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The Top 10 Greatest Toy Lines Ever!

This is a list I've been thinking of for a good while, and now is as good a time as ever. If you read my stuff, you would think this list could be named "Top ten action figure lines", but that would actually not work. Sure, it's mostly dominated by action figures, but there may be a few entries that just happens to fall in a different category.

I have collected, played with - and ultimately considered a huge selection of toys for this list. Some of the toy lines were rather difficult to leave out, and I feel like mentioning a few of them (but not all, because that would ruin eventual surprises).

 I did consider the original, 1/6 scaled G.I. Joe, for historical reasons, and the great variety of accessories. They were before my time, but I enjoy them whenever I see them today. In the opposite category, when talking about toys that predate the 80s, are the Mego dolls. I just can't see understand attraction. 

A powerful contender was the Real Ghostbusters line. Creative monsters, solid build quality, all over fun toys. There have also been many great superhero lines, like Toy Biz' X-Men, and the various DC Direct lines. I'm also impressed with many of the contemporary toys, whether they're based on movies, like the Avengers figures, or the toys from the smaller, more independent toy companies, like Four Horsemen.

Japanese toys I considered included the various Valkyries based off the Macross shows (like the Bandai VF-25 in my banner), and the range of anime robots in the mighty Soul of Chogokin line.

While the top ten may be familiar to most of you, and in many ways be "obvious" choices, they were the toys that has impressed me the most and given me the most joy.  Essentially, these are my top ten toy lines. 

Agree, disagree, want to share your own list? Leave a comment below!

High End Toy Lines

Collecting toys can be expensive, or more affordable, depending what you actually collect, and how you vision your collecting. Of course, constantly going for boxed, vintage toys, you can imagine it quickly becomes expensive. But at the other end, you may just pick up huge lots of loose, opened figures, and go for quantity over toys in mint condition.

Hot Toys: Amazing and expensive

It almost the same if you're into contemporary general-release action figures, you usually don't have to ruin your wallet. Usually.

Let us say that you're into superheroes, and have $200 to use on toys. Among your options is to go for a nice double-digit amount of Marvel Legends. You'll get several, durable toys of good quality. 

But should you be interested in the high-end superhero toys, you more or less have to consider the Hot Toys action figures. They are roughly $200 for a single figure. Worth it? Many think so because gorgeous face sculpts, a size that demands attention, and and extreme details on their costume. Oh, and they're also as articulated as any action figure. 

I tend to chose quantity, as I have far too many interests to be able to spend $200 on a single figure. From time to time, I regret the decision of not picking up Black Widow, Thor and the other Avengers, because these are the best looking toys I have seen, and isn't that the whole idea of collecting? To actually appreciate the designs and quality of the toys?

Like I said, I tend to choose quantity, and  go for several different toys from several different toy lines, I fluctuate almost daily between preferring modern and vintage toys. Sometimes I wish I were more focused in my collecting, but that thought quickly passes when I spot something new, cool. 

All this is besides the point really, as I was planning to talk a bit about the robot counterparts of Hot Toys. 

SoC God Mars is impressive. 

I have mentioned the Masterpiece Transformers series, and I even own a couple of MP Transformers: Skywarp, Thundercracker, Optimus Prime. They cost at least five times that of a regular release Transformer, but are of course also more impressive in size and details. They tend to be a bit tricky to transform, but I guess that's a positive thing when it comes to the Transformers. 

Another toy line, similar to Masterpiece Transformers, is Soul of Chogokin. SoC is a toy line from Bandai that focuses on making robots from old anime shows. These robots have usually all had toys already, but with SoC, Bandai goes all out - sort of like what Hot Toys does. And they're absolutely gorgeous. Lots of metal parts, lots of intricate details, tons of play features, tons of added accessories. The display value for these toys are out of this world. 

I have never managed to actually pull the trigger on these mighty toys, even though the combining mecha God Mars, from an early 80s anime has tempted me. As has the monumental Ideon, from the tragic ending show Space Runaway Ideon. These are expensive toys, but if you check out a few reviews online, you may understand why. 

From a safe distance, I've let myself be impressed with Bandai's Soul of Chogokin releases, and one of their latest mechas has even made me laugh. This actually exists: 

Will the Disney Mecha be my first Soul of Chogokin, should I rather pick up some Hot Toys superheroes, or should I simply stick to quantity over quality? 

