irish 3 packs,, none the wiser.

I said i would try and trawl up some info on the origin of these weird irish made 3 packs http://theswca.com/index.php?action=disp_item&item_id=43782

and i am trying but its trickier than i expected.
Following on from other info that folk had on here i checked around with a few other guys who would have had been SW nuts as a kid.
Half swear they were in sold in Dunnes Stores,, the other half said they were in pound shops??

So i emailed Dunnes Stores customer service dept as a wild card.

i asked

"
Hi

I realise that this may be an odd question,. But i am currently researching the origin of a Starwars derived toy that was on sale in Ireland somewhere in the period of 1983 to 1987.

It consisted of three star wars figures which were released between 1977 and 1984 packaged in a box which seems to have been a bespoke or in-house addition.
This is odd as other stores often had repackaged these figures but this packaging was unusual and a lot of effort was put into it.

The packaging is marked "Packed in Ireland" which suggests it was produced here.
To this point they are know as "Irish 3 packs" because of this association, however although there are a few examples in existence very little is known of the origin, or indeed the manufacturer.

There are some enthusiasts who have suggested that Dunnes stores may have been the only Irish based retail unit capable of commissioning a repacking of this nature.

It would be great to see if anyone at Dunnes stores has any other information on the provenance of these packs and if indeed they were created by Dunnes for the Irish or even UK market.
Any information particularly photos or background would be greatly appreciated.

And if you do have anymore information all we would request is to add it to the reference sites that specialise in these toys , which are quickly becoming part of history.

I have attached a photo of one example, perhaps anyone who worked in Dunnes of that era may remember stocking them.

They replied

Dear Stephen,
Thank you for your e mail.
I'm afraid that we don't recognise this item as ever being in stock in our stores.

Kidn Regards

Apart from not being able to spell "kind" it think i just got fobbed off as they couldnt be bothered, but i might ask again to get redirected to their toy or home rep, to see if there are any oldies still on the payroll??

or am i just wasting my time.

nut

Great work steve- really admire you for following this up- my mantra is keep trying- eventually they will give you a proper answer- if you find the right person they may even have some proof cards stashed in a drawer!!!

Keep going- the worst that can happen is they mis spell a reply or don't reply at all (or you get put on a Dunnes black list.....!)

keep plugging away

Blatant fob off. Someone has read it and thought "doesn't sound familiar, I could go look it up, or I could just tell him to **** off .........."

weasel said:

Blatant fob off. Someone has read it and thought "doesn't sound familiar, I could go look it up, or I could just tell him to **** off .........."

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Exactly. i will reply today with a request to see if there are any "more mature" staff members who may have been working in the 1980's.
at best i will get some funny looks.
not giving up on this,, might even get one eventually.

Nice try, but to be honest you're unlikely to have any luck, just as people have thought about contacting Meccano to see if they have spare boxes of tri logo Madine's lying around :lol: You'll really need to speak to somebody who worked there AT THE TIME to get any truth.

edd_jedi said:

Nice try, but to be honest you're unlikely to have any luck, just as people have thought about contacting Meccano to see if they have spare boxes of tri logo Madine's lying around :lol: You'll really need to speak to somebody who worked there AT THE TIME to get any truth.

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yeah i reckon so,, but i am just looking for info as it is buggin me. I am not hunting down 3packs for free, but i might get one on the open market.

but if find a packing crate in a warehouse i will let you know :lol: :lol:

There's nothing wrong with trying, plenty of good stuff has been uncovered over the years from ex employees of shops or even Kenner themselves. However the more time goes on, the less likely that will be. It won't be long until 12 backs were in the shops 40 years ago, so there's unlikely to be many 60 year old shelf stackers who haven't had a promotion in 40 years left :lol:

:lol: :lol:

Doesn't hurt to keep asking, if you find something out it will be pretty big news for the community

Steve, I forgot I had this picture saved, it might shed some more light on the mystery of where these were sold. (or at least if they were sold in larger high street shops)



As far as I know this was a legit piece.

Joe said:

Steve, I forgot I had this picture saved, it might shed some more light on the mystery of where these were sold. (or at least if they were sold in larger high street shops)

As far as I know this was a legit piece.

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Is the toys r us sticker original as they were never based in Ireland. And still aren't.

Even if it was packaged in Ireland that gives no indication of where it was sold - Trilogos were made for Europe in lot's of different countries but were later sold in Kay Bee stores in America

I don't know about Ireland BUT England had Toys R Us stores from 1985..

As for the stickers authenticity..I can't think of any reason why it would be added to make the piece any more desirable, it was part of a huge sale of factory fresh toy stock back in 2008. Transferring TRU stickers would also be mission impossible, they are bastards to get off in one piece.

.

Joe said:

Even if it was packaged in Ireland that gives no indication of where it was sold - Trilogos were made for Europe in lot's of different countries but were later sold in Kay Bee stores in America

I don't know about Ireland BUT England had Toys R Us stores from 1985..

As for the stickers authenticity..I can't think of any reason why it would be added to make the piece any more desirable, it was part of a huge sale of factory fresh toy stock back in 2008. Transferring TRU stickers would also be mission impossible, they are bastards to get off in one piece.

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Yeah that's what I was thinking as in most cases in Ireland if you are goin to go to the trouble of manufacturing something it is more likely you will be doing it for export instead of for exclusively the home Market.

Irrlands population back then was about 3.7 million so it would have been like a company in Manchester making three pack for just that city hmmmm

Josh said:

Was that part of that Trilogo QC error find, Joe?

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Not this one no, was part of a huge toy auction, majority of the toys were European (Meccano,Palitoy,Trilogo etc) but there were Kenner in the mix also, judging from the condition of all the items that were sold I would bet on factory overstock. Was definitely not your average collection at all.

Steve- I reckon it's very possible these 3 packs were produced for export to England etc I just wasn't sure about which kind of shops stocked them as they border on bootleg, very cheap looking packaging to say the least. I think that would be my only reservation about placing them in TRU but then again the timeline seems to fit (1985 and onwards the line fizzled out and TRU opened) so perhaps if TRU were just starting out they may well have bought up a lot of odd toy stock just to fill the shelves and get people buying?

That price sticker definitely looks like £0.99 to me so unless I am seeing it wrong it isn't a US one.

We have TRU up here mate, I guess they just aint made it down to your backward neck of the woods yet. :wink: :lol:

Although, I don't know who long they've been here, I definitely don't remember them being around when I was a nipper, so it must be fairly recent. No doubt they come over just after the troubles stopped, along with every other moderately sized company, who were too scared to open before :roll:

.

I think because they are easy to swap the figures out of and some turned up from questionable sources with more desirable figures in was where the authenticity concern came in. As far as I know they were UK/European bargain bin style pieces and quite legit (as long as they aren't tampered with)

There are Macau COO's but I do not know which COO's the figures in these packs have. The text on the packaging may not even be correct to their origin at all.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuqsiFakq00&feature=related

Cue up from 7 minutes 17 seconds. This helps clarify some of what has been discussed I hope,

Regards, Chris.