#840 TOYS FROM THE PAST - MUSEUM (III)

See more of these entries here: http://toysfromthepast.blogspot.com/search/label/TFTP

See you next month!

Important notice: The items on display are NOT for sale.

#839 TOYS FROM THE PAST - MUSEUM (II)

See more of these entries here: http://toysfromthepast.blogspot.com/search/label/TFTP

See you next month!

Important notice: The items on display are NOT for sale.

#838 TOYS FROM THE PAST - MUSEUM

Since I want to take some holidays, this month I will publish 11 entries (as I always do), but without much text. Each entry will show pictures of some display, shelves or cabinets I have and in which I display toys. Many of these toys have already appeared in this blog, others still not.

Personally I love watching how other people display their toys and I hope you also enjoy these pictures. If you cannot recognize this or that toy, or if you would like more information about any item on display, just leave a message.

See more of these entries here: http://toysfromthepast.blogspot.com/search/label/TFTP

See you next month!

Important notice: The items on display are NOT for sale.

 

#837 PIATNIK - AUTOS´75 (Ref. 4228) (1975)

I am aware of many sets from Piatnik from several years, like Autos´74 and Autos´76, and I think this was a good idea.

The families of this quartett are cars in different gas consumption categories, starting from 7.5-8.8 liters/100 kilometers to 14,0 to 19,0 liters/100 kilometers. This would be today quite crazy, currently, there are many cars that can make 100 kilometers with less than 4 liters, but at the time it was normal. The Renault 8 was the one with the lower fuel consumption with only 7,5 liters.

Unfortunately, these series didn’t last very long. Piatnik probably thought this is too much work and the decks are obsolete only one year after its release, so they went back to the most generic “Tolle Autos”, “200 Km/h” and so on, that only had to be updated every now and then with a few cards each.

This set has the Piatnik-typical pictures in landscape format. The cars shown are quite atypical for a quartett game, since they are the same you could find in any street back in the days. No Ferraris, no Porsches… but “ordinary” brands like VW, Opel, BMW, Renault, Fiat…

Card promoting other Piatnik Quartets of the same series

Some cars are even very rare, like the DAF 66, Matra LX 530, Saab 99, Opel Commodore, VW 412 E, Opel Admiral, NSU Ro 80 or the Dodge Polara. Probably many of them were made very specificly for the West-German market or their own countries’ markets. At the time, importing/exporting cars was not so common.

FACTS AND FIGURES:

• Name: AUTOS´75 (Ref. 4228)
• Year: 1975
• Company: Piatnik (Austria)

#836 G.I. JOE – R.P.V. (EUROPEAN EXCLUSIVE) (1988)

I recall as if it was yesterday the day I got this vehicle. It was one of those rare (or well, not so rare) chances in which my mother bought me toys. It was one of the small vehicles from the 1988 line, and thus not very expensive, but it surely costed around 1000 pesetas (6 Euro). I remember opening the box while still on the car and trying to mount it on the back tray of the car (at the time children could travel with no security belts or whatever safety restrictions).

I never had many G.I.Joe vehicles, so the R.P.V. was part of many adventures and I played hours with it.

As you can see from the pictures it is a small vehicle that looks quite heavy and slow. I used to play that the Joes had to scort it from here to there and the Cobras tried to ambush them to steal it. I like the idea of an incredible powerful rocket in such a small vehicle, but, of course, this is quite ridiculous form the perspective of an adult collector.

Many collectors will recognise the vehicle, but not the colour, since this grey version is an European Exclusive item. In the U.S. it was released in some kind of light brown, kind of desert brown, which I think is a worse choice.

The tank had capacity for one figure. It has one side seat, which is something I dislike about it. In the box it is Hardball that drives the vehicle. From this seat, and attached to a long black flexible cable, there is a mini-radar unit, that I usually carried under the missile launcher, as I imagined this mini radar may be even slower than the tank itself.

Although I still keep the tank I got as a kid, I later could buy one new in box, although not sealed (the seals deteriorate and leave the box open after many years), but still unassembled. The artwork of the box is truly great, but actually “mirrored”. The back of the box displays the actual toy over a black background (later waves would use dioramized pictures, see for example #478, #624 or #714)

FACTS and FIGURES:

• Name: R.P.V. (EUROPEAN EXCLUSIVE)
• Toy Line: G.I. Joe (Wave 7)
• Year: 1988
• Company: Hasbro (U.S.A.)
• Size of the figures: 9,5 cm (3 3/4'')

#835 MICRO MACHINES - X-RAYS COLLECTIONS 1, 2 and 4 (1991)

This series started in 1991, and uses the same models and the same casts than the Deuxe series, only the cars are made in transparent colour.

It is difficult for me to think why did Galoob bring this series out... maybe they just wanted to keep the Deluxe series living, but the casts for them were too expensive to produce new model. What seems clear to me, is that more "repaints" of the existing cars, plus mixing them up to create new collections wouldn´t work, after 3 years of doing this already. The X-rays ist just another turn of the screw, with which Galoob can present old models (and reuse old casts) in a completely different way. Note that the feature is not anymore that the micro car has practicable parts, but that you can see the interior of the car.

Of course, the only Micro Machines with interiors are the Deluxe models, so, by making them in transparent you would be able to see the seats, the motor and other parts which, of course, are painted to make them "visible".


The cars in the pictures are:

• Chevrolet Camaro Z-28
• Chevrolet Corvette '87
• Packard
• Ferrari Mondial

That year of 1991, all Deluxe Collections were discontinued, except the later "Space collection" (which included a moon rover, the Apollo capsule and a lunar module, just like the Deluxe collection XIII) and the "European Exotics" (which included a Lamborghini Countach, a Ferrari Testarossa and a Mercedes Gullwing, but in new, previously unreleased colours).

The X-Rays debuted with 4 collections (numbered #1 to #4), each of them with 4 cars each with no repetitions (all of them previously released as Deluxe models), so 16 different cars. The deluxe series had more different models (30 including the 3 belonging to the space collection, a.k.a. deluxe collection XIII), but only 16 were chosen for the X-Rays.

The following year (1992) the series was still available with the same 4 collections, only each of these included a "bonus" vehicle belonging to another series.

X-Rays are very fragile, and it is very common to find them with broken parts (for example missing doors). If you are looking for them pay attention to the details, to make sure they are complete.

UPDATE 1 (Jan/2026) I added collections #1 and #2 to my collection, here are the pictures:

Collection #1

• Mercedes Gullwing
• Porsche Carrera Cabrio
• Ford Roadster ’36
• Lamborghini Countach

Collection #2

• Jaguar E-Type
• Ford T
• Shelby Cobra
• Ferrari Testarossa

FACTS AND FIGURES

• Name: Micromachines X-Rays Collections #1, #2 and #4
• Scale of the cars: 1:150 aprox.
• Year: 1991
• Company: Galoob (U.S.A.)
• Size: approx. 2 cm