Nostalgia and the Reason We Collect Toys

Let me apologize immediately for the pretentious title. I don't plan on writing a scientific article on nostalgia and toys, but I want to put into words something that has been on my mind. I've tried to figure out why I have this fascination for vintage toys, why modern toys fail to bring me the same excitement, and I'm not alone in asking these questions, and for the outsider, it can be very strange that grown men and women still purchase, store, display, and sometimes plays with toys for kids.

Basically it can be boiled down to "Why do we collect toys?", but it's not that simple either. Read on for a rather long article on collecting. Agree, disagree, additional thoughts, personal similar stories? Leave a comment below!

Tea Robot

You have noticed the different labels I put on my various articles and blog entries. They range from "bacon" and "bread" to "Lego" and "vintage toys". My articles usually fall under more than one category, and are therefore given multiple labels. Let's say I write about Jetfire. As he is both a robot, and a vintage toy, it makes sense to give the article the "robot" label as well as the "Vintage" label. And since I rarely talk about contemporary robots, many of my Transformers articles usually have these two labels. Likewise with the "motuc" label, which usually is accompanied with the "rant" label. 

Today, I will need to use two labels I never expected to use together. I certainly don't mind. Tea and robots are two passions of mine. I got the tea robot from my mother, I guess she felt I needed to drink more tea, and that I don't own enough robots. I agree on both accounts. He's made of metal, like any good robot, and he clings on to the rim of the cup until he has fulfilled his purpose. 

Bootleg Metrotitan Upgraded

Oh wow, have I been slacking? Missed out on two regular updates. I not sure you readers really care. You'll check in from time to time, and if there's an update, you'll read it (or just look at the pictures). But I care. I want consistency. I want to be able to produce two days a week, and that's really just a minimum of what I should be capable of doing. But then there is the real life, the one where work, house, bills, family, friends and all that stuff comes into play, and blogging about toys and food absolutely takes a back seat. I can't ignore that.

But here it is, the apology for no Tuesday update, and lack of proper content last week. And here it is, a regular Thursday update. And since this is blog post #250, I went the extra length and took some pictures. Here it is, an article I promised literally a year ago. The upgraded Bootleg Metrotitan. 

There are Toys in New York

But it's not a Mecca for toy collectors.

And that may actually be a bit strange, because New York had literally everything you could imagine, and lots of it. Shopping in NYC was an amazing experience, and if you were looking for shoes, clothes, jewelry, food. I hoped the toy stores would match the quality of the other stores. I guess they did, it's just that my expectations to the toy stores were significantly higher than those towards clothing stores. There's also the fact that I know where to find toys in abundance: online. The online toy stores and forums are the best places to buy toys, and that's not even a secret. I assume this "new" market has more or less destroyed the potential for having truly great toy stores in New York.

But when completing my excursion of the toy stores on Manhattan, I may have discovered what the point of toy stores today should be. It's about presenting a selection so great, and in such a way that you'll want to want something. It's about giving an experience greater than the price reduction you'd get from buying online.

I had a blast visiting these stores, so much in fact that I decided to take a couple of pictures and write a few words on the various stores. I guess you can see this as a review of the toy stores in New York, but it's definitely not complete. I know I missed out on a couple of stores (like Midtown Comics), and I'm sure there were some I don't even know about. And we were only sticking to mid/lower Manhattan. But for the stores we actually did visit, you can look at this article as somewhat of a guide.

So come in for more, and leave comments if you want!

Caution: This is a long article with many pictures, and the gravy is all the way at the bottom.

Bacon tip

Just a little tip on this Tuesday. I've previously mentioned a way to get the bacon extra crisp is to cook it in the oven, as opposed to the frying pan. And that's cool, but it really takes less time to fry it. Still, the excess fat makes it less crisp than it should be. Instead of just going straight from the pan onto the serving plate, I let it rest for a few seconds on a newspaper. The paper absorbs the fat, and the bacon ends up super crisp.

Also this Tuesday: WTF?

New York Toy Fair 2013 winner: Lego

Toy Fair has came and went this past weekend. Mostly for the various companies to show off their plans for the future, I'd say this year was decent. Scratch that, it was monumental. I'll not get into detail with the various reveals, as they are easily available at places like toynewsi, toyark. The various specialized forums like seibertron, he-man.org, eurobricks, yojoe all had representatives running around the floor, tweeting their preferred toy news. And reporters like Pixel Dan has made thorough videos that I recommend you checking out.

