I got these the other day and noticed that one of the steeljaws and ramhorns didn't have the rubsign or the indention for it. It does have the hasbro/takara stamp on them. Just wondering if I stumbled across something interesting or if these molds actually came with this varient. Anybody got any answers?

 

That is kinda ineresting that they don't have the indentation...that would suggest one of three things

1. the indentationless ones are knock offs (or vise-versa)
2. Two sets of moulds were made one with indentation one without
3. At some point the decition was made to remove the indentation (filling the indentaion would involve removing material from the mould...it couldn't work the other way round)

 

Variations: Everything Else Autobot

Do they have stickers on the other side, or painted details?

 

The steeljaw has stickers and the ramhorn has nothing so maybe it had stickers at one point.

 

Based on the above link, they do indeed appear to be a variant.

From what I've heard, after Hasbro/Takara drove most of the bootleggers of the time out of business around 1987/1988, they began phasing out the rubsigns (which were only brought in as a means of preventing counterfeiting). Some Transformers had the rubsign indents filled out. I'll admit I didn't know about Steeljaw and Ramhorn before the above article, but I know that the Technobots and Terrorcons have rubsign and post-rubsign variants...mainly because I'm crazy enough to try collecting both.  

 

Thanks guys.