Bandai Products - where to buy ?

[signalmanson]

Hi everyone.

 

I think the Bandai trucks look good.

 

Anyone know of a UK stockist or an online supplier - and whilst I think of it - is Pikestuff still available in n scale ?

 

Thanks in advance.

[cteno4]

Signalman,

 

Unfortunately the bandai trucks are very long out of production. Tomytec just swamped them at the same time bandai had huge success with Btrain shorties so bandai pretty much gave up the vehicle. Arlen to tomytec after about 8 different sets.

 

http://www.1999.co.jp/search_e.asp?Typ1_c=104&scope=1&scope2=0&itkey=Bandai+vehicle

 

You can find them now and then on ebay for ok prices. Over all their detail was not quite as good as the tomytecs and for the most part bandai and timytec both came out with the same things except for the one bandai set of tv broadcasting trucks which was very unique.

 

Both Tomytec and bandai did these collections as sort of collectors things in sets of 12 boxes to a case (with one truck or 2-3 cars in each box). The boxes were all the same so if you bought one individually you did not know what one of the 12 possible was in the box unless you bought a whole case where you got one of each. The newer sets Tomytec does are a few vehicles in each box and you know what you are getting but a whole lot less variety overall.

 

Tomytec truck collections have not been coming out much anymore either other than the small box sets with 1-4 trucks in them.

 

http://www.1999.co.jp/search_e.asp?Typ1_c=104&scope=1&urikire=0&andor=0&scope2=0&sortID=0&SFlt_f=1&SFilter=Series&itkey=The+Truck+Collection

 

http://www.1999.co.jp/search_e.asp?Typ1_c=104&scope=1&urikire=0&andor=0&scope2=0&sortID=0&SFlt_f=1&SFilter=Series&itkey=The+Trailer+Collection

 

http://www.1999.co.jp/search_e.asp?Typ1_c=104&scope=1&urikire=0&andor=0&scope2=0&sortID=0&SFlt_f=1&SFilter=Series&itkey=The+Car+Collection

 

Tomytec has really slowed a lot over the last few years on the vehicle collections in general for some reason. They also pop up from time to time in ebay, but not always at decent prices... It's a big bummer as they have such a huge range, but I guess they flooded the collector and modeling market too much to re-release them and they now have gone to doing the smaller standard sets of vehicles that they keep in stock. For a while there there was a huge variety of vehicles for really low prices, now not as great, but tomytec should be keeping the smaller sets in stock more now.

 

Cheers

 

Jeff

[tossedman]

Funny, I thought of these trucks. 

[cteno4]

Lol you could be right! Lets see!

 

Jeff

[enodenlover]

The Pikestuff division of Rix Products is still alive and well.

[cteno4]

Yes and a number of their stuff can be Japanese easily! It's also wonderful for kitbashing.

 

I don't know if rix has a European distributor or not. You can order their stuff from shops that ship to Europe like modeltrainstuff.com, but shipping can be pricy unfortunately...

 

Jeff

Edited June 3, 2015 by cteno4

[signalmanson]

Hi Jeff. 

 

It was indeed trucks of the 'highway' variety ( not that we call them trucks in the U.K )

 

Again, thank you for your most informative response.

 

I'd noticed the Bandai trucks on one of Claud's posts on another forum which I think dated back a number of years.

 

I'll keep an eye out for Tomy etc.

 

It's the first time I've needed to buy them and aware that some of the vehicles have a very toy like appearance.

 

Thanks also to enodenlover for your response.

 

When I finally get to a stage that's worthy of a photo I'll update my progress,

 

[cteno4]

The tomytec vehicles are very nicely detailed, about the best you will see in N scale. Bandais were good but just a bit buddigier on the fine details and not as clean on the painting. Just a tad thicker casting overall. The old tomix and some of the older kato vehicles were a bit toylike being more in the league of the old bachmann vehicles with pretty crude castings and wheels and very limited detail painting. These days it's mainly the tomytecs you can get your hands on.

 

There is the Takara tomy dicast metal toy truck line but most of those are closer to HO scale and they have a mini line which a few are around n scale,mbut they are more toylike and not a match for the tomytec vehicles.

 

If you want a particular truck, there are a lot of the older collection singles up on ebay but you will end up at $10-30 with shipping for a single truck as they are pretty long oop now.

 

Cheers

 

Jeff