I'll be brief about what interested me the most:

Mattel is moving along with their Masters of the Universe Classics line, and showed a painted prototype of Castle Grayskull. Undersized, but gorgeous. I'm still on board. Upcoming characters like Clamp Champ, Mantenna and New Adventures He-Man are all looking good.

Hasbro revealed their new Tomahawk in the contemporary G.I. Joe line, now called... Eaglehawk. Looks awfully similar to the 1986 version, doesn't it? Except the vintage one is vintage. Hasbro's Transformers department does it better- They don't just replicate the vintage toys, they do something more. The upcoming Metroplex is far from being a replica of the vintage one. In fact, the new one is the largest Transformer robot ever made. Think about that for a second. It's bigger than Fortress Maximus, over two feet tall, where the vintage Metroplex was barely a foot, if that even.

Someone are making Big Bang Theory Mego-style dolls, all though I can't remember who. I'm interested, not necessary as a customer, but to see them on the show in one way or another. Last episode even featured dolls of some of the characters. Maybe it was planned?

The Lego Group can do nothing wrong. Almost everything they showed at Toy Fair was gold. The upcoming Galaxy Squad line has me salivating. It's the perfect mix between Starcraft, Gundam and vintage Sci-Fi movies.

But the absolute highlight of Toy Fair 2013 was the new Jabba's Barge in the Star Wars line. Obviously, I'm not ignoring the fact that we get an amazing Lego Slave Leia, but the blue orchestral leader Max Rebo, like the little show man he is, completely stole the show for me. Look at him! Look how cute and blue he is. You know those stumpy fingers will play right into your hearts. Not the first time he's being made in toy form, but certainly the best.

Decepticon Headmasters w/heads

Friday, I showed off a nice little lot of Decepticon Headmasters I picked up on ebay. I wouldn't say I scored a fantastic deal, seeing as none of them had any accessories. But they are still extremely popular - and valuable toys to the point where they were totally worth the $25 for the lot- price, even if I plan to use them just for parts.

I'm not a completist by any means, not when it comes to the robots anyway. So I don't necessarily care if a robot is missing a gun or something. They still display nicely.

But the Headmasters are different. Their accessories are body parts - in both/all modes! Their weapons have a tendency to be an integrated part of the disguise mode. Like a tail, or a wing. And their drivers - the actual Headmasters - are just that. The heads of the robots. All of them are completely headless in robot mode, and one of them lacks his head in the alternate mode too!

Take Snapdragon, for instance. I'll have a hard time displaying him as a dinosaur at all, without his actual headmaster head.

But I realized something cool: Regardless of their lack of accessories, suddenly, I actually had all the Decepticon Headmasters: Scorponok, Mindwipe, Skullcruncher, Weirdwolf and Snapdragon.

Almost all of them, that is. I'm missing quite possibly the coolest one: Apeface.

But I couldn't let them stand there without their heads. I found my KO Japanese Headmaster Head set, and found the ones that fit best in terms of colors and style.

Weirdwolf got the head from Grand Maxiums. The teal color was a dead match, but obviously the style doesn't quite work. Grand Maximus is quite the hero, while Weirdwolf is the exact opposite: A vicious villain.

Skullcruncher got the purple head with the spikes. I have no idea who this is, but with the wicked grin, I'd assume it's a Decepticon. The style works out, but the colors aren't quite there.

The KO headmaster I used for Snapdragon actually transforms into a tiny elephant. It doesn't make sense, but that could be said about a lot of Transformers. Never the less, it works ok as Snapdragon's head, at least in robot mode. The style is sort of animalistic, and the colors are good enough.
And finally, I actually have the driver/head for my Mindwipe, and strangely enough, it was the best match too.

Figure Friday: Ebay Deals

A couple of years ago, I was camping ebay every day, searching for good deals. I had at all times at least 50 watched auctions, ranging from single G.I. Joe figures to enormous lots of various 80s toys. Sure enough, I managed to score quite a few great deals - and I'll tell about them in a bit - but more often than not, other collectors picked up the scent, and the auction ended in a bidding war.

And with bidding war, I mean that the auction ended for a fair price. Because buying toys off of ebay was significantly cheaper than any alternative for me. Here, in the far reaches of the world, we had no toy swaps, no conventions, and a more or less dead personal ad market.

