A Curator's Dream: Realized (and Thanks for all the Fish)

It has been nearly a year since I began my journey to acquire two of every G1 figure and put them on display. A lot has changed in that time, some good, some bad and some unexpected. But if there is one thing we can count on in this life, it is change. So without further delay, I present what will probably be my final post

The Big One

I considered waiting much longer to post this purchase, but as it is I've already had this figure for a while and I thought it would be a good idea to go ahead and get it out there. For something this big I figured it needed a little gravitas, after all it doesn't come along every day. And it represents thus far the largest monetary investment I have made in any one figure to date. But I knew as soon as I had it in my hands it was all worth it.

White Headmaster KO Comparison Guide

For the longest time I have had a friend's KO white headmasters in my possession so I could do a comparison post on them, and I thought it was finally time I returned them to him. This post has been a long time coming.

I could probably count on one hand the number of people who would find this guide useful since most people really don't care about the white headmasters and if they do they are much more likely to plop down the $100 or so bucks on the KO's than spend thousands trying to track down the originals. However, for that small subset of people who are actually looking for the real thing, I hope this helps in identifying any unscrupulous sellers out there.

C-303 Minerva! Or is is Minelba?

For our final G1 Japanese chapter, we get the crème de la crème. In my mind there are two types of G1 Japanese figures: those that are relatively easy to find because they are either unpopular or have reissues, and those that are so incredibly rare you must pounce on them as soon as you see them otherwise you may never have another chance again. Obviously, Minerva is the latter.

D-101 Soundblaster. A Quest Completed!

This is another one of those figures that has been a long time coming. He's been on my watch list for probably at least eight or nine years (more on that later). But for some reason he was always out of reach; either the condition wasn't good enough, or it was too good (MISB) or it was missing something, or the seller just wanted too much. But no longer.

Fansproject Glacialord Fangro

When I first heard hints of this "new" combiner from Fansproject I wasn't really interested, for the same reason I wasn't interested in their Steelcore figure; it isn't an update or homage to any existing Transformers character. However that was back when I thought these figures were going to be in the same vein as City Commander and Warbot. Once I realized what they were actually doing everything changed...

Charticon Exclusive Tech Specs

Whew, it feels like I've been gone forever. Charticon took up so much of my time I barely had room for anything else (which I know my wife didn't appreciate, lol). But now I've got my time back and since we aren't going to have another show until 2015, I have some time to get back to the blogging community I love! It is amazing what six months away will do, especially to your stats! I was running around 5-6K visitors per month in December and then when I got super busy it dropped dramatically back down to 2-3K per month. But that doesn't really matter that much, I just missed talking about my favorite hobby!

So I thought the first couple of "return to the land of the living" posts should be about some things we did for the show, and this initial one is a doozy!

Japanese Headmaster Shuffler, the Elusive Exclusive

Pretty much everyone knows about this figure by now, it used to be cloaked in obscurity five or ten years ago, but with the advent of the KO reissues a couple of years ago the Exclusive Japanese Headmasters became a lot more common. Personally I thought as soon as the KO's hit the market the vintage figures would be super easy to find. What I didn't count on was a lot of other collectors like myself who only want the real thing. So while the price on some of these guys may have dropped, their availability never increased. So a couple of months ago I finally found the last color Headmaster I needed, and it of course is the rarest of the bunch: Shuffler.

What's This???

So. Frakkin. Busy. Even though much time has passed, my love for Transformers has not waned. But I am finding it hard to find subjects to discuss. My vintage figure budget has been on hiatus ever since September of last year and everyone else already has all the new stuff so I don't really feel like I have a lot to contribute to the community as a whole.

5/6ths

So guess what popped up on eBay a few weeks ago...

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.

D-108 Slugfest and D-109 Overkill

Ohhhh baby. I have been waiting quite a while for these two gems. These guys can be impossibly hard to find and I'm not really sure why. As far as I can tell they got a relatively wide release during the Headmasters toyline in Japan but for some reason are really obscure. Regardless, they now have a permanent spot in my collection. And fortunately I was able to get them in excellent condition. Slugfest is still MISB while Overkill is MIB, but all his paperwork and weapons are still sealed. I could send these guys off to AFA if I wanted, but I think I would rather keep them out. I doubt I will ever unseal them, but you never know.

The final figure: White Headmaster Shuffler

Saved the best for last. You would think that because Shuffler is the hardest to find of the color versions of the Headmaster Warriors that he would be the hardest to find of the white ones as well. But according to Shmax at least two other people have white Shufflers while no one else has white Rodney or Trizer which I find odd. Especially because I haven't been able to obtain a regular Shuffler myself yet. At any rate, here he is, in all his glory:

Something else that distinguishes the KO Shuffler from the real one, the trunk doesn't fold down as far when he is in elephant mode on the KO. I assume it is a mold deterioration issue but I'm not sure.

KO on the left, original on the right

Since I don't have an original Shuffler yet, I compared the white version to the color KO. You'll notice on the color KO the trunk doesn't fold down as far either.

So that is it. Four of the six extremely hard to find white Headmaster Warriors.

