Playmobil,. Best toy ever??

[aeutlutian]

I have pondered the playmobil question for sometime , as far as a toy goes there are almost perfect in my opinion , You get great themes, they are durable and once you get past the "cute" factor they are addictive, the recently released a Roman them set in Europe that is making me Drool.

If they did to action figure lines what they do to playmoil then you would have the perfect toy, late seventies and early 80's were close with lines like Legends of the west and 3 3/4 joes ,

any playmobil fans?

if you have no Idea what I am talking about check out www.collectobil.com

[figurasdeaccion]

Playmobil are very cool!!!. According to the toyfare mag, Playmobil is the biggest toy line on the world, with over 1.8 billion pieces.

My family is from Spain, and I did a lot of trips to there when I was a kid, and bought a lot of Playmobil sets since it was a very popular line on Europe.

I still own most of them, like a rescue team, policemen, firemen, pirates, cowboys and indians, astronauts, muslims, cycle race team, a entire zoo, a fort, a fantasy set with faeries and elves and some medieval sets. I always want the pirate ship, but it was very expensive at that time

Right now there's a lot of cool sets, specially the medieval, with dragons and knighst!!

[aeutlutian]

Yes there are many cool sets!, and yes at one time , Playmobil was the rich kids toy, but you can get a pirate ship here in the U.S for 29.00 dollars now , when it used to be 50.00, the Arab sets you have could be worth some money they are kinda rare now, I am finally going to Spain in 2008 , and Italy and greece, I am going to go to Spain to trace my family there, I recently did a DNA test and it showed me being mostly from Spain, so now I just say I am Spanish , Now I need to learn spanish better ,, also I wish I paid for gas what you pay for it , isn't it like 33 cents a gallon?? in Venezuela

[gort]

I love the Playmospace line form the early 80's, kind of a cross between 2001 and the rocket man style serials and B movies of the 50's. I have a bunch of these.

Playmobil were marketed by Marx toys as Play People in the UK in the 70's, they were the first posable figures I owned as a kid.

[figurasdeaccion]

aeutlutian said:

Yes there are many cool sets!, and yes at one time , Playmobil was the rich kids toy, but you can get a pirate ship here in the U.S for 29.00 dollars now , when it used to be 50.00, the Arab sets you have could be worth some money they are kinda rare now, I am finally going to Spain in 2008 , and Italy and greece, I am going to go to Spain to trace my family there, I recently did a DNA test and it showed me being mostly from Spain, so now I just say I am Spanish , Now I need to learn spanish better ,, also I wish I paid for gas what you pay for it , isn't it like 33 cents a gallon?? in Venezuela

Yes, oil is pretty cheap on here All my family from both sides came from Spain, half from Madrid and half vasque. My mom is living right now on there.

Once I saw a german tv program about Playmobil, they have a park like Disneyland but all is Playmobil!! I think in Europe is a very important toy brand. Sadly my arab set is far from complete

[aeutlutian]

Yes in Europe they are really popular in Europe , I love to go to playmoland or whatever is is called in europe here in the U.S. we have a legoland but I have never been , there are some awesome websites about playmobil out there , one guy even makes movies with them ,

[aeutlutian]

gort said:

I love the Playmospace line form the early 80's, kind of a cross between 2001 and the rocket man style serials and B movies of the 50's. I have a bunch of these.

Playmobil were marketed by Marx toys as Play People in the UK in the 70's, they were the first posable figures I owned as a kid.

YES! the playmospace sets are very cool, with the chest plates and chrome leggings and pistols, Playmobil launched in 1974, the year I was born I only had a few of them growing up , they were way to expensive for my parents,

They also are called Geobra someplaces, I was digging through some stuff last night and found two Playmobil skeletons, I was looking for my Biker , and I had customed a Cafe racer bike out some older motorcycles , one to look like a Norton commando, I hope to find them soon ,

[proteus]

they used to be called play people here in the uk, but then change to playmobil- there was another similar line in the 70s except the figure were taller and the legs could be posed seperatly they were called busy bodies.

busy bodies had a legendary space line with 2 part space helmets with mirrored gold visors,and a clear plastic robot with a yelloy head with circuits drawn on and a big antenna stickin out of his head.
i remember the alien in the set being a figure with no arms which had a big rubber finger puppet pushed over the top of the figure-very similar to some finger puppets that were out at the time called finger frights

[80s Action Figures]

I do not have any of these in my collection, but I do buy alot of them for my kids, alot of them especially the figure specials. Right now they have so many I do not think I will be getting them any more unless it is above and beyond the regular stuff, my boys have about 200 knight, vikings, and other medieval figures........enough to have a huge siege of their castle......

Any links to the new Roman line?

[aeutlutian]

Heres a good link , not everything they have, Roman line is to hit the states in july I think ,

www.millionaireplayboy.com/toys/playmoromans.php

[timothyc]

Playmobil has never really caught on in America the way it has over seas. A close friend of mine introduced me to Playmobil about 7 years ago and I collected it with a passion for a while. One of my other friends has nearly every PM set made since 1997 or so and has quite a bit of older stuff as well. Needless to say I know more about PM than I probably should ;^).

