Greek Charmkins Alert!

Back to business!

I get excited about international versions of our favorite American toys. First of all, they are hard to come by. Second of all, they are sometimes difficult to get here to America. Third of all, they are almost always WEIRD!

Case in point:

I came across Greek Charmkins the other day and boy are they strange.

Why are they transparent? Why are they simply painted? Here's my guess:

1 - They are either knockoffs made after the machinery molds were sold off by Hasbro. This has happened a lot in the vintage toy industry. Companies cancel production on certain lines and so they unload machinery off their books by selling them to a lesser company.

2 - El Greco (an Italian/Spanish/Greek toy manufacturer) purchased the rights to sell these in those aforenamed countries but decided to do it on the cheap, eliminating the paint process. Remember, Italy especially has extremely strict import/export laws. Most toys have to be manufactured in Italy to be sold in Italy. I am not sure if this is the same with Greece and Spain but it makes sense that toys that got manufactured in Italy would be exported to these neighboring countries.

We won't know until someone finds one MIP, my guess is that #1 is true. I believe this because often when molds are re-sold a contingency is they have to remove identifying brand characteristics (example: the hearts on Care Bears bums had to be removed when the molds were sold for Angelorso bears).

I actually bought several Greek Charmkins and when I get them I will let you know what I find out!

Incidentally, I spent a month in Italy last summer and looked HARD for 80's toys. But not hard enough! I didn't find anything. Well, in Florence I found this crazy junk shop and located some Oodles, but didn't buy them. I couldn't speak Italian so it was hard to ask the lady who owned it if she had any 80's toys. But I did visit a lot of regular toy stores!

In front of a Toy Store in Sirimione, Italy. It had been raining hard all day!

I went around and tried to find more Greek Charmkin pics on the web and ended up finding a few. I started a pinterest board for them. It's going to be fun to collect variations of Charmkins over time.

PS - It's fun to be back to blogging!

Lots More Fun Stuff! Finds & Trades for January 12, 2011

What a fun day for toys!

I get off work early on Wednesdays so I always try to hit the thrift store on the way home. The first place I drove didn't have anything.  It can get pretty discouraging to scrounge around in old junk and come up empty handed. But, I started to use a philosophy to make myself feel better when I go out of my way to drive to a thrift store and can't seem to find much. I believe each store I step into has something that wants to find me. It wants me to bring it home. When I start to think that way it lessens the feeling of discouragement when I only find one small thing. It kind of makes me feel like I rescued something and it was worth the drive.

I was really thrilled with my finds at the second store. Especially the Fluppy Dogs!

I just made up my mind last Friday to start collecting these, but I didn't want them if they didn't have the bow and collar. So low and behold I find one (first one I have EVER found in eleven years of thrifting) and what do you know, it has all its pieces! Then I got the baby with its bonnet. What fun!

For a girl who hates animatronics, I sure own a lot of Teddy Ruxpins. This one came with a tape. Do you think it works? I doubt it highly. No TR's I find ever have! ;)

Check out the Smooshees haul! That was the funnest find. I was also pretty happy about the Glo Worm. I need to test him to see if he still glows.

Some of these finds will end up on my trades page. Let me know if you are interested in anything.

So, speaking of trades . . .

When I came home I had some packages waiting for me! Nice people on The My Little Pony Trading Post have kindly traded some fun things with me!

If any of my trading friends read this blog THANK YOU!!

There on the bottom of the first picture you will see some Moon Dreamer and Glo Friends DVDs! They contain the complete series of each show. I can't wait to watch them one day. I might even take screenshot stills to share. My girls really like them so far. Now I need to get my hands on all the vintage Strawberry Shortcake, Care Bears, and Lady Lovely Locks episodes.

So, this big all-at-once haul has really got me thinking. I need to create some sort of "system" of organization. An inbox of some sort. My goal is to have all my toys stored like this:

I have about 50% of my toys stored in baggies with labels on them inside labeled tubs. The rest are in jumbles in tubs and need to be organized. I was thinking that from now on I will put all new toys in some sort of inbox that I would ideally go through on a regular basis--bagging and tagging things as they come in, noting what's missing and all. If anyone has a process you'd like to share, please comment. I certainly need to ditch the old "throw it all in a tub" thing, even if it means I need to hold off toy buying for a month or two while I get it all organised.

Christmas Pictures!

So how many of you still have Christmas decorations up? I do! The halls are still decked at my house. But soon Valentines day will be here, so I aim to take them down this week. For now I want to keep my promise to post pictures of my kids Ponyville Christmas! You may remember this post where I bragged that I found all the sets locally for about $70, a great deal!

Here's a picture of me, my two sisters and my brother in law having a ball setting it all up on Christmas eve while our kids slept in the basement. I am the one in the red.

Even my dad got into the action. Everyone had a blast!

Here is what they woke up to Christmas morning! They absolutely loved the Ponyville sets.

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Just for fun I am going to post some other fun toy Christmas pictures from my past. Good times!

You can see my My Little Pony jammies in this one!

 

HAPPY *LATE* HOLIDAYS EVERYONE! HOPE YOUR 2011 BRINGS SOME AWESOME TOY FINDS!

Finds for December 29th, 2010

Did everyone have a good Christmas? Next week I will post pictures of my daughter's Ponyville Christmas setup. It was so fun pulling all that together and Ponyville's are SUPER cute!

There was a bad blizzard in Utah yesterday but I got off work early and since the thrift store is only about two miles away I took a trip there before heading home.

Here's what I found:

Check out the cute Get Along Gang party supplies! Also, I found a bunch of cute 80's mugs, lots of G3's, a couple of G1's (though I forgot to picture one pony that I gave a bath to, she had bonnets all over her. I need to look up her name later). A Caboodles case, a Wuzzle, a PJ Sparkles mermaid, a Shopko Care Bear, a Sweetie Pup, a Charmkins VHS, Care Bear sheets, a Glo Friend, a fairy tail bird, a BIG Strawberry Shortcake picture.

My favorite was this cute little mug! I think I'll use it at work.

About half of this stuff will end up on my trades page. I haven't updated it in a few weeks and I have about 100 G3s to add as well as a whole host of 80's toys.