#957 PIATNIK – AUTOS, EXOTISCHE TIERE & TIERBABIES (HYPO BANK PROMOTIONAL) (Around 1993)

 

Here a set of promotional card sets given by an Austrian Bank in the mid 80s. Bank giveaways are very common, they were made by millions and given to children in the International Savings Day (31st October) or some other occasion. However what is interesting for me is that the banks gave card sets on old coins, an adult hobby, although back in the days, some children were also brought into collecting coins by their parents. Today it is a rare hobby among young people.

Apart from that rare coin set, the most popular references were usually chosen by the banks: animals, cars... sometimes they chose a country-specific set, like animals from the Alps. Not a big variety in these.

The three sets shown in this entry have the same back design and the same boxes, but the title card from “Autos” has a different desing than the other two. Maybe this deck was older and Piatnik made a better offer for it, maybe they just got rid of some title cards on stock for this order, we will never know.

The year of the promotion is calculated after the cars in the Autos deck, I think the deck must be from 1991, maybe 1992, I think the newest cars depicted were released in 1990.

AUTOS + 2 Mini Puzzles

EXOTISCHE TIERE (This set was also presente in its "TIGER" version, see #337) + Zaubertrick

TIERBABIES:

FACTS AND FIGURES:

• Name: AUTOS, EXOTISCHE TIERE & TIERBABIES (HYPO BANK PROMOTIONAL)
• Year: Around 1991
• Company: Piatnik (Austria)

#956 TMNT - TRICERATON + WINGNUT & SCREWLOOSE (1990)

These two figures are the only ones that I have completed so far from series 3. Like every other TMNT fan, I adore the figures from the Playmates toyline that represent other characters than the four turtles and the other main characters. They are so well designed: colourful, funny, with great playability (for example, unlike theturtles, most of them are very easy to set them standing) and cool accesories.

I am observing that the line is gaining value in the last months and some figures are really expensive already. Will this trend continue?

Well, the two figures today are:

TRICERATON:

Most mutant characters from the TMNT universe are humanoid animals living today, but in this case, it is a dinosaur. It looks like a crazy Playmates idea, but it is actually already in the very first issues of Eastman and Laird´s. Actually they are living on some other planet in Dimension X and are intelligent beings. There are many of these, although in the comic, they are wearing a different suit and look slightly more aggressive.

The figure comes with a grey belt and two rather big blue guns, that contrast with its orange skin.
It is an enemy of the Turtles

WINGNUT:

Wingnut is a bat, and Screwloose is a mosquito, maybe two of the strangest creatures in the toyline, because, how do you make a bat look human? It has strange proportions, with short legs, big belly, and the strangest of all is its head, and more particularly, its nose.

Besides the small Screwloose, the blister pack included two mechanic wings, in which we could insert a revolver and a grenade, both in light yellow, and a yellow belt.

From this figure I also have the bio-card, cut from the original blisterpack in English. These are very funny to read, as they always include many jokes and puns. Although I have this notes about its background and origins, I am still unsure if the figure actually appears in the comic books at some time, or if, in this case, it is a Playmates invention.

Wingnut is a friend and helper of the Turtles.

FACTS and FIGURES:

• Name: TRICERATON + WINGNUT & SCREWLOOSE
• Toy Line: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNT) (Waves 3)
• Year: 1990
• Company: Playmates (U.S.A.)
• Size of the figures: 3.75’’ or 9,75 cm

#955 HIGH SPEED PULLBACK - ABARTH 2000, FORD ZAKSPEED CAPRI and TRANS AM (W13, W15 and W16) (around 1986)

Thanks to my friend Steven, who corrected me here.

These cars are not Summer/S.M., but High Speed. For some reason I got them wrong in my collection and so I passed the error to this entry. I will try to write some alternative text to it, since it is the first time that High Speed appears in the blog.

I have to say, that these High Speed are Summer knock-offs, so maybe that is where the confusion comes from. To my knowledge, all Summer/S.M. cars are marked with the brand name or the logo, so, if not marked, as in this case, they are not made by S.M.

Sorry for the confusion!

The first Summer/S.M. cars I ever had were two pull-back cars in 3 inches size. My father got them for me in the year 1990 or so. One of them was a dark blue BMW M1 with white tampographies and the second one a Mercedes (500 SEC?) in green, also with tampographies. Compared to my Guisvals, Matchbox, Tomicas and so on were objectively ugly. I think I still have one of them somewhere, but I do not know where did my father get them from, where did he buy them (might have been  abroad). That was the first time I saw an S.M. product.

