#1098 EXIN - EXIN CASTILLOS 2 (Around 1972)

There is not much I can say about this toy that has not been said before. Exin is the most important Spanish toymaker of all times and this was one of their highlights in the 70s and the 80s. A construction toy that allowed us to build castles and fortresses in the medieval style. Spain is a land with a huge number of castles and this toy would appeal to many children and to their families. As in every construction game, you can follow the instructions provided or try to reproduce the castle of your village or town. You just need enough blocks or bricks to finish your project.

The bricks have an unmistakable color that simulates stone (light brown plastic with white and darker brown seams) and, unlike Lego or Tente, there is not a huge variety of the basic bricks. The most common stone is 2x1, longer bricks (such as 4x1, 6x1...) are rare, so to construct something solid from zero can be a challenge. However, this is how houses and castles are built, so you are closer to the work of a mason than you are with other construction games. 

 

 

What makes the game unique are the pieces to make round walls (to build round towers or to round up corners) and other nice elements that are very realistic, such as different types of windows and doors and hand-painted plastic figures that represent common characters from medieval history or castles altogether. These include: knights on foot or horse, a princess, a ghost, guards and bowmen, among others... The figures were scarcely included in the boxes of Exin Castillos, but could be bought separately in nice "historical" sets, which also included war machines and small accessories. Some of this were made by Elastolin.

 

These sets are today very rare to find.  The toy I have was bought in a flea market in Austria and it seems to be Exin Castillos 2, a middle-sized set, just missing the two bases on which you start building your castle. These bases were made of thin hard plastic, and not many have survived until today. Still, I have the instructions and many figures, plus many other parts I got in another lot bought in a flea market in Spain. I haven't mixed the two together yet. According to the instructions, the castle looks like the one in the pictures. I took some pictures highlighting the figures and some corners and details of the building.

This great game was sold between 1968 and 1991. The models 0, 1, 2 and 3 are from the early 70s, the period in which the line grew, sold best and became really popular. By the mid eighties it was not so popular anymore, maybe because of Exin´s own competition with Tente, which had a bigger variety of pieces, was smaller and cheaper to produce. In any case, there are still many pieces out there and many enthusiasts of the toy that organize expositions and even design new pieces to combine with the old ones and achieve higher quality models.

FACTS and FIGURES:

• Name: EXIN CASTILLOS 2

• Year: 1972

• Company: Exin (Spain)

• Size: Around 40x40 cm 

#1093 LEHMANN/RIGI – Nr. 900 D·G·M (SEILBAHN / CABLE CAR / TELEFÉRICO / TÉLÉPHÉRIQUE) (Around 1965)

The brand Rigi especialized in cable cars and was active in the 60s and the 70s of the last century. This kind of vehicles are very attractive in Germany and the German speaking countries, and it reminds the kids of holidays in the Alps both in Summer and Winter. Rigi produced a series of cable cars, all of them very similar to each other, some even with an electric motor operated by batteries.

But Rigi was a brand of a bigger and more important toy manufacturer: Lehmann. Or Ernst Paul Lehmann, as it was originally called after one of the two people who founded the company. Ernst Paul Lehmann came from Berlin, and his associate, Jean Eichner came from Nürnberg. The original factory was located in Brandenburg an der Havel, a town located around 50 km West from Berlin. Their products were tin toys of all kinds and great quality, often equipped with surprising mechanisms. Until the turn of the century, the company employed between 600 and 800 people and their massive production was, in part, exported. Mr. Lehmann died in 1934, but the company continued in the hands of the Lehmann family. Unfortunately, in the year 1948, after the fall of the III Reich, and being in the communist part of Germany (East-Germany or GDR), the company was expropriated and renamed VEB Mechanische Speilwaren Brandenburg.

But this was not the end of Lehmann toys... the company was refounded in 1950 in Nürnberg, with the name Ernst Paul Lehmann Patentwerk, where they continued producing even more toys. Of course, at some point they introduced plastic parts in their toys, combining them with tin. In the year 1970, the tin was completely replaced by other materials, but the production of toys continued. Another landmark happened in 2013, where the company became part of the great German (and European) toy cluster Simba-Dickie-Group, and, to my knowledge, it is still their property.

The box depicts a nice scenery, with mountains in the background and the cable car at the front. The sides show some viewpoint, in which some people stare at the distant mountains. Note also that the logo of the company appears in the short sides of the box. The space inside the box is tight, as it has the exact size of the car, plus the structure from which it hangs. The stations go below or above this part of the toy.

