Toy OTD: Kato Kogei Toy Story Banks

I picked these up quite a while ago, and I'm still really impressed with them. The sculpts are really appealing, and for ceramic pieces, the color work is nicely done, too. Big bonus points for making the alien's mouth the coin slot, as well as using a real cork in Hamm's belly. I'm not sure why the designers didn't simply make the characters larger, instead of sculpting them on a labeled base, but it doesn't detract too much from the overall effect (at least the base shape is appropriate for the logo). A Woody bank was also made for this line, but I liked these two the best.

I think I bought these from eBay originally, but I don't see any for sale there now. Granted, that was probably around ten years ago or more, so it's not going to be easy to track these down - Google isn't turning up much on them, either. An eBay favorite search is your best bet at this point!

New Cars Toys Are Out!

I had such trouble getting these toys before, that I'm just going to order the new ones that I want from eBay. All of the perviously released models are available again with new "Turbocharged" backcards. New cars include the Woody, Buzz and Hamm cars from the epilogue, a decorated Doc Hudson, the "Radiator Springs makeover" version of Lightning McQueen, and a gold Ramone. I'm not sure if the flamed Ramone was available before or not.