tenth birthday guest article: the fun and challenges of toy-collecting when going international by geoffey peeters

Hello to all of you. My name is Geoffrey, I'm (now) living in Portugal, and I have a problem... 

This may sound like some cheesy announcement at some kind of reunion for people with an addiction, but no. Or at least not one that I am trying to get rid off. 

I like old toys. I collect old toys. I live old toys. 

I was of the generation that saw the Thunderbirds in black and white on TV, and Star Wars in color at the theater (without the enhanced special effects). I loved cartoons like Goldorak (=Grandizer), the Battle of the Planets, Albator (=Captain Harlock), series like Battlestar Galactica, Batman, “V”, Alf and lots of other shows that were thrown at us in large quantities on the TV of the 80's. 

(0) Battle of the Planets figurines, (Dutch Packaging), CIVAS, Hong Kong 

It kind of all started in Belgium when I was a kid and went with my father to toy-fairs, flea-markets and every other toy shop that was on our way. There were a lot of these in the days (well, I'm 47 right now... so I was a kid in the 70ies and 80ies) – in Belgium at the coast or in Italy when we went there on holidays. My dad collects American cars, big and small. I am more about space and all the related movie, cartoons and TV shows – so these were the toys I started digging into as a kid. Happily, because my dad was a collector, I never had a parental requirement of “giving all my toys away” when I left childhood. On the contrary, they taught me to play carefully and without destroying anything and to keep and value what I had. 

So I was lucky and did not have to “chase back” all my toys at any point in life – because I always kept them in the first place. 

So why talking about a problem you may ask ? Well, I have lived in lots of places during my life, from Belgium to the U.S.A. to the U.K. to the Netherlands and even today I cannot yet have all my collection in my little apartment in Lisbon. Space is my problem. And logistics... the kind you need to safely move boxes with valuable toys from one country to another. Lots of boxes full of toys are still in Belgium at this point at my parent's place. It's not like a stamp collection which you could move in a couple of albums tugged into your carrybag on a Ryanair flight. (1) Thunderbirds keychains from the Netherlands – maker ? 

Did this make me think of giving up at some time ? Heck no. Toy collecting is fun in any country and any language, and opens a lot of doors wherever you are. The funny thing is that toys give you a good picture of what boys and girls (= now the adult population) were interested in when they were kids, what their heroes were, what they saw on TV... Cartoons like Heidi, the Smurfs and Maya the Bee were big hits in all of the countries I visited. Some others were quite country specific. (Goldorak in France for example, Starblazers and Topo Gigio in Italy etc.) (2) COSMEC Goldrake robot Italy 

Here in Portugal, I started meeting other collectors even before mastering the language, and have been into the collector's community ever since. Portugal had a wonderful toy museum in Sintra (now closed unfortunately) where I discovered things I had never seen before. In Belgium we got a lot of toys from most of the other European countries or at least you could find them when going to collector's fairs like Woluwe in Brussels. Dinky ? Not a problem. Schuco and Marklin ? Check. But Portuguese toys ? Not that much, maybe some Dinky reproductions made by Metosul. (3) Maya Brintoi Portugal 

Lots of the toys that were produced in Portugal did never leave Portugal, especially those produced before the Carnation revolution of 1974. Portugal was a closed entity. It did very little in import/export. What was produced was done in small quantities for the local market by small companies, most of these now extinct or which have left toy-making when cheap toys from China and the like started flowing in. Very often these companies “copied” existing toys – or simply bought the plastic injection molds no one was using anymore. (4) PSA futuristic bus Portugal 

Also, the population was poor. The few high-end toys that did enter the country were for kids of diplomats and the like. A normal family could hardly afford them. (5) Osul Futuristic Double Decker Portugal 

So what did the Portuguese kids have to play with ? Well, lots of things. Transportation and military for the boys, dolls, fully furnished doll-houses and dinner - playsets for the girls. The country had a strong military presence in Angola and Mozambique before these became independent, so a lot of toy soldiers and military toys represent this phase of nationalism/patriotism (supporting the Salazar regime), especially before the revolution. 

Lots of the older toys I see on the flea-markets and local toyfairs are half-artisanal, very often made in wood or paper paste and roughly painted. But that's where all the charm is. On these older toys it is very often impossible to find who produced them, because most of them are not branded / signed. (6) Portuguese wooden truck with cubes – truck manufacturer unknown (maybe Carlos Lopes) 

In the 70ies and 80ies the cheap workforce started attracting European toy companies – like Schleich, which found a place where they could have their Smurfs and other rubber figurines painted at a lesser cost. We can still find a lot of “monochromaticos” today (= read “unpainted” rubber figurines) which were certainly some leftover of the production lines. (7) Harlock monochromatico rubber figurine from Fabianplastica – Italy (found unpainted in Portugal) (8) Smurf made in Portugal 

Diecast manufacturers like Vitesse also produced a number of finely detailed models over here in the 1980ies – again due to labout costs (applying manually all the chrome and details on the cars and tucks was already not financially sound in North-European countries at that time). Nowadays there are still some artisanal companies continuing production of vehicles in 1/43 scale, mostly made in Zamac. 

Which Portuguese toy-brands to look for ? Pepe, Osul, Radar, Ribeirinho, PSA, Jato, Fabrinca, Hercules, Metosul, Maia & Borgesm Raja and so many others... (9) Raygun Fábrica de plásticos Hércules (copy of US PYRO-toy) 

What about Sci-Fi material ? Well, there are a few very interesting toys that were produced here. 

(10) Spaceman and spaceship, OSUL or VALVERDE – possible copy of Spanish SEL-MAC 

First about the Gerry Anderson shows. From what I can see they had at least some episodes of Stingray, Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet here. (11) Stingray – blown plastic – maker unknown (Portugal) 

A lot of these shows were the versions that were available in Brazil – since the big chunk of Portuguese-speaking population in the world is located there. (12) Game Captain Scarlet Majora 

Portuguese ice-cream company RAJA also made some nice plastic toys, Little alien figurines were give-aways with the purchase of ice cream and bigger toys could be won through the collection of redeemable points. (13) Commander Peck Rajá 

Coming back to China, another interesting factor is that Portugal has always been there through their colonial outpost of Macau. Nowadays these groups of islands close to Hong Kong are part of China and have more casinos than the Las Vegas Strip, but they were Portuguese territory before 1999 and they were producing toys there – especially plastic-injected (read “cheaper”) toys that were already too expensive to produce in Japan or elsewhere in Asia. A lot toys made by Japanese toy producer Popy for example were really made in Macau (plastics) and Singapore (diecasts), so it is no surprise that some of these cheaper toys found their way back to Portugal. (14) Ulysse 31 plastic toys (Popy – Macau) 

The fun part of this all is that you can really travel the world by collecting toys – even of the same serie / cartoon. (15) Once upon a time … SPACE (from left to right : Popy, Japan – Popy, Macau – Maia Borges, Portugal) 

This makes this hobby truly unique and opens countless debates during the toy-fairs of which toy came first and who produced what... (16) Thunderbird 2 vessels from Japan (Edai and Popy) and the U.K. (Dinky). 

It also shows that we played with the same kind of toys – maybe of different quality levels and sizes – but nevertheless the same ones. I feel this is the proof that childhood is the same, whatever your heroes... wherever you come from... (17) SPC Takara Gangu (Japan) and Dinky counterpart 

So keep on doing what you love doing... keep on living... and keep on hunting for that one toy you didn't know existed !

Regards

Geoffrey Peeters
Portugal