- Cobi (building blocks)
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COBI is a Polish toy company with its headquarters in Warsaw, Poland. COBI's most prominent toys are building blocks - sold primarily in Poland and central Europe. They sell other products but none of these are available from the company's English language online store. The COBI website accepts payment in Polish Zloty or Euros. The building block themes are: Small Army, Tannenberg 1410, Action Town, Boeing, Renault F1 Team, Romans & Barbarians, McLaren, Pirates, and Creative Power. Small Army is a military theme with tanks, aircraft, artillery, forts, and ships; Tannenberg 1410 is a medieval theme based on the Battle of Grunwald, it includes siege craft, fortresses, and knights on horseback; Action Town is a town theme with police, firefighter, and construction sets; McLaren is a Formula 1 racing theme; and Creative Power isn't a theme at all with sets of loose blocks and simple vehicle sets where the vehicles are less than 30 pieces each. The other themes are self explanatory. COBI's variety of themes is not nearly as expansive as Lego's product lines but they have an abundance of sets in each theme. The building blocks don't use very many special pieces and are reminiscent of older Lego sets from the 70s and 80s. The mini figures look similar to Lego figures. however most figures have a head with a nose sticking out, others also have a mustache. The most notable distinction from Lego is that COBI has four military and para-military themes, with more than two thirds of the sets belonging to one of these four themes.
In COBI and BEST-LOCK announced a merger on February 2, 2006. BEST-LOCK, another privately owned toy manufacturer, had a strong presence in North America and Asia. The merger has since yielded co-branded building block toys. Toys are still sold under the separate labels BEST-LOCK and COBI, but many COBI sets appear in North American retailers such as Toys R' Us and Amazon.com under the BEST-LOCK brand. BEST-LOCK adds a space themed set called War of the Outer Planets, and Dinosaurs.
External links
Categories:- Construction toys
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