Masters of the Universe Board Game... In Norwegian

Yes, so I got invited to a facebook group for people who collected G.I. Joe figures in Norway. I didn't know there were more than 2-3 of us, but it turns out there is.
Come to think of it, I'm not that surprised. G.I. Joe - or Action Force - was a big thing here, and it had to leave a lasting impression on more than just me and my friend, Runar.
 

So, one of the guys contacted me and said he was collecting anything 80s, but preferably specified to Norwegian releases. He asked if I had anything cool lying around. I gave it a thought, and realized I actually had a very specific item he would appreciate. I had just been digging for treasures in the attic, and managed to find a vintage board game set to the Masters of the Universe universe. -_-

Anyway, it's not nearly complete, and it's missing box, lid and rules of play - in addition to several pieces. But the cardboard of the playing field looks to be intact, as does Castle Grayskull. The interior is made to be elevated an inch, and this function seems to still work. All though I didn't want to break anything, so I just left it lying flat on the floor.

You could play as the heroes, and I managed to find He-Man, Teela, Man-at-Arms and Stratos. When playing, you could end up literally stumbling onto villains, represented by square pieces, but of these I only found Mer-Man.

The more I look at this game, the more nostalgic I get. This was, for some reason, a big deal. It has obviously survived longer than my original collection of MOTUs.
I believe I could make some proxies for some of the missing pieces, and this could easily be a functional game. If my memories serve me well, it was far from the worst game I have played.
I have a vague sense of how we played this game, and regardless of its state, this has to be one of the coolest items I own.

Of course, the guy I was talking with wasn't particularly impressed, as he already had like five of these (among other seriously impressive treasures). But hey, we all have our thing, and that's great.

Here's some more pictures.

Weekend at a local games con

This weekend, me and the girlfriend went to a local games con, as exhibitors, sellers and enthusiasts. We had a great time, met lots of great people, sold some stuff, talked old toys, and saw a bunch of really amazing collectibles.

My booth the first day

Read on for a short report and tons of pictures!

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!

A Different, but Similar Perspective on Nostalgia

Every once in a while, I go on various quasi-philosophical rants. I guess it comes with the territory of finally growing up. You see, there is nothing that says adults can't enjoy playing with toys just as much as kids. It's just that we play differently. One of my students (the same who made this one for me) asked me today how long it was since I last played with toys. I had to admit, I played with toys almost every day. When ever I pose my action figures, sort my collection, or even just look at my toys - am I not playing? And in the broader sense, am I not playing with toys when I goof around with my smart phone, installing various apps, playing candy crush, and so on. Is this not play? When I get together with friends to play board games or cards, can't this too be considered playing with toys? 

We play different than the kids, but we absolutely play. 

The biggest difference seems to be that kids dare to admit that they are playing, but adults tend to camouflage it behind fancy words. "Us, playing? No, we're just having an 80's theme party, and the He-Man cartoon looping in the background is just to be authentic". "Me? I'm not playing, I just had to get the Back to the Future Lego for my bookshelf". "These are not toys, these are expensive cars/porcelain dolls/model trains/bicycles/fishing poles/etc..." 

Another difference is of course that we tend to analyze our interests. I did that a month ago, in an article on nostalgia. I'm not sure I thoroughly got to express what I actually felt, but the essence of it is that the 80s were such special times for plastic toys that they more or less created the modern toy collector/pop culture nerd. 

One of my fellow enthusiasts, G.I. Jigsaw, wrote a comment that I felt was worth reposting in its entirety:

I often ask myself, why am I still collecting toys in my 40s. 

I was 6 when Star Wars and it’s Kenner lineup was released, 11 when GI Joe – ARAH was released. These were fantastic toys, and I spent many hours playing with them. A year or so later, I gave up on buying toys, though I still loved them, and eyed them at the store. 

I think you hit the nail on the head – it was a convergence of forces that make the 80s toys so beloved. Quality, story, sheer numbers, and technology. Though the 12 inch GI Joe is loved by many, the size of the Kenner Star Wars line really allowed kids to “buy them all!” As for GI Joe, I had read that the strategy of the first few waves was to allow families to get the entire series for under $100. It worked.
I do like the new as much as the vintage, mostly because they didn’t have those toys when the movies came out (Predator, Alien), but also like the creativity of new stories (Gears of War (left), Walking Dead).

I love the craftsmanship of toys. They are works of art in my opinion. The sculpting and detailing are phenomenal. I still enjoy the simplicity of the Star Wars Kenner line.

Like you, “I collect vintage toys because I have potent, and delightful memories of playing with these toys as a kid.” My family didn’t have a lot of money growing up, but my parents somehow managed to get me some of the toys I loved, because they saw my brother and I playing with them all the time.

I even specifically remembering when and how I received most of them. Those memories carry over to the new Gentle Giant Jumbo Kenner figures (example to the right). The ones I loved as a kid (Death Squad Commander, Jawa) were the first ones I purchased. Interestingly, I never like Death Star Droid or Walrusman and to this day, I still haven’t purchased those GG equivalents. I remember going to Child World on a Friday night when my dad bought me the Kenner TaunTaun and Hoth Han. It is the reason I preordered the GG Hoth Han so quickly.

Around the time I was moving away from toys, I already had an Atari 2600. It didn’t overwhelm me but I can see how today, video games and the internet capture the attention of kids faster these days. They are also a great babysitter by parents, unfortunately. There are two years olds that can navigate an iPad better than me. 

I still think the quality is here today, the same as back then. I do think some of today’s toys are very original – but the larger figures (6 inch Gears of War) and cost of plastic puts a price tag on toys where parents couldn’t buy them all.


