The newsstand collections!

With most of the Gormiti series’ original Italian releases, a limited assortment was offered at the newsstands. Typically, 12 selected characters with two or more being sold exclusively at the newsstands. The contents of the blind bag differed slightly from the ones sold at toy stores, meaning that not only did you get a Gormiti character and a card but also a small brochure, the so called ‘fanbuk’, describing the character.

With many of the series the exclusive-to-newsstands characters were simply two of the cooler figures, but other series offered exiting color variants of characters from the regular assortment, entirely new sculpts or characters with special accessories only to be found at the newsstands.

Newstand blindbag (l), normal one (r). Notice how they only advertise with 12 new characters on the newsstand blind bag opposed to 37 (full series) on the normal blind bag.

Morphogenesis newsstand brochure (l) with only 12 characters, normal brochure (r). Note how the characters Trappon and Porfidius are marked 'Esclusivi edicola' - newsstand exclusives!

The newsstand blind bags also included this instruction on how to send a mail order for additional newsstand figures. These were delivered not in a blind bag but a see-through baggie as pictured below.

A couple of mail away gormitis from my personal collection. Includes character card and fanbuk.

Here we have the newsstand brochure for the Titanium series.

  

And the back side. Solardrill and Ipnoticon are the exclusive-to-newsstand figures. 

Luxion series newsstand brochure ... For some reason the exclusive-to-newsstand figures are not marked here. 

And the backside. Beautiful multicolored madness!

To find any mention of the exclusive-to-newsstand figures, you have to look at the regular Luxion brochure. It's Cingolo and Electrowatt! Really cool figures.

Neorganic newsstand brochure.

Rubbery accesories or "super powers" only available at the newsstands!

Newsstand brochure from the Final Evolution series. In this series two entire people were sold exclusively at the newsstands. People of the Ice and the Lava People. In Denmark, where I reside, the Lava People were never released and the People of the Ice could be found in regular blindbags. This is just one of many many regional differences in the Gormiti series.

From the Nature Unleashed series. Contents of the newsstand blind bag (left) and the normal blind bag (r). A notable difference here is that the character card in the newsstand assortment is a regular card, not the 3D holographic card that was included in the full assortment.

Newsstand figures from the Elemental Fusion series. Variations, one from each tribe, with see-through parts. Love these! The sandguy, Sandis, to the right, is one of my favourite Gormitis.

Also part of the elemental fusion series: The four kids, Nick, Jessica, Lucas and Toby, were available at the newsstands.

Newsstand figures from the Supreme Eclipse series. Here we have all new sculpts of the four heroes. And at least Toby and Jessica are WAY cooler than the regular figures. So much posing, so much action!

Without a doubt the rarest and most expensive newsstand exclusives. From the Luxion series (to my knowledge not released outside of Italy) Electrowatt (l) and Cingolo (r). Cingolo is extremly difficult to find with an unbroken gun turret. The combination of the blind bag concept and that thin bit sticking out like that was a match made in hell! 

Regarding this fanbuk I mentioned all the way at the top of this post – whats up with that, really? It only has a few pictures of the character and very little text. Hardly any content worth mentioning so why even bother producing something like that?

Inside the fanbuk ... Not all that exciting.

A while ago I talked to a friend of mine who owns a record store specializing in metal music. He’s a big Iron Maiden fan, has bought shitloads of special Maiden releases from all over the world and knows a lot about how the newsstand sale works (or at least he says he does).

Apparently, the Italian newsstands have to pay some kind of tax if they sell products outside of what would be considered a normal newsstand assortment. But a way to get around this is to sell the product alongside a magazine. Then it’s not a cd with a magazine, it’s a magazine with a cd, right? And the same thing obviously goes for toys. So that tiny little brochure – the fanbuk – hidden inside the Gormiti blind bag is actually a magazine with a toy. Smart, right? Even though the fanbuk is basically pro forma crap with close to zero content. I always wondered about the fanbuk, but I think my friend's explanation is pretty plausible.

