Back in the early 1990's when I got the toy collecting bug I used to love sending off for toy catalogues and lists. This was 10 years before Ebay, in the UK at least, and toyfairs, Model Mart and toy lists were the way to collect your favourite stuff. One of my favourite vintage toy dealers back then was TV Toy Zone (proprietor Andy Foley) and his catalogues were works of art in themselves! They were fantastic for the beginner like me - small encyclopaedias of vintage toys' names, pictures and values. Pictured aboved are a selection of these lists I got through the post: From left to right - TV Toy Zone #10 (all black and white). TV Toy Zone #11 (colour covers and centrefold pictured), Toy Scouts Inc #25 (the proprietor was the inspirational Bill Breugman, who published the seminal Toys of the Sixties book) and finally an anonymous sales list in the form of a booklet crammed full of poorly photocopied toy ads from TV 21 and the like.
However my absolute favourite sales list has to the first one I ever got, the A4 sized TV Toy Zone pictured below. I remember reading this gluttonously on the 7.15am bus to work in Leeds early one dark morning in the early 1990's. It was a revelation to me that anyone could make any sort of a living from the buying and selling of old toys and one which would influence me for the following 20 years. I can still sense the feeling of awe I had staring at the treasures in this pamphlet, which had a couple of pages of colour pictures. One item blew me away, a Lakeside Stingray Shop Display panel! Wow! I was amazed that stuff like that was still around and that TV Toy Zone could find it! Anyway, the cover, a page of pics and part of the Anderson listsing are all pictured below.
Although there was no SWORD listed in any of the above, TV Toy Zone and other dealers, notably Jim 'Mr.Star Wars' Stevenson, regularly listed SWORD in their monthly ads in the indispensable UK Model and Collectors Mart magazine throughout the nineties (TV Toy Zone later changed to selling new toys under the name Toy Heroes and Model Mart mag sadly changed to the short-lived glossy TV Memorabilia). However whilst posting this lot my old Catalogue had one more surprise for me. On the back page I'd scribbled some notes from what must have been a phone conversation with 'Modellers' Loft' in 1996 I'd forgetten I'd had about trade boxes of 12 carded Spacex toys in each at £20 per box - Lunar HQ and others plus loads more carded and loose. £150 the lot, which would have represented a King's Ransom for me at the time (still does!). Needless to say I didn't acquire them, which as usual, now regret!
Did anyone else like toy dealer catalogues?
