P is for Premiums

There have never been so many premiums around as there are now, they fill the gap left by the old 1960’s Hong Kong rack toys, or 1970’s Lucky Bags, so here is not so much a round-up, as just a quick over-view of some of the toys currently available.


Corinthian are responsible for several of the current crop, as well as Ben10 (which has totally escaped me, something on TV I think…shows my age!) and the Gormiti (Below) they are producing Zoo’s, Pets, Marine Animals and other “…in my pocket” toys, the brand-name originally produced/issued by a MEG/Kellogg’s/Matchbox consortium in the mid-late 1980’s as larger single colour or ‘dab-painted figurines around 40mm in a rubberized vinyl material.

These are around 50mm, in harder vinyl and follow the trend started by Galoob and Co. in the 90’s. The packaging talks of larger sets with more figures per box, I haven’t seen any so I’m guessing Toy Chains like The Entertainer or the ubiquitous Toys’R’Us?

The Gormiti have the added ‘bonus’ figures in unpainted gold or silver and being smaller (25mm – ideal for role-playing) come two per the smallest container. Like the Ben10 you get a small bag of cheap, undersized jelly-beans and a leaflet with some of the others in the range.

Zeta (Barcelona), Zàini (Milan) and a third company beginning with Z which I can’t find right now (all from Spain and probably all the same firm) have aimed at the Kinder market, with cheap toys from China in the Christmas Cracker mould, sometimes rip-off or direct copies of Giodi or Res Plastics (both Italy) or Bruder (Germany) products.

The subject of the egg (or other object, the ‘other Z’ did hollow-chocolate Bears a few years ago) has no relationship to the contents as you can see from the jet-fighter that came from this ‘Flintstones’ egg! Pink Princess gift-eggs were in Poundstreacher a year or so ago, probably the same set-up?

The current set of Lego point-of-sale collectables, in the style of trading cards, Character Options are fighting back with a Dr. Who set, the Dalek for which I have added to the ever-lengthening Dalek post, while an overview of construction-block figures has gone on the Other Collectables blog. And I mean ‘Fighting Back’, there’s been a ‘Free-Figure!’ war in the red-tops for a week or a few now!

Not illustrated here today are a set of Superhero eggs with 30mm hard styrene figures currently doing the rounds of local shops, and the endless out-put of Tomy in their shopping-mall dispensers…no chocolate with those but they’re the cheapest at a pound a shot!