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Current Kinder Surprise Situation in NZ
(Last Updated: 26 September 2007)
The Mole Mission 2 series is here. I have even seen it being advertised on television! The series first seems to have begun appearing in Kinder Surprise eggs dated 27/3/08, but I can report that good numbers of moles can be found in eggs dated 20/4/08. There seem to be two different papers accompanying the toys—West European and Brazilian. The West European papers are quite a dark blue and have the Magicode logo on the reverse side, along with the URL for the Magic Kinder Web site. The Brazilian papers are a lighter blue and don’t have any logos or URLs on the reverse side.
The mishmash of papers in the Mole Mission 2 set is repeated elsewhere. Take the Boneless Pirates, for instance. Some toys have Kinder Joy papers, while others have Argentine ones! The same applies to the Baby Band figurines and toys. Most have Kinder Joy papers, but at least one (the Baby Band Safe, S-40) has an Argentine paper. At least two toys from the K02 series (the motor scooters, Nos. 28 and 29) have been reissued with old-style Italian/European papers, while other K toys (from the K02 and K04 series) have been issued with new Argentine papers (but in some cases, as with K02 No. 83, they have the wrong numbers!). It’s all rather confusing, and frankly annoying. Why can’t a single paper style be decided on and stuck with?
But amidst this crazy hodgepodge is one set of toys to really get excited about: the World Wildlife Fund jigsaw puzzles. Accompanied uniformly by Argentine papers (as far as I know), there are six of them, two more than were issued in Europe! The extra two puzzles feature an elephant and a tiger. Right now, these puzzles seem to be extremely hard to get, so good luck in assembling a set!
The Kinder Surprise set based on the popular cartoon series, Spongebob Squarepants, was in New Zealand for a while, but it has gone again now. It could be found in use-by dates of 10/11/07 onwards. We got the same set that was issued in the Netherlands, and there were some important variations from the set that was put out in the rest of Europe. The Euro Spongebob has a round base, while the Dutch one has a diamond-shaped base. The Euro Mr Krabs has a round base, whereas the Dutch one has a sort of star-shaped base. The pin at the top of Squidward Tentacles’ legs is quite big and round in the European version, but in the Dutch version it is more slender and in a sort of star shape. The Dutch papers feature the Nickelodeon logo plus the name of the series in English and Spanish. Spongebob Squarepants six-packs were found in Napier’s Pak N Save supermarket (thanks to Heather Knowles for reporting this to me in mid-March), which apparently also had Kinder Maxi eggs! (Not sure if we have had Maxi Kinders in New Zealand before; they have certainly been available in Australia before now though.)
The Monster Hotel series is gone at last. The figurines have letters (C-A, C-B and so forth), and I think they come with Kinder Joy papers. There are also some Monster Hotel-related toys numbered C-1 to C-15. They were mixed in with regular MPG toys, which were first found in eggs with a use-by date of 29/11/06. The papers were very plain compared with the German or West European ones, and some were Kinder Joy papers, while others were all-new Argentine papers. Indeed, there was a set of jigsaw puzzles that were exclusive Argentine variations. These were based on the Monster Hotel series and numbered S-409 to S-416. They were also in the standard Argentine orange and yellow capsules. Click here for a scan of a paper showing the puzzle set, and here for a scan of the S-409 paper! Furthermore, older K toys were released with Argentine papers done in the same style as MPG ones! I call these Type 2 Argentine papers. Some K toys not previously issued with Argentine papers were being put out with these Type 2 papers. An example is the K01 speedboat set, K01 Nos. 39-41. This set was given Argentine stickers and the new-style papers. Check out a scan of a new Argentine K01 paper here, and a scan of the paper for K01 No. 40 (reverse side) here. Some of the K04 toys (not previously issued with Argentine papers) also came with Type 2 papers. Click here for an example of a Type 2 Argentine K04 paper. A number of C toys were likewise issued with Argentine papers. As previously mentioned, these papers are much plainer than their European counterparts, and in some cases, one or more toys from the set will be missing, or substituted with a toy from elsewhere. An example of an Argentine C paper is this one (click here to see the assembly instruction side, and see how similar it is to the Argentine K01 paper). Note that while the European version of this set has six toys, the Argentine version only has five (C-135 is missing). However, some C toys were issued with what are Kinder Joy papers, but which are very similar to 2005/06 East European papers. An example of this is the “Wheelers” set (C-69 to C-73).
Before Spongebob Squarepants, the main hand-painted series was Doraemon. This set comprised eight figurines based on two different cats and a boy. Click here to see a scan of a Doraemon paper. Our papers were very similar to the UK Doraemon papers, but in the top right-hand corner, our papers had the text, “© 1970-2005 Fujiko Pro”. The text in the top right-hand corner of the UK papers on the other hand is “© 1970-2004 Fujiko Pro. Licensed in Italy by RTI and in Spain and Portugal by Luk Internacional”.
