Exin Castles, known as ‘Exin Castillos’ in its Spanish country of origin, is an interlocking construction toy similar to its competitor Lego. The sets were based on the concept of medieval and fantasy castles (beating Lego, who would introduce the same themes later on) and were introduced in 1968 by Exin-Lines Bros S.A. of Barcelona, Spain. Exin was also well known for its hugely popular TENTE range of interlocking bricks.
TVTA is pleased to present images from the 1988 English/French language Exin catalogue, printed in Spain, featuring sets from the Exin Castles line as well as sets from the Golden Series line.
Below image: Exin castles and soldiers. Arbois toy catalogue. France C1978.
Thanks for looking 🙂
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Does anyone know what year the 0197 Set was originally released in the US?
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I would say this set was introduced into the US around 1975/76, judging by some of the other toy images of Exin from American catalogues I recently received, which I will soon upload to this post!
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Hi TVTA, some of these EXIN castle parts remind me of the castle sections and blocks from the old “Crossbows and Catapults” game I had (the game where you fired round plastic projectiles from miniature Trebuchets and field crossbows. The projectiles could be used to demolish castle defences and as markers to reposition the “weapons” in your army etc) The mouldings and geometry of the blocks look very similar.
I have to say the castles, especially the Golden Series models look very Disney Cinderella and Smurfs-like! (though the Disney castle was built /opened in 1971). Great post.
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Thanks FT. I would have liked a Crossbows and Catapaults set as kid, it seemed a lot of fun plus tactical too. The nearest I had was this huge plastic soldiers playset (possibly Airfix or Matchbox) in which your army and vehicles had to defend ‘plastic disc’ missiles spring-launched from a pillbox. That set was a lot of fun and came with many accessories.
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Hi TVTA, Crossbows and Catapults was awesome albeit a “little” bit dangerous. I say this because the projectiles were discs about a centimetre thick and about three cm diameter, made of solid plastic so if you were to launch them from any device other than the included toy launchers the discs hit very hard! On the positive side of the game, you could also buy add-on packs which included extra buildings and even a disc launching Dragon!
Regarding the playset/game you had I think a while ago you posted images that showed the game. The mention of the “pillboxes” seems familiar.
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Hi, I’ve found ads of some sets similar but not the exact one I had – still looking. One of my brothers had a brilliant set called Beach Head Assault, which was similar but on a smaller scale. Yes, I’ve seen some of those C&C add-on sets… very cool all in all, but the disc-firing dragon sounds awesome!
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These look really cool castle playsets.
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They are pretty cool. I know a couple of Spanish collectors on Twitter who have collected most of the sets now.
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Not a patch on Lego!
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I think any toy would struggle to beat Lego really.
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