Dollar Store Toy Box

It’s one thing to get a bootleg Optimus Prime action figure where the head comes off instead of transforms or a bootleg Spiderman action figure with different name and a light installed in his chest, those are the cheap toy knock offs you’d expect to see at a dollar or discount store, but it’s another to get a bootleg of something meant to be patriotic.

Tim Childress got a plastic American flag at a Dollar Tree dollar store in Dallas, but was surprised to find out there was something slightly wrong with his Old Glory purchase. Instead of the standard 50 stars you expect to find on the real flag, there were a total of 61 stars.

The flag was imported from China by a company in Virginia. Seeing as how they made their way to Texas from Virginia, it probably means other stores may have them. If they haven’t seen that report and already pulled them from shelves to save some embarrassment.

The manager said off camera from the news report that it’s a “patriotic banner” and not an American flag. You aren’t being patriotic if you’re sporting an incorrect American flag.

I think it’s a little lame that they would be importing something of this much importance from China though. At least make them in the USA. A while back, here in Canada, there were pairs of Canadian flag underwear in beer cases used for Canada Day. That all sounded good until people noticed they were made in a country other than Canada like Mexico or possibly even China.

If anyone knows what I am talking about with the Canada Day thing and I am wrong about any or all of it, please comment.

Have we really gotten so bad that we need to outsource manufacturing items about our country to other countries just to save some money? Do yourself a favor, if you plan on getting an American flag this July 4th, make sure it’s the proper flag before you buy it.

For the entire story/news report video online, go here. For added amusement, or eye rolling, see what conversation starts in the comment section by a seemingly innocent fail.

Posted on July 2nd, 2010 by Mike
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When you’re a kid, going to the doctor or the dentist can be quite a traumatic experience. Many doctor and dentist offices have a supply of candy or toys as a reward after the visit so the kids leave with a smile. That way, hopefully they will remember they got something good so it wasn’t all that bad of an experience.

Dentists usually give some form of sugar free candy and I’m not sure about doctors, lollipop maybe. The rewards differ from office to office I would imagine.

Well it seems that some offices have been giving away children’s jewelry which has been tested and found to contain cadmium. That’s really something parents don’t even want to think about is possibly going on.

The jewelry in question are the Happy Charm Bracelets. They are colored beads on a string with a metal charm. Some have a cutesy charm for girls and others have a manly football for boys. Almost 70,000 were recalled overall and they were being given away for about five years.

If you have any of them, just throw them away.

It’s one thing to avoid buying something, it’s another when they are given to you and you expect them to be safe.

You’ve been given a fair warning.

Posted on July 1st, 2010 by Mike
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You get some articles about finding good food products to buy at a dollar store and then you get articles like this that make just reinforce the reasons why you wouldn’t want to buy food products at dollar stores.

A dollar store owner in Edmonton was fined several thousand dollars for trying to sell damaged goods. Things like dented cans, exposed dry goods and expired items.

It’s easy for people to avoid such products, I myself wouldn’t be picking up anything that looked compromised, but it doesn’t mean they should be sitting on the shelf when they could be taken off. The people most at risk are low income customers who were buying them because they were on the shelf and cheap.

What’s really facepalm worthy is that the owner tried to use the it’s the customers fault for not looking and the employee’s fault for leaving them on the shelf excuse, trying to place blame on someone else, but this was after numerous warnings over a four year period and the judge wasn’t buying it. With all the bad food tossed in a dumpster, no one was buying that anymore either.

Hopefully this opens the dollar store owners eyes on the matter and gets him to clean up his act.

Read the entire story here.

Posted on June 27th, 2010 by Mike
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Well, it shouldn’t be too hard to hazard a guess as to why a set of magnets is being recalled in a similar way it wouldn’t be too hard to guess why lead water bottles might be recalled.

The magnetic toy set is called Buckyballs. It’s a set of 216 high powered spherical magnets that can be put together in many different ways, shapes and patterns. So basically, it’s 216 magnets a child can swallow. However, this “toy” isn’t meant for children younger than 13, at least it used to be that way.

While someone 13 or older should be careful with children around, the recall is actually due to a slight change in the toy standards rules.

The toys were being sold between March 2009 and March 2010. They are now being recalled because on August 17th 2009, the toy standard rule for selling high powered magnets went from 13+ to not under 14. This caused a problem because the package lists the Buckyballs for ages 13+, below the minimum age for the new toy standard age minimum.

Complete sets of the Buckyballs listing ages 13+ can be returned to Maxfield and Oberton in New York for a refund. You don’t have to return it if you don’t want to, just don’t get caught selling it at a garage sale years down the road.

It’s illegal to sell or resell toys that have been recalled.

Posted on May 31st, 2010 by Mike
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It seems things are not going as well in the Dollar Store realm as recent news reports are making it sound.

While are some dollar stores chains are enjoying increased profits and better than expected quarterly returns, most likely because of the economy, some dollar store chains are closing stores. In Washington State, 37 Dollar Stores( Dollar Store is the name of the store, not the type ) are closing up for good.

This will leave over 400 workers without a job after hoping things would be getting better. Instead, they found out May 1st the stores would be closing. The Dollar Store chain was bought out and the new owner filed for bankruptcy and decided to clear everything out.

The store closures are going to going to affect a number of elderly and low income customers who relied on the low prices of these dollar stores. In the meantime, they can always stock up on items. Many items are now discounted to help clear out merchandise and some merchandise is even 40% off regular price.

