My “Toy Collector Magazine” years

Last Friday, one of my Facebook friends, Wayne Youngblood (he was one of my editors for Goldmine magazine) posted a picture of an extremely rare Hot Wheels prototype car, the pink “Beach Bomb” vehicle.  This car.

I remembered that car.  I also remembered the article I wrote about Hot Wheels cars, in conjunction with the company’s 40th anniversary.  And, for that matter, I also remembered my two years as a writer for Toy Collector Magazine (2007-2009).

Toy Collector was designed as an online magazine, full of interesting and detailed information about toys, games, fashion dolls and model trains.  It was a fun publication to work for, and I actually earned several cover stories (as well as a couple of writing awards) during my tenure with the publication.

And once I saw the Hot Wheels Beach Bomb on my Facebook feed, I had to go look up that original story.  But there’s no way that the old Toy Collector articles are STILL online…

Are they?

Search, search, search…

And even after nearly a decade…

I found them.

And if you’re interested in reading my original articles from Toy Collector Magazine, here they are, in PDF format, and clickable directly to the first page of each and every story:

• June 2007: Transformers: Old, New and Now on the Big Screen.  This was my first article for Toy Collector, and it was timed to appear with the release of the 2007 motion picture Transformers.
• June 2007: Showoff! IPod Makes It a Snap to Share Your Collection.  Okay, this was written years before anybody had invented an “iPad,” but if you had an iPod, you could download images to it and use it as an ersatz image display device.
• July 2007: Guitar Hero: Don’t Quit Till You’re a Star.  Wow.  At one point in time, I thought that the Guitar Hero video game franchise would last for years.  And then it just went poof.
• August 2007: Creating a Peaceable Kingdom.  This was Wild Republic’s series of stuffed animals and nature toys.  That front picture?  That alligator is climbing out of the shore of the lake at Washington Park.
• September 2007: Go! Speed Racer Go!  This was my first cover story for Toy Collector.  And I ended up winning a gold medal at the International Automotive Media Awards for this article, the first of two IAMA trophies associated with Toy Collector Magazine.
• November 2007: Smackdown: Collecting Professional Wrestling Action Figures.  Yes, I had a great time with this article – and I had the opportunity to interview many pro wrestlers about their own personal miniature replicas.
• January 2008: Revell: From Plastic Model Kits to Robotics.  Another fun project, and this one allowed me to provide a Revell VEXplorer robotics kit to my old high school for their use.
• March 2008: Redlines, Orange Tracks and Blue Streaks.  Yes, this article on the 40th anniversary of Hot Wheels was another cover story.  And yes, I snagged another Gold Medal from the International Automotive Media Awards for this piece.
• April 2008: International Toy Fair 2008.  My first opportunity to visit the trade show known as the International Toy Fair.  Got to meet Marie Osmond AND Terri Irwin.  How waycool is that?
• August 2008: Game Not Over: A Visit to the Luna City Arcade.  This guy has a collection of hundreds of coin-operated video games, including rare pieces from the 1970’s.  And they all work, and they all take quarters.  And I not only played there, but I wrote an article about the collection as well.
• November 2008: Tabletop Touchdowns.  My third cover story for Toy Collector featured the history of tabletop “Electric Football,” the game that allowed you to create your own football team and play them in action LONG BEFORE John Madden ever licensed his name to a video game company.
• December 2008: Alien Invasion.  Breygent Marketing’s replica of the 1950’s “Saucer Men” brought the little bug-eyed creatures back to toy life.
• January 2009: Saturdays With the Kroffts.  This was an absolute treat for me.  I was able to interview Sid and Marty Krofft, and I even earned a chance to interview Billie Hayes (Witchiepoo from H.R. Pufnstuf) and Caroline Ellis (Joy from The Bugaloos) about their time and their toys.
• February 2009: Peter Puck: Kick Save and a Beauty.  This was my final piece for Toy Collector before the publication ended.  I’ve recycled this Peter Puck piece from its original publication in the animation magazine Animato!, with some updates for 2009.

And there you have it.  Fourteen articles, including three cover stories, from 2007 to 2009.  Totally awesome.  And finding that these articles are still online – at least for now, in their full-color PDF formats – makes me feel great.

And thankfully, I get to share them with you.  Hope you all enjoy.