Cybertops are long gone. A few strays with CANADIAN papers (in French on one side and English on the other) and Cybertop Magicode papers found their way into this country, but were pretty short-lived and perhaps an accident on Ferrero’s part. Prior to that, Cybertops had been issued with Australia/New Zealand papers. About the earliest date that Cybertops appeared was 18/4/06. This was the first hand-painted series to appear in New Zealand in nearly three years! What differentiated Down Under Cybertop papers from their UK counterparts was the safety warning, which on our papers begins with “WARNING, READ AND KEEP”, and has references for Ferrero Italy and Ferrero Argentina. The safety warning on UK Cybertop papers starts “PLEASE READ AND KEEP” and uses a larger, italic font. Another important point to note is that Dr Link the laptop is called Prof. Byte on Down Under papers.
The Argentine K03 series is ancient history now. This series also included some K02 ones not released with the main Argentine K02 series. Among these were K02 Nos. 3-6 (Gnomes on wheels), Nos. 22 and 23 (creatures on giant wheels), No. 25 (registered “JJ-5”), No. 33 (grinning cow), No. 44 (penguin with little penguin), Nos. 50-54 (funny tools on wheels), Nos. 71-74 (animals in baskets), No. 101 (articulated turtle) and No. 103 (sailboat). Not all K03 toys have had Argentine papers, however—K03 No. 70, for instance, is issued with an Italian/European paper, as were K03 Nos. 101-103 (the 3D puzzle set). Moreover, the Looney Tunes series was issued with Italian/European papers, so unfortunately, we got it twice over after first getting it with the Italian/European version of the K03 series.
The Argentine versions of the K03 jigsaws were thankfully a bit easier to find than their K02 counterparts. In my experience of the Argentine K02 series, jigsaw puzzles—and Smurfs for that matter—were like hen’s teeth. In fact, they were even rarer! I only managed to pull one solitary Smurf out of a Kinder egg in eight months. This was one I needed – Smurfette with Argentine paper. (I still need Papa Smurf to complete my Argentine Smurf paper set - please e-mail me if you can help with that.) Likewise, I think I only managed to get one jigsaw with tan back in that time. By contrast, I found less attractive toys such as the various robotic toys from K02 No. 35 to K02 No. 42 and the clam on wheels (K02 No. 100) to be rather depressingly common. (It often seems to be the way that the least appealing toys are the ones you encounter most frequently.) The sailboats (K02 Nos. 68-70), recasts of K95 Nos. 78-80, were also quite common, especially No. 69. German recasts were generally quite hard to get. The most common toys in that department seemed to be the “Turner in Aktion” and “Unter der Sonne Mexikos” recasts.
2003 was a great year for Kinder Surprise collectors in this country, and the arrival of the Argentine K02 toys and German recasts has brightened up 2004. 2005 got off to an excellent start with the arrival of the Argentine K03 series, and has just got even better with the advent of the Argentine K04 series and Cybertops. However, the first three years of the 21st Century (or first two, if you believe it started in 2001), were not at all kind to Kinder Surprise collectors in the Antipodes. Things were so bad in May 2002 that Linda McGuiness of Wainuiomata, a suburb of Lower Hutt near Wellington, actually complained to New Zealand's consumer rights TV programme, Fair Go about it!
The Fair Go Kinder Surprise item screened on TV One on 15 May 2002. Ms McGuiness showed off some of her impressive collection and discussed the large number of K99 toys showing up in boxes advertising the "2001" series. She and the reporter (Eleisha McNeill) opened 50 eggs and only got 18 K01 toys, with the rest being K99! (Actually, I’m surprised they got as many as 18 K01 toys!)
A lady from Ferrero (judging by her accent, she appeared to be from Ferrero Argentina, though the Fair Go report says Ferrero Australia) was also interviewed, but she did not offer an adequate explanation as to why there were so many K99 toys and so few K01 ones in our eggs at that time.
I wrote to Fair Go myself, but they didn't get back to me or follow up the story any further. That‘s OK. Fair Go have far bigger fish to fry than Ferrero. But still, it's great that this issue got even a small amount of TV publicity. And perhaps that has contributed to the considerably improved situation we now find ourselves in.
There was one small bright spot in the glut of K00 toys though. This was some new variations that came out in around 2002. (These were in fact the very first Argentine Kinder toys, though they still had Italian/European papers.) For example, the K00 28 & 29 set was redone. The penguin waiter now has a clear tray (the original’s tray has a red base). The singing parrot has eye stickers and no yellow hair, whereas the original has painted eyes and yellow hair. K00 No. 64, the bee with rotating wings, now has black eyes (the original had blue). K00 No. 70 has a white ball rather than grey (though the most recent ones I got still seemed to have the grey ball).
If you want the very latest “S” toys that are currently available in Europe, you will still have to get them from overseas contacts, using the Internet. Alternatively, you may be able to swap with or buy from another NZ collector or collectors (as indeed I've done), but they've got to get their new toys from overseas. So ultimately, overseas – particularly Europe – is where the very latest toys are going to come from, whether you get them directly yourself or from a fellow-Kiwi who has got them from overseas.
Where To Find Kinder Surprise Toys in NZ
Current Kinder Surprise Situation in Other Countries
What I Like About Kinder Surprise
What I Don't Like About Kinder Surprise
Personal Kinder Surprise Collection
Kinder Surprise Toys for Sale or Trade
Links to Other Kinder Surprise Sites
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