Former Palitoy Employees on the Forums!

DarthStanley

DarthStanley

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Hi all,

I've been meaning to ask this question for ages so here goes! :D

I've been collecting now for 4 years & i've NEVER once read a post from a former Palitoy employee describing what it was like to work there during the SW era ie:production process,marketing & when the sales started to dwindle after ROTJ & ultimately Palitoy closing down etc! :(

All i've seen is the Palitoy factory video so has anyone ever heard from any former Palitoy employees & do they have any links to any stories etc?

Cheers

Mark
 
In think it's unlikely to be honest mate, anybody working in the factories in the 70s/early 80s will be in their 60s/70s by now. Occasionally you do hear of Kenner/Palitoy employee sales, but they're never collectors.
 
I've heard of people contacting former Palitoy Employees but every single one of them were just factory workers, some had bits for sale but none had anything interesting to say about the production process, sales etc. I am pretty sure Del contacted a few ex employees over the years so they are out there but there have never been any (to my knowledge) that have used the forums to speak to collectors.

Most of the factory workers would be in their 60's by now as Edd said and they probably have very few "fond" memories of standing around putting toys in boxes to be honest, but it would be cool to hear from people more involved in things, employees that had an idea of the numbers of figures produced, where the figures were sent to, where they were packaged and who supplied the parts for Palitoy etc. Would also be good to hear from the people that worked behind the scenes with the mail away offers and anyone that could give us an idea on how packaging was printed (I think a lot of Euro companies had their printed material done by another company)

Perhaps the reason we only hear about former Kenner employees and no one else is that almost everyone involved with Kenner actually had a very interesting role to play in the production of the toys, from sculptors, designers and artists to people like Kim who were brought in to do the photography. Those kinds of stories are the most interesting to us as collectors and not so much how many Falcon's they had to box up before tea break :( (However, I would welcome any inside information, however boring :D)
 
plantman said:
Nextoy on ebay/RS is ex kenner isnt he?
Click to expand...

Yes that's Tom N. There were also a few guys at Celebration recently that collectors got to speak to and I believe the documentary "Plastic Galaxy" (http://plasticgalaxymovie.com/ not out yet) will have some interviews with other ex Kenner guys too.
 
I actually had a few conversations recently with a printing company in the Leicester area in the hope of speaking to someone who was around at the time, hoping that like some Kenner employees did that some proof material had survived.....no such luck from a Star Wars perspective. Did chat to a chap who did some printing for Palitoy around the early 80's, but not Star Wars. He was convinced that any such material would have been discarded and that it was a million to one shot that something had survived :cry:
 
Watch this space!

Don't know if any of you remember me saying I originally got my first 13 baggies from an ex palitoy worker, one who was one of the last 15 workers there till the final day when the factory closed its doors??.

Well I was down in Leicester visiting family a few weeks ago & on the way back popped in to see an old friend in Donnisthorpe, now I have been trying to remember just where that very very nice lady lived & blow me, on the way to my m8's I though hey up this row of buildings looks familiar, I then took the next right & thought, I recognise this row of houses, at that point I got rather excited & stopped toward the end of the road & pervade them with a critical eye & decided to knock on a door & ask the seemingly stupid question to the old chap who answered the door, that question being if he knew if anyone on the street used to work for Palitoy to his knowledge, now he said no & was about to close the door, when he shouted up to his better half asking the question & in the same breath mumbling that his better half did work there at some point, cutting a long story short, it was her & I had got the right house :eek: :D

So at this point I wanted nothing more than to stay & chat about the factory for hours, she seemed to want to as well & seemed to be a real fountain of information about all the lines produced there & at another smaller plant Palitoy also owned, sadly I had perishable livestock for my marine tank in the car so I had to beat a hasty retreat, but she has said she would be more than happy to share what she knows, no idea how useful or informative it will be, but interesting for sure.

She also said she is happy for me to record the meeting, so if anyone has a dicta-phone it would be very handy!.
 
I remember Frank and that is a cool story indeed, hope someone can help you out with a camcorder or something as that would be a really nice little interview, good luck recording it!
 
Great stuff Frank! 8)

I'd love to hear anything she had to say about working for Palitoy even if they were slave drivers & horrible to work for! :lol:

Cheers

Mark

Edit: cheers for the link ODB,will read it now! 8)
 
Awesome thread guys

Frank, you know I'd be up for a day trip mate.

Joe, I'd love to hear if you have any other thoughts on the printing. I've been thinking for a while now that Palitoy was providing Holland and Germany with there cards and mailers, at lest for ROTJ era and maybe even packaging them at Palitoy before sending them out. Just my thoughts but the similarities are there and most of the figures are the same as the ones found at Palitoy.
 
snaggletooth said:
Joe, I'd love to hear if you have any other thoughts on the printing. I've been thinking for a while now that Palitoy was providing Holland and Germany with there cards and mailers, at lest for ROTJ era and maybe even packaging them at Palitoy before sending them out. Just my thoughts but the similarities are there and most of the figures are the same as the ones found at Palitoy.
Click to expand...

