I was looking through my old TF's from Hasbro's 1980's production and I'm a bit disapointed about the chipped paint, rubbed off chrome and pealing stickers. Are the Takara Encore exactly the same or have they changed materials, paints and stickers to some more modern to making process like used in the movie and masterpeice lines?
The Takara Encores (and TFC reissues- you might want to look into those) are pretty much spot on to the originals. The cheaper and easier to obtain Hasbro Commemorative reissues are modified to meet modern safety standards (No Megatron, longer missiles, disabled launchers) If you have any other questions or are unsure at all, you should probably ask before you buy. None of the modern reissues are in the 80's style American boxes. All of those are knockoffs of the originals. High quality, but not licensed. (NOTE: I'm just throwing that out there so the OP is aware. This is not an ethics debate)
Oh, OK, I didn't realise that Hasbro had also made reissues. I'll look into them. So I take it if I got the Takara Optimus Prime (Edit: I mean Convoy) and Ironhide they would be the exact same toys I got in the 80's, but a Hasbro version would have some small safty updates. The ones I have now I did play with them as a kid, but I wasn't rough on them and took good care of them yet the origianal Prime and Ironhide I have didn't age well, with chipped paint, chrome that looks like it's being rubbed off and pealed stickers. I'm mostly worried about how the new reissues will look after being displayed for years.
there are color and paint differences with the encores. also, the QC for the first four was kinda shoddy.
some sticker details have been changed to paint apps, the stickers are on a new paper and on some, where licences have pulled support, stickr have changed alltogether ( jazz-martini to meister, bluestreak to streak licence plate, etc)
I've like to chip in that the Takara reissues (be they be boook-style or Encore) are closer to the original toys. This is due to the stricter safety laws in the USA.
What kind of QC problems where there? what problems are there in particular on Convoy? I looked at the Hasbro reissues and noticed they cut Ultra Magnas's pipes like they cut the MP Prime's. It just dosn't look right. and thats coming from someone that dosn't mind the cut downs on MP Prime.
I'd definitely pull the trigger on the Encore versions if you're looking to grab a Prime. It's the cheapest version out there and is better than the Hasbro release. Also, the Autobot insignias are no longer stickers on his upper arms, which is a huge bonus because they tended to not stay on.
Mine has huge gashes on the bottoms of his arms where the piece was taken off the sprue. one is so deep that it's an actual hole in his arm. also, because of bad paint applications, my convoy appears to be winking. Wish I knew. wave one scared me away from the encore series, and I won't get any of it's releases until I hear from other people how they are.
Actually the KO reproductions have very inconsistent and often shoddy quality (the tapes and the Dinobots have lots of quality problems, even Mirage has some problems). They look like they are quality when you look at them but then as soon as you touch them they fall and chip apart.
Impressions I posted a review of my Encore Ratchet, but here's a summary: nice toy. but i am not going to play with him much. joints seem a little loose after a few transformations, and i already had a piece pop off during first transformation- one of the silver treads on the bottom of his cabin, but it pops right back on. still it surprised me- so watch out for that. those two things aside, am still glad i have him, and thanks for enlightening me that i bought a "true" reissue of a classic.