Memories from a 1980's Toy Shop

jedisearcher

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Back in 1983/84 my Mum and Dad owned the Card and Toy Shop in Waterloo, Liverpool. It was a traditional high street Toy Shop that stocked greeting cards, sweets (including those big jars full of goodies like Pineapple chunks, Cola Cubes and Rhubarb and Custard that you can't get these days, and a penny sweet selection which the kids loved to spend their dinner money on), along with a great selection of toys.

The toys were a solid mix of classic early 80's toys – Masters of the Universe, Care Bears, Fisher Price, Hot Wheels, Matchbox and ERTL cars, Action Man, Strawberry Shortcake and Barbie but best of all, Star Wars. Looking back, some of the big brands were missing – for instance, it always confused me why there was no Lego but looking back the shop just wasn't big enough to be on the radar of the Lego sales reps and there was never any Lego available at the toy wholesalers that we used to get some stock from. Due to the limited shelf space in the store the stock ranged from pocket money through to mid-priced toys with very few high price items like the big Action Man vehicles and Scalextric and Hornby sets.

The real fun stuff for me was the Star Wars range and these were by far the best-selling toys that we had. There was a Palitoy rep who used to call in every few months to meet my Dad and I can still remember a very well-thumbed catalogue full of Palitoy goodies to look at. To me, it had the appeal of a top shelf magazine, I was constantly reading it! I'm still on the look-out for one of those for my current collection. I instantly became Star Wars Manager (well, in my mind anyway), and took up responsibility for making sure the shelves were always packed out with the best stock that we had. Funnily enough, the rest of staff were more than happy with me doing it …

My Dad placed orders with the sales rep and sometime later we'd get deliveries of pristine cases of Star Wars products directly from Coalville, Leicester. Whenever the delivery lorries went past the shop I was always first to the door to check if they had anything for us and I was always gutted if there was a delivery but there were no Star Wars products in it. The deliveries were never on schedule and you could never rely on the sales reps promises for when stock might be available because at that time anything Star Wars-related was in high demand and anything new, particularly the ROTJ lines, were extremely difficult to obtain directly from Palitoy. Demand outstripped supply in a big way and it seemed that Palitoy just couldn't keep up with production, although they did seem to share out the limited quantities of stock in an even way because when I used to look in the big shops such as Lewis's or Argos, they never had any stock either.

When the cases were finally delivered from Leicester the MOCs all came in non-marked, plain cardboard cases like the one Frank has. The only feature was a small label with the assortment number and a blue label that showed the shipping details and on some happy days I'd turn up and find 10-12 cases of minty fresh MOC's waiting for me to get them on the shelves.

I must have been 15 or so at the time so only worked Saturdays. I seem to remember being paid £6 a day but I always got lunch thrown in!! I guess most teenagers doing Saturday jobs probably turn up lacking some motivation, but that was never a problem for me, I loved it. My wages all went on TDK tapes and vinyl but I never bought any Star Wars related toys despite having collected the early SW characters back from when I was in junior school.

From what I remember, the MOC's came in assortments of around 2/3rd new ROTJ characters, and around 1/3rd recycled SW and ESB characters. It's so weird now, but finding original SW characters, and particularly ESB characters always felt very disappointing because the kids were understandably completely nuts about the new ROTJ characters and didn't care about the old characters that they'd been playing with for years already.

At the time it made perfect sense, the kids already had the old figures so were excited about the new characters, but it just feels odd now that we'd clear the shelves of 20 Weequay in a day while a single minty white Princess Leia Organa would hang around for weeks! We never got cases of single figures, they were always assortments and they all seemed to be packed slightly differently – we definitely never got identical assortments in the same shipment, but the split was broadly the same of old SW/ESB and new ROTJ characters. I presume single figure cases were only ever purchased by the biggest retailers or chains, as small toy shops just wouldn't be able to sell that many (96) of the same figure.

