james at masters.me.uk"Look-In" was a weekly UK children's magazine. These ads appeared in consecutive issues during June and July 1979. Many thanks to Ian Pleasance for these.
Rebound
Rat-A-Tat
Pitfall
Big Match
Casino and Letterbox
Here is an advert for a promotion that Palitoy did wherein they were giving away a free Rock 'n' Roll game.
| Catalogue Year | Comment | Number New To Date |
Continued | New | Presumably Discontinued |
| 1975 | |||||
| 1976 | I have this one. They are marked as 'New' so assume that there were none in 1975. | 8 8 8 |
Blowpipe |
||
| 1977 | I have this one. | 10 6 14 |
Grand Prix |
Poker |
Blowpipe Crossbow Golf The Derby |
| 1978 | Carlos from Belgium enormously kindly sent me scans of the 1979 and 1978 catalogues | 12 6 20 |
Rock 'n' Roll Rally Poker Cup Final Fruit Machine Time Up |
Las Vegas World Cup Roll Up Bombard Angler Drop 'n' Catch |
Grand Prix Flick 'n' Spin Pinball Basketball |
| 1979 | Carlos from Belgium enormously kindly sent me scans of the 1979 and 1978 catalogues | 17 8 28 |
Fruit Machine |
Big Match |
Cup Final World Cup Roll Up |
| 1980 | A lovely lady called Jackie Hart sent me colour photocopies of the 1980 catalogue | 15 9 37 |
Bombard Rally Big Match Rat-a-tat Fruit Machine Steeplechase |
Smurf Hat Trick Gobble |
Time Up |
| 1981 | Thanks to a chap called Joseph from France, I have a copy of the 1981 catalogue | 15 6 43 |
Steeplechase Tremor Fruit Machine Splash Down Pile Up Big Hit Rat-A-Tat Rally Space Invader |
Mutineer Time Trap Cat 'n' Mouse Derby Day Monkey Puzzle Moon Shot |
Bombard Big Match Gobble Smurf Hat Trick Smurf Ball Smurf Look Alike |
| 1982 | Many thanks go to Billy Boy Rodgers for the final scan - the catalogue cost him a fortune so I'm most grateful! |
18 |
Mutineer
|
Stunt Bike Vampire Basketball |
Undated Palitoy pamphlet of the sort that manufacturers include in games.
| Palitoy catalogue |
Possess | Scan Only |
Pocketeers Mentioned? |
Informed of inclusion of Pocket Games |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1990 | DOES THIS AND EARLIER EXIST? | |||
| 1991 | Ray Mercer says that 18 games are shown | |||
| 1992 | Ray Mercer says that sames 18 games are shown as in 1991 | |||
| 1993 | Ray Mercer says that 6 games are shown. | |||
| 1994 | DOES THIS AND EARLIER EXIST? |
For details see the page for Tomy catalogue information. Most of the information that has produced the definitive list of US Tomy Pocket Games that is part of the Complete List of Tomy Pocket Games has come from that table.
| Tomy catalogue | Possess | Scan Only |
|
Exists? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1975 US TOMY catalogue | YES | |||
| YES | ||||
| 1977. | YES | |||
| 1978 US TOMY catalogue. | YES | |||
| 1979 US TOMY catalogue | YES | |||
| 1980 US TOMY catalogue | YES | |||
| Spring 1980. | YES | |||
| 1981 | YES | |||
| Spring 1981. | YES | |||
| YES | ||||
| Spring 1982. | YES | |||
| Spring 1983 | YES | Only Pacman mentioned | ||
| Fall 1983 | YES | |||
| 1984. | YES | |||
|
Spring 1984. |
YES | Pocket games not mentioned | ||
| Spring or vanilla 1985 | Not sure. | |||
| Fall 1985. | YES | |||
| 1986 | YES | |||
| 1986 spring or fall | Not sure. | |||
| 1987 | YES | |||
| Spring or Fall 1987 | Not sure. From 1986 onwards, haven't seen any Spring or Fall catalogues. So possibly not. | |||
| 1988 (spring, fall or vanilla) | A Coleco 1988 catalogue exists. Ebay seller says that Tomy and Coleco merged around now so this might be the Tomy one too. But he also said that it did not feature any Pocket Games. | |||
| 1989 | YES | Pocket games not mentioned | ||
| 1990 | YES | Pocket games not mentioned | ||
| 1991 | YES | Pocket games not mentioned | ||
| 1992 | YES | Pocket games not mentioned | ||
| 1993 | ||||
| 1994 | ||||
| 1995 | YES | Pocket games not mentioned |
With very special thanks to Tomy.
This catalogue is one prepared by Tomy for discussing business in 1989. Only a very few copies of it were ever made. Although many of the games are almost identical to UK/US games, all the evidence points to them all being Japanese Pocketmates. The numbers on the catalogue do not represent anything and were put next to the pictures simply to make identification easier for non-Japanese speakers. Indeed, a couple of numbers are missing - simply a mistake by the person who wrote on the catalogue.
The catalogue is very significant because it identified more than 10 games that appear to be unique to Japan and will therefore, I expect, be new to most western collectors.
The only design that is missing from this list is Golf Game, which was definitely released in Japan at some point.
| 35 - 43 44 - 56 57 - 68 69 - 79 |
80 - 87 88 - 100 101 - 112 |
Does you have any further info from catalogues or magazines? If so, I would be very grateful if you could email pocketeers at masters.me.uk
james at masters.me.uk