http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...em=270264538243

I wonder where they dug this one up. An amazing find!

This guy's being too ambitious/greedy/lazy. He'd sell these toys easier as separate auctions. There would be people willing to buy individual MISB Optimus Primes, but who would buy a caseload? And with individual auctions, you're going to have more people bidding - more competition can mean higher end sale price.

This reminds me of that woman who tried to sell her late husband's entire G1 collection for $1 million on eBay... twice. And of course, she got no bids. She would've easily sold off that entire collection for a handsome sum if she'd done it through separate auctions.

Yeah but even one at a time he aint gonna get no $11 grand!?!

Factory sealed, on a figure that old, yeah increadably rare, and very desired, but who's got the money to pay for that? He may have a a few gems, but is it realy a jeweler's market, Even gold fluctuates.

So yeah, he's stupid on the greedy side, and anyone who can afford these and gets them should be beaten for not doing better their wealth.

Looks like some of the boxes have a few minor damage spots on them. But lets do the math:

Say you had each one AFA graded and cased. These guys can go anywhere from $800 to $2,000 if they've been AFA graded and cased. Lets go with maximum value and suppose you managed to get a high enough grade to sell each one for $2,000 a piece (which is total fantasy). That's a maxium total amount of $8,000. This does not take into account the money spent getting them graded in the first place.

Bottom line: A ripoff.

2 days and 18 hours to go and still on 0 bids.

....

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!

1. Note that the case says "Made in Japan". So anyone rich enough to afford this (and acquired their money any way other than inheriting it) would do due diligence to verify that vintage Primes were ever manufactured in Japan at all.
2. My memory's fuzzy but I don't recall the vintage Primes I saw during the '80s having that white cardboard over the styrofoam tray. As I remember it, there was just the styrofoam tray fully visible. The recent Chinese bootlegs definitely have the cardboard though. But again, my memory's fuzzy on this.
3. There's surprisingly little damage an' very light indentations for what that case appears to have been through over the years.
4. I've a Thai friend who moved back an' has been doing business in Thailand for the last 5 years. When I showed him the link and observed that the seller was in Thailand, friend's immediate reaction was, "oh man.. run!" That alone tells me probability of chinese bootlegs is high.
5. For a case to have been made in Japan, it seems like the likeliest places you'd expect a case to lie undiscovered all these years would be: a) Japan, b) the United State, c) at best some interim shipping port like HK? It'd have to be quite a story for a legit case to somehow make its way over to Thailand.
6. The likely maximum one could fetch for a fully AFA graded pristine Prime seems to be equivalent to the per-unit price of these at best, and significantly lower at worst.

Hmm, guy's actually got an Astrotrain, Octane, and Springer up too. That combination actually seems plausible if they all came in the same case assortment. And I think the original Springer mold may be gone too? Can anyone tell from those pics if the boxes are all the same dimensions?

I'm not entirely sure they are fake. The original primes did have the cardboard overlay (as does Soundwave), and this person also was willing to show closeup photos of all the box damage. Additionally, you can see the USA address below the tech spec, but I guess that can be easily duplicated.

So I wouldn't go so far as to say they are fake, but they are overpriced, even for real ones.

Yeah. The triplechangers seem genuine. Least I haven't seen a bootleg Springer. Although it doesn't seem like the triplechangers would only come 3 to a case since they're likely packed in even numbers with one facing opposite the other. Ehwell.. I wouldn't pay for the Primes, but those triplechangers might almost be worth it. Too bad I never much liked the original molds all that much (or have that kind of money for disposable luxuries).

Pretty interesting find still. I've saved all the images just for the nice close-ups, hehe.