You would think that mold requires oxygen to survive... so why not coat the toy with petroleum jelly for a lengthy period of time?

Does anyone have a photo of a toy with the 'vinyl mold'? Curious as to what it looks like.

Indeed, this would be quite helpful. Since I've been picking up more and more vintage pieces, I'm starting to freak out that I'm going to infect everything.

Not sure entirely but I b'lieve that small oval/round brownish blackish spots are the sign. Evidently they turn into pits.
I wonder if a can of aerosol athlete's foot/ jock itch from Target would have a positive effect... could see a great ad coming out of that.
"Not only that, Bob but it cured my Kaiju Krud, too!"
"That's great Bill!"

BOOM!

Maybe I'm showing my vinyl ignorance, but for hard plastic toys I've used 90% rubbing alcohol and have managed to clean even the most gunked over Microman toy. Can remove paint as well, but that's not so much of an issue for Microman figures that tend to be just solid colored plastic.

MOLD KILLS!!!!! be careful

pvc, buterate and other hard plastics are different than vinyl.

That's what I'm talkin' 'bout!

Use chemical free glycerin soap

Only Fire and Ice can free us from this curse!

DO NOT CLEAN WITH WATER IF IT HAS SMALL BLACK OR BROWN DOTS ! this is vinyl mold or "kabi" . it will spread ! even to other dolls ![/quote]


Oh my god is this mold for real???? How can it grow on plastic?????

I think the chemicals in these wipes can harm vinyl --- I tried wiping the dust off my Dorbel with one and it has been sticky ever since

In the small crevices and nooks. Not all plastic is the same.

How can this be avoided ---- I guess keeping our toys in a relatively moisture free environment....

Alas! Just got my Bullmark Tiger 7 figure. It's the real deal and in pretty good shape overall, except that noticed little brown spots covering the shoulder. Could this be the dreaded Kabi? or sunspots? I still LOVE the toy, but I'm afraid of it infecting my other vintage pieces. Does anyone know where I can purchase plexie doll display boxes? Will try to post a photo, when I can manage to be home during the daytime for natural lighting. Poor Tiger

Not plexi, but...

I have some cool glass dome displays from this place.
http://www.finehomedisplays.com/glassdomes.asp?source=adwords&gclid=CJOA4ajq9pgCFSMSagodViRHmg

A little pricey but very nice. Scroll toward the bottom for the affordable domes. I think these would keep any suspect mold from spreading to other toys.

I spoke to the owner of one of the vintage toyshops in Tokyo about the kabi thing. He basically told me not to worry. There won't be any mould explosion. Toys that come to him with any signs of mold (he said white spots) get a wipe with a cloth and some window cleaner. I'm guessing that old spots, or ingrained dirt appear darker?

We hardly keep our collections in an optimum growing enviroment for mould, but this is exactly the kind of problem our OCD brains would obsess over.

Whoa! Those are really nice! Thanks for the link Melek_Taus! I love the fact that they are glass and not plexiglass. Definitely worth the extra money, and the old-fashioned bell domes remind me a lot of victorian displays of taxidermied critters.




Thanks for the info Mondocoyote. I was actually worried about mold spores in particular, blooming and drifting around to infect the other toys. Sounds like that is not a worry. I'll snap a pic soon to show you what my poor toy looks like, but it's definitely little tiny dark brown spots, not indented, at least not at this stage.

I was worried about this myself, that's why I asked, but I still wouldn't be able to identify it for sure.

Disclaimer:

Nor can I guarantee it won't infect all your toys... I was just told that it wasn't a big deal, and the mould, if it grew, could easily be removed while fresh. If it was so serious and spontaneous I'd imagine the whole figure would be black.

Well, just to be on the safe side, I'm going to take Melek_Taus up on his dome referral. It'll give poor Tiger 7 an extra air of specialness

Never had a mold problem in 18 years of collecting vintage. Just clean your suspected toys, anything left over may just be the result of dirt/mold.etc. staining and discoloring the vinyl, but it will not spread.

The sun finally peeked out between the rain clouds today, and I had some time to take some pics.
Here is Tiger 7, a really beautiful figure (despite the damage )


Most of the “spotting” occurs on the shoulders with some slight speckling under the arms.

For the most part, the head, torso, and legs are free from “spotting”

Here is a closer look at the spots on the shoulder


I used Photoshop to zoom in on the shoulder—sorry for the poor pixel quality
The arrows point to some very obvious “spots” which AREN’T spots at all.
These speckles are actually small holes in the vinyl.
So it seems that the mold eats little holes right through the vinyl! See the two arrows for some better views of the holes


And more holes on the shoulder area


My poor toy has Ebola!
I also used a 15x hand lens to view the holes.
Yep, they are definitely holes! Interesting to see this,
so I will definitely be buying a glass dome for Mr. Tiger.

Brian, did you happen to see similar vintage toys with micro holes like this?
I doubt you or Jim have these symptoms in your collection, because your
toys are in such great shape, but have you come across this in your
experience? I would be curious to hear if this is a case of mold eating holes
or holes developing through time in old vinyl, and then being filled with dirt.

I am still on the holy-grail search for a good condition Bullmark 12" Tiger 7 figure
in BOTH the Orange and Yellow, and I'm willing to burn some decent amount of
money to obtain them, so if you have any spares, please contact me

Whoa, that's scary.
First time I've seen something that bad.
So sad since he looks so great from the front.

Yes, that's the tragedy . He looked very nice in the auction photo, but to be fair, the auction description DID mention "Yogori". That's the difficult thing about buying toys on auction, you can't fully tell how good the condition is, until it arrives. Still, from an educational stand point, it's interesting to see what KR was describing, and it's definitely not surficial dirt!