Here are more detailed pictures of the different components of the toy, including the two stations. In the case of the reference 900, the car is operated by hand.

The car itself has two practicable doors with a lever to open or close them. Both ends seem to be the same piece, which simplifies the construction of the toy. The doors are also the same. It has a good size to be combined with action figures and small dolls. The colours are plain but the combination is nice, with details such the thin red line and the small logos and texts. All in all a very classic design.

FACTS AND FIGURES:

• Name: Nr. 900 D·G·M SEILBAHN
• Alternate Names: Cable Car, Teleférico, Téléphérique
• Year: Around 1965
• Company: Lehmann / Rigi (West-Germany)
• Size: Around 15 cm.
• Scale: Unknown

#875 GOULA - COLEGIO (Ref. 600) (Around 1979)

As a kid I had a construction set from this brand. Now it is lost, but I would really like to find it and play with it, right now. Unfortunately, it was probably thrown away years ago, so I won't be able to do this.

Instead, I found this nice set in a flea market several years ago, the pieces are similar, although in the set I was referring to, there were basically building parts with a few cars, people and even some trees. On the contrary, this set includes only school or class furniture and people, but still the style of the manufacturer cannot be mistaken. The wood is very light coloured (light brown) and many pieces have some colour applied in one side, always in basic/plain colours.

Both the set I owned as a kid, and this one I have now belong to a celebrated series called "Construcción Urbis". They were the classic contruction block set, maybe in a smaller size than the usual game (probably to keep the prices as low as possible), and with dedicated sets including particular pieces not available in other sets. The series was divided in several subgroups according to the size of the box: Urbis, Urbis-2, Urbis-3... up to Urbis-5, which included the biggest boxes with the highest amount of pieces. Some sets were also available in bags.

Note for example this curious school class. The blocks have the shapes of desks, chairs an blackboards, and this pieces, of course were especific to this set. There are also some figures included, but they are made of plastic. It would be much more expensive to produce them in wood, but earlier versions of this game had wooden figures, in a less realistic style, and curiously, the teacher was a nun (something not very unusual at the time in Spain). The figures are slightly flat, in the tin soldiers style. My set is probably missing two pupils (at least compared with the picture in the box cover).

Note the nice sculpt of the different furniture: teacher´s desk (with platform), blackboard, pupil´s desk... it is a very interesting construction set, maybe also intended to be a toy for girls?

Among the boxes in this Urbis series and this size, which I think it was the smallest one (17x11 cm), the references were:

• 600 Colegio (School)
• 601 Granja (Farm)
• 602 Fuerte (Fort)
• 603 Garajes (Garages)
• 604 Estación (Train Station)
• 605 Aeropuerto (Airport)
• 606 Zoo
• 607 Castillo (Castle)

And now a few lines about the manufacturer. The company which made this toy is Goula, a Spanish company that is still active, although now it is part of a bigger concern, as it is Diset.

Theirofficial website (http://www.goula.es/content/sobre-goula-15) tells us the story of a family business run since 1942. The brand name comes from the surname of the founder Josep Goula from Vic (near Barcelona).

The business probably derived from a carpenter´s workshop especialized in Christmas decoration goods. Soon they started producing wooden toys for children (around 1950) and since then, they have been participating in the Toy Fair in Nurenberg every year.

Currently their toys still use wood, but sometimes combined with other materials, like cloth or cardboard. The design is still being made in Barcelona, although nothing is said about production...

Goula is part of the Diset group and is the leader manufacturer in wooden toys in Spain. It exports to more than 60 countries. Great! I wonder if they ever thought about reissuing these Urbis sets. Do you think they would have any commercial success nowadays?

FACTS AND FIGURES:

• Name: COLEGIO (Ref. 600)
• Year: Around 1979
• Company: Goula (Spain)

#724 BOGLINS - GLOW BOGLIN KLANG and BABY BOGLIN BOINK (1986)

Boglins are a line of hand-puppets made by Mattel between 1987 and 1990 or 1991. They are made of soft rubber, just like many figures used in special effects for science-fiction and horror movies in the second half of the 80s. Most sources of information point out that they were probably inspired by movies like Gremlins, Ghoulies, Critters that were very popular back then (and some are still today). I am not so familiar with those movies (except Gremslins), but they seem a bit different to me.

