I had read this book (165 pages) in approximately 24 hours, it is amazingly easy to read, and includes an amazing amount of data. Maybe you’re one of those who think that everything can be found in the Internet, and you’re probably right… almost.
First thing to emphasize is that you won’t read this book only once. It’s the perfect handbook, you can check it every time you find an Exin toy, because it includes the whole history in one volume. Behind it, there’s a great work of documentation, and you don’t need additional books, because the information is perfectly framed on its time and context.
Second point to emphasize is that, additionally, the author has researched on his own many aspects that were not clear to him, or about which, there is a lot of rumorology. The author has collected information from first-hand sources, mostly Exin ex-employees, and the whole work was supervised and checked by members of the Arnau family, founders of this great toy company.
The book covers the whole lifespan of the Spanish company from 1942 to 1993, and even beyond, because many toy lines like Scalextric, Tente or Madelman were sold to other companies and were produced for a longer period of time, or exist even today.
The most important toy-lines have a chapter of its own: Arquitectura Exin, Exin Blok and Idea Basic, Exin Castillos, Exin West, Cinexin, Ibertren, Madelman, Scalextric and Tente. There’s a very interesting chapter about Exin México, which is mostly focused on Scalextric.
If you’re interested in this book, you can buy it here. The book is written in Spanish, and has a price of 12 Euros plus shipping costs.
If you find this book interesting, you might also be interested in this other book.
About the autor: Xavier Arumí is the host of www.rosaspage.com, has already written a few books about collecting and about toys, comic books (that he also illustrate), and novels. He is a collector himself, and as you can check on his website, or reading his books, a great expert on toys, apart from a good writer.
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