Sometimes there would be oddities in the cases. I've got some vague recollection of a single ESB Red Snaggletooth appearing in one of the cases, although the only assortments available at the time should have been ROTJ cardbacks. That Snaggletooth upset me because it made the shelf look mismatched, I should've just thrown it in the loft! We also got the occasional factory miscards, normally wrong weapons, but the odd miscarded character as well. I always got the feeling that if it looked about right then Palitoy Quality Control would ship it. They were clearly under pressure to get toys on shelves and in fairness to them, the bubbles, cards and figures were always perfect.

All of the first wave of 65 back debutants sold very fast. Luke Skywalker Jedi Knight, Princess Leia Boushh Disguise, Rebel Commando, Squid Head, Weequay, Bib Fortuna, Ree Yees and Lando Skiff Guard were the earliest issued. As far as I am aware, neither of the early Ewoks (Chief Chirpa and Logray) were released in the first wave although they are available on 65a backs, and oddly, we never, ever had a Klaatu in the store up to it closing in 1984 despite searching high and low for it.

On the back of the first wave came the rest of the 65 back debutants including the Emperors Royal Guard, the Gamorrean Guard, Admiral Ackbar, General Madine and the Biker Scout. Again, all of these sold very well.

Overall, the best sellers seemed to be Luke Skywalker Jedi Knight, Gamorrean Guard and the Emperors Royal Guard but almost every one of the ROTJ figures sold in large quantities. At one point we used to keep a book under the counter with a 'Wants' list for the regular customers who we always saved the newest figures for. Particularly in the run up to Christmas 1983 anything ROTJ-related was hard to get hold of and we made sure that the regulars got first dibs.

It's difficult to be sure which specific cardbacks (65a/b/c etc.) would have been included in which assortments. Logic would dictate that they were shipped sequentially but it's not easy to prove because stock moved at different rates both in the shop and presumably at Palitoy as well, so there would be a mixture of cardbacks around at any one time. At the time no-one cared at all about what cardbacks were available, just which figures they could get their hands on.

I think people know that the blacked out Ewoks weren't released with the earliest assortments to avoid spoiling the surprise in the film itself and this was a very good marketing ploy. I've always assumed that there were at least couple of waves of issues within the first 65a assortments: wave 1a (pre-film release) and wave 1b (post-film release). As we never, ever had a Klaatu in the store perhaps he belongs in wave 1c.

The only ROTJ shelf hangers were Admiral Ackbar (due to the mail away offer), and General Madine - we couldn't sell him in particular for love nor money. I used to curse when I'd open a fresh case and there would be 4-6 of him. The non-ROTJ shelf-hangers won't surprise anyone – either of the Bespin Guards and Lobot would have been very high on the list.

The maximum number of any one character in a case seemed to be about 6. I probably opened 50+ cases of figures at the store itself, and rooted through hundreds of other cases at toy wholesalers across the North West. The wholesaler I remember best is Macro, with their goofy green stickers, but they rarely had any Star Wars stock.

I believe that the second wave of figures was issued in 1984 and included some classics like Princess Leia in combat poncho, Han Solo trench coat, Wicket and The Emperor, but also a lot of figures that the kids just didn't want – Klaatu Skiff Guard, the B-Wing Pilot, Nikto and 8D8 to name a few. With the film a year old and no way to watch it, a lot of the kids moved on to other toys and Star Wars sales began to suffer.

We got lots of other toys from the wholesalers, presumably because my Dad could get the right numbers without having to buy large quantities from distributors, but very few Star Wars toys. It was generally pure luck whether there was any stock at the wholesalers. Figures were rare to find at the wholesalers, but vehicles were more common. I don't ever remember seeing playsets anywhere.

At the height of its popularity we tried to have two of every MOC out on the shelves. We didn't have a unit to hang them on, so they were all unpunched. About 90% came directly from Palitoy with the rest being bought singly at wholesalers and they retailed for £1.99. We did get a small number of people who complained at the £1.99 price for the figures because some big Toy Shops could sell them cheaper, but they never had any decent stock and we always worked hard to maintain a good range.

Some characters were very tough to find, particularly some of the ESB characters. I hunted for a Princess Leia Bespin for a long time for one of the kids but I don't remember ever finding one.