 

 

Something remarkable were the boxes in which they were sold: they were cubic cardboard boxes simulating wood and the front, instead of a window had bars like if it was a jail. Nice details like "do not feed" and "do not touch" signs were the perfect appeal for children to touch the puppet with their fingers and having that funny-but-disgusting feeling of the soft rubber touch. It is kind of humid but dry, and soft but cannot be deformed. The back of the box included a description of the species with an evolutionary tree written as if they were a real species. Very funny to read.

 

There were several Boglins sub-series in different size, but all of them shared some distinctive features. Most of them have bigs heads, short tails and also arms.

 

From the inside you can control the opening of the mouth, but also the eyes (or eye), in a very impressive effect. The arms are articulated, and could be move from the outside. With some practice, you could really move the puppet and make it look like a living creature. The biggest ones (called simply Boglins, or in latin: Boglinus Humungus) were really big and you could control all previously listed features. The Small Boglins (boglinus minimus) were slightly smaller. The white Boglin I am showing has this same size (but is not a small Boglin). There were 7 characters available in this size. Here you cannot control the arms, which simply hang under the head as in their bigger brothers (where you could insert one finger in each arm).

 

 

There were many other sub-series or sub-species of Boglins, including the Soggy Boglins, Baby Boglins, Halloween Boglins, Acrobat Boglins, Mini Boglins, Hairy Boglins, Talking Boglins, Bash'em Boglins, Action Boglins, Baby Squirt Boglins, Glow Boglins, Ric Fair Boglins (something in common with the wrestler?), Batty Boglins and Moggy Boglins (the last two were never mass produced nor released). Every sub-series included characters in different colours, and depending on the previous category, they came with hair, fluorescent paint to glow in the dark, detachable body parts...

 

The white Blogin I present today is a Glow Boglin, and was only available in Europe, not the US, so an "EURO exclusive".

 

 

I have been looking at some commercials and pictures, and I must say they look amazing. Some (like the Halloween Boglins) look really frightening even today. i understand that they are still very sought-after by collectors worldwide. Unfortunately, I have some doubts about their durability. I think in a few years, maybe 10 more or maybe 20, the rubber skin may deteriorate, harden and finally break into pieces, so they are not a line I would "collect" or spend much money on. They are cool toys, but in my opinion, they are not collectables.

 

I also own one "Baby Boglin", which, in comparison, is quite simple and boring. Just a very small creature with goggly eyes in which you can insert one finger (one adult finger), but you cannot move the mouth, arms or anything else. They were among the cheapest Bogling you could buy, and came in a plastic egg. The skin and the feeling of touching it is the same as in the small Boglin that appears in the pictures, but the playability is very low.

 

 

 

Here is a very good source for Boglins, both normal, small, baby and all the others: http://www.ghostofthedoll.co.uk/boglins.php

 

I wish Mattel releases something similar for children around 8 years, which I think would like to play with them. They are great toys: enhance imagination, coordination skills (eye-hand coordination) and are actually a lot of fun to play with. But... do these toys still have a chance against Pókemon Go and similar games?

 

FACTS AND FIGURES:

• Name: KLANG (GLOW BOGLIN) and BOINK (BABY BOGLIN)
• Toy Line: BOGLINS
• Year: 1986
• Company: Mattel (U.S.A.)
• Size of the figures: Around 9 cm tall the big one and around 6 cm long the small one

#694 ROBOTS, SPACESHIPS AND OTHER TIN TOYS (THE TERUHISA KITAHARA COLLECTION)

First I have to say that this is not exactly a book you read. It has exactly 3 pages with text, in which the author explains a couple of things about his collection. Mr Teruhisa Kitahara has established 7 museums in Japan and is a renowned and famous toy collector in his country.

The rest of the book (it has around 350 pages) are just (impressive) full page pictures of toys (photographed by Yukio Shimizu). There is a big chapter dealing only with robots and spaceships, and two shorter chapters dealing with cars and figures & scenarios.

The photos are impressive, because the toys themselves are amazing. Rare and mint pieces of toys from the 1920´s to the 1970´s, most of them from Japanese brands like: Nomura, Yonezawa, Line Mar, Horikawa, Bandai, Masudaya, Daiya... The fascination of Japan with robots comes since a long time. In the 10th issue of Figuras En Acción I wrote about robots, and there I learnt how the Japanese toy industry was created after WW2 and how they manufactured for American companies like Cragstan. This part is not in the book, if you want to learn more about Japanese tin robots, you´ll need another book, this one is only to look at and find marvelous old toys.

While watching it, I actually though of my recent visit to the Toy Museum in Singapore, that also features a great collection of toys, with one floor of their building dedicated only to robots and space toys.

