Toy retail giant Toys R Us has announced a series of eco friendly toys. Whether Toys R Us is doing this because it genuinely cares about the environment and what we’re doing to our planet, or because there’s loads of money these days in environmentally friendly products is anyone’s guess.

The fact remains Toys R Us is trying, which can only be good.

The first toys in the collection — Natural Wooden Toys, Natural Cotton plush animals and Organic Cotton Dolls — will be available exclusively at Toys”R”Us stores nationwide and online at www.Toysrus.com by Earth Day, April 22. Additional items in the line will be introduced later this year.

Now if only they stopped selling all of those cheap plastic Chinese toys as well, then the planet might truly be saved.

A Canadian toy collector hit the jackpot at a London auction when he set the new World Record for a sale of a Dinky Toy. He sold a little green and red truck bearing the name W.E. Boyce (who were a bicycle business in London) for a record $40,000, which is approximately £20,000.

Not bad for a Dinky toy.

This wasn’t the only item he sold at the auction however. Among his other items were a boxed collection of 6 Dinky trucks that went for a total of  $70,000.

You can read the full story here.

The W.E. Boyce van eclipsed the previous top price for a Dinky Toy, the 1994 sale of a Bentalls delivery truck for $25,000.

One expert said after the Vectis sale that high prices for the toys were being driven by “childhood memories and nostalgia” among collectors.

According to Toy News Online, Toys R Us has been granted permission by the council to construct a new store.

The new store will be 3,207 sq m and will be based in Sowton, on the Bishops Court Industrial Estate.  The store is expected to open in time for Christmas 2009.

Toys R Us have a series of great toy offers on at the moment, including this one for Thomas and Friends. You can pick up a free travel set when you spend £30 on any Thomas the Tank Engine toys. To take advantage of this offer click here.

The offer expires 22nd April

Add £30 worth or more of the Thomas Products listed below and the Thomas Travel Set (ref: 116637) to your basket. Your basket will automatically adjust the price of the Thomas Travel Set to zero.

Offer excludes multiple purchases of the Thomas Travel Set. Only one free item per transaction. Excludes the 6V Thomas Train and Track Ride-On, Thomas the Tank Engine Airflow, VTech and LeapFrog.

Over the past few years, since about 2004, I’ve been collecting the Transformers Hard Hero Busts. They’re a collection of Transformers statues made by the company Hard Hero. They started off with the obvious two characters Optimus Prime and Megatron before moving onto more interesting, and sometimes obscure characters.

Autobots like Grimlock (pictured), Ratchet, Ironhide, Hot Rod and Jazz were made, plus Decepticons such as Starscream, Soundwave, Ravage and Kickback.

The busts retailed for approximately £45 each and came in a well packed presentation box.

Now, I’ve got most of these busts, including the special sized ones such as the massive £120 Unicron full body statue and the super sized bust Devastator. My intention was to sell these busts on once the time was right, both for them price wise and for me in my requirement for procuring cash.

I need cash now, however the price of Transformers busts isn’t at it’s height. Upon checking prices on eBay and asking some people in the know I see that the busts are going for roughly £10 - £20.

Damn.

In fact, the Devastator bust, which was originally over £50, recently sold for £15 on eBay…

Hmm, sometimes you win investments, sometimes you lose. I’m going to have to keep hold of these things a while longer I think and hope that demand for them improves. I’m certainly not selling them at a loss, it’s not my style.

I swear I never had this many Star Wars figures when I was growing up, yet for some reason I’ve just found another massive box of Star Wars figures, all unopened, just sitting in my old bedroom at my parents’ house. They mostly consist of the costume and accessory packs that were released with the Episode I The Phantom Menace line, but also include some Power of the Force figures and Episode II toys.

I sold a box of Star Wars figures on eBay some months ago and was lucky enough to get nearly £40 for them, I’m hoping this box will get more than that as there’s loads more Star Wars figures in this box.

The best part is that these Episode I accessory sets all cost around £1 each when I bought them at the end of the Star Wars toy run. I’m hoping to turn a tidy profit from my Star Wars figures, which was the original intention in buying them all those years ago.

All kids love to have the latest battery operated toys with the flashing lights, the beeping sounds and the drive by themselves actions, but are these toys impairing your child’s development?

According to Amy Hekman, the director of the Child Development Center, Aquinas College, the latest battery operated toys might not be good for your children. More simple, old fashioned toys that cause the child to think are actually better for developing their mind.

“We need children playing with Play-Doh and paintbrushes and crayons”

So while you may want to buy the latest toys for your child, remember that the simpler toys help to stimulate their minds much better as they cause them to think and to be creative.

According to CBS News some Hannah Montana toys have been found to have very high levels of lead. This is very worrying for parents as sales of Hannah Montana toys are thought to have totalled $100 million last year in the USA.

But, like so many vinyl products made in China, some of these have been discovered to contain lead, according to Charles Margulis of the independent California lab, the Center for Environmental Health.

“We purchased 28 Hannah Montana products,” he told Hughes, “and of those 28, nine had high levels of lead.”

As we’re fast approaching the Summer (I even went out yesterday without a coat, though granted I regretted it later) it’s time to start planning for those garden toys again. With that in mind Woolies are offering the Walton Poppy Playhouse for a whopping £60 until April 7th. With an RRP of £249.99 you can save some serious cash and pick one up for only £189.99.

Click here to view the Walton Poppy Playhouse.

I just found this advert on YouTube from Chevrolet, using footage from the Transformers movie released last year. It’s for their new range of cars and it shows the cars Transforming just like they did in the film.

Awesome advert, but of course the cars themselves aren’t particularly great so it wouldn’t convince me to get one.

Makes me want to play with some more Transformers though, particularly the Blackout toy that we see in this video.