Vintage headers

Something I have been working on is a bit of a database to catalogue vintage toy headers here for posterity (and enjoyment of course). Surprisingly, there isn't anything on the board - at least in the VV section - yet dedicated to header art strictly for vintage toys, and aside from being a great source to identify figures, I really just think there is some fantastic art out there that should be saved and shared. They look so great, I think headers alone are worth collecting and displaying. You also get to see some history of kaiju design and packaging - a lot of which still influences Japanese manufacturers today.

To start with, here are some I was bidding on recently on YJA:

unknown maker - Fables of the Green Forest (山ねずみロッキーチャック)


Bandai - Kamen Rider


unknown maker (possibly Nitto?) - 100 Monsters/Yôkai hyaku monogatari (妖怪百物語)


Bandai - Ge Ge Ge no Kitaro (ゲゲゲの鬼太郎)


Bullmark - Return of Ultraman (帰ってきたウルトラマン)


A classic, of course. It is great to be able to see the reverse side, as B-Club reissues don't have the Takkong/Kingsaurus III matchup, with the company printing on the obverse. You also get to be tortured, as in a lot of these cases, by seeing the original price tag for these toys.

Unfortunately I didn't win any of these auctions, so for now we have to settle for the low-res pics I could copy before they disappeared. I will try to aggregate the vintage headers that I have saved and have been posted in other threads here so we have a collection in one location for reference. Feel free to share your own or contribute any extra knowledge on vintage headers here.

 

Great, thanks Moog! I figured that just from the relative - and extremely unfortunate - dearth of yokai toys. It's a pity I don't have some of these in hand (and an SLR) to take some nice macro shots we could blow up. I would love to get some closer look at some of those graphics.

I should mention here too, while there may not be so many variations on headers, particularly from the larger companies, don't hesitate in posting your own. Meanwhile I will go through the headers I can find on here and re-link the ones still active.

 

I am so happy to see this thread take off. Thanks everyone for your contributions. I wanted to give people so time to post their own before I started reposting the backlibrary of headers on SB elsewhere.

Scott, that Thai (?) Ultraseven header is really something. It is so great to see some foreign ones out there too.

Great news indeed. Totally worth it, and I am happy to hear you did. And that you shared those nice headers here. Plus, you get to really enjoy the toys hands on now, and that is what they are all about, after all.

Keep the vintage paper coming guys! I love it.

 

That is a good question, and something I had considered when starting the thread. Mark started an excellent thread going back a while here, that has a lot of vintage inserts and flyers (mostly his own) which he shared. In fact, it is part of the reason I wanted to start one just for the headers, which seemed to be overlooked. It hasn't been updated that much and a number of the image links are sadly dead now.

Though my intention in using that phrase was referring to the paper/cardboard headers, I admit that I opened the door now with my use of that comment. And I am all for having paper goods in the same place if people prefer, so sure, if anyone has any flyers, posters, inserts, or packaging they want to post as well, by all means share away - here if you choose, or in the Vintage Paper discussion. If we decide to, I can always rejig this to be something to the effect of 'vintage packaging artwork.'

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention here also that Mark has some of, if not the best collection, of art related to Japanese toys and tokusatsu heroes that I have been fortunate to see in a private collection. You can see just some of it in this thread, so I would highly recommend a perusal of that to anyone enjoying the artwork from these vintage headers.