Starcom by Coleco

[WishItWas1984]

Well, this is unique to me. If you've seen my other posts you'll know my wife worked at Coleco. Another toy line she was part of was Starcom. Last week she found two items that I thought were cool.

I'll let the link explain though. It has an e-mail message that I wrote to the guys that run a major Starcom site. Problem is, the site is old and their e-mails were dead, but from an eBay name posted I tracked a site owner down and sent him a message via eBay. But there wasn't enough room so I told him to check the site where the full original e-mail is posted.

Wow, yeah, exciting I know.

www.blueharvestcds.com/raretoys/starcom/

Update: Since moving to a new host and changing the link, I removed the e-mail. There's a short description though.

[starhorse]

Holy crap, you married a girl that worked for Coleco! Score

Those are some very cool pieces you have there. If you ever wanted to sell them I'm sure they'd fetch a very decent price.

[WishItWas1984]

starhorse said:

Holy crap, you married a girl that worked for Coleco! Score

Those are some very cool pieces you have there. If you ever wanted to sell them I'm sure they'd fetch a very decent price.

hehe, yeah to bad she's 9 yrs. older than me. Otherwise maybe I could've talked her into getting more crap if I knew here at the time. But unfortunately while she was making a living, I was playing with toys.

She told me she had Colecovisions and related crap stacked to the ceiling in her office. That really hurt me.

And it'd have to be a very decent price indeed. She's really attached to these. As well as the 20 odd Starcom pre-production figures we have .

I won't type out the whole backstory, but the figures are from the first 10-20 sets made in Coleco's basement R&D facility.

[10incher]

Duke, you gotta post some pics of these Starcom figures. I don't know much about the line but these would be cool to see. I could just imagine all the cool Colecovision stuff that wasn't released as well. Wow!

[WishItWas1984]

admin said:

Duke, you gotta post some pics of these Starcom figures. I don't know much about the line but these would be cool to see. I could just imagine all the cool Colecovision stuff that wasn't released as well. Wow!

Well even though they were the first set of figs made, they aren't different from retail. Well I haven't looked at them with a microscope or anything, but they seem very similar to me. So I'm not sure if a pic would be all that exciting. Other than to see a whole mess of loose Starcom figs

I will post a pic when it's all displayed and looking nice though. Not sure if I mentioned this in another post, but I plan on having an acrylic case made for them. I won a boxed HARV-7 vehicle on eBay and busted it out to be part of the display. Truck in the middle with figures surrounding it. For the base where they all stand, I'm going to have a piece of very thin diamond plate cut to size. With the magnetic feet, it'll help a great deal in keeping these suckers upright.

Well, while I edited my last Starcom post, might as well update this one too.

As to the "pre-production" aspect of these, I have my doubts. I mean, they should be somewhat different right? I'm really only going by my wife's word, and we ARE talking about a "woman" here...we all know they're all friggin' crazy, so who the hell knows.

Anywho, I finally did display them. No fancy acrylic case though. No room for it. Thank God for metal rulers though!

www.flickr.com/photos/blueharvestcds/2553561431/

[WishItWas1984]

My wife had a Coleco VHS tape for the longest time that I finally got around to converting to DivX. Nothing Earth-shattering, but a neat little video. Especially if you collect Starcom.

The video is Coleco's Starcom Spring 1988 Product Demo.

To get the demo, you need to have an account at the Bittorrent site, Demonoid.com. Registration is free and open as of this writing. Here's a direct link to the torrent's page:
www.demonoid.com/files/details/332990/?rel=1146385235[/s]

Ok, I finally uploaded the video to YouTube. Hopefully the processing on YouTube doesn't drive the audio to go out of sync...it was close to at the end as it is. Ah well, that's what you get w/ crappy VHS.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pZFa_E6NZI

Here's the things I noticed from watching the video:

-The Mobile Action Pod "Command Post"'s coloring was changed.

-Missile Fox's coloring was changed.
-Seems like the Missile Fox's front missiles were non-functional in the demo.

-Shadow Spy's Canopy color changed.

