Jim
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Post by Jim on Jul 29, 2014 22:44:26 GMT
I have a feeling we got a big out of town ASDA relatively early from talking to a few people down the years.
Most of my childhood toy shopping was in Coop department stores, the local one in Long Eaton and the bigger ones in the centre of Nottingham. Wonderful places with great discount sections!
On top of those was Woolworths of course, but they were a bit pricier, and a couple of local branches of Fords - the Long Eaton one must have had the Pretender vehicles on the top shelf for 5+ years. WHSmith was a latecomer to our high street, and I preferred the Preedy's it replaced even as a child.
We eventually got a TRU in Derby. I know that on my first visit I bought GI Joe ("The Action Force") Shockwave, which ought to help date its arrival. Didn't really like the place though, and still not keen on them.
Only other place that springs to mind is that just round the corner from my Grandma was a newsagent which sold toys and had a Voltron permanently in stock. So much wanted that!
-Jim
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Dezzeh
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Post by Dezzeh on Jul 29, 2014 22:44:50 GMT
I remember back in the very late 90's/early '00's there was an independent store on Albert road in southsea. Essential collectables maybe?
Any way, got my first hardhead and weirdwolf there, good times.
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Post by Pinwig on Jul 29, 2014 23:11:17 GMT
I have a feeling we got a big out of town ASDA relatively early from talking to a few people down the years. Havant's Asda is a Walmart, size of an aircraft hanger, but it's rubbish for toys. Always felt let down by that as they claim it's one of their flagship stores. Case in point - no sign of the AoE exclusives the other day. |
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Jim
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Post by Jim on Jul 29, 2014 23:48:21 GMT
I find my local ASDA (Crossharbour) quite unpleasant. Aircraft-hangery in a bad way. Have they gone a bit downmarket? The Reading one I used to live near was quite nice to shop at.
-Jim
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Stomski
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Post by Stomski on Jul 30, 2014 7:30:19 GMT
Is Beast Era really considered "Ye Olden Times" now? Man, feeling old.
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Post by Toph on Jul 30, 2014 8:01:47 GMT
G2, and Beast Era are what I feel nostalgic about.
So sadly, they probably do count as ye olden times.
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Post by Kingoji on Jul 30, 2014 8:08:33 GMT
When I were a nipper I can only remember one dedicated toy shop in our area. it was called Belfields and it had such an amazing range that I don't think we bothered going anywhere else for toys for a very long time. It really was quite like a mini Toys'R'Us, and anything you could think of was there in it's own little section. I remember it being a really magical feeling place, as the building was on a bit of a hill and the interior was on about three levels, with all these different 'hideaways' and ways to go. All of my TF (and later TMNT needs were met by that amazing place.
It was later bought out by Toymaster and didn't last. It's now divided into two different retail units, with one of them being empty and the other being a convenience store with the post office in the back.
I don't have much recollection of when toys invaded supermarkets, but even today they're pretty much the worst place to look for stuff (at least in this area). If it wasn't for the internet then I don't think there'd be any way for me to feed my habit these days.
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Post by Shockprowl on Jul 30, 2014 8:21:43 GMT
Nor me. There's nothing round here. Supermarkets are very limited in what they have. Biggish Toymaster next town over is expensive. Only the intersnatch for me!
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primenova
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Post by primenova on Jul 30, 2014 11:59:00 GMT
Wotsinstore had G2 minibots £1.50. Mads harrys which is a shop i didn't like didnt have any TF's in - was a store that really messy like Next outlet stores are now. But the reason I mention this store is because it reopened [the same store not same company ? ?] QLM or something like that which had Beast machines Dinobots in cheap. where i got the big Cheator BM supreme in for £10-20 I can't remember but have sold him. Also Rampage & all 6 Dinobot BM. Boyes is a good shop but sometimes can be messy.
