Bruce Zalkin is practically a fixture in this hobby of toy collecting.  He has been buying and selling vintage toys and collectibles as a dealer for the past twenty-five years.  He was one of the co-founders of the famous FX Toy and Collectibles Show, now “FX International,” the “Largest Indoor Toy Show in the World,” based in Orlando, Florida, which has run consistently for almost 20 of those 25 years.  A few years ago Zalkin sold the business to his partner.  Incidentally, what’s being billed as the “19th Annual” edition of that show is about to open again in Orlando, Florida, this month, January 25-27 (for more info, see www.FXSHOW.com).  
     Today, Zalkin is back to being a one-man show, buying and selling vintage toys and collectibles.  Zalkin does collect toys he says, and is admittedly a “geek” about some, but mostly characterizes himself as a “dealer.”  We talked on the phone with him recently, about a collection he recently came across and purchased and —well — the Mego fans amongst you will want to quick go and strap on the drool buckets. What you’re about to see you’ve likely never seen, and some of it you may only dimly remember from your childhood days when these items originally appeared on retail shelves in the early 1970s.  
      In his capacity as fairly well known hunter of toy treasure, Zalkin recently met a former Mego employee, a graphic designer who was instrumental in bringing several Mego toy lines to market between 1972 and 1974. Those were a couple of classic years for fans of the “Official World’s Greatest” brand of 8-inch action figures, a time when Mego Corporation ruled the retail toy aisles. At Zalkin’s request, that designer will have to remain anonymous for now. It will have to suffice to say that this person was in possession of some truly thrilling product sample from that era, representative of classic Mego lines such as Planet of the Apes, Official World’s Greatest Super-Villains, Super-Gals, and Western Heroes, Action Jackson, Dinah-Mite, and others.
      “In our conversations about the toys and how it was to be working at Mego in those days, I learned that it was this designer’s first job out of college,” said Zalkin. “Some of what I ultimately bought in this collection was produced for display at Toy Fair.  Usually what happens with that stuff after Toy Fair is that it gets tossed out, or shipped back to the office.  But, because this was the first work produced by this designer professionally, and therefore very important to this person, it was kept for all these years in pristine condition,” he said.  
     “One of the things this former Mego graphic designer produced was the Planet of the Apes figure costuming,” said Zalkin.  “I got to see hand-made costumes for the Planet of the Apes that were just incredible,” he said, “much better than what Mego actually gave us in production.” He also got to see hard plastic heads for the Apes figures that were cast as prototypes; the production versions of the heads were all roto-cast vinyl.  But, Zalkin was not able to purchase any of that.  What he did manage to buy was a collection containing many production sample versions of the aforementioned action figures, along with truly rare original display boxes for the Official World’s Greatest 8-inch line, original lithographed Action Jackson packaging, and a set of carded Official World’s Greatest bendy figures.
     “As rare as the display boxes are, the rarest piece in this collection is the carded Zira figure from Planet of the Apes,” said Zalkin, “the one on the mauve-colored card.”  According to Zalkin, he was told by the designer that this was the original color of the card back, but that Marty Abrams, then president of the Mego Corp., “hated it.”  The designer was emphatically told on first sight of this card that he [Abrams] wanted the card to “pop off the shelf,” that he wanted it “brighter.” The color of the card was immediately changed to bright pink and was rendered that way in production.  So, the mauve card you see here is extremely rare, a true one-of-a-kind.  According to Zalkin, the designer told him that all of the carded Planet of the Apes figures in this collection were “hand assembled,” after they arrived from Hong Kong unassembled.  Before the product sample was shown to Marty Abrams for approval, all of the blisters were hand glued onto the backer card by that designer.  
     The mind-flaying good news for Mego collectors is that Zalkin will be putting this collection up for auction on eBay this month, the week of January 15, with no reserve.  Zalkin’s eBay ID is “littlemarz.” His e-mail address, for serious inquiries only, is This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it And, if you’re serious about getting these items into your own collection, you might want to hit “Watch This Item” and track the goings-on very closely.  If there’s a chance you could own this you wouldn’t want to miss it.