OKC Part 2 - in which we look closely at the shelf on the right

Previous post: OKC Part 1 - our new place

In this post and the following few posts, I will take a closer look at the 'collection' related parts of our new place, namely the display shelfs.

As with all the furniture and shelving fixtures in our place, these display shelves are completely custom made to our specifications. The take up a 'Ushape' in a room that we tore down and made open plan. Each shelf is 60cm deep - ie: enough to display Fortress Maximus in city mode, see below!

It has been my long time wish that I can display Fort Max in city mode, with lots of mini-Transformers and SCFs among him - with these display shelves, I can do just that!

The shelves also has adjustable tempered glass dividers within. Each tempered glass divider can be adjusted upwards or downwards 'Ikea' style. Tempered glass dividers also come in 3 different sizes - Size 1 goes the entire depth of shelf (ie 60cm deep); Size 2 goes 2/3 the depth of the shelf approx 40cm deep; and Size 3 is 1/3 the depth of the shelf approx 20cm deep. These make a lot of possible display options, especially when there are taller and shorter robots.

For example, I can place taller robots in front and have something behind them - like Teletraan-1 behind Fort Max (see below); or tall robots behind with shorter robots in front. 

The shelf lighting was also specifically done by our contractor. My brief to him was to achieve even lighting, at each level of the shelf - this ruled out having the top down style lighting that many display units had (where the light hardly reaches the lower shelves). The desired effect was achieved using LED strip lighting that went around the perimeter of each shelf.

The camera made the lighting look less even than it actually is in real life, but the overall effect can be seen. The lighting also turns out more yellow than it should be in photos (I don't know why). In actuality, it is completely daylight-white and gives off little to no heat even if switched on for 4-5 hours (I have tried that). As such, each shelf has good even lighting and there is no damage to the toys through heat.

OKC Part 1 - our new place

After some time, 

we've finally made up our minds, 

this is the place, 

that we wanted to make ours.

Interior layouts are designed by E. Execution by me. The theme is white and blue plus lots of display space for Transformers. Lots of book shelves were also essential and then, the all important Mahjong area.

Here is where we ended up.

Entrance area. Misc shelving. Painting of Decepticon symbol is be E (it's a real oil on canvas painting).

TV area and balcony.

View of swimming pool.

This the the Mahjong area and books area.

Hard Hero statues and graphic novels.

back, after somewhat of a break

I have not posted anything since November last year.

I thank all those who were concerned and who emailed me either personally or through the site to find out what I was up to, what was happening (and whether I've died!).

Yes, lots was happening. 

In a nutshell, there were these, at least:

• work had become extremely busy - someone, or something, turned on the tap and never switched it off!
• renovations for our new place
• preparations for moving into our new place - there were some 60 cartons of Transformers / toys alone, not to mention other household items
• the actual moving into our new place
• unpacking and arranging items in our new place - it's not easy to arrange and display that many Transformers...
• this site had to be 'saved' - more on that below
• E and I went on a long-time-coming vacation to South America for a month in December

On the second last bullet point - Webshots, which hosts all the photos on this site, was sold to some company who decided that photo hosting was no longer going to be its core business. What it meant was that if I didn't host my photos somewhere else, then all the photos on this site will become dead links when Webshots 'closed down' and becomes this different animal that the new owners wished it to be.

I have 1 month to save all 6500+ photos, re-upload them and place them back into their original positions across more than 700 blog-entries. Bear in mind that the things in all the above bullet points were going on at-the-same-time! I was stretched to my breaking point and worked till at least 3am every night to save and re-upload photos or to pack for the move (and then longer to unpack after the move).

With the site, I am very fortunate that E and a number of close friends stood shoulder to shoulder with me and helped me battle through to save this site. You know who you are, but I'd like to thank you here once again - 

1. E;
2. VF-1 and his lovely wife V - you guys did so much in so short a time, even with the birth of your second daughter happening at the same time;
3. my classmates S and H, as somewhat of a team for the 2011 posts; and
4. my other classmate 'Justice' Q.

There is no doubt that this site and the resource it represents to many collectors would not exist today if not your efforts. A very heartfelt THANK YOU E, VF-1, V, S, H and Justice.

Looking at the above, my close to 3 month absence is not really that long, I'd have thought. heh.

There must be a section of people who have been wondering why I have not been replying to their emails over the past 3 months. I hereby apologise and promise that I will be getting around to your emails over the next 1-2 weeks.

Cheers,

~ HD

Pick of the Day - Divide and Conquer once more

"Prime is alone, the three or you can take him!"

(or can they?)

A mystery solved, for me at least... (C-91: Computron and D-84: Abominus giftsets)

Over the years, I have been hearing on and off that the Japanese D-84: Abominus giftset and the C-91: Computron giftset has a special exclusive poster included in it - one of the reasons why the Japanese release of these relatively easily available toys, which were also widely released in North American and many other parts of the world in English packaging, were so expensive.