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Post by Llama God on Jul 30, 2014 12:45:31 GMT
Seems I'm very close to you Llama, in Havant. Not any more. These days I'm living in Glasgow, and spending my lunch hours cycling between various Home Bargains. Which is a slight difference to the old days. :-) My most vivid memories of TF buying back in the day were at the large newsagent in the middle of town, which eventually became a John Menzies. They always had some in, but mostly Havant could boast an independent toy shop called Connells which had three different locations in my lifetime - the last of which was a purpose built shop that had bikes downstairs and toys upstairs. These days it's a pet shop. Yeah, I know Connells. Was that the old toy shop on the High Street, near where the Three Bakers was (and may still be, but it was in the last century that I used to occasionally get my lunch from there whilst at the college)? I'm familiar with the Connell's toy/bike store from my time at college, but I don't know anything about its history. If it is, though, then that's where I got my G1 Frenzy and Lazerbeak from. That was a good find... |
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Post by Llama God on Jul 30, 2014 12:48:07 GMT
Havant's Asda is a Walmart, size of an aircraft hanger, but it's rubbish for toys. Always felt let down by that as they claim it's one of their flagship stores. Yes, but then the Mary Rose was the flagship of the English fleet, and look how that ended... But yeah, there's just something about a lot of Asdas these days. The Havant one's not too bad, but the Chandler's Ford/Eastleigh one is... just terrible. I don't know what it is, but when I go into that shop I feel like my soul's being drained out of me... |
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Post by Pinwig on Jul 30, 2014 13:00:31 GMT
Not any more. These days I'm living in Glasgow, and spending my lunch hours cycling between various Home Bargains. Which is a slight difference to the old days. :-) That is quite a change of scene! Yeah, I know Connells. Was that the old toy shop on the High Street, near where the Three Bakers was (and may still be, but it was in the last century that I used to occasionally get my lunch from there whilst at the college)? I'm familiar with the Connell's toy/bike store from my time at college, but I don't know anything about its history. If it is, though, then that's where I got my G1 Frenzy and Lazerbeak from. That was a good find... That's the place. The last Connells was almost opposite the church in North Street, just down the road from the station. Now a Pampurred Pets sadly. I went to that college too. Small world! Wow, such nostalgia. If only the Generations line sold well enough for it not to be an unloved and ignored TRU exclusive. We could still be buying toys from toyshops! |
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Post by Llama God on Jul 30, 2014 13:51:25 GMT
Not any more. These days I'm living in Glasgow, and spending my lunch hours cycling between various Home Bargains. Which is a slight difference to the old days. :-) That is quite a change of scene! Yeah, moving to a post-industrial harbour town where shipbuilding is in decline, urban regeneration is in progress meaning that the waterfronts are now full of too-expensive flats (sorry, luxury apartments), and where the whole city realises it needs to redefine itself whilst still trading on its history and heritage. Wait, I thought I'd left Portsmouth... That's the place. The last Connells was almost opposite the church in North Street, just down the road from the station. Now a Pampurred Pets sadly. I went to that college too. Small world! Aye, it is. When were you at the college? And to just try and keep things vaguely on track: Wow, such nostalgia. If only the Generations line sold well enough for it not to be an unloved and ignored TRU exclusive. We could still be buying toys from toyshops! Yeah. I wonder if in twenty, thirty years' time the grown-up kids of today will be saying "do you remember when Asda and Tesco were full of shit toys based on a movie our parents wouldn't let us see..?" I very much doubt it. On the other hand, I wonder if toy collecting will be seen as such a nostalgic thing in the future. Back in the 80s we had no t'Interwebs, and so the appearance of toys on shelves was a thing of unpredictable magic. Nowadays the information about the complete range and its release dates is at our fingertips. Maybe that's not something to get too nostalgic about... Or maybe the next generation will be all like "Do you remember when you had to go out to buy toys, and you couldn't just print them at home..?" |
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Post by legios on Jul 30, 2014 17:45:18 GMT
Or maybe the next generation will be all like "Do you remember when you had to go out to buy toys, and you couldn't just print them at home..?" I suspect that it will be along the lines of:- "My dad says that when he was a kid they had to transform their robot toys themselves, by hand!" "Well my dad says that they didn't have the lasers and the sensors in them either." "But how did they know who had killed who?" "Beats me." :-) Karl |
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Post by Shockprowl on Jul 30, 2014 17:53:18 GMT
Or....
"Remember when everyone thought Transformers weren't actually real, and thought they were just a toy line?! And now they're all around us fighting their eternal war! Bless...."
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Post by Pinwig on Jul 30, 2014 22:42:22 GMT
90-92 iirc. Yes, must have been.
It is all too easy these days. I think I've mentioned this before somewhere recently, but those rare times when you'd get a Transformer and find the American toy catalogue inside, with all the figures that were never released here, there was an incredible need for more information. That's another reason I think why TFUK was so important. It rarely had actual news in it, but there were bits you could extrapolate here and there that kept you in the loop. Comics don't need to do that these days, the internet does the job in seconds.
Gah. Remember the days when you had to send SAEs for catalogues for hobby stuff and '28 days for delivery' actually meant that (Games Workshop I'm looking at you...). You had to trek to comic marts to find back issues of comics, or persuade a parent to drive you to another county to visit a comic shop (Wonderworld in Bournemouth in my case, or the Who Shop in Wapping. Mega City Comics in London!). You had to get off your arse and be proactive to enjoy a hobby, even ones that didn't involve sport, and that kind of mentality exists today in the effort that goes into things like the Underbase's fiction archive. I really don't think kids now see things in the same way, not those who've grown up in the last ten years with broadband on tap.
