Hopefully you aren’t getting tired of the late Toy Fair coverage, but it is taking me some time to digest my notes, pictures, and ton of literature and media kits I picked up. Next year I hope to have more time to cover the show and actually blog about it during the event.
One booth that caught my attention near the end of the day was a German company called eitech. They had a few very large models on display made of bright shiny metal, nuts, and bolts. The train engine pictured here is an actual kit available from Amazon for about $215. They also had smaller sets priced from $10 to 50, including this cool tiny tractor and a little solar powered helicopter. The blades don’t provide lift, but set in the window it should be a nice kinetic sculpture.
I wish I’d spent more time and took more pictures, but I did take a moment to chat with the exhibitor. I was curious about the metal and how it was made. He told me that the metal were solid stainless steel, not nickel or chrome plated, and that the plastic parts already meet Europe’s safety guildelines. I couldn’t find anything on the eitech site to confirm this, but it could be mentioned on the German half of the site. They are not yet selling direct to the US, but a few stores, both online and physical are starting to carry their products. A quick search of google shows plenty of sources, but Amazon seems to have the best selection.
I’m very happy to see that eitech is filling in the gap that Erector (aka Mecanno) seems to be leaving. More on that in the next post: iErector is Just a Bad Idea