I am also “glad I was invited to the main show - as a child in the 80s - to experience it first hand, and I'm glad to be around now, for the after party.”

Make sure to check out G.I. Jigsaw's blog. He writes about toys, comic books, and has made some really cool dioramas. 

Thanks for the comment, G.I. Jigsaw.

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!

What about Playmobil's Future Planet? (part 1 of 2)

Well, what about it? Am I being unfair for neglecting this fantastic sub-line of these amazingly well-made toys?

Truth is... Yes. But then again, I don't collect Playmobil. Maybe I should, when I look at the quality of the sets. But as I've said before, I don't actually buy a lot of toys these days. It's limited to Lego Minifigures, the occasional Lego set, the MOTUCs (which I have an apparent love/hate relation to), and my summer splurges on big robots or sealed vintage G.I. Joe vehicles. I'm an enthusiast, yes. But I'm just not merely a toy collector. I have several other interests as well, some that even take precedence over the toy collecting.

So yes, sadly I have neglected Playmobil's Future Planet.
I instantly fell in love with this sub-line when I saw the sets in the shelves, but I didn't make the jump until I saw a set at a massive price reduction. This article is mostly thoughts, and pictures of the boxed set, I'll get to the opened product at a later point.

And you can make the jump into this article to read more.

Displaying a collection

This is a continuing project, and I doubt I will ever finish it. How to display a large collection of toys in an elegant way.

I showed a few months ago how my coffee table looks like, and I also mentioned the Ikea Detolf display cabinet as a possible solution. Well, I bought one, and it's been sitting here for far too long, unopened. Finally, probably out of frustration, my girlfriend took responsibility and assembled it.




I can't fit my entire collection of toys in a single Detolf, let alone ten, or even twenty. But then again, I don't plan on showing off the entire collection in my house at all times. I do like the idea of a rotating display, where I will be active in what I put into my Detolf. At the moment, I'm thinking of getting a couple more of these, they are absolutely awesome, for the price.

They don't seem to take up a lot of space. Obviously, they don't take up more space than the size of the cabinet, but since the Detolf have four glass walls, and glass shelves, they appear significantly smaller than cabinets with wooden frames. The top has a slot for a spot light, which is something I'll consider. I'll also look into led strips. Relatively easy to assemble, once you get the hang of it, but due to all the glass, the entire package is very heavy.

I do wish they came with four shelves instead of three. But I have seen people get around this by placing acrylic cubes in the back of each shelf, and in that way As it is now, there's no point in displaying smaller toys, like G.I. Joe or the smaller Transformers, as they will create a huge gap of space between each level of toys.

Right now, I just placed a few bigger toys, more or less randomly. These where the toys I had lying closest to me, most of them have been featured in previous articles. The bottom shelf is a curious one, as it's at ground level. I had no toys I felt comfortable displaying that close to the floor, so I ended up with the basketball. Temporarily? Who knows.

The first shelf contains the Sith Interceptor, which I reviewed a few weeks ago. We also see a helmet-less Masters of the Universe Classics Battle Cat and She-Ra. Neither has gotten face time in this blog, which is a shame. She-Ra is a cool figure, and Battle Cat is one of the best toys made in recent years.

The second shelf has a couple of more MOTUCs, in Shadow Beast, Panthor and Orko. DC Comics Jack Knight, Starman, has been shown in this blog previously, as has Marvel Legends Hawkeye.

Top shelf has a couple of robots, including the extremely impressive Scorponok. MOTUC Moss-Man ranked high in my "Top ten Masters of the Universe Classics" (a list I plan on revisiting soon). Finally, I managed to sneak in a few StarCom figures.

Top shelf, or rather on top of the entire cabinet, He-Man piloting the mighty Wind Raider, one of the most surprising toys to come out of the Classics line. Fantastic sculpt and paint, lots of play value and just an impressive sight when displayed like this.

How to Display Toys cont.

Well, as I'm moving to a bigger place, I'm also faced with a problem. How to display my toys. Obviously I can't find room for all of them in the open. And while I have a lot more room to fill now, I still can't have for instance massive glass displays like the museum that borrowed my G.I. Joe collection.

I'm definitely going to pick up a few Ikea Detolf - the universally accepted go-to cabinet for anything collectible. I've shown how delicate it can be done, while still filling them to the brim with toys.

But I also had the idea of displaying my toys in a really classy fashion. Think cabinets where you would find expensive china and lead crystal glasses. Except it's filled with Transformers and Masters of the Universe.

And the first step towards something like that was obtaining the coffee table Liatorp, also from Ikea.
I've seen this been used in similar way, with anything from the more safe items like colorful stones and coffee-table books to actual interesting items like watches and archaeological artifacts. I wouldn't mind having watches in one of the compartments myself, but my collection of time pieces is tiny.

I'm definitely not done putting toys inside it, and as you can see, I still have spare compartments. But you may get the idea. What do you think?

Ikea's Liatorp series also contains a gorgeous bookshelf/cabinet that would suffice for the bigger robots and assembled Lego sets. But when I can get 6-7 Detolf for the same price, it's difficult to justify.

Anyway, this is a good start, I'm enjoying this way of displaying toys, instead of how it used to be, collecting dust on a shelf.

G.I. Joe collection

First of all, happy new year. 2012 looks just as promising as any previous year, and while I'm cautiously optimistic as usual, it did feel like a good start to the year. Just before Christmas, I got back my G.I. Joe collection. It has been at a local museum for the better part of two years. I will simply start the new year by letting you see how the exhibition looked like. I will also admit that I missed my toys. Most of them are connected to good memories spanning two decades. While those memories will be saved for Figure Fridays, I will tell a bit about how it was to make an exhibition at a museum.

Read on for many pictures.