T is for Toy Fair 2019 Reports - Tobar & Schylling - Tin Plate, Rack Toys, Novelties and Die Cast

I say Schylling, but it was Tobar's stand, just that they have a close relationship with Schylling in the US (not Germany Mr. Sell; definitely not Germany) and carry each other's stuff, they also both import from Supreme (SP Toys) but more on that in a minute.

The main direction of the tie-up this year is a range of retro tin-plate, these may well be from the same source as the tin-plate tree-hangers carried by both Shylling and Ingo Roggaz's ^Z_Z (not George Zimmermann Mr. Dildobrand; definitely not Zimmermann) back in the 1990's? Particularly the small hot-air balloons? The duck on a tricycle is a timeless novelty, while the three robots cover all the tropes of their 1950's forbears.

Radio Control is getting very interesting, with new digital tech', miniaturisation and lessons learnt in the mini-drone sector being converged into smaller and more sophisticated toys at affordable prices, here a set of two 'firing' tanks are more traditional, while who could resist a digger which digs!

On the subject of construction vehicles; Maisto (a Thai-centered, US headquartered group of Chinese factories and brands) who I think now own the Bburago name (ex-Italian; Mebetoys) are another one probably coming to Tobar via Schylling or as a joint-purchase with Schylling; and here we see various die-cast construction sets in two scales and several formats along with dinosaur play sets.

Counter-display cases of more traditional clockwork wind-up and squirty-toys! Not really 'my thing' but it's nice to see these things still out there; they are the 'meat & two veg.' of toy sellers; the everyday earners.

I thought this was a lot of fun; a mini or nano-bot cockroach, with a very small motor driving (or jiggling) tiny hidden legs to propel a larger 'rubber-jiggler' shell across surfaces - what's not to like?

You can tell from the above that there wasn't much to excite plastic figure collectors on their stall this year, but it just so happened that the managing Director of Schylling was on the stall at the same time as me, and the lady from Tobar offered to get me a slot with him, I explained he probably wouldn't want a farty, middle-aged, toy-collector/Blogger trying to confirm or deny Erwin's bullshit with him (slightly more politely than I've just written-it, of course - I know how to behave in public!), however she confirmed that both companies import from Supreme (indeed; looking at Supreme's 1986 HKTDC year-book advert', the cockroach may well be theirs), have done for years and that Supreme are a stand-alone toy manufacturer.

[latter offices: Room 504-507, Tower B, New Mandarin Plaza, 14 Science Museum Road, Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon, Hong Kong]

Now most of you already know this, it is - after all - a good decade since Plastic Warrior magazine was carrying editorial provided by Tiger Hobbies on their importation of Supreme's 60mm figures, and longer since the figures were first covered there.

Tiger had through the 1980/90's being importing the first series 54mm knights and Wild West (Deetail style bases) with Strawberry Group (who further worked with 3-D Licensing) and (or alongside) Toy Major, Simba carried them too. While Ackerman and Halsal/HTI are known importers of Supreme, as are Titan, while they are now also re-packed for on-line platform Sunjade and, through Schylling via-Tobar, are - as I write - now probably in Hawkin's Bazaar?

Yet Erwin, who, electing to start pontificating only in 2015, and who clearly wasn't around to read 'from the horse's mouth' a decade ago, has decided to make Supreme his second favourite go-to brand-mark for bullshitting-about - after Blue Box!

He has variously claimed Simba 'designed' Supreme figures "...first" (with no quoted source or empirical evidence), that Supreme are actually Schylling (while trying to flog his own Schylling stock), that Supreme are a sub'er for Sunjade (when the opposite is probably true, despite Supreme having their own wholesale unit) or sub' for Schylling (who admit the opposite) and that Supreme are 'just' an exporter and x all else. Oh . . . and that Schylling - with a 'y' - are German! And while his utterances are spread over many comments, posted over four years - he managed to repeat most of them in the single comment above!

I could do a word-by-word autopsy with lots of screen-cap's, but this isn't the post, suffice to say wherever you find Mr Sell pontificating on any of the above, know that he doesn't know what he's talking about! They are all getting this product from an old, established Hong Kong toy maker; Supreme/SP Toys. Luckily for the hobby most of his nonsense-utterances are hidden in Shitestuff's comments or on the locked Vichy-forum; both places ignored by the Googlebots - phew!