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Wednesday, May 30, 2012

The Chance of a Lifetime

Collecting Transformers can be a very satisfying and yet frustrating hobby. Satisfying when you finally obtain that one figure you've been after for a while or when you see the new figures showcased at Botcon. Frustrating when you travel all over town looking for an army builder that happened to be shortpacked or someone else beats you out on an eBay auction by just a couple of pennies. But then there are also those times when a once in a lifetime event comes along that just cannot be passed up; experiences that may even define one's entire collecting career. It doesn't happen to every collector, but if you are lucky enough to have it happen to you then it can change your life, for better or for worse.

Saturday, May 26, 2012

On Transformers Paperwork...

This almost falls under the category of Mail Call, but I haven't done any of those for a while since things are so few and far in between nowadays. What makes this a little different is I wouldn't have this great Fort Max booklet if it weren't for a good friend of mine attending Botcon 2012. I'd like to give a shoutout to fiveironfr3nzy, without his diligence I wouldn't have been able to add this piece to my collection as cheaply and easily as I did. As it stands now I am only three more instruction booklets away from a complete G1 collection and all of those are giftset booklets. For some reason, like with everything else Fort Max related, his booklet is super expensive compared to almost all the others and thus it was one of the last I needed for my paperwork collection.

I was surprised by how small the booklet actually was, I was expecting the size to be more like Sixshot's, but I guess when you break it down Fort Max really isn't that complicated. Just large.

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

C-301 Goshooter - Shūta Gō!

If there is one thing I have learned over the years it is this: "When Botcon comes around, good deals abound" as our good friend Wheelie might say. I believe this applies whether you attend the convention or not, because while everyone is distracted by all the Botcon exclusives, news, etc. there are a bunch of great deals to be had on eBay and elsewhere. This year a particular TFW seller put up a massive amount of Japanese, European and Diaclone stuff about three days before Botcon! Thankfully Heroic Decepticon alerted me to the thread in time before everything sold out. I wasn't quick enough for some items, but I snagged Landcross, Twincast and GoShooter here. GoShooter is the real gem because he is dead mint with all paperwork, no flap crease and no yellowing. And even though he is only a repaint and not a Japanese exclusive mold he can be hard to come by today.

Sunday, May 20, 2012

Third Party Minibots - Brilliance in the Making

Anyone who has been collecting Classics figures knows we need more minibots, Hasbro just hasn't delivered the goods in this department. For those not in the know the minibots were small basic figures that were easy to transform released during the original Generation One run. Despite this they included some of the most important characters in the franchise including Brawn, Cliffjumper and Bumblebee. If there was ever an opportunity for Third-Party companies to fill an opening it is this one. And so far Maketoys and IGear have delivered nicely even if there is a bit of overlap.

Thursday, May 17, 2012

Twincast can bust it better than Blaster ever could!

Ah, the eighties; when people walked around with huge boomboxes up to their ears and no one said boo about it. Today it's all Ipods and...well...Ipods I guess. This behavior was so pervasive there's even a Transformer commercial showing Rumble walking around this way, it's quite hilarious. Of course this is the commercial highlighting Blaster, the transformable boombox. I can't think of any other transformer that so uniquely personifies the eighties in his alt-mode better than Blaster. I guess Swindler might be a good contender but he really doesn't count because (1) he's a micromaster and not very well known and (2) he was released at the very end of the eighties.

Sunday, May 13, 2012

Landcross: Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations

Ok, so the figures that make up Landcross can't really be combined in an infinite number of modes. But it sure feels like it. I believe you can actually combine them a total of thirty different ways plus the six-figure Landcross combination making a total of thirty-one. Personally I don't know any other Transformers with that type of versatility. I myself have never attempted all the different combinations, but I think it would be an interesting way to spend an afternoon. I feel like Landcross was an experiment by Takara to determine the limits of playability in a Transformer. From the sketches and drawings in the Generations: Deluxe book it looks like they had been working on something like this for a while and had a few more planned. There are instances in the book of combiners made up of as many as fifteen different figures! But apparently Landcross was the only one to make it to the production stage. Interestingly enough, this multiple combination gimmick would be mirrored almost twenty years later in Transformers: Superlink (Energon in the U.S.).

Thursday, May 10, 2012

SCF: The Truth Who the Eyes Met Before!

What can I say? I'm a sucker for small collectible figures. The Super Collection Figure (SCF for short) line began in 2001 and continued through 2003 consisting of ten waves of six figures each. Each wave released each figure in a color version and either a clear or pewter color version depending on the wave. And of course because they were released in Japan, they were blind packed. Back when the characters of G1 was a scarcity (not like today) collectors were clamoring for anything they could get their hands on; and the SCF line provided cartoon accurate representations of their favorite characters in a small, relatively cheap form.

Monday, May 7, 2012

Big Update to my Japanese Page

I spent the better part of last weekend updating my Japanese page to reflect everything I have in chronological order along with everything I am still missing. Hopefully it looks a lot better and will be an easier resource in the future to link to past stories. I may do something like this with the other lines based on how well this seems to work. Just click the Japanese tab above to see the changes.

Friday, May 4, 2012

Beast Wars Neo C-53 Big Black Convoy

I'm a big fan of the Beast Wars Neo and have been ever since I learned about it in the late 1990's. I think what draws me to it the the sheer uniqueness of the beast modes that populate the line. Giraffe, Penguin, Rabbit, Archaeopteryx, Styracosaurus, Tanuki?? It's kinda crazy. Of course one of the most easily recognizable figures is that of Big Convoy, the Woolly Mammoth. American Transformer fans are just as familiar with this figure as their Japanese counterparts due to the mold being released as Universe Nemesis Prime and the character being heavily featured in the Beast Wars IDW comics. However the figure was repainted in an almost all-black color scheme and sold in Japanese Toys R Us Stores as Black Big Convoy. Personally I call him Big Black Convoy instead because the words flow better and it sounds more menacing. The figure was also released as a lucky draw in a blue color scheme (Big Blue Convoy :)

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

G2 Gobots and Drench Vindicated!

I was challenged. My resolve was tested. And yet I prevailed. That's right, I have added loose versions of G2 Gobots and Drench to my collection. Just recently I had obtained a sealed G2 Drench and I received a lot of peer pressure to just go ahead an open the sucker. Fortunately I didn't listen as just last week I was able to grab Drench and Gobots insanely cheap and thus spare the sealed versions from being subjected to the wrath of the 2012 atmosphere. It is 1993 inside those packages and that is how it is going to stay. I imagine if I ever did open them I would be able to momentarily hear the faint sounds of gangsta rap anyway. It's all dubstep out here now.