After the death of BMC Toys founder Bill McMaster in December 2014, production of his popular line of military toys was suspended indefinitely. However, VictoryBuy Inc. recently acquired BMC
Toys and production will resume later this year. Jeff Imel, president of Victory Buy, summed up the future of the company: "Right now we're just working on getting current items back into
production. The products will remain under the BMC Toys brand and will be
manufactured by the same factory as previous productions. The only
changes will be new package art, and the Iwo Jima and D-Day boxed
sets will be getting smaller boxes to reduce freight costs. New BMC products are possible.
Bill had a couple of projects in development, and I found a file
with some future product ideas. There are some other
possibilities as well." Imel worked with Bill's son and niece over the past year to figure out all the various pieces to
the BMC puzzle to get the product line up and running again. While a few items had been discontinued in 2014 (mostly
the small bags of diorama accessories) those pieces will still be available as part of the boxed
sets.
Bill McMaster was raised in Fairfield and raised his son in Wantage, NJ,
before returning to care for his mother in Stratford three years ago. He
was employed as a buyer for Toys R Us prior to becoming an
entrepreneur: starting BMC Toys and JMM International, and running The
Country Mugger. Bill was a longtime Green Bay Packers fan and will be
remembered as a loving and devoted family man. A true gentleman is every sense of the word.
BMC lives on.
