Well, well, what do we have here? Back when LJN was doing Dungeons & Dragons toys, there were a number of toys that were protoyped and even appear in catalogs, but never made it to store shelves. One of those is Valkeer the Barbarian, a planned second series toy who appeared in an illustration on card for Mettaflame, the fire giant, as well as in a catalog photo of the never released Snake Cave playset.

Recently, a prototype of Valkeer showed up on eBay and a group of toy collectors pooled their resources to snap it up. Once they got it, they made a small run of resin castings. Most of them stayed in the group, but Joshua Izzo offered one to me and, well, how could I resist?

This is one of the resin copies, with metal peg articulation, just like the original. I opted for the au natural look instead of Josh’s (lovely) custom paint job because that just seemed right somehow, like in a historical context. I dunno. Anyway, it is a damn fine little figure and, as far as I can see, identical to the photos I’ve seen of the LJN prototypes. If the original it is a counterfeit, it is a damn good one.