We had a shelving unit for the boxed Star Wars toys which probably came from Palitoy. They gave away a lot of point of sales stuff for free including boxes of shelf talkers which I assume all ended up in a landfill when the shop closed. In today's prices there was probably £5k's worth of shelf talkers alone. In 1984 prices they were worth next to nothing.

The boxed Star Wars toys seemed to be more readily available from Palitoy directly than the figure assortments. The big sellers were the Scout Walker, Jabba the Hutt playset and the speeder bikes although the mini-rigs also sold very well. The boxed toys that didn't sell included a Star Wars logo Palitoy land speeder that sat on the shelf for a lifetime and the ATAT, but that was probably more to do with the price. I think it was marked up at £39.99 because the shop couldn't generate big discounts from Palitoy and people could get them cheaper at bigger stores. The older vehicles such as the X-Wings and TIE Fighters sold very well, the Millennium Falcon and Rebel Transport were solid sellers, and I think we had the Imperial Shuttle as well.

The shop closed late in 1984. I remember before Christmas in 1983 working all day and being completely knackered. We'd taken a small fortune and I thought my Dad would be pleased but he told me that we needed to be taking that much money every day for the shop to be successful. The writing was probably on the wall from then on which is sad.

When the shop closed, along with the shelf-talkers there were 20+ boxes full of figures, plus other boxed Star Wars toys and lots of non-Star Wars toys. I think it all ended up in getting sold in one lot to a discount store.

Thanks for anyone who managed to get to the end of my essay, it's been fun writing it :D
 

indianawars

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I have to be honest with you, that was probably the best post I've read here! You can really feel that it was straight from the heart too. Thanks for sharing that wonderful story.
 

benny100

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What a great piece, thanks so much for putting that together. A really fascinating insight into how they got there and how they were packed together.

Same story here re. Madine/Lobot, one of my earliest memories is racks and racks of (most likely) Tri logo Lobot's for 49p in BHS along with a bin of Madines and Ackbars.
 

Michael Sith

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What a great read :D

Super post mate, really enjoyed reading it, podcast piece?

You were privileged to have been able to have these pieces of history around you. Had to laugh at the" I spent my money on vinyl and TDK tapes" I remember that as well :lol: still have some tapes :lol:

Cheers for sharing, really enjoyed that :D
 

robpmarsh

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Fantastic read!

I remember going into small toy shops and seeing Star Wars given that little bit of extra 'space'. I guess there were fans working there.

You're right about the figs that just sat there.... One local toy shop near me had Lobots, Rancor Keepers and 8D8's for sale at 20p each in the end....and they still didn't sell!
 

Robstyley

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Great read mate. You were living the dream! Hanging out in a toy shop :D Love to hear peoples' stories and memories of vintage from at the time. It's funny to think of all those thousands of minty SW toys all over the place and how sought after they are now. Who would have thought?
 

grinchy

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Thats a brilliant story, i remember the shop, still have a few figures from my childhood bought from there, my gran would take us out to either crosby or bootle strand each week on a saturday, and i would get to pick a figure, or if it was a special occasion a minirig to, damn this thread brought back happy memories, i was only a little kid at the time so i don't remember much, but i remember the figures, a nice little shop, small world eh?
 

itfciain

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What a great read - and what fantastic memories - I guess loads of us would love to be back in that shop right now. I think it is the main reason that I collect - for memories like this

Thanks for writing it down - you've made my day
 

SublevelStudios

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What a fantastic read!!!

Loved it mate, I always enjoy peoples recollections of those days. You were so lucky to have had that growing up :)

When I first started collecting I used to phone around (way before the internet!) all the toy shops to see if they had old SW stock, sometimes it paid off.
There used to be a general/hardware high street shop in Burslem here in Stoke in the very early 90's, they's sell all sorts of stuff, occasionally toys. It was run by an old husband and wife. I would walk past this shop every other day and would rarely give it a second look, then one day, BOOM, a ROTJ carded DSD and Luke X-Wing - marked at 49p each.