I've asked many people "what exactly is the poster that came with these sets and how does it look?"

Among all the TF collectors I asked, including veteran shop owners in HK and SG, no one could tell me what the C-91 or D-84 poster looked like. They could tell me what a Goodbye Convoy or Goodbye Megatron poster looked like, but not the C-91 and D-84 poster(s).

What further frustrated me was that my usual shop in HK kept getting in MISB near C10 sets of C-91 and D-84 and when I peeked inside, there was indeed a larger than normal piece of paper that looked like it is a poster. Obviously, I could not take it out to see because I'd have to cut the tape making the box no longer MISB. At approximately HK$10,000 to 13,000 a pop (US$1290 - $1670), I was absolutely not willing to pay for it to open in order to sate my curiosity. To me, Computron and Abominus are worth no more than US$150 to me, each.

Recently, as I was traversing TFW, I saw a thread where someone was selling his/her D-84: Abominus giftset and voila, there was a photo with its poster shown.

Mystery solved - I believe this is the poster that came with both the C-91 and D-84 giftsets.

(photo was saved more than a month ago and I don't remember who the seller was. Please contact me if its your photo and would like it take down or attributed to you)

The poster pictures and promotes both Computron and Abominus together with suggested Scramble City combinations with Superion, Defensor, Menasor and Bruticus, and appears suitable for either giftset, therefore, I think its reasonably safe to conclude that it also came in the Computron giftset - however, I'm happy to be proven wrong or be pointed in the right direction re the Computron giftset.

That's it, a mystery solved, for me at least...

Takara Transformers SCFs - ACT 1 Chase figures - Metallic finish Convoy and Megatron

Previous chapter - Takara Transformers SCFs (Super Collectible Figures), a (re)introduction

Like I mentioned in the previous chapter, some of the hardest SCF figures to get are the "Chase" figures that came blind-packed in each ACT. I recalled that when ACT 1 was released, I did not even have any idea what the Chase figures were.

At the time, all the toy action took place at Clarke Quay in Singapore, on Sundays. There I was on the Sunday that SCF ACT 1 was released, back in December 2000. I was so excited about this first ACT because I knew that it contained many of my favourite G1 characters.

I bought a sealed carton from what must have been Hourstore at the time. I ran to the fire stairs with a friend and we started peeling the individual boxes open. First box, no Chase figure... second box, no Chase figure... third box, still no Chase figure...

I proceeded to gleefully open all 12 blind-packed boxes and discovered that I did not get a single Chase figure.

Then I walked around and looked at other shops that did not sell sealed cartons - ie: they opened the cartons and extracted any Chase figures they could find. At one such shop, I saw what the ACT 1 Chase figures were... and I was blown away.

Here they are in their full glory.

Takara Transformers SCFs (Super Collectible Figures), a (re)introduction

Transformers Super Collectible Figures ("SCFs") were released by Takara toward the end of the year 2000. These small PVC figures that were approximately 3 inches tall, do not transform, but unlike their Decoy predecessors, were posable.

8 out of the 10 waves (called "ACTs") eventually released were G1-centric, with character designs that closely matched the designs seen in the G1 Cartoon and Marvel's Transformers Universe design sheets.

I was immediately attracted to this series and were buying up each ACT as a complete box.

A comprehensive figure listing can be found on Wikipedia here.

My SCF figure display back in 2001 / 2002

Each ACT came in a box of 12 individually blind packed figures. Of the 12, 6 would be coloured figures and the other 6 would be either clear (later pewter) versions of the 6 coloured figures. Selected boxes of 12 figures would randomly include a "Chase" or special figure that was different from the other 12 either in terms of molding or colour. Since all figures were blind packed, the Chase figures for each ACT were difficult to come by. Back in the day, I heard that there was 1 Chase figure per every 10 boxes (of 12 individually blind packed figures) - that's approximately a 1:120 ratio.

Out of all the ACTs I bought, I was only lucky enough to stumble upon one Chase figure - this was for the final G1 ACT8, where I got a blind packed Coronation Starscream with cape. I was ecstatic of course, but it also meant that I did not have a coloured Star Convoy (ie: if you got a Chase, that set would effectively be 'incomplete' and missing another random figure).

SCFs randomly scattered on my table, back in 2001 / 2002 (before the eagle eyed collector gets too excited, the Skywarp there is a custom paint job done by my friend from a SCF Thundercracker and not the Transformers: Generations Lucky Draw Skywarp).

I had not other Chase figures back in the day.

Now, close to 10 years later, I've managed to hunt down a number of SCF Chase figures which I will showcase in subsequent posts. Very excited!

Next: Takara SCF ACT1 Chase figures - metallic Convoy with laser axe and metallic Megatron with flail.