There is a lot of fanbuks floating around on ebay, but I don’t really collect them. On the other hand, I don’t really don’t collect them 😉 At least, I have over 50. And they are kind of neat to have, I guess, just to document the whats, the whys and the hows of the ole Gormiti craze. 

Oh blasted ¤&%¤!*# gold coin ... where art thou ...?

In case you read the previous post and wondered exactly why I have a full display of Titanium blind bags placed on top of a display cabinet ... here comes the explanation!

I have been looking for that blasted elusive gold coin that (supposedly) can be found inside a Titanium figure if you are really really lucky. And I have been buying A LOT of blind bags to make just that happen. I bought a complete (well, almost complete ...) Titanium collection some years back, but it missed a few of the little bits inside and, of course, the rare coin. Later, I bought a job lot of - I think - 45 blind bags. Still no coin. But I'm a patient and persistent guy, so ... a couple of months later I bought an entire sealed display of 50 blind bags (the one you see on top of my cabinet). So now I must certainly get the coin, right? After all, the display is sealed and NATURALLY Giochi put at least ONE mystery coin inside every batch of 50 blind bags, right ...? RIGHT??

Of course not! More like one in every thousand or something. 

Still. No. Coin. 

But at least I have a very pretty collection of Titanium figures :-)

I have, by the way, heard rumours that the coin is to be found inside the character 'Exiron'. At least, I read about two people who found the coin inside him. If this is always the case, I am not sure. And I can guarantee you that the Exiron figure doesn't always hold the coin. I have opened three or four blind bags with Exiron in them and I always get the same part of a stupid weapon. 

Blast you, Exiron! I hate you and your stupid part of a red weapon!

I have tried to reach out to the beforementioned people ,who actually found the coin, to learn more about it. Basic stuff like: how big is the coin? (picture next to a Gormiti for size comparison, please), is it actually packed inside the compartment of the figure? (coz that would make the coin really really small) or bagged on the side? This could be nice to know, mainly to get a hint of the sound it would make when shaking the bag. Would this sound be different than with the other gadgets? Like more metallic sounding, more noisy? Or is the coin wedged in so tight that it would make no sound at all? 

None of these people have answered my inquiries, probably because they were into gormiti many years ago and dont frequent these Gormiti boards any more. Other people (like experienced Gormiti sellers on ebay) haven't even understood what I spoke about when I mentioned the coin. Huh, what coin?? So, obviously, we're talking about a pretty rare thing. 

See! It's true. The coin exists - it says so right here on the bag

I still hope to find the coin some day. I imagine I will feel like Charlie when he found that golden ticket that gave admittance to the chocolate factory :-) 

If you have any info on the coin, or have the coin, please let me now. I want photos! I want info! But just to be clear: I don't want to buy the coin - I want to find it myself!  

 

 

    

 

My collection!

It has been very quiet on the blog for some time and I apologize for that. My day job has been a “bit” demanding (that means a lot ;-) and it has been hard to find the time for all the funny stuff – like blogging about Gormiti. Furthermore, I had a big and important post planned (for months, actually …), an interview, and it could have been SO great, but for reasons I can’t go into here it didn’t work out and it kind of disrupted my Gormiti-mojo (if that is an actual word!), a disturbance in the Gormiti force, so to speak, that made me concentrate on some other stuff. 

But I have to get in gear again and what better way than to start with something easy, something manageable – by simply taking some photos of my very own collection and showing them to you.

Without further ado – here we gooooo!!!

Welcome to my basement or "Gormiti heaven" :-) First, an overview of my display cabinets

And on the opposite wall

Here we have the first series ... complete

Mystica ... sadly, not complete, but "only" eight more to go ...

Titanium, complete with all the little parts inside (except that blasted%¤¤# gold coin! Will I ever find it??)

Morphogenesis - took me a while to get the guys in the back complete with all their little wings

Rarities ... US variants and Hong Kong variants

Luxion complete ... took me a while to find Cingolo with a nice unbroken turret

Magazine specials ... Magmion is missing but I have him in a sealed magazine

De agostini collection, Nintendo DS Nick, some Snap-X specials and Boom notebook exclusives

Good ole series 3 complete

Mythos complete

Silver and gold ... not at all complete. I don't even know how many of these there are

Supreme Eclipse (almost complete - for some reason I only have newsstand Lucas and not the regular one)

In case you were wondering what is on top of the cabinets ...

