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Vinyl Toys 2.0

From Mod Mania

The vinyl toy collecting community are a very open community, they are not defined by the way they dress or the cars they drive. They have them on display in their houses, bedrooms and offices. The child in them creates this lust for toys, however they are not used for play, they are displayed. Placing them in the “boys” room, possibly something that their friends will be impressed by or even it can become a hobby of collecting every unique shape and design of the vinyl toys. Vinyl toy or also called as Urban vinyl toy or designer toy. Each of these toys are limited edition toys because it was made by a graphic design, an illustration or even a graffiti artist. Now a days there are so many vinyl toy and sometime there are fake ones. To determine whether it is a regular toy or vinyl toy is by looking at the design idea that was applied to it. For example most urban vinyl toys is designed plain white with no pattern or colour, this is because the designer want the buyer to make the buyer’s vinyl toy to be more unique, to let the buyer be more creative and they can even change the shape of the toy. Others designer might put their design to the toys but they did not mass-produce, sometimes they only produce a certain amount to make it much more exclusive.

The toys, mainly because of their price are an accessible piece of art for the every day man or women. You can pick them up for as little as ten dollars Australian. However there is also the drastic end of the scale, where toys are selling for excess of five thousand US dollars. These toys are considered highly exclusive not only because of their price, but also the limited numbers released. For example the Kaws/OriginalFake four foot companion series. Released over a number of years, in small amounts, in limited stores around the world. The hype based around the dissect companions which show a companion, sliced in half showing its insides caused some die-hard fans to camp out to be able to purchase one. In Australia, as I know, there were only 2 of each member of the series released at Someday. Two greys and a black edition. There was a balloting system to become the buyer because there was such high interest. This phenomenon is quite small in Australia. Largely because of Australia’s inability to sell a huge amount of vinyl it is left with a small number of items making it even harder to purchase in a retail environment. This leads to buying them online which causes many problems. Fake items pop up all over the Internet, and even in retail. For example there is a shop on Chapel St which sells hundreds of so called “Asian Imports”. There you can pick up the medium sized companions for 40 dollars, which retailed for around 500 when released in Australia.

The other problems related with online sales are the resale prices, which occur when people buy the toys, knowing their exclusivity, and intend to make quick money. Resale prices can jump the price by well over 100%. We see the same process occur with scalpers for concert and event tickets and also in the sneaker/streetwear community. I consider this an immoral attempt at exploiting the devotion of fans and ripping them off.

The culture of toy collecting is most popular in Japan and Hong Kong, supported by industries like streetwear, anime and the eminence of cartoons. From playing with toys as a child, collecting figurines from movies and games, the vinyl toy culture grew. These toys allow grown ups to reminisce of their childhood, where everything was simple and carefree. This can be seen as the driving factor for collecting the vinyl. These figures can be seen as an escape from the stress of work, a trip back to childhood naivety and innocence. You can forget about work for a minute and relate back to a time much simpler. In other country beside the origin of the product, such as Singapore and Malaysia. These toys have become a big hit in the past view years. In Singapore I found these big store called Action City where you can buy all the action figure, toys, vinyl toys there. Since the store open in Singapore, many Singaporean teenagers began to collect all of these toys. It not only become a hobby but it also become a community that was establish on the Action City, sometimes they make an event where all the vinyl toy fan gather and start showing their most unique collection or even a DIY competition that will show how creative each of the fan is. Action City is also become a place that was called “heaven” by all the vinyl fan because of the big range of vinyl toy brand, if they did not have a typical brand, they can make an order for us.

To make it clear because there are so many fake vinyl toys that was sold. There are 3 types of vinyl toys that were sold around the world other than the 3 of these type is not consider as a vinyl toys but a action figure. The first type is the limited edition version. Limited edition was produced because some of the famous designers do not want his or her design to be mass produce, so that the owner can have the feeling of exclusiveness when they bought it. Normally they only produced about 50 to 500 unit with a certified serial number to proof its originality. The price of the limited edition vinyl toy can be more than $300 depends of the quantity of the stock and also the designer. Example of the limited edition vinyl toys is the walruss that was design by Greg Simkins AKA Craola.