Management is also concerned for younger employees who will soon find themselves looking for another job to get by in a tough job market.

Read the entire news store here.

Posted on May 26th, 2010 by Mike
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So a while back I reported on the closure of a local Buck or Two store at a plaza in my city where I get my haircut. I drove by to see the Buck or Two building virtually cleared out.

Just over a week ago it was haircut time again so I made my way over to the haircut place in the plaza and to my surprise, Dollarama had opened where the Buck or Two closed. Well, I did comment on the success of Dollarama and how they planned on opening more stores. I guess this is one of them.

I went in to check for any new and interesting toys to talk about and came out with a few items that will be posted soon. A new artillery weapon, a couple new action figures and some water toys.

It will be interesting to see if just the Buck or Two failed or if a dollar store just can’t make it in that area.

Posted on March 28th, 2010 by Mike
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I’ve mentioned several times that it seems most of the really entertaining stuff ends up in the American dollar stores, but then again, I find some stuff I can’t seem to find anywhere else online so either no one has posted it or it isn’t around.

I tend to avoid any food isles the dollar stores might have in favor of the toy section, but maybe I have to start taking a closer look since Joe Eskenazi came across boxes of cereal from Israel at a One $ Store in San Francisco.

He comments on how the staff didn’t want to go into the details of how they got it, but with some investigating, it seems it may not be from Israel. The cereal was manufactured in St. Louis by a company that owns Post, the well known cereal maker, and it gets imported to Israel by Monday, Ltd. Monday is the most prominent word on the box, dwarfing even the name of the cereal, Coco Crunchies, and at the very top.

The store staff did say that the cereal is very sweet and sells really well, and why not, it looks like Cocoa Puffs or Cocoa Pebbles.

At least they weren’t called Caco Crunchies.

Posted on January 26th, 2010 by Mike
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According to the Financial Post, with Dollarama taking control of the “bargain basement retail segment”, it could quite possibly double it’s store count.

With new stores immediately adding to earnings and generating new cash flow, in addition to being at the top of the “bargain basement retail segment”, they see no competition in expansion so they plan to increase the density of Dollaramas in other provinces like they have done with Quebec.

They also plan to incorporate “not a real dollar store” pricing by selling things for more than a dollar with three additional pricing scales, $1.25, $1.50 and $2.00. That’s probably the only thing that could hurt them since many shoppers bash dollar stores when merchandise is priced more than a dollar and it’s likely people would be turned off by the new price points. There’s already a dollar store with items costing $2.00, it’s called Buck Or Two.

Anyway, store chains expand when they do well and it’s not surprising with the current economy that people are trying to save money so they shop at dollar stores. There are plenty of good buys there if you know what to look for. Just remember to avoid things like vitamins, batteries and anything electrical as they are well known to have issues.

Posted on January 24th, 2010 by Mike
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So here it is, the last Dinotron on the list, and you didn’t have to wait over a month to get it. Again, sorry about that.

I tried to save the best for last, but everyone has their own favorite. This Dinotron is a Tyrannosaurus Rex dinosaur called is Tyranno Tron. At least, I think it’s supposed to be a Tyrannosaurus, it doesn’t really look like the usual T Rex you might think of. Now Grimlock, one of the Transformer Dinobots, looks like the T Rex he’s supposed to be.

The Tyrannosaurus Rex form of Tyranno Tron

The figure is kind of awkward, not having a good center of balance. If you stand it straight up makes it look up at the sky and leaning it forward tends to make it fall over.

Another thing that stuck out like a sore thumb was the pair of guns sticking out of the cheeks of the dinosaur head. I would think that would make it very hard for the dinosaur to chomp down on anything very big with guns in the way.

The robot form is probably the coolest looking of all the Dinotrons. The Tyrannosaurus arms swing back and they remind me of wings. It also stands much better in this form.

The cheek guns are removable and fit in the fist holes in the hands of the robot form and the legs can be pulled to extend them. I forgot to pull the legs out before I took the picture so it’s actually taller than the picture shows, but not by much.

So that’s it for the Dinotrons. Too bad they didn’t have a Dinotron Pteranodon like Swoop from the Dinobots. I mean, they already had the other four.

Posted on January 6th, 2010 by Mike
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No, the site hasn’t been abandoned. December was insane and that resulted in a five week break between posting.

The Stego Tron Dinotron transformer is the third of the four Dinotrons. The first two shown were the Bronto Tron and Tri Top Tron.

Stego Tron is a stegosaurous that you can transform into a robot. If this sounds familiar, you’re probably thinking of the Transformers Dinobot Snarl. Stego Tron, however, is no Snarl

Stego Tron in Dinosaur Form

In dinosaur form, it looks just like a brown and gold stegosaurus so that’s a plus since the last one doesn’t look like the usual dinosaur it’s named after. In addition to the normal ridges on the back, Stego Tron has a twin cannon mounted right on the middle of the back.

The Robot Form of Stego Tron

After a little bit of and very basic transforming, you have the robot form of the Stego Tron. The twin cannon aiming forward while in dinosaur mode aims up when in robot form so it’s not very helpful.

At least this one stands much better than the Tri Top Tron and it’s robot head isn’t by the dinosaurs butt.

Only one more Dinotron to go!

Posted on January 1st, 2010 by Mike
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