The 1st UK Playmobil catalogue?

[Sir Gareth]

After a recent win on ebay I believe I have the 1st UK Playmobil catalogue 1981 -1982.

This is a very interesting find for me since this is where my Playmobil collection starts and I can now see exactly what the 1st ever UK releases where.

A BIT OF UK PLAYMOBIL HISTORY.

After the collapse of the Dunbee Combex Marx group of companies in February 1980, who produced Playpeople in Swansea, the fate of our favorite toy was unknown here in the UK.

In May 1980 Miles Fletcher MD and Norman Brown head of sales at Marx for Playpeople held several meetings with Mr Horst Brandstatter, to pursade him to continue selling Playmobil in the UK.

In January 1981, thanks to the hard work of Mr Fletcher and Mr Brown Playmobil UK Ltd was born and 8 original Marx sales people joined them to promote Playmobil over here.

Playmobil UK was based in Swansea back then just as was Marx toys and Playpeople where. However in 1989 Playmobil Germany decided that Playmobil UK should move and set it up in Essex's, where it is today.

So, just think if it wasn't for Mr Fletcher and Brown would we be buying Playmobil in the UK shops today?

BACK TO THE CATALOGUE.

There is no date on the catalogue but most of the sets listed inside where available In Germany between 1980/1981. Take into account the 1 year behind Europe rule and this puts the sets here between 1981/1982. All of the sets shown contain fixed hand figures and no children are to found in the sets, they probably came out here in late 1982/1983.

The catalogue is A4 in size and printed in the landscape style and only has 8 pages including the front and back cover. There are a lot of themes missing from it that where available in Germany such as the Safari, Circus and Color set's, also missing are the US soldier sets like fort Randall. It almost looks like they took it back to the basic first sets, Knights/Medieval, Indians/Western, Construction and Police/Rescue.

NOW THE PICS.

[Sir Gareth]

On page 7 there is a price written in pencil of £24.95, I guess that was the selling price for the 3550 Pirate ship back then.

[playmofire]

That's a great find, Gary, and many thanks for posting the history of it and the detailed pictures.

It still amazes me that 25 years after this catalogue Playmobil's choice of items was so good that you can still see some of them in the current range such as the little front loader.

[Richard]

Thanks for sharing your wonderful catalogue, Gary ...

I'm sure that you must be familiar with Playmofriend's member Julie's (Gyps) Castle Sauvage website and her section devoted to the earlier Playpeople ...


Please click on image above for link to Playpeople

Thanks again and all the best,
Richard

[Sir Gareth]

Hi Richard,

 I am indeed aware of Julie's site and without her help in the past the actual dates and people involved may never of been known.

 The late Norman Brown was a contact of Julie's and I asked If Julie would be kind enough to ask him a few questions for me regarding Playpeople and Julie did and I got the answers that I wanted. All of the events and dates in my post came from letters written by Norman Brown that Julie shared with me.

I hope Julie still reads this Board. 

[Martin Milner]

Very interesting Gary!

I remember my early Playmo figures, and they must have been Marx manufactured ones - I had an indian canoe quite different to the one in this catalogue.

The sailor figures would be useful to crew a Royal Navy ship - there seems to be nothing in the current Pirate series quite as close to the standard uniform of an able seaman of sailing ship times.

[cachalote]

 :(the problem, martin, is not close-looking royal navy sailors - the 3055 schooner has a bunch of them looking great.
tha problem is that playmobil has no new royal navy ship to fill with uniformed sailors.
 
i need it, we need it, we demand it...