The Second type is the Blind Box/Chase. The blind box means that the vinyl toys was inside a small box that was sold for around $4 or $6, the buyer can not see the inside of the box. This is because the designer wants the buyer to get a thrill sensation and make them to collect all the types of the blind box vinyl toys. Sometimes when the buyer is lucky they can get a “Chase” inside the box, which means that they get a weird or unique kind of vinyl toys in the blind box. The Dunny or Devil Bunny is the most popular blind box item that was sold.



The last type of vinyl toys is the DIY or blank. The reason why they just sell it blank is to let the buyer apply the creativeness on their own vinyl toy. Not only the colour that the owner can apply but also the shape of the toy can also be modified by the owner, Therefore the buyer will have their own design as well as they own unique toys, which cannot be found anywhere. These the best vinyl toys and also the most popular one, some people even try to put speakers on the munny, its not only become something that is only artwork but also functional as the owner modified it various stuff. For example is the Munny DIY version and also the Munny speaker.

The escapism back to childhood is exclaimed by the form of many of the vinyl’s. Some vinyl’s that are childish are the turtle camper, from Jeremy Fish, Benny Bard by Recon, Munny’s from KidRobot and Dunny’s. The Be@rbrick, possibly the most common known type of the vinyl toys is a very childish shape. The shape is often then covered by a character, or symbol like the above noted SpongeBob or Ren and Stimpy models. Although often childish the Be@rbricks also cover more mature themes like horror movies such as SAW.

There are also bears under the theme of bands from Daft Punk to The Sex Pistols to The Rolling Stones. And it is also the most favourite vinyl toys because it used movies icons and also other icons on the be@rbrick. Sometimes they also make human lifesize be@rbrick, which is about 150cm tall.

I began to learn about vinyl toys when I visited Singapore and I found the Action city store, because of that I began to look for more of these vinyl toys. These are some of my own collection of Be@rbrick. As you can see vinyl is not only a boring display toys but you can also make a scenario like what I did with mine. This is to make my vinyl toy display to be more attractive. Sometimes I even put them in a car or even put a disco ball to make it more interesting.

The next picture is the world’s most expensive vinyl toy by Yoshimoto Nara, the toy was called the Yoshimoto Nara Sleepless Night Sitting. Yoshimoto Nara is a Japanese artist, most of his work is very simple, he usually used a child figure and with a little or no background. The toy figure was made out from polystone and the sitting was made out from high quality wood. At first they only produced about 300 unit and the price for each unit is US$1000 in 2007 but then after a while it was auction in Paris for US$6000 to US$9000 and after changing owner the price gone up to US$14.500

The struggle to be different draws people to become parts of sub-cultures. Once part of a sub-culture they then seek to be seen as an individual inside of that sub-culture. This leads to two things. One, obtaining the most rare object, often exclusive because of price, or sometimes plainly because of the limited amount of numbers, and two creating something unique to show your status in the community as of greater value. The market for these toys is very wide. Fans can be bought into the culture by so many different things. A release of a be@rbrick of their favorite band might get them interested. They can then easily become a fanatic. There are also many artists who produce toys as a way of making their art affordable to the everyday person. Ron English, Jeff Soto Jeremy Fish and David Choe are some examples of this. Their prints and paintings can sell for hundreds even thousands of dollars. By creating clothes and toys they allow a much wider market to appreciate their work, and also be able to own a piece of it.

The vinyl toy collecting community will continue to seek their toys, whether rare or affordable, they will be on display in homes and offices around the world, displaying their obscure interests through the childish vessel, “The Toy,” or setting themselves apart from their friends and colleagues and taking them back to a time much more similar.




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