[4yorkshiremen]But you say that and they won't believe you.[/4yorkshiremen]
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Post by Llama God on Jul 31, 2014 8:43:14 GMT
90-92 iirc. Yes, must have been. Ah, slightly before me. I was there '94-'96. So chances are we never bumped into each other in the Old House. ;-) It is all too easy these days. I think I've mentioned this before somewhere recently, but those rare times when you'd get a Transformer and find the American toy catalogue inside, with all the figures that were never released here, there was an incredible need for more information. That's another reason I think why TFUK was so important. It rarely had actual news in it, but there were bits you could extrapolate here and there that kept you in the loop. Comics don't need to do that these days, the internet does the job in seconds. Gah. Remember the days when you had to send SAEs for catalogues for hobby stuff and '28 days for delivery' actually meant that (Games Workshop I'm looking at you...). You had to trek to comic marts to find back issues of comics, or persuade a parent to drive you to another county to visit a comic shop (Wonderworld in Bournemouth in my case, or the Who Shop in Wapping. Mega City Comics in London!). You had to get off your arse and be proactive to enjoy a hobby, even ones that didn't involve sport, and that kind of mentality exists today in the effort that goes into things like the Underbase's fiction archive. I really don't think kids now see things in the same way, not those who've grown up in the last ten years with broadband on tap. [4yorkshiremen]But you say that and they won't believe you.[/4yorkshiremen] Aye, it's the same with everything. I remember the utter horror that I experienced when I missed an episode of He-Man or Thundercats or whatever, or the VHS player didn't record it properly, because as far as I knew I would *never* see those episodes again. EVER. And I think that, and the stuff that you mention, is what's informed our collector's mentality. Hell, even when I finally got on t'Interwebs in '96 (my parents were too cheap to pay for dial-up - and to be fair, I don't blame them) and started digging around for these old robot toys that I used to collect (because as far as I'd been aware Generation 2 had been the end) I was amazed to discover this thing called "Beast Wars", and stayed up way too late searching Alta Vista for information on this strange line. And also this amazing thing called "Machine Wars" (which might explain my continued obsession with that line). It was the joy of discovering a whole new world that I never knew existed, and until t'Interwebs had no way of knowing ever existed. But such is the way that things have changed in just a few short years (shut up, it's not nearly 20 years since that fateful night, it's not!) that now everything is indeed at your fingertips. You want it? Just go and get it off t'Interwebs. Whatever it is. I was trying to explain to my seven-year-old godlessdaughter about what happened to the old episodes of Doctor Who recently, and she was horrified at the thought that some don't actually exist - and yeah, whilst it is pretty horrifying in itself, she just couldn't grasp the concept that some things weren't preserved *forever*. It's a completely alien concept. And, as one of the older generation now, quite fascinating... I guess the only way in that the collector community might continue to thrive is that, yes, although it is now possible to pick up toys that you missed in the shops off of t'eBay, there's often quite a price hike there. So there is still some imperative to do the hunting as and when you can. The shift, though, is from nostalgically hoping to find something, to becoming an active, informed hunter. And I don't think that's a bad shift as such... |
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Post by nevermore on Aug 9, 2014 19:54:59 GMT
I remember getting Transformers, TMNT and Ghostbusters toys at stores like Blokker (a Dutch chain which no longer operates in Germany under that name, their old stores have all changed owners; their subsidiary Intertoys still has stores in Germany), Karstadt (a major department store chain that has been in financial trouble for the past decade, with Transformers toys having been absent from their stores for many years up until recently), a small local stationery and toy store that was named "Müller" back then (not to be confused with the drug store chain of the same name that also carries toys) and is now named "Kösters" (their selection is as small today as it was back in the day, although they used to have the Mexican G1 imports back in the day), the long since defunct Plaza in the Averdunk-Centrum shopping mall downtown, and Kaufhalle, another long since defunct chain.
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Post by Shockprowl on Aug 9, 2014 22:46:08 GMT
.......although they used to have the Mexican G1 imports back in the day..... BLACK MEXICANS!!!!!!!! |
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primenova
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Post by primenova on Jan 7, 2015 13:36:06 GMT
WAS: The best discount store not open any more
Going back before we got all the Homebargins & £1 shops we had a few stores that stocked in Transformers & other toy lines & all those stores have closed down now. I was going to do a poll for this but many people'll list stores that I have never heard of - but here are a few that I can name.
House of holland - had action masters in for £1.99
Wotsinstore - G2 minibots £1.50
QLM - lots Beast machines stuff got big Cheetor £19.99
Mad Harrys - was Lincoln ? based store ? not too shore but stores did close down when they didn't get stock right.
Also one in Bridlington but I'm not sure if it has closed or not but can't remember the name of it anyway
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Post by Philip Ayres on Jan 7, 2015 13:45:19 GMT
Wow, I can remember House of Holand! I was bought a red ride on tractor with yellow metal tipper thing on it from there when I was tinsy tiny!
