#1034 VARITEMAS S.L. - ROBIN HOOD (AROUND 1999)

Card manufacturing in Spain has been traditionally dominated by Heraclio Fournier, followed by other brands like Naipes Comas. But there are many other manufacturers, like Mas Reynals from Barcelona, a company founded in 1989 that produced lower quality and cheap decks of cards that looked very similar to other more famous ones.

Their products were sold some "100 pesetas" shops, the equivalent of the modern pound shops or 1 Euro Shops. And that was its price, a very low one. Some of their decks were aimed at the tourist market, although they covered also the children´s/toy market. The company had a second brand called Varitemas S.L. that they used since the foundation of the company. In 2003, Más Reunals changed its name to Varitemas S.L., which is active still today.

Do not try to access this url today, as it is not active anymore.

We have this deck since the very late 1990s, I think we bought it in the classic little town weekly market. These events are disappearing now, as every spot on the map has its supermarket, and an internet connection. There used to be at least a tent with cheap toys, and one of those days, we got this deck of cards. I’m quite sure it costed 100 pesetas (0,60 euro)

It is the classic "Schwarzer Peter" game, with a series of couples of cards, except one that does not fit. The player holding that card at the end of the game loses. The cards that fit together have the same number and one half of an illustration each. Together they tell the story of Robin Hood, although there were other tales  or stories available. The drawings do not look very professional, but they are nice and bizarre altogether. The deck was not played much with, that is why it is still in a very good shape.

There are still many of these available for sale in sites like todocoleccion.net, based on well-known tales and stories, and they are not expensive. Some of them are still sealed. Interestingly, they seem to have been available in blister cards for display.

FACTS AND FIGURES

• Name: ROBIN HOOD
• Year: Around 1999
• Company: Varitemas, S.L. (Spain)

#1033 DARDA - FERRARI F1, BMW-WILLIAMS F1 and TEAM DARDA (Around 2006)

These three cars by Darda are among the most modern in my collection. Darda is still selling and producing very good-looking cars and tracks, but they are not precisely cheap toys. Maybe that is why they are so hard to spot today. Two of these Formula ones represent the models driven by Michael Schumacher (RN5) in the 2006 season and one of the three drivers that ran for BMW-Williams in 2005, which we cannot identify since the toy does not carry any race number. It could be Mark Webber, Nick Heidfield or Antônio Pizzonia. 

The second red formula, with white stripes is more difficult to identify, I am not sure if it represents a real model or not, mostly when it carries number 1, it had to be a world champion driver, and with those colours, I cannot recall any racing team from the 2000s... Also it is decorated with "Team Darda" tampographies, unlike the other two which have logos of real companies and products. This is not definitive, as sometimes cigarretes and alcoholic beverages were not represented on toys at that time. 

I would conclude that this car is slightly more modern and just a way to reuse a cast that they kept.

Both cars are based in the same cast, only the colours and decorations are different. They look great, but, unlike older Dardas, they are completely made of plastic. I have seen other formula one teams represented with this same cast: some more decorations of a red cast (none of them seems to be a real team), a yellow model that seems to represent the Jordan from 2001 or before, and a white and black formula, which, with some imagination, could be a McLaren-Mercedes. As a matter of fact it carries RN9, which in the year 2005 corresponded to Kimmi Räikönnen. Of course, there are several variations of each model, with different tampographies or slight different colours. I'd love to have them all!

Here pictures of one car only, maybe you can see the cast details better this way.

FACTS AND FIGURES:

• Name: FERRARI F1, BMW WILLIAMS F1 and TEAM DARDA (1617-040 and 1631-001) (Numbering according to www.dardamania.de) (Team Darda cannot be numbered, as this website is gone private and I cannot check the references anymore)
  
• Scale: 1:64 (approx.)
• Year: Around 2006
• Company: Darda (Germany)
• Size: approx. 3’’ or 7 cm