20th Century Toy Collector

Blackstar was a very cool Filmation cartoon that was originally broadcast in 1981 in the U.S. Unfortunately it lasted for just one season of 13 episodes, which is way too short! It was only in 1983 that Galoob released an action figure toy line based on the property, spurred by the outrageous success of the similiarly themed Masters of the Universe toyline by competitor Mattel.

I recently obtained a nice, unassembled and stickers unapplied Blackstar Space Ship. Just look at that brilliant box artwork! You can spot Overlord’s Ice Castle on the left there. All of the boxed items of the Blackstar toyline came with fantastic artwork and are a sight to see if you dig that sort of thing.

Aside from the Space Ship I currently only have a carded Overlord and John Blackstar in my collection, but although the line doesn’t have the highest collection priority for me right now I’m sure it will steadily increase in size. More Blackstar stuff to follow soon!

The original G1 (Generation 1) Optimus Prime is the grand daddy of them all. I remember trekking the 3 kilometer walk from my parents house to the Intertoys store in the center of town to buy Optimus Prime with my freshly accumulated birthday money in 1986. My little sister accompanied me in the long walk into town and I was as high as an 11 year old could legally and naturally get when I grabbed the box on top of the pyramid of Optimus Primes that was on display in the toy store.

For reasons still not 100% entirely clear, Optimus Prime was not part of the initial batch of Transformers that were for sale in the Netherlands, and most likely the rest of mainland Europe. It is often suggested this was because of trademark issues with the name “Optimus” belonging to a stove manufacturer, although this has never been substantiated or proven. Whatever the case may be, Optimus was only available about a year after the Transformers line launched in mainland Europe (the UK, as usual, might be a different story).

Not only because I bought the toy back in 1986 and felt like a million bucks when I did, but also because I simply adored Optimus Prime as a character, this was one of the coolest toys I ever owned. I know a G1 Optimus Prime is pretty easy to find in good condition and it’s nothing special to a lot of collectors, but to me it is still one of the finest looking and most memorable toys of the 1980’s.

I’m preparing an in-depth article on Optimus Prime for future publication on this website. But for now, please enjoy a couple of close up photographs of this fantastic toy from my personal collection!

Here’s a very, very nice looking Sorceress in European packaging. It looks like the toy just came fresh out of the factory! The colours on the card are still vibrant and there’s absolutely no yellowing or denting of the bubble.

The Sorceress played an important part in the orginal Filmation cartoon of Masters of the Universe. Regardless, it was only in 1986 that Mattel finally released a toy version of the Sorceress, which begs the question as to how much the cartoon ultimately ended up influencing the toy line instead of the other way around.

Whatever the case may be, please enjoy these photgraph of the European packaged Sorceress. NEW! ;-)

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It’s not easy finding European Masters of the Universe action figures that are MOSC (mint on sealed card) and especially not ones that are in this great of a condition! Here’s an absolutely stunning Evil-Lyn on a European 8-back card that I added to my collection somewhere in 2009.

Evil-Lyn is one of the most memorable characters from the Masters of the Universe cartoon, brilliantly animated by Filmation. The back of the card has a copyright notice of 1983, although I’m not really sure that Masters of the Universe toys were available in Europe back then. The cartoon itself was not broadcast in mainland Europe until 1985 by Sky Channel.

Still, Evil-Lyn was a great character and featured prominently in the Filmation cartoon and I was pretty stoked to have found such a nice looking European MOSC sample!

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“Luchtafweergeschut”, a.k.a. “Air Defense” is part of the first series of G.I. Joe toys that were released in the Netherlands in 1987. I fondly remember going over the G.I. Joe catalog over and over again and drooling over each and every action figure, accessory and vehicle.

The Netherlands saw the first two series of G.I. Joe toys released in all-Dutch packaging, which is pretty exceptional for those days (and even for these days, come to think of it). The flip side, though, is that these are now extremely hard to find.

Fortunately I was able to track down this Dutch version of Air Defense recently. The box is in pretty good shape as are the contents. As a bonus, the artwork on the box features 2 of my favourite characters, Flint (“Kei” in Dutch) and Bazooka! Good times!!

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