Hi All,
I recently re-discovered my interest in Playmobil thanks to the Roman series which appeared in London toyshops this year.
My first ever Playmobil set was given to me (for a birthday or Christmas) in 1974 when I was 8 years old - a Basic Cowboys & Indians set (produced under license in the UK), soon followed by a few knights, and a couple of construction workers. My favourite figure, I recall, was a cowboy with white body & legs, red arms and black hair, who wore a cream-white cowboy hat. He travelled in my pocket pretty much everywhere I went for some time.
Alas all those early figures are gone, probably given away by my mother when I "grew too old" for them. Humph. Probably worth hundreds of pounds now on eBay.
I continued collecting occasional figures from 1982 through to the present time, small sets or specials, like the Victorian Detective (Sherlock Holmes), Blues Brother (with dark glasses and saxaphone), and quite a lot of pirates. I also got the Redcoat soldiers and their officer (to fight the pirates), and some Union Soldiers, and then when the Viking longship came out I bought my first ever large set - it just looked to good to be left on the shelf.
My particular interests (outside of the Playmobil world) have always included Pirates and Romans, so when I saw the Romans in the shops a couple of weeks ago I had to add to my collection again.
As an adult collector (and I do play with them too), I'm delighted with the development of the range and the different figures, though it's a long way from the days when a figure could be a cowboy in the morning, a construction worker in the afternoon, and a red indian in the evening. The figures are less "transferable" between worlds, which does allow for more characterisation, but maybe limits the child's imagination.
For the past couple of weeks I've been surfing the internet picking up Roman and Pirate figures from Germany, Malta and the US which aren't available (yet, maybe ever) in the UK. On eBay my username is milner1966.