But yeah, I did pick up a few good deals.
The reason a good deal presents itself may be because the auction is listed in the wrong category. A toy hunter quickly learns his or her specific searches, also within less relevant categories. It may be to do a simple "Unopened Transformer" search in the "Toys and Hobbies > Other" category.
It could also be auctions that simply have vague titles. Like an auction I picked up listed as "toy jet", that turned out to be a complete G.I. Joe Skystriker in great condition.
And then you have great deals that for some reason simply slip under the radar. I scored an unopened Cobra FANG for $9.90. Why so cheap? Well, it was a Japanese box, and no one else placed bids. Good for me.

Most of the great deals can be found in the auctions where it's obvious the seller has no clue what's for sale. It could be people cleaning up their lofts, attics and storage units, and just dumping them in lots on ebay, without knowing what they really had. If they listed them as auctions, be sure it would turn into a bidding war. But just as often, they list them as "buy now", and if you're the first to see a cool auction, don't let it pass you by.

This lot wasn't super cheap, at $25. But it was still, in my opinion, a good deal. Neither of these are complete, and all of them are missing vital pieces (like their heads), but it was something I couldn't pass up.

Three Decepticon Headmasters: Weirdwolf, Skullcruncher and Snapdragon. And one Autobot mini-Headmaster, Nightbeat.
Nightbeat had some broken parts, Skullcruncher has a scratched canopy, but the other two look in decent condition, apart from being dusty and dirty.

I mainly wanted the lot for Snapdragon, a fantastic toy. But this particular example has some discoloration. That is not really a big issue for me, as I know the cure for discoloration. The missing heads, tails and weapons? It doesn't sound expensive, but it is. The heads command high prices, unless you're patient. I can be patient. I don't mind the hunt for missing accessories. It's extremely fun to finally complete toys like that.

And if I fail finding that final wing for Snapdragon, I could always just buy a complete one, and use this for spare parts, or let my nephew play with it.

It's easy to be tempted to do the whole ebay thing again, searching for random old toys at great prices, but I think I'll stick with picking up those selected pieces I actually want.

That said, in the near future I'll share a few ebay tricks I've taught myself over the years, and of course, should you have any question or comments, just click below.

Enjoy your weekend!

Encore Trailbreaker and Hoist pt. 2

A few days ago, I told a few stories about what Transformers we had in our stores. For various reasons, we never got Trailbreaker or Hoist in our local toy store, and oddly enough, I kinda wanted them. 

Well, now I'm (apparently) an adult, and I can buy all the toys I want - to a certain extent. Pair this with the various reissued robots, and there's suddenly no reason for me to not have the likes of Trailbreaker and Hoist. 

And here's cool - or ironic part, depending on your point of view: I suspect I enjoy these two robots more now than I would have as a kid. 

I mean, at this point there is something deliciously retro about these toys. And, I can appreciate them from a historical aspect. As a kid, though, I'm sure I would have found them a bit outdated, specially in robot mode. 

Now, I'll let the pictures speak for them selves here, but some information: Both came with identical accessories: two hands, two rockets and two other appendages I cannot identify. The transformation is obviously similar, but the truck compartment on Trailbreaker and the small trailer/lift on Hoist make them slightly different. In robot mode, both are almost immobile. They have some articulation in their arms, but really: they're as static as action figures possibly can be.  

That being said, their party trick is a good one: Firing arm cannons. Literally. I've complained about spring loaded missiles on G.I. Joe figures, but here - on these two transformers - they are absolutely perfect. All robots should have hands that can fire, come to think about it.  

Another "play feature" is the compartment space for a driver. A small hatch on the roof opens, where in you can place your Diaclone drivers - or any tiny figure. Keep in mind that these toys were not originally made for the Transformers line, but probably for one of the countless obscure transforming robot lines in Japan in the late 70s - early 80s. I like this. Just as the cockpits on the Dinobots, it's something that adds to the rich meta-history of the toys. 

Both came with the same sticker sheet, and it's just the robot mode that gets additional decals. The stickers doesn't show at all in vehicle mode. But thankfully they already have a printed Autobot symbol. 

All in all, cool toys, does well on the shelf in both modes. Opening toys makes my day a little bit better, which is why I encourage all you MOC/MISB collectors to do the same: Open your toys, people.