The cool thing about PM is the durability and play value in the sets. Nearly every accessory is interchangeable and the toys themselves are seemingly indestructible. Seriously, you can step on the figures and they won't break. Sheesshhh, all you have to do is open a modern Star Wars figure the wrong way and they'll break.

-Timothy

[Captainamerica]

Oh yeah, I'm a playmobil fan....

I love the Ancient themes ( Knights, VIKINGS!!!!!!!!, and the new Romans). I even have a few custom knights based on actual historical units: Knights Templar and Hospitalier. I think Playmobil's great, but, for me, Lego has an edge on them; so Lego's #1 in my heart.

I'm also working on a few custom Playmobil sets based on the book World War Z. Set 1 is a US soldier vs Zombie set: soldier is wearing body armor, helmet, and includes LOBO. Set 2 will feature a pre-fab house/outpost on stilts with a soldier and a different zombie. House has lots of accessories (of course!) including retractable stairs and soldier has body armor and gun. Set 3 is still in the idea stage and will feature a K9 handler and another unique zombie. K9 handler will have three K9s a dachshund, a shephard, and a big black lab mix. If you've read this really great book, I'm sure you can picture what these can be. If ever a comprehensive toy line based on this book could be done, it'd have to be Playmo or Lego and there's just no way....other than at my hands!!!!

[aeutlutian]

captainamerica said:

Oh yeah, I'm a playmobil fan....

I love the Ancient themes ( Knights, VIKINGS!!!!!!!!, and the new Romans). I even have a few custom knights based on actual historical units: Knights Templar and Hospitalier. I think Playmobil's great, but, for me, Lego has an edge on them; so Lego's #1 in my heart.

I'm also working on a few custom Playmobil sets based on the book World War Z. Set 1 is a US soldier vs Zombie set: soldier is wearing body armor, helmet, and includes LOBO. Set 2 will feature a pre-fab house/outpost on stilts with a soldier and a different zombie. House has lots of accessories (of course!) including retractable stairs and soldier has body armor and gun. Set 3 is still in the idea stage and will feature a K9 handler and another unique zombie. K9 handler will have three K9s a dachshund, a shephard, and a big black lab mix. If you've read this really great book, I'm sure you can picture what these can be. If ever a comprehensive toy line based on this book could be done, it'd have to be Playmo or Lego and there's just no way....other than at my hands!!!!

Thats awesome!! I did custom some bikers once and turned a sail boat and some joe parts into a dreadnok river pirate boat once, nothing as cool as yours

[Captainamerica]

I disagree, aeutlutian, your customs sound awesome. I'd love to see them.

[THE KNOCK-OFF MESSIAH]

i gotta say ...yeah playmobile is like the best toyline ever. its been going like none stop and always gets better. ive always had a fondess for them since a kid. i rememebr having the cowboy sets with the horse they do seem to get more love overseas but its still nice to see them in stores. and yes the cute factor rocks. its just right in balance of everything. sadly i dont collect them if i did id have to live in a playmobile house. but i do have a six foot playmobile man dressed as a hobo.

[chajones]

Im my opinion they are the best toys made. The level of detail is incredible and they have gone from being super expensive to down right cheap in my opinion. Heck, you can get 2 brand new figures with accessories for around $3 if you look hard enough. My son has fallen in love with them and when Toys R Us has their buy one get one 50% off sale, we stock up for birthdays or Christmas. He'll be 5 in August and so far has accumulated around 150 figures. He also has 4 pirate ships and loads and loads of other playsets and still can't get enough.

By the way if anyone is interested, all of the Kmarts around my area put all of thier playmobil stuff on clearance. Then they recently ran a sale for an additional 33% off of all clearance toys. We picked up things like the electronic playmobil fire engine for $10 and loads of pirate plasets for $7-$12.

[defzombie]

At a Home Goods in Cali and they had Playmobile sets in winter, 2 fig packs for a 1.99 and single packs for 1.49. I picked up a bunch of them including knights, pirates and cowboys. Now they still have a huge dragon set for 16.99

[victoryleo19]

I'm planning on getting the new castles that are coming out, I used to have a castle when I was a kid and I played with that thing for literally DAYS when I got it one year for christmas. Playmobil really is an awesome toyline, but I almost feel like theres just TOO much to collect. I like a lot of the different themes, and I wouldnt know wherre to stop.

[3 3/4"collector]

i love alot of the playmobil and there are alot of cool themes. i personally have no use for the figures and the way they are designed but alot of the accessories are awsome. and they are so close in scale to the 3 3/4" figure lines i collect, some stuff works some is just slightly too small.

[alfi]

Playmobil is the most awesome toyline besides MotU. There's plenty of stuff to collect and especially the stuff from the end 70s and 80s is more than awesome.

[madmartigan37]

ya we buy alot for the kids, they really like the fire,police and ambulance sets. My son got the ambulance set for christmas and plays with it every day. just a wonderful toyline.

[bananamuffin2024]

Love love love playmobil! Great toy. Some of the figures are really unusual!

[soren]

I have some of the Playmo space stuff still MISB . They rock big time

[josha]

I'd have to disagree. I think LEGO is the best toy ever