Star Wars | Toltoys Kid

Archive for the ‘Star Wars’Category

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

24

10 2009

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posted in 70's, 80's, Star Wars, Toltoys
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Star Wars Ice Cream Update

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

22

08 2009

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posted in 70's, 80's, Ice Cream, Icy Poles, New Zealand, Pre-Production, Premiums, Star Wars, Tip Top
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Star Wars Toltoys Update

Our latest Toltoys Star Wars update features the unassuming little green guy above. A regular ESB Yoda you say? Computer says No. What appears to be a regular Kenner USA release is in fact a rare Toltoys release Survival Kit Offer card, see the reverse shot below. Or at least that’s what it was, until Toltoys updated the offer with the ultra-rare 4 Lom Offer stickers. Yes that’s right, a double Toltoys offer card. Not since the Anakin POTF / Aussie Coin Offer Sticker combo has a Toltoys double act come along, and aren’t we glad it did!

Part two of this update features the mysterious “Toltoys NZ upside-down blister” attached to the 9/10th scale card. If I were a northern hemispherian I wouldn’t be able to resist some kind of “Down Under” pun here, but I’m not so I will.

These crazy blisters appear to have been affixed to their cards by Ugnaughts, it’s the only possible explanation. The cards themselves are also slightly smaller than their Kenner counterparts (see the pic below for comparison); again resist the urge for size jokes please. This Hammerhead is only the third carded example I’ve seen, although there are a couple of cardbacks out there too. The supposition of New Zealand origin comes largely from anecdotal evidence, plus anyone whose ever seen an episode of Flight of the Conchords understands it’s no stretch for weird yet strangely entertaining stuff to come out of the Land of the Long White Sheep. Anyone have any of these weird blisters out there?

Finally this update we have a Droids 3-pack set. It appears to be a standard Kenner USA release but check the back and you’ll notice all the height measurements have been blacked out. Why? Well for the same reason the Royale with Cheese exists – the metric system. The card was printed with US imperial measurements, not the proper (!) legally approved Australian metrics. While they appear to have been done by hand that seems unlikely, so unless Toltoys employed a thousand 15 year-old work-experience kids for the worst week of their lives I’d suspect (as does the discoverer and owner of this item) that they were created with a template or hastily constructed overprint. It will only take one more example to prove the theory, anyone got one?

Huge thanks to Dax for these three incredible items this week, what will his eagle eyes turn up next?

Cheers,

Will

18

07 2009

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posted in 70's, Kenner, Special Offer, Star Wars
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Kenner Toltoys 12 Back

An unusual Star Wars Toltoys find!

To most Star Wars collectors that item above appears to be your run-of-the-mill Kenner Star Wars C3PO 12 Back figure. The keen eyed collectors will note that the blister has been reattached to the card-back for use as a display item, but that is not of consequence here.

Flipping the card over reveals a metric conversion sticker of a type used by Toltoys Australia. These stickers were applied to foreign card-backs to comply with local sales laws requiring the use of metric measurements over imperial. These stickers have been previously found on Toltoys printed cards, but to my knowledge they have never been found on a Kenner card-back.

These are tough enough to find on Toltoys card-backs, but this discovery opens up a whole new variation for collectors to search for! Speculating on where these figures fit into the chronological release of Star Wars figures in Australia is tough to do, were they late release items dumped here at the change-over to Empire Strikes Back figures? Or were they in fact the very first Star Wars figures sold in Australia, before Toltoys managed to print their own card-backs. All suggestions and ideas are welcome!

Special thanks for this discovery goes to Toltoys collector Pat O’Brien, who also provided the photos.

Cheers,

Will

31

03 2009

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posted in 70's, Kenner, Star Wars, Toltoys
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Star Wars in the 1982 Waltons Wishbook

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

21

03 2009

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posted in 80's, Catalogues, Special Offer, Star Wars, Waltons
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Waltons Special Offer Star Wars

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.

This is the ad for both items, and while we can confirm the price and the three figures included, I’m not sure we can say which figures came with which! The photo suggests that Han Hoth came with the Wampa and the other two with the Tauntan, but it could just as easily have been the Snowtrooper with the Wampa (Bad guys together?) and the other two with Tauntaun.