So, I recommend the book for people who are interested in curious toys, but with the remark, that there is nothing to read about history or any interesting facts about the toys. Each toy has its name, the toymaker company and the decade in which it was built. In two particular cases, I detected that the deccade was wrong: in the car chapter, there are two different James Bond´s Aston Martin DB5 (from the Goldfinger movie), and they are both dated 1950s... while the movie is from 1964, if I recall properly.

#681 RICO MINI SANSÓN – BUGGY DUNNE SIN CAPOTA (Ref.504) (Around 1970)

Buggys were quite popular in the 70s, they were simple, fun, could drive over sand (for example on the beach) and were associated with freedom and freshness. There were thousands of buggy toys, and this is one of them, made in Spain by Rico under license of Tonka.

In some Rico boxes it is clearly specified that the license comes from Tonka, although in this case it is not stated… A friend of this blog posted a comment in one of my old Tonka/Rico entries, telling me that there are some hints that Rico started manufacturing Tonka models without the license and after being warned, they turned everything legal.

I would like to prove this, maybe I can ask somebody at the Toy Museum from Ibi (when I finally get to visit it), or maybe, if you are reading this and you know something, you could leave a comment in this entry.

I love this buggy, it is sturdy as every other Sansón product, it has a nice colour and a sticker that gives it a very “hippie” look. The box is also very interesting: the buggy is depicted in green instead of red and there are some Sansón Trucks on the back: the car transporter, two fire trucks, an excavator…

I want to write one or two entries on Sansón trucks, but I always forget to take pictures of them. Hopefully I have another chance next and the entry will be published soon.

FACTS AND FIGURES:

• Name: BUGGY DUNNE SIN CAPOTA (Ref. 504)
• Year: Around 1970
• Company: RICO (Spain)
• Size: Around 9 cm.
• Scale: Unknown

#646 IDEAL - LAND ROVER SAFARI WITH FRICTION MOTOR (1974)

This is a toy I got in a lot with many other things. At first I didnt think it was something special, although the friction motor worked really fine. It takes a long time for it to stop, only after having gone over a long distance.

At some point I saw the marking (which is a bit hidden) IDEAL New Jersey 1974. Of course, I knew Ideal from before, it is one of the great historical American toymakers, so I started looking at this toy differently. The car is quite sturdy, although a small child that borrowed it made some cracks in the chassis structure by pushing too hard down. I repaired it. My son also dropped it a few times and the back bumper broke. This is the most weak part. I repaired it, and then reinforced it with some pieces of wood. My son likes it a lot.

So, back to Ideal toys, the company was founded in 1907 in Hollis, New York with a slightly different name: "Ideal Novelty and Toy Company", and its founders were Morris and Rose Michtom. They claim to be the inventors of the Teddy Bear in 1902, after that famous anecdote with president (Theodore "Teddy") Roosevelt and a real bear, although the real fact is that the Teddy Bear was invented simultaneously in Germany by Steiff too. So, the Michtoms are at least the co-inventors of the Teddy Bear.

The dolls were introduced in 1907 and gained popularity for being advertised as unbreakable, because they were made of a new material based on sawdust (wood dust) and glue called "composition".

One of the most renowned dolls were Betsy Wetsy, which was produced for more than 50 years starting in 1934. it was one of the first African American dolls ever produced. Today these are very sought after by collectors. The Toy Industry Association named it one of the 100 most creative toys of the 20th century.

The original name was changed in 1938 to Ideal Toy Company, and due to the Baby-Boom after World War II in the U.S., Ideal grew to be the largest American manufacturer of dolls, increasing its revenues and even selling licenses for other countries, including Australia, United Kingdom, Canada or Brazil.

The good business and success stories continued until the 80s, moving from New York to New Jersey, also reallocating factories in Hong Kong. In 1980-81 the company distributed the "official" Rubik's Cube toy, that was a little fiasco, there were many bootleg cubes and the bussiness was not as good as expected. Apparently Ideal sued many distributors and retailers.

In 1982, the company was sold to CBS Toys, and in 1987, CBS would sell it again to ViewMaster International, creating View Master Ideal. In 1989, View Master Ideal was bought by Tyco Toys, and Tyco Toys would merge in 1997 with Mattel.

FACTS and FIGURES:

• Name: LAND ROVER SAFARI
• Year: 1974
• Company: Ideal (U.S.A.)
• Size: Around 9 cm
• Scale: Unknown