This series seems to be slightly different to me, but may also belong to the same. The models presented here are recent acquisitions, I bought them altogether in a flea market.

The models are well done, mostly compared to other newer Summer models, so I thought I would include them in my collection. They are Made in Hong-Kong and  are based on own casts. I even like the tampographies and the colours used. Nice sport cars!

W13 ABARTH 2000 (1:66)

W15 FORD ZAKSPEED CAPRI (1:65)

 

 

W16 TRANS AM (1:70)

UPDATE (June/2026): M3 (shouldn't it be W3?) Trans-Am in red and W6 BMW M1 (not the one I had as a kid). Not sure why the reference number is changed on the base, but these models are no equipped with a pull-back motor, they are common free-wheeling cars.

FACTS AND FIGURES:

• Name: ABARTH 2000 (W13), FORD ZAKSPEED CAPRI (W15), TRANS AM (W16), BMW M1 (W6)
• Scale: 1:66, 1:65 and 1:70
• Year: Around 1986
• Company: Summer / S.M. (Hong Kong)
• Size: approx. 7 cm

#954 DINO RIDERS SMITHSONIAN - DIPLODOCUS and STYRACOSAURUS (1992)

The dinosaurs from Dino Riders, at the time in which they were made, were supposed to be very accurate 1:32 scale reproductions of dinosaurs. The castings were nice, they had "glass" eyes, were sprayed with state-of-the-art methods and so they were advertised. Today, they are not so eye-catching anymore, and there are better options available in the market, but, of course, more than 25 years have passed since them.

When you visit natural history museums, you usually see plastic toy dinosaurs in the museum shop. I guess back in the early 90s, somebody in charge of the National Museum of Natural History in Washington noticed the quality of some Dino Riders' dinosaurs and probably contacted Tyco to deliver a series of figures to be sold in their museums.

The dinosaurs made for the Smithsonian collection were slightly modified from their Dino Riders counterparts. All electronic circuitry for the walking feature (and the battery cover) were removed, wheels and slots to fit harnesses were also removed and the paintwork was modified in some cases. The box was also designed expressely for the museum. Bigger dinosaurs were sold in big boxes, medium dinosaurs were sold in couples. The boxes had a quality seal "Authorized Replica, Smithsonian Museum". A nice trick to point out the quality of the product.

I have two dinosaurs: the Diplodocus and the Styracosaurus. In general the Smithsonian animals are more difficult to find than the Dino Riders equivalents. And among the Smithsonian´s toys, the Ice Age animals are far rarer than the dinosaurs. It is unclear, if the Killer Warthog was also made for this series of if only the other three Ice Age creatures were actually manufactured and sold in the green boxes.

FACTS and FIGURES:

• Name: DIPLODOCUS and STYRACOSAURUS
• Toy Line: The Smithsonian Institution Dinosaur Collectio
• Year: 1992
• Company: Tyco (U.S.A.)
• Scale: 1:24

#953 CIBA CHINA - MERCEDES UNIMOG CIRCUS WITH SEAL (Around 1992)

I sometimes bring toys to this blog about which there is no information at all on the internet, basically because nobody cares about them. This is one of these cases, an early 90s plastic Unimog from China, produced by the unknown company CIBA Industrial Company, Ltd. This company was founded in Hong-Kong around 1985 and produced toys in Hong-Kong first, and then in China.

I have seen some toys from this company on auction sites, but nothing more: this friction motored Unimog in two decorations, a futuristic ATV operated by batteries and with exchangeable wheels and also a cable-controlled dinosaur.

All pictures: todocoleccion.net

These kind of toys were sold in bazaars during the 80s together with radios, TVs, watches and other stuff from Japan, China and Eastern Asia. At the time they were very well received, since the electronic toys were still very expensive in Europe back then. Anything with sound, lights or cable/remote controlled was the top.

In Spain they were imported by Cosas Internacionales, S.A. located in Ibi (Alicante), the village where lots of other companies were also manufacturing toys of all kinds.

Anybody out there who knows more about CIBA? Maybe the company continued under another name?

FACTS AND FIGURES:

• Name: MERCEDES UNIMOG "CIRCUS" WITH SEAL
• Scale: Around 1:55
• Year: Around  1992
• Company: CIBA Industrial Company Limited (Hong Kong/China)
• Size: approx. 9 cm