BTW, for any of you with younger kids (or grandkids
), a great way to buy toys that don't suck, AND stick it to the chinese is to buy Playmobil toys. They are awesome.
My daughter has a PM dollhouse, a bunch of fairy princess stuff (unicorns, etc), and a pyramid (?!). My son (3.5 YO) has a 2 sailing brigs (I bought enough extra cannon to fill all 8 gunports
), a small gunboat, a lighthouse/fort, and a jail with some frenchie napoleonic troops. The 2 kids play together, the fancy Victorian doll house has the captain and princesses, and then Joel has pirates fighting the navy ship (and losing). Great fun. (note that that (discontinued) brig was pitched as a pirate ship, but I bought red coats, and some other crap on ebay so that one is fully crewed in sort-of Royal Navy style.
Yes, it's MY set of toys, too.
But they are NOT made in China (Malta, I believe).