ‘faithful’, as opposed to all those other lousy cheating spacecraft one presumes. Dig the “Simulate Space Chess” – is the simulate really necessary? I mean even slow Darren from down the road gets that we’re not actually playing real space chess here.

The keen-eyed among you will have already noticed the uber-cool Empire Strikes Back Electric Toothbrush labeled as a Star Wars one, a tough item to locate for collectors today. They were one of the earliest Star Wars toys so it’s good to see them still around in 1982.

The last little reveals of this particular page are the fantastic AT-AT, still sold in the modern Hasbro line today, and the short lived but much admired Micro Collection, represented here by the Bespin environments. Comparing the prices of the Micro stuff with the creature / figure combos to their right gives some insight I think into why the line did not last. What would you have preferred as a kid? Micro Rob don’t answer that

Finally we have the whole page on show, and what a treasure trove it has proved to be, solving the mysteries of the not one but three Toltoys Special Offer items, and throwing in rare ads for 3-Packs and ESB Toothbrushes just for fun.

I’ll be continuing the Wishbook posts soon, but stay tuned for some other vintage toy coolness this week.

Cheers!

Will

Two more Special Offer mysteries solved…

A couple of years ago on Toltoys.com we presented a feature on all the known Star Wars Special Offer boxed toys that had surfaced in Australia during the 1978 – 85 period. In the post below we were able to confirm that the Attack Base was a Waltons Department Store special offer and also list the contents.

This week I’m happy to reveal the origins and contents of two more mysterious special offer items, the Empire Strikes Back Wampa and Tauntaun. There is only one known example of the Wampa box, and only a cut front of the Tauntaun box.

Neither were found with contents intact, leaving it open to speculation as to which figures were included.

Now thanks to the discovery of the 1982 Waltons Wish Book we can confirm that these two were also Waltons Special Offers, and narrow down the identity of the figures included.

Until we find a sealed example let the speculation continue!

More reveals coming soon…

Cheers,

Will

Toltoys Star Wars Special Offer origins revealed!

A couple of years ago I was lucky enough (thanks to the eagle eyes of fellow Toltoys collector Dax) to pick up a very cool Imperial Attack Base featuring a huge “Special Offer” sticker across the front, indicating that four figures were included. As featured in a previous post on Toltoys.com the origin of  this piece was at first a mystery, until a Queensland collector named Paul chipped in with his recollections of seeing it at the Waltons chain of stores.

His recollection was remarkably accurate, as thanks to the recently discovered 1982 Waltons Wishbook above we can confirm that the item was indeed a Walton’s Toltoys exclusive, and that the four figures included were Rebel Commander, Hoth Rebel Soldier and two regular Stormtroopers.

Another part of Paul’s recollection was proved correct with the catalogue appearance of the rare Star Wars Three-Packs, priced at $6.99. What’s very interesting is that the three-packs were being sold new at retail, still in Star Wars livery, just a year before the single cards changed to Jedi packaging. Were they overstock from overseas? It’s hard to believe that they weren’t a popular item wherever they were sold.

The final toy items featured today are Luke’s blaster , presumably in ESB packaging, and the hapless mini-rigs apparently used by the ‘Empire Spy Force’. Not quite the most bone-chilling secret police name I’ve ever heard. And at $2 more than a three-pack, what are you going to buy? Ahhh… yeah.

Action Man, Masters of the Universe and Hot Wheels 1982

The next page from the 1982 Waltons Wishbook sees some of the final incarnations of Toltoys Action Man. This late version figure came with eagle eyes and the ability to pose in a sniper position, popular with all budding assassins. That chopper was bloody expensive at $39.99, especially when compared with the Castle Greyskull below at the same price.

The appearance of Masters of the Universe (MOTU) heralded the dawn of a new era in action figure scale, the 5 inch, later to become the standard. I heard somewhere that MOTU was a direct result of the Reagan administration’s overturning of a law that prevented children’s cartoons from being essentially extended toy advertisements. I can imagine that being correct as the toy companies quickly churned out MOTU, Transformers, Thundercats and a bunch more to cash in while the political breeze blew their way.

More 80′s TV classics the Duke’s of Hazzard and CHiPs were represented in toy form too, I believe that Duke’s Barn Buster set is pretty sought after today.

Finally we have Mattel’s 1982 Hot Wheels offerings, including the short lived Scorchers (Pull backs, as opposed to the ‘frictionless’ other cars lol ) and the Redline-era concept ‘Loop and Chute’ set. The Service Centre was another winner for Mattel, that mold was re-liveried time and again and gave great service to the company, bad pun intended.

Right down near the bottom left is a sad remnant of the once great Corgi diecast model company, who admittedly have done well just to make it to 1982 after jumping the shark sometime around 1974.

Cheers,

Will

Treasures from the Waltons Wishbook

Indy Coco-Pops Premiums

A few weeks ago I featured the Indiana Jones Coco Pops box from the Temple of Doom tie-in.

Inside each box was a card premium which broke apart to reveal two picture cards from the movie, one photo and one sketch jigsaw piece.

The same design was used for the Kellogs Ewok Adventure cards which I’ll feature in a future post.

Will

A few weeks ago I posted three of the four Aussie Indiana Jones variant figures, and now thanks to regular contributor and Toltoys afficianado Brody Walker,  here is the last of the quartet; the Cairo Swordsman.

Cheers!

Will