You guessed right Scott, Palitoy did indeed supply many other countries with carded figures including Holland. If I remember rightly the ESB Clipper cards with the printed white offer top corner (that looks like a sticker) were all actually printed/produced and packaged at Palitoy for export to Clipper. (This one:)

clipper-hammer-90.jpg


Later on Palitoy just exported their own product and let Clipper put stickers on the figures as it was probably a tad costly for them to do a separate production of cards with different offers/languages on them.

I spoke to JC a bit about Spanish printed material a while ago and he lead me to believe that a separate Spanish printing company handled that on behalf of PBP so it's possible Palitoy had a similar way of doing things although as they were quite a big company they may well have done things themselves or as Kenner did - got their stuff printed in the far east and sent over. A lot about the printing side of things is unknown in all honesty..
 
Joe said:
snaggletooth said:
Joe, I'd love to hear if you have any other thoughts on the printing. I've been thinking for a while now that Palitoy was providing Holland and Germany with there cards and mailers, at lest for ROTJ era and maybe even packaging them at Palitoy before sending them out. Just my thoughts but the similarities are there and most of the figures are the same as the ones found at Palitoy.
Click to expand...

You guessed right Scott, Palitoy did indeed supply many other countries with carded figures including Holland. If I remember rightly the ESB Clipper cards with the printed white offer top corner (that looks like a sticker) were all actually printed/produced and packaged at Palitoy for export to Clipper. (This one:)

clipper-hammer-90.jpg


Later on Palitoy just exported their own product and let Clipper put stickers on the figures as it was probably a tad costly for them to do a separate production of cards with different offers/languages on them.

I spoke to JC a bit about Spanish printed material a while ago and he lead me to believe that a separate Spanish printing company handled that on behalf of PBP so it's possible Palitoy had a similar way of doing things although as they were quite a big company they may well have done things themselves or as Kenner did - got their stuff printed in the far east and sent over. A lot about the printing side of things is unknown in all honesty..
Click to expand...

Thanks for the great reply Joe, I actually have that MOC mate 8)

It's a tough one that but I'd think Palitoy where probably just doing what PBP where doing and getting a local company doing all there printing for them, Palitoy where quite a big company but in the UK at that time it wouldn't have been very big compared to todays standards and they where also producing other toy lines so would have had to get a lot of cards/packaging made up. Chinas definitely a possibility though as it would have been just as easy with the relationship Palitoy had with the China factories, especially if one of those where, or had a relationship with the factory printing for Kenner. Do you know who or where did the printing for Kenner?
 
If you guys find any Palitoy staff please let me know. We'd love to interview them for our Star Wars documentary Binding The Galaxy Together.

That goes for any forum members here too. If you're interested in taking part please drop me an email at [email protected].

Thanks!
 
I never knew those Cilpper offers were printed on the cards. That's my Star Wars fact for the day :)
 
Great thread and hopefully some new light will be shed on the whole star Wars Palitoy thing. I've heard that the story of star Wars and Palitoy isn't as big as the Action Force one due to the fact that nothing was built in the UK (although how the cardboard Death Star and Cantina fits in I'm not quite sure). That said though It would be great to know any new knowledge about the printing and packing of these things. I wonder if a big box of loose figures would just arrive with a bag of weapons to be sealed onto their cards? Also, did Kenner goes as far as supplying the sellotape the weapons were stuck into the bubbles with (maybe I'm going a bit too far with that question?!!)?

Well keep the info flowing.
 
Palifan said:
Great thread and hopefully some new light will be shed on the whole star Wars Palitoy thing. I've heard that the story of star Wars and Palitoy isn't as big as the Action Force one due to the fact that nothing was built in the UK (although how the cardboard Death Star and Cantina fits in I'm not quite sure). That said though It would be great to know any new knowledge about the printing and packing of these things. I wonder if a big box of loose figures would just arrive with a bag of weapons to be sealed onto their cards? Also, did Kenner goes as far as supplying the sellotape the weapons were stuck into the bubbles with (maybe I'm going a bit too far with that question?!!)?

Well keep the info flowing.
Click to expand...

You maybe right about action force thing and I don't think it's all as complicated as we collectors like to make it most of the time but as far as I know Palitoy was making all there own ships and playsets but not loose figures. We know they where receiving figures in baggies from HK, PBP and I suspect some removed COO's are Macau figures, these would have probibly been shipped in shipping cartons of 300? like the luke jedi one that was on ebay. We also know that some figures in one of the videos appear loose in a big plastic bin in the Palitoy factory, where those figures in the bin delivered loose with an extra bag full of accessories, maybe from another factory? I don't know the answer for sure but I can't see the staff removing all the figures from the baggies to the bin and then to be carded when they could have put them straight on to the card from the baggie. Also in that video you can see some Sellotape hanging on tge left of the work station's

http://www.macearchive.org/Archive/Title/central-news-22101982-star-wars-toys/MediaEntry/39541.html
 
Nice find, I did a bit of a search on Brent and he was apparently fired after only a year working for Parker Brothers..pretty interesting stuff.
 
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