Alright, sorry for the late reply

As far im concerned, no IGA Transformers had rubsigns at all and only the european imported figures had red blotches of paint (i think it had something to do with lead paint). Ive seens many loose samples locally of the different figures releases here and none had a rubsign, not even Metroplex and that was the last figure released by IGA (and i have one   )

The box, papers and trailer seems to be indeed Mexican. This is the first time ever that i have seen the styrofoam advice

As others said before, you could have another vintage Optimus. Also, just by looking at the comparison pics between the cabs, the color seems to be similar. IGA Optimus had an orangey tone


Price? Well maybe you could get $160 - 180 just for the box and paperwork condition, as well the rest of the toy

 

I have a loose G1 Optimus without rubsign which is made in France and purchased in Sweden, so what's that? MB?

 

Thanks for your reply. As for the color of the cab it is actually an orangey tone, although curiously from the pics it's hard to tell the difference, but in reality they're really easy to distinguish. The Encore has darker red painting and darker red plastic. It's absolutely not the same tone of red. I may try to get that better on photo, with different lighting. Maybe the overall lighting didn't help on that   . But I assure you it's an orangey tone. I'm going to try a photo without using flash and I'll add more red figures side-by-side, e.g. Sideswipe.

Thank you for the value estimate for what it seems to be. But now I really would like to be sure about the cab, if it's mexican or not. The rub sign could have been added later... although it came to my hands already with it.

 

I think that possibly yes.

MB Pre-Transformers

 

MB Roadbuster, awesome!

 

Ok, here are the best pictures I was able to take with my camera, to try to show the orangey tone of the mexican Optimus Prime, which is the one on the left side.

In the first 3 photos I didn't use flash, on the next 3 photos I used flash. I confess that I think it is more noticeable on the 3 photos with flash unlike what I first thought. In my opinion with all this red contrast from all the figures I think we can see the orangey tone. Still, it's much more noticeable in person...   For instance, take a look at Hosehead, he seems more redish in these photos, but in person its red is a bit more pinkish.

Please let me know what you think, especially our Mexican friend Napjr   .

 

He looks a tad bit more orange. By the way, is that a Encore Ironhide?

 

And seen in person it's undoubtly more orange and brighter color. I never thought that would be so hard to get on camera   .

Yes, besides both Optimus Primes, it's Encore Ironhide with custom head from BestToys, TRU Inferno, vintage Hosehead, TRU Sideswipe and keychain Cliffjumper.

 

Maz's Mexican Prime article
Mexican Optimus Prime (w/ Red Eyes)

I own one as well, yours is not a Mexican Prime cab. First off they did not have rub signs, second the red metal portion of the cab is too close to the plastic of the toy. The Mexican cab was way off.

 

I dunno, is still hard to tell

Does the diecast paint tone is close to the plastic? IGA´s never matched as most releases (well none ever matches, but in this case the difference was drastic)

 

I had already seen that site. But are they all like that? I thought there were variations (e.g. the eyes color). And I remember reading somwhere that the red ink was repainted in most cases, but not all.

About the rub sign I've already said it could have been added later.

The color of the red paint isn't exactly as the color of the red plastic, the plastic is more orange than the paint. But it's not too off from each other.

But assuming it's not in fact a mexican cab, what country do you think it is? Were the Hasbro ones orange? I think they're darker. Well, but at least one thing is for sure, it is an original vintage Optimus Prime. The Zhong Jin quality KOs are quite different, like I said before. And the official reissues have various differences, being one of them the pegs on the front wheels.

Please check the quality KO photos here: Zhong Jin KO

Man, talk about more than meets the eye   .

 

Mexican or not, I like that Prime. The more slender fists and the sharper detail of the smokestacks looks nice.

 

Those red eyes are really bad! None of the figures released here as far i know, had such horrible aplications, maybe missing paint apps or stickers, but not like that!

 

Yeah, me too   . If I had to choose between this one and the Encore one, I'd keep this one instead.

That's what I mean, there seem to be some variations with paint, etc... and Napjr is from Mexico. That said, those shown on those sites aren't the only thing out there from IGA and can't be taken as: if they're equal it's IGA, if it's not then it's not IGA. So, I'm still wondering if this is a Mexican cab or not, and if not, which country is it from. I guess we'll never be sure   .

But let's suppose it's a rare good variation from IGA. How much do you think its value would be?

All of this came out of curiosity about its value and ended up becoming more interesting I must say. I say that because I don't collect for value, so it's probably the first time I try to figure out the value of a vintage Transformer.

 

The red paint were on Mexican toys released in Europe, not all of them had the red paint, just the later released. Also the paint was almost always sloppily applied around the eyes. Most of the ones with the Non-Toxic sticker on the package had the red painted eyes. I have both variations for Prime and Devestator's head.