The places I remember seeing cheap TFs were mainly "pop up shop" discounters.
There was Toy Stack and Toy Zone, both missed.
Don't forget The Entertainer started off that way!
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Post by Philip Ayres on Jan 7, 2015 14:00:46 GMT
I feel post 1 of this thread needs attention drawn to it: Imagine next year being able to walk into a supermarket to see which combiner limbs are on the pegs... how awesome would that be. 1986 all over again. Just not going to happen here. Ahh those were the days. Shame they wont happen again. If Ian ever offers you a sure fire cert in the 3:30 at Doncaster don't place the bet! |
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primenova
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Post by primenova on Jan 7, 2015 14:23:02 GMT
Pennywise - I think poundstretcher bought all there shops, but I remember it having 2 floors. the building they where in had to be knocked down due to damage (it was on a listed building list but they had damaged it too much). Should we list Co-op down - they closed all the shops down apart from Co-op food & Westgate so that could class them has still being open.
Also that green giant toys or what ever it was called - i think it was a Sheffield based store. But I never saw it just remeber seeing adverts. House of holland store in Grimsby is still empty after it closed down - see Freeman street on map down near the docks end you'll see on south side about one road up a large white building (where zebra crossing is & Toymaster was across the road but thats a paper/paint shop) that was the store.
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Post by Philip Ayres on Jan 7, 2015 16:13:40 GMT
...Oh Woolies, how I miss you... I miss Woolies as well. I'm sure many of my childhood TFs came from them. But also, by the time of 'Classic Heroes' and Action Masters I was buying TFs by myself, and the Woolworths in Skipton had a good supply. Thinking about it Woolies is probably my longest standing source of TFs I can remember seeing 87 onwards toys in there. Remember buying my first PM Op and first Constructicons in there. Saw but didn't buy Overlord, regret that now. Got several of my Predators there, LOADS of BW, including a great number traded stateside. The near exclusive of the Buildking/Mega Octane RID wave. Various bits and pieces through the Unicron trilogy. Lots of classics, including the Magnus/Skywarp set. The Movie exclusive basics shortly before the chain's death. But I can remember seeing Star Wars figures in there, in the early 80s, and Doctor who books too. I bought my Star Fleet videos there. The day I walked in and found all of the new year 3 Action Force figures in a deal and walked out with most of them. (still never owned Tunnel Rat) Lots of POTF2 while working in Epsom, and indeed lots of MBC Chorleywood imported POTF2 figures |
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primenova
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Post by primenova on Jan 7, 2015 18:21:35 GMT
But also those smaller shops that disappear can have bargins in too - ie for me Team Bullet Train 3 set for £5 each.
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Post by Philip Ayres on Jan 7, 2015 18:39:45 GMT
I don't think I ever saw a RID Mega for sale in the UK, even grey imported discount stock. Enough people have for me to be convinced it happened.
There used to be a pop up discounter in Epsom where I worked (near where TK Maxx is now Karl) and I can remember getting a set of Autobot Cyberjets in there c1998 (and the bits for a ShogunMegaFalconzord!)
There was another, Christmas 94, in Woking: Gold boxed classic combiner leaders, 87 Headmaster (probably Chinese in origin), Japanese carded GIJoe and a french boxed Sentai Jetman mecha. Wish I could go back and fill my boots there.
Even longer ago in Kingston there was a very dingy pop with Joustra Diaclone: That's how I got my Windcharger and Gears
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Post by The Doctor on Jan 7, 2015 19:24:48 GMT
RID Megs were in Jenners Edinburger for about a week. Never saw them anywhere else.
-Ralph
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Post by Shockprowl on Jan 7, 2015 20:42:21 GMT
I feel post 1 of this thread needs attention drawn to it: Ahh those were the days. Shame they wont happen again. If Ian ever offers you a sure fire cert in the 3:30 at Doncaster don't place the bet! Ahh Ha! But that was my plan all along! Because I said they'd never be widely available, they now are widely available! No, don't thank me, you'll just embarrass me! |
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Post by The Doctor on Jan 8, 2015 18:50:16 GMT
Now please predict the release of a nice big re-issue box of Action Masters. Make my dreams come true.
-Ralph
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Post by legios on Jan 8, 2015 21:14:57 GMT
I don't think I ever saw a RID Mega for sale in the UK, even grey imported discount stock. Enough people have for me to be convinced it happened. Were the Trainbots Megas? Because I recall grabbing a set of those for someone from Jenners in Edinburgh when a single case turned up unexpectedly. Ah, I know whereabouts you mean. I missed out on that shop, but do recall getting my Cliffjumper in a shop at Tattenham Corner which I think is familiar to you as well. In Stirling we got a few of the carded Diaclone toys in Cradlecare which was also the Toymaster store (all sorts of odd stuff showed up in that store, usually for far more than I could afford on my limited pocket money). Karl |
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