ToyCyte: Toy Culture Collected

Blindsided: A ToyCyte Investigation – Part 3: Toy Stores

All this week, ToyCyte has been having a conversation about blind box toys: Are they a marketing strategy or a fun experience? As designer toys travel from toy company to toy fan, they pass through a middleman: the toy retailer. In this segment of our report, we’ll hear from the proprietors of our favorite toy stores. Toy retailers are an eloquent and gregarious bunch who are also collectors and members of our community. Rotofugi, Ningyoushi, Toy Tokyo, Shoparooni, Red Hot Robot, Lulubell Toy Bodega, Wizard Sleeve Toys and hometown heroes, The Sausalito Ferry Company all gave their two cents (sometimes more) for the story.

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Win a Chrome Mecha Mini by Frank Kozik

Wizard Sleeve Toys and ToyCyte are giving away a Kozik mecha mini to a lucky reader. Leave a comment with one of your new year's resolutions. If you don't have one, make one up on the spot. It's good for you. We'll pick a winner next week, send you this figure and periodically harass you by email to see how you're doing.

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Wizard Sleeve Toys Kicks Off With Exclusive Purple Celsius

Sometimes things seem to take forever in designer toy land, and other times they come in at seemingly warp speed. We’re keenly watching the path of this Celsius figure from RotoBox and Bay Area-based Kuso Designer Toys, and so has been Mike Franco of Wizard Sleeve Toys–which scored an exclusive colorway of Celsius. Mike said [...]

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