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Friday, October 22, 2010

Little Plastic Playthings

A long time ago in a toy shop far, far away... okay maybe just in Austin. These ships are from a while back though, sometime around the early 2000's I had made a stop at my favorite toy store, Toy Joy. I cannot help but love this shop, if you have read this blog through I have mentioned it only a couple of times. I can honestly say that every time I have stopped there I have never, NEVER been disappointed.



On this trip these little plastic space ships caught my eye, they were in the little "cheap" (or I should say inexpensive) toy bins. I quickly sorted through the space ship bin and found that they were four styles to choose from. I think it's always good practice to scope out your choices before making your final selection. I grabbed up one of each, which was strange at the time cause I was into buying multiples of stuff, and proceeded with my other purchases to check out.



There is not a lot of info on these toys, but the feel of the plastic is sort of an upgrade from the gum ball machine toys, somewhat flexible, not too much as I did manage to snap off a radar dish from the rover, but enough that they are not overly brittle. They also are marked as made in GERMANY. That's it, I have no other clue as to what they are from, if any license, or if they are simple generic ships. I realize now I should have inquired as to where and what they were from when I bought them. I do know they are super sweet and have a few moving parts. For instance the rover's wheels can swing back under its carriage and become a monster truck rover and a couple of the ships have some sliding parts that allow cockpits to rotate or radars dishes to slide.



For scale I threw a Sharpie in the picture. These things are a little smaller than a Hotwheels car, but just as awesome, they really remind me of some of the little playthings you get from the gum ball machines of our youth. They are also fun to have kicking around on the desk ready to explore the unknown. How sweet would it be if these were left over from some of those Kinder Surprise eggs? Mmmmmmnnnnn, chocolate and space ships...

14 comments:

Jason said...

The little pod thing reminds me of R2-D2. Pretty sweet, as long as they didn't cost too much. When you say inexpensive, I'm thinking no more than a dollar a piece, but a dollar a piece might be a little steep.

chrismandesign said...

man, i saw & own (at least two times) this set of space toys... they r indeed pretty old, i saw them more than 10 years ago, with the same shape, but different colour scheme... they r beautiful & very well done/designed (i guess that’s the reason why they look pretty good today)... i remember as well two sets more of this kind of figures, one of aircrafts & the other of construction vehicules... i never expected to see them again... really nice post there =D

chunky B said...

@ Jason - these were only like 50 to 75 cents each, so it didn't break the bank.

@chrismandesign - Thanks for the info, I picked these up somewhere around 2005 maybe at the latest. They only had a small bin of them and that was it, I haven't seen them on return trips so they must have been popular.

Super-Duper ToyBox said...

oh wow... they ARE tiny. Sharpie looks big. i woulda bought 'em too.

Unknown said...

Oh those are pretty neat and you can beat cheap. : )

Brian Ashmore said...

Cool! They remind of little tiny Major Matt Mason toys or something. Toy Joy sounds like a really cool place.

You know what, though, I think you are a bit distracted. You should be training for the Battle for the Cowl. You should be doing package tearing exercises, figure-standing drills, kung fu dusting, etc.

I can see a Rocky-themed (cue music) training montage in my head now!

Reis O'Brien said...

Hey! I have these little guys too! I love them.

Bubbashelby said...

I bet Reis has more of them than you do CB! ;)

chunky B said...

I'm sure he does. I know he's got a different one at least, LOL.

Word Verification: ashole
how funny is that...

Kal said...

Those are cute. They remind me of Kinder Surprise toys. Are they interchangeable? Did I ever give you my address for that thing you were going to send me?

chunky B said...

Hey Kal, they do remind me of Kinder Surprise Toys, you know I don't think we can get those here anymore. Anyway, I do have your address and have it packed and will be sending it out tommorrow morning, hope you dig it.

Jaru said...

These toys are actually at least from the mid 80s, I remember that I had all the set when I was a little child, they came in different color schemes and I recognize them all because I had them all. You sure made me remember old good times.

greeting from El Salvador

chunky B said...

Jaru, thanks for the info on these, glad this post brought back happy memories.

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