New Arrivals - from Canada

As mentioned here, these 3 guys arrived from Canada on Monday.

Monday was like Christmas - with the arrival of the Dinoking giftset, a job lot of Micromasters and then the 3 pretenders from Canada.

Skyhammer MIB, Octopunch MOC and Pincher MOC took about 2 months to arrive from Canada. It was a long wait. So long that I almost forgotten that they were on the way. After looking at the pieces, I'd say the wait was worth it.

All of these are in C9+ condition, immaculately preserved and with no paint chips whatsoever. For the 1989 pretenders, that's saying a lot. At the very least, this Skyhammer is in a more than acceptable condition and I know I will keep him (a couple of years back, I almost threw away an incomplete Skyhammer from a large lot of TFs I bought; the condition was just that unacceptable).

Here is a pic, will have more up soon.

Japanese Victory D-328 Dinoking giftset - preliminary photos

Just cracked this open tonight with E and snapped some quick rough shots.

The Dinoking giftset box is actually pretty impressive. It's larger, thicker and heavier than the Liokaiser and Raiden giftsets for example and its pretty sturdy.

Cracking open the packing box...

Layers upon layers of packing material. Very well packed.

Dinoking with his contemporary, Monstructor.

Hey, Yokuryu is missing!

Actually, E is transforming it.

Will take better pics over the weekend.

~ HD

New Arrivals - featuring packing boxes

Collected these from concierge yesterday - 2 large boxes (Scrapper for scale) and one small box. These boxes contain Dinoking MIB, an assortment of Micromasters and from Canada, Skyhammer MIB, Octopunch MOC and Pincher MOC.

 

The 2 'humongomous' boxes!

I got my Skyhammer MIB, Octopunch MOC and Pincher MOC from a seller in Canada. I paid C$70.97 for shipping, he shipped it on 6 March 2010 and I received it on 14 May 2010. I knew shipping from Canada takes some time, I never imagined that it really does take half a lifetime to arrive. Still, I'm glad that they are here.

My assortment of Micromasters from a seller on the TFW2005 boards. So glad to have gotten 3/4 of the Air Patrol (and Blazemaster with his 'copter blade), perhaps the most difficult Micromaster Patrol to locate. My last 1/4 of the Air Patrol is on its way from the States...

Okay, so I didn't open these last night, how could I have resisted? I'm waiting for E to return home and will open them together.

Will post an update soon-ish.

~ HD

Pre-Transformers Microman Secret File catalogue

This is the catalogue that came with my MC-19: Scopeman, which is a Takara pre-Transformers toy that did not subsequently get made into a Transformer. Since my MC-19: Scopeman was MI(S)B, it came with all its original paperwork. What was interesting perhaps the most interesting part about its paperwork was the Microman catalogue - the "Microman Secret File" as it is called.

This was more than a catalogue. In addition to the standard type 'catalogue shots of toys', it also contains a comic strip and also painted battle scenes of the Microman toys.

Browsing through the catalogue was like a walk through history, to see the original colour schemes of the toys that became Transformers and also to see the unique toys that did not make it as Transformers.

I have taken some interior shots of the catalogue to illustrate what I mean. No plans on my part to properly scan the entire catalogue yet.

Enjoy!

Cover of catalogue.

Microman robot that became Blaster

These 2 guys transforms into locks. I've never seen them before.

This is the Microman comic strip. In it, the robots do not mass shift and are literally tiny robots when transformed.

MC-22 transforms into a torchlight. Also have never seen this before.

MC-19: Scopeman and MC-20: Magnificus?

These should be pretty familiar to TF fans...

Oohh... "Bumblejumper" was actually blue!

Pre-Transformers Browning, Megatron, a revolver guy and transforming spheres?!?

This is a shot of (probably) all the Microman toys with a kid for good measure (and for scale no doubt). A close up shot below.

Pick of the Day - What a load of parts!

iGear Teletraan-1 - the opening ceremony

Saw the iGear Teletraan-1 playset on display in Singapore and I knew I just had to have it. It is so close to the cartoon Teletraan-1, it's almost unreal.

So I did buy it, during my Singapore trip. Carted all 3.5kg of it back to Sydney. It's been sitting in its carton case for around 2 weeks. Today, I decided it was time to crack the case and whip out the base.

I was surprised that there was another box, designed and printed all round, that was within the carton cardboard box.

It's a very nice box, very G1-ish, but its a monster of a box.

iGear has to call it "Computer Command Center" and not Teletraan-1 to avoid any legal issues I suppose. But we all know that it's Teletraan-1. E actually thought it was the Ark. She's half right though, cos Teletraan-1 is within the Ark.

Here's an issue, a person actually has to be 18 years old to qualify to play with this playset. I would be so lucky if I'm younger than 18 (here's me singing to the tune of Alphaville's "Forever Young", oops, showing my age again).

That's the contents. Loads and loads of pieces that has to be assembled together. I was actually very surprised that there were no instructions included with it. We actually had to search for the instructions from the 'net.

E's got Teletraan!!!

Very nice and large sticker sheet. Almost the size of a Fortress Maximus sticker sheet really.

Ok, so we both started putting the thing together. We quickly understood the QC issues that other reviewers mentioned. The pieces fit together, they just don't stay together. They keep falling apart. It was a little annoying actually. We would never have gotten the end walls fixed if not for some sticky tape and fold-back clips at the back (no kidding).

The long walls are also very flimsy and threaten to fall down at any moment. More fold-back clips are needed, but really, we've ran out of them. We made do with sticky tape, but made a mental note to purchase a box worth of fold-back clips tomorrow.

After about 45 minutes and 2 people's worth of work, Teletraan-1 is ready! 

The QC may be be bad, but gosh is it a thing of beauty. I'd give it a 9 out of 10, but then when I saw the little Soundwave and its detail, I just had to give it 10 out of 10 for G1-faithfulness.

So here it is, a scene right out of More Than Meets the Eye Part 2...

Still More Than Meets the Eye Part 2 - Ravage about to steal Teletraan's data of Earth energy sources (note the little Soundwave!)

A scene out of Heavy Metal War (ok, minus Soundwave cos he shouldn't be there).

A scene from... well... I dunno... this is Springer (oops, Warbot I mean) and Arcee rekindling their shorted lived affair in TFTM 1986...

Too bad for Arcee, Springer is having a change of heart, quite literally... (is she whipping out her blades to chop Springer or defend against Ravage?)

Pre-Transformers MC-19: Scopeman (aka Micro-change, Chameleon Products) MI(S)B

Very happy to come across this during my HK-SG trip in April this year.

I did not buy this right-away but thought about it for a couple of days before returning to inspect it and then buying it. I have no idea how difficult this is to find, but it is certainly something quite rare from the Pre-Transformers period. Scopeman is stamped "Takara 1974, 1980", so its been around for longer than I have.

I was pleasantly surprised at how immaculately pristine the box, the toy, its contents and all its paperworks is when I opened it up for inspection. It was as if it had never been opened before. Of that, I would never know because Takara products from the Pre-Transformer period, as far as I know, do not come taped up. That is to say, there is no sticky tape on their boxes. 

They can be opened up and then put back in their boxes and no one would be able to tell. Or they could have never been opened before - ie: MISB. To me, this Scopeman is as good as MISB, but since I'll never know whether its been opened prior to me inspecting, I'll just call it MI(S)B. heh.

Without further ado, here are some detailed pictures of this Pre-Transformers gem.