Collectible magazines with gimmicky toys

simu

Who actually buys those collectible magazines with gimmicky toys that always appear in January? Anyone here? Just wondering.

alleepally

Used to be suckered in by the collectible mags years ago but not anymore.

THere are 2 complete series I did collect to completion. I was told by the newsagent that I was the only person they knew in 25 years owning the shop that actually completed the buying of any partwork.

The 2 I collected were - Play it Today (learning music) and The Great Composers. I still have both and actually the great composers was worth it.

Know a few people who started the real robots thing but gave up..

Ms Beanbag

When I was a kid, I used to collect the 'farthing wood friends' magazines. Used to get a free tape or a sticker (!) with them. I stil have them in the attic. The odd episode is shown on TV now...

nlgbbbblth

alleepally wrote:

Used to be suckered in by the collectible mags years ago but not anymore.

THere are 2 complete series I did collect to completion. I was told by the newsagent that I was the only person they knew in 25 years owning the shop that actually completed the buying of any partwork.

The 2 I collected were - Play it Today (learning music) and The Great Composers. I still have both and actually the great composers was worth it.

Know a few people who started the real robots thing but gave up..

I collected
The Home Computer Course (1984)
The Unexplained (1985)
Input (1986)
Nam - The Vietnam Experience (1987)
Eyewitness Nam (1988)

still have the lot, complete with binders.

skywalker

a mate of mine collected the dinosaur one years ago to completion, think the dinsaur you made got broke like a week later.

I was looking at an ad the other day for a boat type one and in small letters down the bottom it said 100 issues! at a fiver a go who is gonna finish that?

usually you have to get the last ones by post as the newsagents have long since stopped caryying them. possibly easons o connel st being the exception

alleepally

nlgbbbblth wrote:

I collected
The Home Computer Course (1984)
The Unexplained (1985)
Input (1986)
Nam - The Vietnam Experience (1987)
Eyewitness Nam (1988)

still have the lot, complete with binders.

The first 3 there I remember starting to buy them. That brings back memories alright as I had forgotten them

Calibos

These things are the bane of Newsagents existance. Every January there are about 20 new ones out and you have hundreds of people enquiring about them and trying to order them. I usually try my best to disuade them.

I explain that 'Nitro' for instance is €3.99 or summat for the first issue and €10+/ issue for the next 70. I ask them whether they really want to pay €700 for a remote control car when there is a Smyths toy shop 2 minutes up the road which have one for €70.

That'll put off about 50% of people while the other 50% will say, "Ah but half the fun is putting it together and its educational etc, little Johny is going to be an engineer when he grows up!"

Is the fun in putting it together worth an extra year and a half of his live and an extra €630! Surely it would be cheaper to buy him one in Smyths and he can educate himself by taking that one apart! If he can put it back together, I am sure he will make a great engineer when he grows up. I he can't then you can just buy him another one in Smyths. Total cost to daddy €140 instead of €700!! :D

If people are adament(sp?) that they want to order I shrug my shoulders and take their name. I explain to them that these partworks are unlike other magazines in that the first 4 or 5 are Sale or Return but thereafter, if I can't sell them I am stuck with them. I explain to the prospective partwork customer that if they choose to proceed that for the love of God could they please notify me when they 'INEVITABLY' decide to cancel the partwork subscription rather than just disappear of the face of the planet leaving me with a pile of partworks for them that they are never coming to collect or pay for.

To the last man or women they say they understand my concerns and would never dream of disappearing off the face of the earth, how could I think such a thing, of course they will let me know a week or two in advance when the wish to cancel. Guess what?? Another name added to the Missing Partwork Persons list!! :mad: :mad: :mad:

Last year we had decided that enough was enough and were going to stop selling them. Of course Easons sends us out unsolicited a load of the new years Partworks. We were going to send them straight back but as usual we had lots of people enquiring about them. After trying to disuade one or two customers with the above speil they didn't seem to grasp our dilemma and asked us what kind of business men we were, not wanting to make money by selling something to him. He had us doubting our own business acumen and we relented and started taking partwork orders with the proviso that we were not going to let unreturnable partworks build up for customers that collected sporadically. If as much as two issues lay in the customers folder lay uncollected then the order would be cancelled lest we end up with 5 or 6 @ €10 a pop.

Needless to say, after collecting the first 5 or 6 issues on time, we didn't see the guy for another 5 weeks/issues. We cancelled his order only for him to arrive looking for his partworks. We gave him the 4 we had and explained that we had missed an issue because we though he had done what 'EVERY' other partwork customer had done ie. a runner. "No ,no I already told you, I'd never leave you in the lurch like that, Even if you don't see me for a few weeks, I'll still eventually come in and collect and pay for them. So can you re-order them again and get me the issue I missed yeah?"

