This batch is Star Wars themed and from the great white north, so don;t be alarmed by these Canadian prices :)
Our First ad comes from "Consumer Distributing" a long gone catalogue store (similar to Service Merchandise) that went under in 1996. From November 7, 1979. Star Wars 3-Packs. Pretty good offerings, but I'm really surprised to see no Han Solo.
Also, check out the fantastic Energized Spider-Man. I loved that toy as a kid. I had the copter and web traps too. Played with that all the time.
Next up, some Star Wars watches from Texas Instruments from an ad that ran December 2, 1978. I don;t think it was for any store. It seemed to be an insert of hot holiday gift for 1978.
Here's a Sears ad from November 1, 1978 showing some early Star Wars offerings. I love the line art of the original nine figures. The Landspeeder art kinda nice too. Is it traced from a movie still? It looks a little more dynamic than the other toy art.
This December 7, 1982 ad from Kmart has a couple of unusual offerings. Die cast Star Wars ships and the Jawa Land Crawler don;t pop-up too often in the old ads that I see. Also got the Dagobah playset from Empire. Even in Canadian dollars, the prices seem crazy-cheap.
The cherry on top is this Sears ad from November 24, 1980. It's full-on Empire Strikes Back toy-orgy. First a Millennium Falcon set with Han and Chewie, killer stuff!
The sets of seven Star Wars figures kills me. set "f" "Includes Lobot", set "g" "includes Tusk the Ugnaught", set "h" "Includes Dengar" Way to sell the sizzle, Sears. Kids are climbing over each other to add the bald-guy in bell bottoms, the pig Umpa Lumpa and Mummy Johnny Cash to their Darth Vader collector case. Come on, set "F" has Boba Fette and IG-88 from Empire and they go with Lobot?
The biggie for me is the Imperial Attack Base. This is the same Christmas I got this toy and I played with it non-stop. I think It might have been on of the first playsets or bases I ever had. Everything before had been making things out of shoe boxes or Lincoln Logs and Tinker Toys. But this, boy oh boy, had that laser cannon, the collapsing ice bridge and the bunker. It was used as so many environments, I used to pretend that it was the rebel base from Empire. I used to pretend that under the ice bridge was the cave where Luke got hung upside down by the Wampa. Writing this makes me want to jump on eBay and look for one now!
Other great stuff: The Tauntaun, the Rebel turret and probe, Imperial Troop Transporter, Snowspeeder, Dewback, Ice Planet Hoth (I had this too; loved, loved, loved the radar dish laser cannon), Cloud Car, X-Wing and Vader's Tie Fighter, and the Droid Factory. Also, the 2" tall Yoda is so popular you can order him by himself at $4.49 (seems steep considering Kmart has Dagobah advertised for $3.99 in the ad above)
I think I'm heading to eBay to look at Imperial Attack Bases...
-Matt
aka Dr. G
1 comment:
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