A mix of Skylanders, Gormiti and other stuff ...

Some Mini Gormiti and a full set of Slime Orbs new in package

More slime orbs ...

And these are some of the other series I don't have space for in the cabinets. I'll get two more soon.

That's about it. I have some sealed magazines and the De agostini landscape but I documented that thoroughly in an earlier post. My collection of the 2 inch Gormitis is pretty close to complete - I only need 11 figures (8 of them the very hard to find Mystica) - if you don't include silver/gold. But then again, there is an unknown number of the semi-official Hong Kong variants and I just recently discovered the Boom notebook exclusives - transparent articulated versions of the 2 inch Cartoon series (I have no idea how many of these are in existence) so I don't think my Gormiti collecting days will be over anytime soon :-)  

That time I bought a HUGE Morphogenesis lot!

A couple of years ago I ordered a really big lot of Gormiti Morphogenesis parts. Just a shoebox full of body parts without any guarantees. Even though I closely inspected the photos in the listing (ebay), I wasn't exactly sure how many complete figures it would all add up to - but the price was fair so I went ahead and ordered it. 

It turned out I could assemble close to a complete Morphogenesis series plus numerous duplicates so this lot is definetely one of my all time favorites.

I didn't have a Gormiti blog at the time but luckily I took plenty of photos in the different stages of completion - and now it's time to share them.  

Here (below) is the whole multi-colored mess just tipped out of the shoebox. Notice the big stack of cards also included. 

On the tablet in the background you can see a glimpse of the legendary Danish Gormiti-site Gormitier.dk (sadly, It closed down earlier this year after not being updated for ages). This site was a great help for me when I first got into Gormiti collecting - and in this case it worked as a great manual for assembly. I must remember to write a post about this site some day.

Then I started sorting. Here we have the heads. I remember thinking this looked like a really strange hunter's trophy wall! 

Torsos! Neatly sorted. 

And here everything is sorted. It took a while but I had a great time doing it.

Here's just a close-up of that legendary website. There were hi-res pictures of EACH Gormiti from the First series up until Morphogenesis! There was never any contact information on this site but somebody had done a huge amount of work uploading all of this, that's for sure. 

And finally ... completed! A few characters and a couple of wings missing but overall it's pretty impressive.

Some time later I will also do a series review of Morphogenesis - just had to share these great pictures!  

Mystery solved!

There are two Gormitis in my collection that have been driving me crazy.

Nick and Bullrock from the Cartoon series, 2 inch figures, BUT fully articulated with transparent limbs! I got both of them in big lots bought on Ebay (from Italian sellers if I am not wrong) but until now I have had no idea how these were originally sold.

I have been asking about them online for at couple of months. My first guess was that these two special editions came from a playset. They were definetely not bootlegs - they have the Giochi stamp under the foot, are exactly the same size as the normal Cartoon figures and are just too beautiful and rich in detail to be bootlegs. 

Size comparison with normal Cartoon series figure

Size comparison with normal Cartoon series figure

For months ... nothing, then the other day I got some help on reddit. Actually, a helpful person on reddit had to ask on Instagram and then the mystery was solved. 

Apparently, these two guys were sold as exclusives with a notebook! I managed to find an advertisement for these notebooks called Boom (not sure if that is the name of the company producing them or just the specific line of notebooks but a Giochi Preziosi logo is visible on the bottom of the display). The picture is low quality but the ad clearly states that the notebooks are sold with a Gormiti character in exclusive colors and furthermore we have pictures of Nick, Bullrock, Magmion, Bombos, Toby and Cavarex. These are shown in the normal Cartoon versions for some reason, not articulated with transparent limbs. But logic dictates that, in addition to the two figures I have, there must also exist articulated versions of Magmion, Bombos, Toby and Cavarex!

So, now there’s something 'new' to look for! I keep thinking my Gormiti collection is close to complete and then I discover something new. Let the hunt begin, boys and girls!