Rodney, Lione, Trizer, Shuffler

I'll always keep an eye out for the other two (Kirk and Loafer) however I doubt I will find them anytime soon and probably not at the unbelievable price that I was able to get these for. In fact, I do remember seeing one of these guys on eBay a few years back, I think it was Rodney, up for 3/4 of what I paid for all four of these guys. I don't remember if it sold or not and that was before the KO's hit the market but that was a lot of coin for one small figure.

Maybe Heroic Decepticon can hook me up if he ever finds any in his travels ;-)

On another note this post marks the one year anniversary of this blog, yay! Actually it is the one year anniversary of 'Mostly Transformers' but since that site was hacked I am celebrating it anyway. My very first blog post was on 2/19/11, but I back-dated a few posts from that day. I thought that it was only fitting I celebrate the one year anniversary of my blog with something as special as White Shuffler. I'd like to thank everyone who has read and participated in my blog, hopefully you have enjoyed it as much as I have. Here's to another great year!

The White Lione!

Third of the four white Headmaster Warriors I recently obtained is Lione, the lion. I really wish they had completed all the designs originally scheduled for these Headmaster Warriors as the animal ones are really the neatest. Of course we got the Headrobots Cobra just recently, hopefully we'll get some more eventually.

And the inevitable KO comparison:

KO on the left, original on the right

And White Lione with his color counterpart:

Who is the final figure I obtained? The suspense is killing me!

Wait, what? There's another one?

So I had to build up the suspense somehow. Amazingly I actually ended up getting four of the six white headmaster heads in what I will now call the chance of a lifetime. However they are each so glorious (as Lugnut would say) that I thought they each deserved their own post. Today Trizer gets his spotlight.

This is just another beautiful figure and again, when you stand it up to the KO, there really is no comparison.

KO on the left, original on the right

There isn't much I can say that I didn't already talk about with Rodney, so again I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves.

Trizer with his color counterpart

Two down, two to go. Who is up next?

Grail Find! Headmaster Rodney's white counterpart

If you had asked me a few months ago if I thought I would ever own this figure, I would have told you that you were crazy. The exclusive headmasters are rare enough as it is, saying nothing of their all white versions. But, an opportunity came up a while back to own this guy and the price was so good I just could not pass it up. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

So how does the original figure stack up against the recent KO that was released at the same time as the Headmaster boxset? There are a surprising amount of differences I've found:

KO on the left, real on the right

It becomes glaringly apparent how much the KO is a KO when stacked up against the original figure. I never did this with the colored versions but I should have as the differences are so obvious. Now if I didn't have the original figure I probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference. But in a side by side comparison the KO doesn't have the same amount of detail in the mold and the plastic is of much worse (and brigher) quality. You can really see it in the face here. Under this light the KO looks almost yellowed compared to the original figure. The rivets are also slightly larger on the KO.

I have never seen this guy anywhere other than officially sanctioned TF books so for me this was a once in a decade opportunity. I've said it before and I'll say it again: I love reissues because they drastically reduce the price of the originals (although in this case it was a KO and not a reissue). Otherwise there is no way this purchase would have been possible. And I know the term Grail is overused in the TF community, but this time I think this actually qualifies. For me it is a grail when I think I will never, ever own a particular figure then by some happenstance I actually end up with said figure. I feel the same way about VSX.

United Stepper and his Armada (I mean Nebulon)

Stepper is one of those obscurish characters that most fans don't even care to know about, especially before his recent reissues in the Takara TFC line and the Commemorative series by Hasbro. Prior to these releases Stepper was an ultra rare Jazz redeco released at the tail end of Headmasters in Japan and thus wasn't on shelves long. Along with his case-mate Artfire this figure would routinely sell for over $1000 in the early 2000's. When the reissues hit everyone who wanted one got one and the rest sat on the shelves forever until they were eventually discounted. This is what happens when companies try to reissue obscure characters: there just isn't enough interest to sustain the market. The Stepper reissues can still be found relatively cheap and even the original doesn't command the prices it once did. Artfire is another story though.

So I think Takara-Tomy learned their lesson. For the United line (basically the most current adaptation of the Classics figures in Japan) they decided to release Stepper as a mail-away through their Transformers Generations book. In direct homage to the original, this Stepper uses the Jazz mold and Nebulon is a redeco of the Cyclonus targetmaster Nightstick.

Overall this figure is beautiful, mimicking the original Stepper nicely while keeping a modern aesthetic to it. The gold is very nicely done and not too garish. I was also surprised at the size of the box he came in, it was very minimal and doesn't waste space with any frills.

And of course because the Jazz mold has speakers built in to the mold, Stepper gets them as well, only in Sonic White.

Nebulon is nicely re-decoed from previous versions:

From L to R: RTS Nightstick, Nebulon, Rocketbot and Universe Nightstick

Unfortunately I don't have the original Stepper in order to compare this figure, perhaps I can rectify that situation in the near future :-)

Moar Headmaster Warriors!

I have been in a frenzy to complete my Headmaster Warriors lately! In the past month I have obtained more of these guys than I have in the past three years! I got lucky with these two and didn't have to throw down a whole lot of cash for them, the recent KO's have really made them a lot more affordable.

Lione on the left, Rodney on the right

Lione's transformation is identical to Trizer's

Five of the six Headmaster Warriors!

Gratuitous money shot...all the trademarks are there.

One more to go, watch out Shuffler I'm coming for you!!!