I raced in and snapped them up and asked if he had any more, the old fella pointed to 2 large boxes infront of the counter - both filled with figures. They were all ROTJ figures, mostly ESB and SW characters for some reason, I took what I could and asked for a few others to be put to one side.

Well, I kept this find to myself, and almost every other day I'd go back and get what I could afford, being 16 at the time, money was not exactly easy to come by. This chap told be he was getting them from a warehouse and there were vehicles there too and he'd get me some.

Sure enough, the next time he had shipping cases full of mini rigs in ROTJ boxes and a shipping case of ESB open belly Taun Tauns!

In total, I think I bought nearly 100 carded figures from him, and this guy had 4 shipping cases that were double packed in total. The most common figure I remember there being was AT AT Commander, there were bloody loads of him, I also remember a lot of Tri Logo figures, Yoda being one, and the only one of him there was.

Ah, them were the days...
 

edd_jedi

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Thanks very much for posting this! I've never read anything quite like it, I often wonder how many retail employees there must be out there that stacked shelves with these things without knowing how interested we would all be in hearing about it! Fantastic stuff.
 

PGowdy

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Fantastic post. And as a child of the ROTJ error and still a strong believer in it having the best figure line, this especially appealed to my nostalgia.
Like you say; in 1984 all kids wanted were the Jedi line figures. I remember one christmas or birthday getting Weequay and Klatuu (which i'd specifically asked for) along with a Gam Guard (still one of my favourite figures) and i think a Leia Boushh (another favourite). If i'd unwrapped a Princess Leia or Greedo i would not have been amused. :?
When the Ewoks became available they were all i could nag my parents about. I got 2 one birthday (possibly following the christmas haul, i always got less for my birthday as it's in January) Chief Chirpa and Logray. Was giddy with excitement and didn't put them down for a week or 2. :D

I would visit a toy shop in ealing, a walk away from where i lived, and spend all afternoon looking at the MOCs on the shelf. Often the one i wanted wasn't in stock (i think i looked for a Yoda for a full year with no luck. Owned my first Yoda as an adult collector :( ) and the guy would often write down figures you wanted on a clipboard.
There were 3 toy shops on that high street and my favourite and most frequently visited was the family owned one which was actually a curtain and bedding material shop with a toy shop up stairs. They always had the best, most varied stock.

What i'd give to go back for an afternoon. :D

Thanks again for sharing. Great read. 8)
 

Clarkspie&chips

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Thanks so much for sharing these wonderful memories, i'm green with envy though, whilst the rest of us were out in the pissing rain delivering newspapers you got to be surrounded by star wars.

If they ever invent that memory transfer think like in that red dwarf episode, can i please be first in the queue for your teenage saturday afternoons?
 

Grant

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Fecking awesome read. Litterally the stuff dreams are made off if you were a kid back in the day. I'd have given my left nut to be the son of a toy shop owner back then.
 

theforceuk

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What a brilliant post and thanks so much for taking the time to type it out, their's more info in that post than all of mine put together. (Not hard)

This was also my erra for Star Wars and some of my first memories are of going to a family run store looking for certain figures and being disappointed at not needing any. It's interesting reading about the Jedi caracters flying off the shelves as I was brought up in Cornwall but moved from the north in 84' and all we seemed to get was Jedi caracters in Cornwall, perhaps the odd ESB caracter if lucky. But before I moved I seemed to acquire more of a mix from all the films. I remember finding Luke Bespin and Bossk which was exciting! My Dad would sometimes stop at this one paticular shop on the way home from work and get me a Star Wars figure, I would be waiting at home in great anticipation and one day he brought me a Prune Face which I already had, ended up sulking for the rest of evening. :lol:

Anyway thanks again for shareing, great memories and times. :D
 

jedisearcher

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Thanks for the great comments guys :D

I've been meaning to write this all up for a long time and Ed asking about it in the other thread was just the spur I needed.

It was nostalgic to write it, so I'm glad that came through. It was a perfect storm really - loving Star Wars, working in a Toy Shop and both at a time when Star Wars was at the very height of its powers. It was definitely better than a paper round!!
 
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