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Chinese toys, bootlegs or not?


Nevermore

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Chinese G1 toys from the Mid-Nineties.

 

Here's the backstory:

http://www.geocities.com/futuristgroup/vchina.html

 

Apparently originally licensed, but then continued being produced without permission.

 

Last year, P.Prime brought the Beachcomber from that list to our attention (again):

http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/thread47551.html

 

Notice there's several misspellings on the packaging that don't appear on the original 1985 Hasbro US release.

 

I quickly drew the connection, but then forgot about the thread.

 

A while later, a TFW 2005 member told me he had purchased ten MOSC Beachcombers on eBay, and I dug out the thread and the link to Fred's site. Hagetaka then revived the thread, and the "news" spread all over the boards.

Especially since there were still huge caselots of them being sold on eBay YEARS after they supposedly came out in China.

 

The same sellers also had some Seasprays and Backstreets, which are also known as having surfaced with those Chinese stickers.

 

Now, since the AFA had graded several of those "G1" Beachcombers, someone contacted them about it. Here's their response:

 

http://forums.transfandom.com/invboard/ind...showtopic=27917

 

Apparently, the AFA is now going to label them as "China variants".

 

However, I also got some semi-pissed off feedback from some of the know-it-alls who insisted those might not necessarily be bootlegs, but could very well be licensed Chinese versions which just happened to surface in one of those legendary warehouse finds.

 

Meanwhile, the people over at Seibertron also debated over the authenticity of these Beachcombers, but also discussed about how to distinguish a "Chinese" Beachcomber from a legit 1985 US Beachcomber.

http://www.seibertron.com/energonpub/viewtopic.php?t=66053

 

And then, recently, BBTS put up a huge lot of MISB G1 Cyclonus toys for sale which apparently also surfaced in one of those warehouse finds.

 

Soon enough, though, someone noticed the Chinese stickers and instantly contacted BBTS. Here's the reaction:

http://www.seibertron.com/news/view.php?id=5207

 

And GetterDragun also gave us more information about more "Chinese" G1/G2 toys:

http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/showpost1018043-p20.html

 

Here's a list of what I currently know to be G1 Bootlegs:

 

SqualkTalk and BeastBox

BackStreet

Ruckus

Cyclonus

IronHide

BeachComber

Seaspray

and Two of the double boxes of the Japanese Victory Combiner LandCross.

 

It's STILL being debated whether those are bootlegs or leftover licensed Chinese releases.

In fact, it's not even sure whether these are actually leftover toys from the Nineties or are STILL being produced to this day.

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The chinese guy who was selling the beachcomber also had boxed cyclonus`s for sale as well and said he had loads of them

 

here ;) http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...ssPageName=WDVW

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Very interesting writeup.

 

Personally I am not that picky, and I'd buy a lot of these if they were reasonable / bootleg prices.  I do wonder if many sellers know the items' questionable nature and are trying to gouge people, or just believe that the items are worth that much.

 

The guy listed in Jaguartron's link also has some recent protos (huge GF Starscream, and Prowl) making me bring his character into question.

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Good work as usual Nevermore :thumb .

 

AFA  have done a cop out.

 

Joel however did the right thing.

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After reading Nevermore article on mexican Transformers I can tell you that Hasbro *will* most likely brand these K.Os.

 

 

but thats the question isn't it? Are they bootlegs? are they real?

 

 

We (the fans)  know (or at lest think) that all those funky mini-bots and mexican figuers are in fact "real TF's" even though they were made by diffrent companies, so whats to say this arn't Real?

 

just energon for thought.

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In case of doubt; stay away from them. I have a strong dislike for bootlegs of any sort, so even when it's debate able; I'll avaoid buying them.

 

Nice research.

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I wouldnt call them bootlegs just market specific items that they dont want filtering through the global market as it will disrupt their price structering (fixing) A different example of the same thing was went designer clothing manufacturers tried to stop `Tescos` from buying items in the US for half the cost of them in europe and selling them here.

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