Also, heavily stressed pieces and broken parts on some copies. The ebay'ed FM's were generally broken or missing parts but were great for folks who were willing to piece old G1 copies together on the cheap or just wanted a stand-in until they got a better copy.

 

Bought mine MISB for $150 at Botcon back in the early 2000's.

 

This is easy to identify as what we in the scientific community call "complete Horse shit" because Hasbro is headquartered in Rhode Island, not Ohio. Duh.

Source: I live in RI, it takes 10min to drive across the state and everyone is related to everyone else. Hasbro is a big deal here.

 

Hasbro did have an office in Cincinatti, though. It was the old Kenner headquarters, and after Kenner was taken over by Hasbro, they continued the Cincinatti facilities for nine more years. When Hasbro abandoned all Cincinatti operations in 2000, about five percent of their corporate workforce was cut.

And Beast Wars was originally a Kenner-headed relaunch of the Transformers brand.

So no, the "Ohio" part is not what makes this story implausible. It's the fact that it makes no sense to ship heavy and spacious manufacturing equipment from an overseas factory to the company's corporate heardquarters. What are they going to do with it, use it as a paperweight?

 

Correct. For a while there, in the 90's, the old Kenner offices in Cincinnati were the HQ for Boy's Toys under Hasbro, until they folded the "Kenner" brand altogether.

 

I was merely stating they never had headquarters in Ohio, nothing about operations, or all boys toys or anything like that  

Poor Kenner, their star burned fast and badly articulated. May they live on in infamy and hazy memories of Christmas mornings lost past.

 

Yes, but they usually stay in the factory so they can be used by either company. In this case, the mold was actually shipped to the old offices in Ohio that I don't think Hasbro uses anymore.

The way I heard it, it was shipped over not long after it's initial use in the early 90's by Takara. I wasn't told why Hasbro requested it be sent there, only that it was. This is totally a "he tell me" situation that I probably shouldn't have shared at all. So I can't say who, but it came from an ex-employee that is friends with my friends. Feel free to call me crazy if you wish. I'm only sharing what I was told, for what it's worth. For all I know, I was fed a bunch of bologna just to see if I'd believe it.

That is partially true, assuming I was told correctly. Fun Pub ( because of some FP employees who are friends with said ex-employee ) suggested checking the old storage places in Ohio since they were told it was last seen there. That is when Hasbro found it.

 

That was the office I was referring to, even if I mis-labeled it "headquarters".

 

But how did they find it since molds aren't marked? And why was it at a Kenner office in the mid-90's? This is either some incredible bullshit or an incredible mystery.

 

I'm going to go with incredible mystery. I wasn't told WHY they requested it be sent there, so I could only speculate.