Until we find a sealed example let the speculation continue!

More reveals coming soon…

Cheers,

Will

25

02 2009

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posted in 80's, Catalogues, Special Offer, Star Wars, Toltoys, Waltons
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Toltoys Star Wars Special Offer Origins

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.

More Toltoys Star Wars mysteries will be revealed this week…

04

02 2009

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posted in 80's, Catalogues, Special Offer, Star Wars, Toltoys, Waltons
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Toltoys 12″ Empire Stikes Back Darth Vader

The Toltoys ESB Vader Large Size Action Figure

Thanks to the great detective work of Bill McBride over at the Darth Vader Toy Museum we now have conclusive proof that persistent rumors of ESB boxed characters (other than Boba Fett and IG-88) being released at retail in Australia were true!

ESBbox 787447 Toltoys 12 Empire Stikes Back Darth Vader

Ever since I started collecting I’ve been aware of stories about people who claim to have purchased ESB boxed examples of Vader, Stormtrooper and R2-D2 at retail in the early 80′s, combinations that should not exist since the line was cancelled after the release of the Fett and IG-88 mentioned above. Bill’s discovery proves that specific and different boxes were produced for at least Vader in Australia, ruling out suggestions that the examples discovered here were simply unreleased Kenner salesman samples or made up box-flats or similar.

Toltoys went to the trouble of producing three Toltoys branded figures for the Star Wars line, so couldn’t they have at least test-marketed some of the more popular characters in ESB livery? Stranger things have happened down here that’s for sure.

Check out Bill’s site above for all the details on how to spot the real thing, plus more than you ever thought you needed to know about the big man in the black hat.

The hunt is now on for the rest of the crew!

Cheers,

Will

18

04 2008

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posted in 70's, Star Wars, Toltoys
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Toltoys Star Wars Laser Pistol

There they are, blast ‘em!

One of the coolest toys produced for the Star Wars license was Han Solo’s blaster, sold as the “Star Wars Laser Pistol” by Kenner in the US and Toltoys here in Australia.

This was a top toy, fun sound effects and great feel in the hand. I still recall my disappointment with the flimsy inflatable light saber as a kid, and subsequent envy of the lucky sods running around the playground with one of these. Han Solo was right, ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side.

It’s another example of an early release Star Wars toy completely re-branded by Toltoys for the Australian market. They turn up fairly frequently, although not often in good condition.

Cheers!
Will

PS – It’s good to be back posting by the way, I have been busy collecting and working on some other stuff, I have a few nice little items to share that will make their way here over the next few weeks

PPS – I’ve added labels to all my previous posts for better navigation, as well as attempting to add an RSS subscription feed so that you can be alerted when a new post appears. Not actually sure if it works yet, it’s the little orange doohickey on the extreme right in the location bar of your browser. I sound so tech it scares me.

08

01 2008

by admin
posted in 70's, Star Wars, Toltoys
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Ewok Adventure Kelloggs Tie-In

Hot on the heels of the TV spot for the Kelloggs Return of the Jedi competition I posted last week comes another lost Aussie Star Wars TV spot; an ad for the Kelloggs promotional tie-in with the Ewok Adventure movie in the mid 80′s.

Enjoy!
Will

27

06 2007

by admin
posted in 80's, Ads, Cereal, Promotional, Star Wars, Video
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Toltoys Kid

Archive for the ‘Star Wars’Category

Star Wars Update

24

10 2009

Star Wars Ice Cream Update

22

08 2009

Star Wars Toltoys Update

18

07 2009

Kenner Toltoys 12 Back

31

03 2009

Star Wars in the 1982 Waltons Wishbook

21

03 2009

Waltons Special Offer Star Wars

25

02 2009

Toltoys Star Wars Special Offer Origins

04

02 2009

Toltoys 12″ Empire Stikes Back Darth Vader

18

04 2008

Toltoys Star Wars Laser Pistol

08

01 2008

Ewok Adventure Kelloggs Tie-In

27

06 2007

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