BMC Toys

### Figure Characteristics

Soft and hard plastic, playsets and accesories, basic detail, original and reproduced sculpts.

## Overview

**BMC Toys** is a US based company that creates toy soldier bagged sets usually containing a couple dozen figures as well as boxed sets that include structures and large amounts of accessories. They frequently acquire and reproduce sculpts from defunct companies such as Marx and MPC.

BMC Toys is closely tied to the preservation and revival of classic toy soldier designs, making them a well-respected name in the world of toy soldiers and military miniatures. Their dedication to quality and authenticity continues to resonate with both collectors and children interested in historical and imaginative play.

## History

BMC Toys was founded in 1991 by Bill McMaster, by which "BMC" stands for. He was a purchasing agent for Toy R Us prior to founding the company, inspired by Marx playsets of the 1960's he made an economically deal with a Chinese factory owner to produce sets of toy soldiers. By the mid nineties BMC offered large sets that depicted famous battles from American history including the battle of Yorktown from the American revolution, Gettysburg from the American Civil War, San Juan Hill from the Spanish American War, and the Alamo from the Texan war of independence. BMC's initial lineup was sold at Toys R Us, retailing at $15 a playset.

In 1998 the owner of the factory in China that produced BMC's sets passed away, upon his death his son inherited the factory and molds that BMC sets used. The son dishonored the agreement between Bill McMaster and his father and swiftly began producing his own bagged playsets using the sculpts under the name of "Americana", presumably during this time the molds we're shared and copied by other Chinese factories as numerous versions of Chinese produced BMC sculpts exist, particularly of the American Civil War sculpts.

Distraught Bill McMaster had to have new sculpts created, sculpts were created for WW2 Germans, British and Americans as well as new civil war sculpts. These sculpts are generally criticized for having strange proportions and looking unrealistic.

In 2014 Bill McMaster died prematurely, his cause of death has never been publicly released. Upon his death his family began working with Jeff Imel, the founder of an e-commerce business named VictoryBuy, in order to sell the company to him so that he may continue it's legacy. Since 2015 BMC Toys has been owned and Operated by Jeff Imel under VictoryBuy. For 3 years after Bill McMaster's death no new BMC stock was being produced as Imel had to sort out various licensing and logistical issues, aswell as improving the existing products. Below Imel describes the various changes he made to BMC products just prior to reselling them in 2017:

*"My original intention when I began the process of continuing BMC Toys production was to just send an order to Bill’s manufacturing agent (Thomas Leung in Hong Kong), and get the products back in stock as quickly as possible. I soon found that some of the products had licensing agreements that were no longer in place without Bill around. The artist of the fine art used on several of BMC products was very helpful and we reached an agreement that allowed me to sell what was already on hand, but he had a new licensing agent that I couldn’t reach an agreement with for new production. The licensing issue, along with the fact that most of the package art was so old it was on film and not in a digital format, led me to redesign the packaging from the ground up. I decided to reduce the size of the large playset boxes to help cut down on freight costs which have increased tremendously since the sets were first introduced, and also upgraded those boxes to a sturdier and more reusable tray style that was often used for vintage playsets. Once that was decided, I figured since we’re redesigning the packaging, now would be the time to make any other changes or upgrades. We (myself and Thomas) reviewed of all the contents, colors and tooling (molds). Thomas suggested sticker sheets might be a good idea for the vehicles, and I already had this in mind since it worked out well on the Tim Mee reissues I offer. I wound up designing the sticker sheets and most of the package design work myself, which turned out to be a much bigger project than I anticipated,"*

Since his ownership Imel has rereleased the San Juan Hill box set, and recently stated he intends on rereleasing the battle of Yorktown set.

In 2020 BMC Toys received national news coverage from a letter they received from a young girl who asked why there was no female army men. Prior to the letter Jeff Imel had started a Kickstarter and hired a sculptor to create the set stating that he had been asked about female army men frequently throughout his years of running an e-commerce business selling army men. The kickstarter was extremely successful and the final set included over a dozen original sculpts depicting women in the iconic fatigues worn by Timmee Toys soldiers.