ARCO: Dragons n' Monsters

Arco released two sets of carded Dragons n' Monsters in 1982, Skull Turret and Headsgone Tower. They are one of the most classic rack toys of all time. There are eight 45mm figures all based on old D&D lead figures. Two are dragons and the rest are an ogre, a cyclops, a birdman, a lizardman, a jinn and a brawn hulk. The figures store in the little towers. They are all marked "Made in Hong Kong" on the bottom of the base. They did not come with full sets of all eight figures in each tower. I believe you only got six figures per tower.

Original Arco figures came in green, blue, yellow (some shaded more orange) and neon red. They are all made of bright translucent plastic that does not photograph well. Arco released them again in 1986 and 1987 on cards without the towers as Mutants n' Monsters. The long dragon in these sets were only released in green and blue and had bobbed spikes for some reason.

They were released again in 1990 by a company called Toys n' Things and production was moved to main land China. Toys n' Things changed the towers to purple and blood red and swapped neon red for just red and yellow/orange for just orange. The long dragon is the bobbed spikes version. Some have no markings on the bottom and some are marked "1990 Toys n' Things, Made in China." They are much less translucent than original Arco figures and photograph very well. So, that is one way to tell them apart.

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1982 - 1987 Original Arco figures and towers.

Bobbed and full spiked long dragons.

Yellow or orange? You decide.

I have always thought of these guys as yellow. A friend of mine says they are orange. I can see his point because some are shaded more to orange and some more to yellow. The difference does not photograph as well as it shows to the naked eye. Here I attempt to show the difference with three different filter versions of the same figures.