Today we will look at a motherlode of history from the once-mighty Trendmasters, who holds such a large and important place in Godzilla history, they get their own volume in our series of Godzilla guides.
First off, we will look at the Trendmasters dealer catalog for 1996. This hefty book is printed on very thick, glossy paper, and looks like a million bucks. It's squarebound and glued, and will not allow me to scan the pages without destroying the book, so I'll do my best to get decent photos as we go through it.
Upon opening it, you can see all of the different product lines that Trendmasters was making that year, including Independence Day, Tarzan, and Gumby!
Oh, and the incredible GODZILLA WARS line as well (sequel to their extensive KING OF THE MONSTERS line). Each section of the catalog begins with a really cool vellum page, which has its own artwork on it, combining transparently with the page below, to produce a very lavish and downright swanky effect. Like this:
Here, the awesome GODZILLA WARS logo artwork of Godzilla & Spacegodzilla shows through to the page below, which is a close-up of the Power-Up Mechagodzilla's Gun Arm (below). Kudos to the art designer for this book. What could've been boring squares on the page, showing product, is instead a joy to look at.
You'll notice there are crystals everywhere, further developing the Spacegodzilla theme--and the film was a complete unknown in the USA at the time!
And now, on to the 10-inch giant action figures. One thing of interest about this catalog is that it lists several items that never ended up being produced. For example, there were only 6 giant action figures sold in the GODZILLA WARS packaging, and Mothra, King Ghidorah, and Rodan were never sold that way!
The next two pages show off the new Power-Up figures, which were super-cool kaiju with added armor and firing missiles.....Godzilla wearing armor? Sign me up.
Next we have the "6-inch" action figures, either boxed with sound, or carded without. There are lots of discrepancies here, too. There were 13 boxed figures with sound produced, and 11 carded without sound. I always love seeing the paint job on the prototype Biollante, which is awesome. Former Trendmasters designer Jeff Bergeron told me that he thought Toho would be mad that he added feet to Biollante, but they didn't say anything! Which is awesome, because they are RAD.
The "Godzilla 2-Pack"s (or as the figures' card ended up saying, "2 in 1 Battle Collectors Edition 2-Packs") are a difficult subject, because the later ones in this group ended up being farmed out to discount stores, which were a pretty new concept at the time, and most people couldn't find them. All in all, there were a whopping 11 produced, and some contained unique Godzilla sculpts--and therefore unique trading cards--which are the very rarest of the Godzilla Trendmasters trading cards. The unique sculpts are shown here on these pages.
The next two pages show us even more rarities. The "Micro Mountain Figures" were similar to the "Hatched" series, and instead of an egg, a "Mountain Case" was included (a similar thing was done in the Tarzan line at the time). I haven't yet solved the mystery of why these figures are uber-rare, but they certainly are. Six were made, and the catalog lists some that weren't: Mothra, King Ghidorah, and Rodan. The Godzilla Bendables line was brought forward from KING OF THE MONSTERS, and are also very hard to find. The catalog also lists 9 figures being made, and there are 6 by my count.
One of the crown jewels of a line full of treasures are the Micro Battle Playsets. New for 1996 were the Biollante in Washington, D.C., Mecha-King Ghidorah Central Command, Mecha-Godzilla Defense Base, and the infamously rare Spacegodzilla in Tokyo. If you want to see in-depth reviews of loose examples, there is such a series of articles on this very blog!
Another masterpiece is the "Godzilla Destroys N.Y. Giant Playset," which is also reviewed on this site in great detail. Strangely, it wasn't sold in GODZILLA WARS packaging that I have ever seen. Likewise, there was no Spacegodzilla in the line of Giant Walking figures (although Bandai made one in Japan).
The back page of the GODZILLA WARS section shows some examples of packaging for the line.
But, we aren't quite done yet! Inside of the catalog was a sheaf of papers, which turned out to be a sales letter, as well as a price list for all of the toy lines in the catalog!
And here you have it, a genuine sales letter, on real Trendmasters stationery! I guess lots of folks wouldn't think papers like this were too exciting, but they are pure gold to me! (Come to think of it, I guess we even know who owned this material before me, since we have a letter made out to them!) So what did GODZILLA WARS items cost the retailer in 1996?
Like the catalog, I am only featuring the Godzilla-related pages here. This first page is for foreign-shipped orders (note the "FOB Hong Kong") in the letter, meaning the buyer had to be responsible for shipping from there. The "L/C" means "Letter of Credit," which is commonly needed in placing overseas orders.
And here is the page for what was available in the United States--note that the "Novelties" section is the main difference here. Also note that there is a "PLUSH" category, for even more items that did not end up being produced: a series of animated plushes (which, interestingly enough, are not featured in the 1996 catalog):
I hope you have enjoyed examining this piece of Godzilla history with me. I am currently updating the Trendmasters Volume of our Godzilla Guides, so keep an eye out for that in the near future (the link will be the same)!
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