-Seems like the Starcom Skyroller wasn't finished for the demo. The thing is supposed to stand completely straight. Seems broken in the demo. Might also be why the demonstrator didn't bother showing off the pull-out seat.

[10incher]

I'll have to remember to download it tonight and check it out!

[WishItWas1984]

admin said:

I'll have to remember to download it tonight and check it out!

It's not being seeded anymore at the moment. Let me know when you have the torrent running and I'll start seeding it again.

[robomonkey]

Since I was a kid, I've always been a big fan of the Starcom line. Yes, I'm talking about the little guys with the magnets on their feet.

In my opinion, this line was one of the most well designed, and underrated, lines out there. Slick design and lots of gimmicks made for loads of playablity in a small package. Many of the different toys were even compatible with each other, like some of the smaller vehciles could fold in to cargo loads for the larger ones to carry around. The figures themselves had the magnets on their feet and there were tiny metal plates on all of the toys so you could stick them on the wing of ship to simulate zero G space exploration fun.

I have had yet to see a good thread on these boards dedicated to the little guys, so here we are.

And did I mention that all of the figures hand magnets on their feet

[robomonkey]

It can be kinda hard to find on Ebay and prices can be all over the place. I just want some loose comlpete figures and vehicles. A lot of the stuff on Ebay is overpriced boxed or carded toys and a good bit comes from overseas, meaning too much shipping for my thrifty self.

I think there's a good amount of people that haven't heard of it, making it that much tougher to come across. I'm sure there's quite a few people have some in a box in their attic , but just don't know what it is.

[sanfords2]

I picked up a Starcom pinball machine this Summer. It's pretty small, lap-size.

[matt]

I would like to get some someday but right now im already into to many lines to pick up another one. Maybe after I complete a few lines. I do have one vechile (the guys are long gone) from when I was a kid and I always liked them.

[robomonkey]

This really is a great line. And if you get a vehicle or two, you will want more

Sanfords, do you have a pic of the pinball machine? I'd love to check it out.

[ludevig]

I still have 8 figures from the Starcom line of toys. The Starcom toys were probably my favourite line of toys for about 2 straight years. Awesome detail, great action and the cartoon was well done too. A great line of toys with hours and hours spent in my room having mass battles with them.
A vastly superior line of toys that many have forgotten. Would love for them to ressurect these toys and cartoon shows.
Loved em.

[da18thcustomizer]

You and i both. I just recently finished the last episode and plan on watching the series again in the near future. The voice overs were a bit lacking as was the PC humor but the action scenes were fantastic. I parted with much of my stock vehicle collection but have plans for custom vehicles as soon as i finish the last touches on my custom figures.

The figures , despite their size, have so much potential . In my opinion the figures alone rival some of the more traditional top tier figure lines (Joe and Star Wars specifically).

Dammit ...this line needs to be released again.

[ludevig]

I always loved Emperor Dark's forces cos they had the beefier looking vehicles. The good guy marine types were also a favourite of mine but the Shadow guys were my absolute favourites. Those guys would fight againts my Air Raider toys. Same sized vehicles and figures. Though Air Raiders sold packs of figures where you could really beef up your numbers and have actual armies.
In fact i rememeber having a huge army of the bad guys from Air Raiders too.
Everyone loves the bad guys.

[madcow]

I came upon a Laser Rat and H.A.R.V. complete about a month ago I'm tempted to buy the figures to complete these though I see that a majority of the Starcom stuff is overseas. Was this big over in UK/Europe?

[tootles]

Jan 26, 2012 8:31:35 GMT -6 madcow said:

I came upon a Laser Rat and H.A.R.V. complete about a month ago I'm tempted to buy the figures to complete these though I see that a majority of the Starcom stuff is overseas. Was this big over in UK/Europe?

It is my understanding that the final series was only available in Europe. If it was sold in the states it was very rare.

[swafus]

Starcom is the very best toyline you've probably never heard of. I have almost a complete set of the figures and a few vehicles including a complete and mint Skyroller with box, instructions. most underrated line ever.