What are your obscure toy collections?

[Zapper]

Omg Diddl He was all the rage in the 90s. I had so much Diddl stuff. That's why my Diddl collection was more "obscure" than yours, but only because I had access to everything.
What made Diddl so popular was the writing pads, no joke. You got one writing pad with a single Diddl illustration on each page. Then you took a few pages and folded them up neatly to place in your Diddl note pad page collection folder. It sounds hilarious when I type it out but it was sorta like collecting trading cards.
The note pads would quickly go out of productiob so after a short while some of them became very rare and you had to trade 5 different pages for one page of the rare illustrations.

I still have my folder from way back when I also still have the plushies and yes, the first soundtrack Diddl had songs. One of them was about collecting note pad pages,bwahaha.
It was such a money maker.

Nowadays people don't care as much about Diddl anymore. For some reason the franchise didn't achieve nostalgia status. Diddl merch is still selling but the huge fandom kind of ended.

Germany has a new mascot love right now: Pummel, a chubby unicorn who loves cookies. Pummel is from an entirely different creator, tho.

Any Diddl fans can hit me up. I could sell it all, I have no connection to it anymore.

[Khoufu]

Oh man, Zapper, 9-year-old me would help loved more Diddl. The only cool notepad I had was one where you used a mostly clear plastic sheet to reveal hidden pictures on the pages. I had a stationary set in a box, plushies of Diddlina, Mimihops, Pimboli, and Gallupy, a sticker roll, and a pack of trading cards. I have a white mouse costume  (fashioned after the videogame character Mappy) who could easily be used in a Diddl costume.


So many lines in this thread that I'd never heard of! Those Peru Strawberry Shortcake dolls are indeed interesting. Meanwhile Diddl, Popples, and pins from the game The World Ends with You are the only ones I ever have to explain to people.

[Taffeta]

Oh yeesh. Collection is maybe a strong word, but I do have a gathering of random Japanese things that I've amassed because of various fandoms.

I have two Sotsugyou M dolls. Nobody in the West has a clue what that is unless they speak Japanese and are at least 30, it's from the 90s and it never got translated, but the dolls I think are Takara.

I also have two Saiyuki dolls. Those maybe are less unknown - though finding them with the rooted hair is really hard. I looked for ages for Gojou. So happy to finally get him. The other one I have is Sanzou.

So random Japanese dolls I guess, if four means a collection?

I also have tiny little cute plush things I picked up. It began with Sumikkogurashi and Kirimi-chan. Kirimi-chan stuff is like sushi with faces and its just ridiculously cute. And I already had some ebi-fry Sumikkogurashi stuff before I went to Japan, so now I have a few more odds and ends from that. Then in Japan I found Jinbei-san stuff, so now I have a little oyster, and a great big softie whale on my shelf as well.

I have a few random cute Japanese things that off-hand I am not sure what line they belong to. I have a bit of gudetama stuff - a keyring, a pencil - but no toys so he doesn't count. Some small sheep and alpaca, though. Not really sure what they are, but they're cute and they live on my shelf too.

Finally, I have owls. That began with PO (Pink Owl) who was given to me when I did my MA. Now I have Owlie as well, who is a big TY owl I bought at Innsbruck airport (not a sensible thing to buy before you fly...). I also have a little Halloween owl and a little grey one my sister bought me (also Ty) and a handful of small clip on Ty ones as well. Then Naynie brought me back one from Korea, I have some other bits and pieces with owls from other countries too. But I don't think owls are that unusual a thing to collect...

[Zapper]

Oh man, Zapper, 9-year-old me would help loved more Diddl. The only cool notepad I had was one where you used a mostly clear plastic sheet to reveal hidden pictures on the pages. I had a stationary set in a box, plushies of Diddlina, Mimihops, Pimboli, and Gallupy, a sticker roll, and a pack of trading cards. I have a white mouse costume  (fashioned after the videogame character Mappy) who could easily be used in a Diddl costume.

I love how much you love(d) Diddl. It was such a German phenomenon, I thought nobody else had heard of it. These new characters weren't part of my childhood obsession because they didn't exit back then. I think Pimboli is the one I still recognized, and of course Diddlina.
I just went to the website and what the heck -- there are over 20 characters now. There is even a Jamaican Diddl. I'm old, man...

[Wardah]

Not exactly obscure, but not many other people collect Get Along Gang stuff.  Also I collect anything Miffy, Poochie or Moomin.

*dramatic gasp*
Miffy!!! What a blast from the past! The art style in those books always chilled me out when I was a kid.

As for toy collections, I'm not sure quite how obscure they are (Macclesfield certainly did not have an active community of collectors though) or if they're even still a thing but I used to really enjoy collecting Crazy Bones, especially around 2007 when the designs got kind of futuristic and more varied. Unfortunately, the chap who ran the newsagent where I went to get them decided to fold his tent, and nowhere else in town had them, so that was that scuppered. :/

LOL I have some Crazy Bones!!!! We tried to sell them at a yard sale and everyone got a good laugh of of the package tagline:  "Join the Craze!" ... that apparently none of us had heard of. 