"Okey Dokey"

..........Last time I ever saw him

:mad: :mad:



Jaysus, can't believe I went off on a rant on Partworks!! But honestly, they are a f***ing menace!!

chewy

yeah I've often seen those things lying half thrashed in newsagents bargin bin, idd you ever tell this story to Easons they must know there rubbish....

KevIRL

Total scam these things are. My folks used to have a newsagents and thye are a pure nightmare. Even the fact that they are no longer sale or return after the first few issues adds to the scam. NO other magazines or newspapers are firm order (no sale or return).

Worst culprit I ever saw was a star trek partwork a few years back. It was weekly and cost £2.49 per week (in old money). At the back of issue one it said that the series would last 52 issues or one year. Sure enough at the end of year 1 another 52 issues were added and again at the end of year 2 and year 3. The thing lasted 4 years or something like 208 issues. Also there was a price increase at some stage along the way. There were 3 poor saps who collected the lot. Even without the price increase this would amount to 517.92 POUNDS!!!!

Stay away from this crap!

Chinafoot

cant say i've ever collected anything like that but they clearly are a total scam. i saw the ad for the romote control car thingy that you collect and build and in the small writing at the bottom it said the remote control was to be bought separately for around €70 or something ridiculous like that!
but there'll still be people who will buy this crap :rolleyes:

seamus

I collected two to completion:

Italia '90 (I think it was called). It was a combo partwork/sticker collection - Panini must have made a fortune. I remember my two bros had gotten the first one, which came with a big binder. I was a bit late wanting one, and my great Dad spent two hours driving around Dublin one night to get one for me - everyone seemed to have bought it. But I got the whole thing, and all the stickers. The amount of money....

The Ancestral trail. It was basically a fantasy story that allowed you to build up parts for a game along with the story. After almost 2 years of collecting I never did play the game

KevIRL

seamus wrote:

I collected two to completion:

Italia '90 (I think it was called). It was a combo partwork/sticker collection - Panini must have made a fortune. I remember my two bros had gotten the first one, which came with a big binder. I was a bit late wanting one, and my great Dad spent two hours driving around Dublin one night to get one for me - everyone seemed to have bought it. But I got the whole thing, and all the stickers. The amount of money....

I remember this! Brian Clough on the ad on the TV...."Italia 90 - I'd watch out for it if I were you"

Remember there were two types of stickers. The blue packs were realeased first and you could only buy these for the first few months. They contained all the well known teams like Ireland, England, Brazil, Germany etc then the red packs came out with all the crap in them. Like USA, Egypt etc.

Ba_barbaraAnne

Partworks are definitely a rip-off. I collected Real Robots for one of my kids and had a lot of trouble with the company getting all the issues. I went through their website to order them - never again. (Needless to say the robot was never finished!)

On a positive note, my sister has almost finished getting Horrible Histories for another of my lads and it is a fantastic collection. There are only a few weeks left to go and as the subscription was given as a birthday present has actually been a worthwhile investment.

What I usually do is buy the first couple of issues of collections at the reduced price if they have something the children want, and leave it at that!

Trojan

Story Teller!!

Cianan2

A couple of months back,my mum bought me the first of a "war movies" collection magazine. Got the first one,which was Bridge on the river Kwai,at a reduced price and it hasnt been in any shops we've been in since(which pissed me off,big time)!
Well,at least i got that dvd for E3!!!

Matthewthebig

I collected the whole of "Wheres Wallys history of the world" Took a year. I don't even think i read them all

vector

Maybe the pay-by-weight bin charging will make those idiots who buy this glossy landfill think twice

DaBreno

when I was 16, I attempted to collect the whole print of "The Lover guide". It was written by Doc Andrew Stanway and each week was divided into several sections helping to make you a better lover complete with some excellent photos(16 was a great age). Never finished it coz after 8 issues, the embarassment was getting to me and I was running out of space to hide em.

On a related note, I wonder why no one has done anything similar since? That was quite a magazine for its time. In this day and age, another would do quite well I should say.

8bi1ctzegfouva

collected How My Body Works. was pretty cool, you got to build this body with all the internal organs and crap, was about 7 at the time and in hospital, so it was pretty cool to have, i remember i got the second piece when i was in having my appendix out. it was good until the body was finished, then they went and started giving stickers for this really **** sticker book which was based inside the human body, i stopped collecting it soon after that.

the boss in work finished some robot wars thing, we have the robot it work, only thing is, it is absolute ****e, doesn't work at all, just drives around crashing into the walls. but it looks pretty cool.

ionapaul

I collected 'Discovery', a historical series, to completion in my early teens (late 80s, early 90s I would think). There was another one, sort of sciencey / how the world of the future will look, which I really liked but stopped collecting after a while. I remember the binder was pre-divided into a number of sections and each week you got a few more pages for each section, rather than adding the full issue where the last left off.
Anyone remember this one - what was it called?