Transformers Scramble City Stuntron D-50: Motormaster MIB unused

For some years I have been hearing about the rarity of a D-50: Motormaster. For some years, I have been struggling to understand why it is rare.

I mean, it's just Motormaster. It's 1/5 of Menasor. Most people would not even bother buying it individually without the other 5 Stunticons (or in Japan's case, Stuntrons). What in the world is it then?

The "rarity" of this piece really piqued my interest when such high powered collectors like Puffmarko and HighPrime appear to be looking for this piece. HighPrime has been looking for it on TFW2005, Seibertron and Shmax for sometime. And when a guy with a collection like Puffmarko's appears to be looking for this piece, I stand up and listen.

It is also noteworthy that on the Shmax collector's database, it shows that only 2 people own a D-50: Motormaster (one of them is me). Given, that Shmax is not representative of an item's rarity, that is still very little people owning this piece.

This is what Fred of Fred's Workshop, the ultimate guru of variants, has to say:

"D-50 Motormaster was the hardest of all the original four Scramble City leaders for me to find. It didn't matter if I was looking for a loose one or a sealed one, launcher equipped Motormasters were tremendously scarce... On top of that, a sealed or boxed D-50 is even rarer, and I've talked to dealers at Botcon and other collectors who have stated that Menasor giftsets are more common than sealed/boxed D-50s. And that's saying a lot!"

On my trips to Japan, I've actually seen D-50s, but being sold as a set with the other Stunticons and at stupid prices and not in good condition. So I've ignored those. So, one day, must be about a month ago, I was walking around the toy shops here and my usual shop had a set of unused Stunticons! Yup, they had D-50, D-51, D-52, D-53 and D-54. Obviously selling as a set.

I ordinarily would not be interested. However, work has been so busy at the time, I don't think I've bought much of anything for the month, so I thought, maybe here is a chance to buy something. It'd be a frolic, sure, but Menasor was my favourite childhood combiner and here is a chance to buy it unused and score a rare D-50 at the same time. At the back of my mind, I also know I'd never buy a Menasor giftset because I hate the damn ugly box art.

After chatting with Maz and VF1, I decided to buy the set... ta da!

Here is D-50: Motormaster MIB, unused. I have to say, the box art is a lot nicer than the USA release's box art.

Here is a USA Motormaster, just for comparison's sake.

Close up of Motormaster in package. I know what you are thinking - 'a Japanese release, without a foam insert!'. You're right. More on that later.

Close up of the box art.

Close up of name and manufacturing details. My version is Made in Macau (printed in Hong Kong). Apparently, there is a version that is made in Japan. I think however, that there is some symmetry in me buying the Made in Hong Kong version while living in Hong Kong.

Transformation sequence on top of box

Back of box... only a very faint flap crease.

This is the back of the USA Motormaster box for comparison

The Japanese bio and tech specs

This is Motormaster out of the box. Contains unused paperworks package, unused accessories packet and Motormaster in bubble insert. Admittedly, this presentation kind of sucks for a Japanese release. It sure pales on comparison to having a styro insert where every piece can fit in a slot in the styro.

So, why did it come in a plastic bubble insert instead of a styro insert that was 'standard' for predominantly all Jap TFs? I quote a possible explanation from Scrambled! (Crazysteve's website):

"Just like my C-50 Silverbolt, my D-50 Motormaster came in a plastic bubble. This was a radical departure for Japanese Transformers at the time these two were released. Before Silverbolt and Motormaster came out, Takara packaged all Japanese release Transformers with styrofoam inserts, and used plastic bubbles for Transformers destined for sale outside of Japan. Takara even reverted to packaging Transformers in styrofoam inserts for domestic release after D-50 and C-50. So why they ever did this for these two Japanese releases I will probably never know. I have heard claims that D-50 and C-50 each came with styrofoam packaging at some point, but I have never seen examples of them like that."

Unused paperwork packet. I don't seem to see the bio card in there. In fact, I'm not even sure whether the early 1986 releases comes with bio cards. Anyone can answer this question?

[edit 19 Sep 2012: Thanks to Fighbird and Maz for answering this in the comments section - the early "D" series Destrons (and "C" series Autobots) do not have bio cards. In other words, all the 1986 Scramble City 'bots have no bio cards.]

Another shot of D-50: Motormaster with all its contents above. One might ask, what's so special about this piece? Why would it be that rare?

I have to be honest and say that I don't know. But if I could guess, I'd say, maybe one of the following or a combination of the following:

• the better box art with the correctly transformed legs.
• it being the very first Destron piece with the "D" prefix (ie: before that, both Cybertrons and Destrons were numbered consecutively without any prefix - for example, 38 - Broadblast or 17 - Soundwave).
• having a bubble insert instead of a styro one made it harder to get a 'displayable' piece.
• the Japanese release Motormaster is actually different from the USA release - the former contains a launching mechanism! See Scrambled!'s Motormaster page.

Happy to hear more thoughts that will shed more light on this piece.

In the meantime, I leave you with some photos of my USA Stunticons and his combined form, the mighty Menasor!

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Related Stories:

• Scrambled! - Motormaster's Page
• A stunnin' asthma story - Part 1
• A stunnin' asthma story - Part 2
• New acquisitions - Japanese Transformers D-50: Motormaster and his Stunticons
• Transformers: Second Generation, also called "Gestalts"
• Transformers: Second Generation - the Battle Lines are Drawn
• Menasor Decoy MISP