Crazy Bones are back, I saw them at Target. Not really my thing tbh.

I collect so many random things that catch my eye and some are quite obscure. One of my more obscure ones is Polly Pocket Cutants. I got a lot of them including some that never appeared in the US.

[TheBeatlesPkmnFan42]

Out of all the actual toy lines I collect, like as in things that are predominately toy lines, I don't have any. All the dolls and other toy lines I collect are pretty well known. In terms of things where the focus of the series or franchise is toys, at least.

The only thing I can think of that's particularly obscure would be that I've got a somewhat small collection of Di Gi Charat merchandise. It's a manga/anime franchise that I really like and I do have some merchandise of it that would be considered toys, as I've got five plushes. I've also got trading cards, guess those could be considered toys to an extent. The rest of my DGC collection aren't toys, I've got some books, a CD, a hat, and animation cels. But yeah, as it is predominately a manga/anime, not sure if that'd count as an obscure toy collection because I'm just collecting merchandise for an anime I like, and the focus of the series is not on toys.

[wystearya]

Also Bubblins are pretty hard to find. I still have my childhood Lady Mermaiden and her seashell case.

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Ponyfan

I remember the Bubblins!  I had one as a kid, but I don't think I have it anymore.  Cute tiny things!

[Carrehz]

oooh Crazy Bones, now there's a blast from the past! And Diddl - we had them over here for a little while, I love Mimihopps. Such a cutie I love Miffy too.

Hmm.. I like weird semi-obscure anthro dolls, like Catwalk Kitties and Petworks' Usaggie series, I dunno if those count. I guess my Ojamajo Doremi collection is sort of obscure? At least outside of Japan. I've only seen one or two other people with collections as big as mine (and I don't say that to brag, I just mean I mostly just see collections consisting of a handful of things), I assume there are more collectors in Japan though.

I'm probably forgetting something, haha.

[vampyrefay]

I collect nightmare before Christmas things but that's not obscure, I would collect herself the elf but I've only ever seen one book for her and nothing else, I collect anthro dolls like pinkie cooper or I make my own, I collect novi stars

[invaderhorizongreen]

For obscure toy lines, I have all three animals for the line called my little angel, I found the three big angel dolls, but no cherbs, I am trying to sell the angel ones. No luck so far but the pets are cute.  I went back to the thrifts store and found the barrette for Clover, and Dallas the horse, but lea's was not there.

[bright rabbit 1]

I had a whole load of Digimon figures, but mum got rid of them. Plus Dragonball Z figures. My most obscure collection I had was seashells.

[Khoufu]

Did anyone else have Fisher Price's Briarberry Bears?

[Crystal-Sushi]

Novi Stars, Sailor Moon Knockoffs, promotional tie-in Barbies and any kind of 'unusual' fashion dolls - weirdest is probably Mattel's Gorgeous Creatures, I love them so much

[Dreamer]

Oh boy, here I go!

My biggest obscure toy love is Safiras, little flocked blindbag dragons by Simba. I love the wide arrange of poses and colours, and the little details that make each elemental dragon unique! I also highly appreciate that each bag has a little hole (I guess to prevent choking) through which you can peer at your possible buy to see which are you getting if you wiggle the figure around. Not all blindbags have such an useful "tell"!

Spoiler

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Another dragon-related toy I like is Mystic Babies, which are brushable baby dragons! I'm quite surprised Ghost of the Doll has a page on them: http://ghostofthedoll.co.uk/mysticbabies.php I clearly remember being in front of an Aubretia back in the store and then refusing my mom's offer to buy it for me because face-to-face, I found them too "pony-like" and I was in an "anti-girly" mode back then. Younger me would be so ashamed of current me... but current me is a happier me! 

Continuing with the brushable hair trend, I like to grab Monster Friendz when I have the chance. They're blindbag animals with Troll-like hair, which make good pets for Trolls and Zelfs. http://www.monsterfriendz.com/us/home/ They stopped bringing them to stores recently, but sometimes they can still be found on flea markets.

I'm also into Hero 108 Krashers, a series of figures from a show that used to air on Cartoon Network. My collection is almost complete thanks to a shop who put them all for clearance.

Like Carrehz, I also enjoy it when anthropomorphic dolls hit the market, such as Catwalk Kitties and Pinkie Cooper! I only own bootlegs of them, but I love finding out about other obscure iterations like Gorgeous Creatures and Peteena the Poodle.

Finally, for something recent but still obscure, I enjoy Lockstars, but only the robots

[bright rabbit 1]

Wow!  Those SS Cake dolls are very cool!  I like the ones that look like "real" little girls!

Not exactly obscure, but not many other people collect Get Along Gang stuff.  Also I collect anything Miffy, Poochie or Moomin.

Do you need any of this cool stuff, lovesbabysquirmy?  Got it for sale!
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I don't have an obscure toy collections and I haven't heard of a lot of the stuff on this thread.  So, that was fun!

I used to have the dog in the red skirt from The Get Along Gang. My dog chewed it and my parents threw it away.