Through out the years, there have been many Pre-TF surprises come my way. Among them, some of my favorites were always the cassette warriors.

Recently I sold a couple prized doubles from my collection, which prompted me to revisit the subject.

Any usual Transfan will remember the key 3, Laserbeak, Ravage and Rumble, and of course Frenzy and Buzzsaw. But not many know about the Pre-TF colorvariants, some exclude them all together till recently.

These original 3 molds were made in exclusive MicroChange colors. Ravage and Laserbeak in blue, and Rumble in red and blue colors. EHobby remade the Laserbeak and Ravage with a slight alteration to the tape decals, showing a robot in the tape window, and of course making them official Transformers. Rumble alas has probably had his mold lost and thus far has not been remade. Though the knockoff makers would show otherwise.

Coming soon, we have yet another official color variant set coming, White Ravage and Red/orange Laserbeak. With a white and red Eject? (The same as the one that comes with the new Twincast?) Showing more evidence that they broke the mold when last making Rumble.

Then there is the FUN part of the collectors world, the knockoff's. Some were very good, even came in counterfeit Microchange boxes (in English no less), and some were just odd.

Most noteworthy is Reverse, the reversed colored Rumble, light blue chest and head instead of dark blue. Even some early price guides mention the "Light Blue" head Rumble being a rare official variant, of course now we know it was a knockoff. The story goes that the knockoff makers switched the colors by accident, or instead of having 2 molds cast all the parts in 1 and instead of trashing the errant toy parts simply put them to good use and made either whole reversed Rumbles or parts were reversed. Most of the time a fully reversed Rumble is hard to find, normally one has to find 2 partial reveresed knockoff's and piece together a whole one, which makes collecting this "Reverse" character rather difficult. Even the leg stickers are upside down, (does that make it's legs look more slender - feminine?)

The counterfeit set included Reverse, the Gray/Blue Laserbeak and the brown Ravage, The cassette tape window have a weird orange spool sticker, unlike Reverse which has the same sticker set as the original.

Then there was another set, with strange decals. 2 red and white Rumble's in exact reversed colors from each other and Gray Laserbeak.

Each of these were packaged in many different ways. Some came in counterfeit MM boxes, and some MOC to a card.

The tapes also came with protective cases, official ones said "Takara" as did the stickers on the back of the toy, with the name of the toy on the inside. Knockoff's said all sorts of things, from simple Cassette, to Micros, to BIRD MAN, and even LIONHEAD.

Some collectors refuse to bother with knockoff's like these. I my self appreciate them. Further more I am rather annoyed that they re-released the rare blue tapes, since I worked rather hard to obtain mine. If they would release some of the Diaclones I DON'T have...I might not complain...

Awaiting the new KISS set.!

I know this is a little off topic but you musnt forget the ingenuity of the bootlegers. for instance. Guraffi and Noize were bootleged. Along with my retooled slugfest. His head and spines were retooled. now slugfest has an lower jaw that opens and closes.

Current KO's come in:
Black
Clear blue
Clear orange
crystal clear
White
(and they range in quality from frankly 'excellent' to 'ok' - except the stickers!)

I wonder if there are any 'lunchtime special' tapes?

If anyone has decent pictures of these new fakes, I'd like to see them posted. Not just the in the package shots.

those cassettes look cool!!!

here you go.











for all the laserbeak/buzzsaw molds. there are versions of each color type. orange/blue/white/clear of both laserbeak/buzzsaw and rumble/frenzy

Notice some have metal / some dont.

The clear and orange ones are really nice.

Love the blue Ravage