lejackal
Grand Master
- Joined
- Jul 1, 2015
- Messages
- 8,522
KayBee and the Overstock Information Links - http://trilogo.info/intro-history/kay-bee-overstock/ - http://forum.trilogo.info/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=591 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KB_Toys
Interesting find on Ebay was this Lando General Cardback which has a Circus World sticker on. Circus World being another chain that was bought out and converted to KayBee!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circus_World_(store)
If you are happy to share photos of your KayBee items to go in the KayBee Trilogo Visual Reference Library please email them to [email protected]
This next bit comes courtesy of Joe and his Trilogo Trade Forum
So..this is kind of fun
I always look out for American price stickers on Trilogos because although the Kay Bee story is well known, there is always a possibility that they may have been sold in other, similar stores in the US.
Over the years I've only seen a handful and I don't think they were legit. There have been a couple of Sears stickers and I've also seen those big orange TRU stickers turn up on Trilogo cards too but I very much doubt they were ever sold in those particular stores, especially at reasonably high prices. It's far more likely that those stickers were transplanted over from other figures in order to cover damage (a rather common "trick" used by dealers/sellers).
Anyway, a little while back I spotted this figure on eBay:
At first glance it looks identical to the common Kay Bee stickers as the size of the sticker and the font type are the same but the company name at the top is actually "The Toy Works":
I came across the picture on my pc today and thought I would google it to see what I could find out. Nothing much came up for "The Toy Works" but when I googled it alongside Kay Bee I found out that it was actually another toy store which had merged with K B Toys:
wiki wrote:
At the time of its liquidation, K·B Toys operated three distinct store formats: K·B Toys, K·B Toy Works (the result of a merger between KB Toys and The Toy Works), and K·B Toys Outlet (aka Toy Liquidators). K·B Toys stores were mostly found in the company's traditional base of shopping malls, where many of its stores were located for years. K·B Toy Works stores were typically found in outdoor strip malls. K·B Toys Outlet and Toy Liquidators stores, as the name implies, were usually found in outlet centers/malls.
..and from another article I also found out exactly when K B acquired The Toy Works:
encyclopedia.com wrote:
Kay-Bee acquired Toy World, with 52 stores, in 1982; Circus World, with 330 stores, in 1990; and K&K Toys, with 133 stores, in 1991. These three acquisitions moved Kay-Bee into the upper echelon of U.S. toy retailers.
So while the Toy Works name continued to be used on stickers and store signs it was very much part of the Kay Bee group when Trilogos were brought over to be sold in bargain bins.
I must admit for a moment I thought I might have found a legitimate non Kay Bee sticker on a Trilogo sold in the US but in the end it turned out that The Toy Works had a direct link to Kay Bee.
Pretty cool nonetheless! If anyone knows where that particular 8D8 shown above is, please let me know!
_________________
Owner & Admin of Trilogo.info and the Trilogo Trade Forum. Contact me at: [email protected]
To tie in with Joes sticker discovery here is a shot of a KayBee Toy Works store still open in 2007 which I found on this blog about the end of KayBee
And this is the final resting place of the KayBee brand
Interesting find on Ebay was this Lando General Cardback which has a Circus World sticker on. Circus World being another chain that was bought out and converted to KayBee!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circus_World_(store)
If you are happy to share photos of your KayBee items to go in the KayBee Trilogo Visual Reference Library please email them to [email protected]
This next bit comes courtesy of Joe and his Trilogo Trade Forum
So..this is kind of fun
I always look out for American price stickers on Trilogos because although the Kay Bee story is well known, there is always a possibility that they may have been sold in other, similar stores in the US.
Over the years I've only seen a handful and I don't think they were legit. There have been a couple of Sears stickers and I've also seen those big orange TRU stickers turn up on Trilogo cards too but I very much doubt they were ever sold in those particular stores, especially at reasonably high prices. It's far more likely that those stickers were transplanted over from other figures in order to cover damage (a rather common "trick" used by dealers/sellers).
Anyway, a little while back I spotted this figure on eBay:
At first glance it looks identical to the common Kay Bee stickers as the size of the sticker and the font type are the same but the company name at the top is actually "The Toy Works":
I came across the picture on my pc today and thought I would google it to see what I could find out. Nothing much came up for "The Toy Works" but when I googled it alongside Kay Bee I found out that it was actually another toy store which had merged with K B Toys:
wiki wrote:
At the time of its liquidation, K·B Toys operated three distinct store formats: K·B Toys, K·B Toy Works (the result of a merger between KB Toys and The Toy Works), and K·B Toys Outlet (aka Toy Liquidators). K·B Toys stores were mostly found in the company's traditional base of shopping malls, where many of its stores were located for years. K·B Toy Works stores were typically found in outdoor strip malls. K·B Toys Outlet and Toy Liquidators stores, as the name implies, were usually found in outlet centers/malls.
..and from another article I also found out exactly when K B acquired The Toy Works:
encyclopedia.com wrote:
Kay-Bee acquired Toy World, with 52 stores, in 1982; Circus World, with 330 stores, in 1990; and K&K Toys, with 133 stores, in 1991. These three acquisitions moved Kay-Bee into the upper echelon of U.S. toy retailers.
So while the Toy Works name continued to be used on stickers and store signs it was very much part of the Kay Bee group when Trilogos were brought over to be sold in bargain bins.
I must admit for a moment I thought I might have found a legitimate non Kay Bee sticker on a Trilogo sold in the US but in the end it turned out that The Toy Works had a direct link to Kay Bee.
Pretty cool nonetheless! If anyone knows where that particular 8D8 shown above is, please let me know!
_________________
Owner & Admin of Trilogo.info and the Trilogo Trade Forum. Contact me at: [email protected]
To tie in with Joes sticker discovery here is a shot of a KayBee Toy Works store still open in 2007 which I found on this blog about the end of KayBee
And this is the final resting place of the KayBee brand