Toys i collect! - Gundam - Pt 1

Wow, how do i begin? I think it started when i collected those thin little books sold at those mamak stalls in gardens and some other bookshops in days gone by, they were in color, but very thin, and each had artwork and pictures from various Real/Super Robo genres of the time.

I remember some of the artwork being really impressive (well, to me at that time anyway), and truthfully, i didn't even KNOW what Gundam was! (Heck, no internet in the 70-80s man). Another thing that didn't help was that it was near IMPOSSIBLE to find Gundam merch in SG.. although i remember getting a weapon set at the mamak stall in front of the theatre in gardens (it's the mall myVillage now!) Here's a pic of that set; i honestly though it would have the robots, but alas it only contained the kits for the weapons (which were quite cool actually).

Another toy i got was this diecast one my dad got for me (in the pic below on the right), i still have a blurry pic of it somewhere, but it was bought at an Emporium at Peninsula Plaza longgg time ago, it's die cast, super retro and not very poseable... but cool to me then haha.

Although there were drips of imports for kits to SG (i remember getting a GM kit at Daimaru Liang Court for.. 10 bucks? It needed glue darnnit, no snap fit back then) It was not until the early to mid 90's that PROPER Gundam kits were imported into SG by ShengTai toys... oh man, i remember rushing down to inKids at Dhoby Ghaut (remember that?) to snap up the kits!

Toys i Collect - Transformers! - Pt 1

This is a classic. :) I honestly never picked up any of the Original crew when i first started, i remember my first transformer being.... Fireflight! That was from Toys R Us in Marine Parade back in the days when Toys R Us had one whole building to itself... and there were just rows of them waiting for someone to take them home... and it only cost like, S$5.95 back then?

It was soon after that i started collecting the others for Superion... ah good times. Shortly after the Transformers craze sorta died out worldwide... guess it's partially due to the release of the first gen gaming consoles (Atari, ColecoVision, NES).

Transformers did come back in a myriad of forms, G2 repaints, Action Masters... all mostly badly painted looking reissues haha! Then came along Beast Wars, which was by all means unique, in that all the main characters were animals, and had a good toy line to support it. However, animals don't really cut it for me, i mean, they will always be vehicles of some form to me!

I guess at this time, Hasbro/Takara (Now Takatomy) saw the chance to pull in the older generation which had watched TF growing up, and capitalised on this by reissuing the older G1 toys in book like format, here was the chance for most of us to get back those items we missed out on in our youth!