Transformers: Age of the Primes Thread: ll First Post All Listings II Update : April 12th, 2027 Bonus Wave: Repaint fun, Beast Wars, G2, Machine Wars

Steevy Maximus

Well known pompous pontificator
Citizen
I've thought about how they could do MW with the current moulds available... however they do it, they need to work in a KB Toys reference somehow. That's an intrinsic part of it.
The KB reference will be a 10+% premium over typical mass retail items with crap distribution. :p
 

Donocropolis

Olde-Timey Member
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The KB reference will be a 10+% premium over typical mass retail items with crap distribution. :p

I only remember KB from my childhood, so "distribution" wasn't a thing I was aware of. I only knew of toys existing the moment I saw them on the shelf. It was the only Toy Store in my town (there were toy SECTIONS in other stores, but nothing like KB), so my memories of them are all still fond ones.
 

Donocropolis

Olde-Timey Member
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I loved KB and have very nice memories of them. They would often be quite a bit more expensive than some of the other non-mall stores, per item, as I recall, unless you found something on sale. But to their credit, they did have some pretty good sales!

They famously never got rid of anything until it sold. They would just continue marking things down and down, for YEARS if necessary, until someone finally bought it for 17 cents or whatever.
 

LordGigaIce

Another babka?
Citizen
I loved KB and have very nice memories of them. They would often be quite a bit more expensive than some of the other non-mall stores, per item, as I recall, unless you found something on sale. But to their credit, they did have some pretty good sales!
We didn't have those in Canada. So KB was just thing I got to experience when we vacationed in the US and would go to a mall.

I was a kid, and so all I knew was that it was like a mini Toys R Us in a mall, and that was awesome.
 

Steevy Maximus

Well known pompous pontificator
Citizen
I only remember KB from my childhood, so "distribution" wasn't a thing I was aware of. I only knew of toys existing the moment I saw them on the shelf. It was the only Toy Store in my town (there were toy SECTIONS in other stores, but nothing like KB), so my memories of them are all still fond ones.
Living in podunk midwest, USA, my town only had a Jacks (department/discount store) with a MODEST toy section. KB was in a mall 30 minutes away. I can count on a single hand the number of times I actually managed to visit a Toys R Us in my life, since the closest was almost 2 and a half hours away.
I loved KB and have very nice memories of them. They would often be quite a bit more expensive than some of the other non-mall stores, per item, as I recall, unless you found something on sale. But to their credit, they did have some pretty good sales!
And again, depending on where you lived, KB might have been your only toy store, which means there would be lines and products you wouldn't be able to find elsewhere. And because they were more expensive, you might have a better chance of finding older lines you might have liked the other big stores had dropped. But it was instilled by my parents early on that KB was the "more expensive" place for toys.
Some of them probably still had Transquito and TM Scavenger until the end.
I was at a KB Liquidators in early 2005, and I still managed to find a few Stan Parks and Pudface Morgan figures from the 1994 Robocop The Series toy line.
 

Haywire

Collecter of Gobots and Godzilla
Citizen
I was around 10 when we moved to Omaha, Nebraska in the early 90s and got to experience KB Toys for the first time at the Crossroads Mall. The Toys R US was a few blocks away in its own building. All 3 are gone, now, but they were still there in the early 2000s when I started collecting as a young adult. Many fond memories and a few regrets for toys not purchased there.

Oddly enough, there was a Woolworth's (Now there's a name, etc...) opposite the KB in the mall when we first moved there, and I distinctly remember them still having Action Masters and Micromasters on the shelf while KB had G2.
 

CoffeeHorse

Hanging in there
Staff member
Council of Elders
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Rattrap
Cheetor
MW Hubcap
MW Megaplex
TM Optimus Primal
TM Megatron
TM Tarantulas
PS1 Transmetals game
TM2 Cheetor
TM2 Dinobot
BM Mirage
BM Obsidian
Armada Skyboom Shield
Armada Dark Star Saber
Armada Sideways

That's everything I can remember getting specifically from KB Toys. I could count Inferno and Transquito as well but those were gifts.
 

Donocropolis

Olde-Timey Member
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Citizen
Almost every Transformer I ever bought myself as a child was purchased from KB (the sole exception that I can remember being having my mom order Iguanus and Groundbreaker from the Sears catalog for me). The most vivid memory I have is of picking out and buying Carnivac. I remember getting him, then going back out into the mall and looking at him while eating a corndog by the fountain and just thinking he was the coolest thing I had ever seen.
 

The Predaking

Administrator
Staff member
Council of Elders
Citizen
We had a KB Toys in the mall, but it was a 45 minute drive to get there, so we never really ever made a trip to go there specifically. Most of the time we would get our toys from one of the Walmarts closer to the house. However, whenever we did go to mall, we would go to KB Toys on our rounds of stores that we wanted to visit. My earliest memory of KB Toys was digging through their clearance bins for Atari 2600 and Commadore 64 games. I never really saw any of their TF exclusives until the early 2000s with their Universe exclusives(IIRC). I think that the last TF toy I got there was a member of the RID Landfill group, which a buddy of mine's girlfriend teased me about buying toys in my 20s.
 


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