WARNING! Lots of G1 pics and minutia!

Well, hello everyone! I've been a lurker for years, following various Encore and G1 Masterpiece threads, but I believe this is my first post.

Background:
About one month ago I came across an original G1 Jazz, in a perfect unplayed with condition for a paltry 3000 yen (30 bucks). The kid had literally never touched it, must have been a shelf display..... suffice to say it was responsible for a reawakening and one month later I have about 20 loose, original G1s (you know how it goes).

During this rapid rediscovery I found something fascinating: A lot of transformers allegedly acquired from a (unnamed) Diaclone -> Transformers era Takara packaging designer.

I bought it! I've lived in Japan for a little while now and am often in and out of the various collector's shops in Osaka, enough to know there is what would be 'treasure' in the western market just lying around from time to time.

I'm trying to squeeze the mutual contact for as much information as possible, but for now - let's have a look at what the lot contains.

Mint, unplayed with early pre-rub seekers
Circle stamp Hound
Unplayed with, tight but intentionally damaged (modified?) Shockwave
A ton of random 1984 accessories like guns, launchers, missiles
Couple of misc Japanese robots I can't identify
Some Insecticons and Bumblebees
Sealed on bubble Wheeljack and Skywarp
Some other minty but rough around the edges (perhaps factory seconds?) loose G1

AND... what gives some excitement to the collection

What appears to be some prototype pieces of Constructicons.












Let's take a closer look.

Scrapper has no leg pins and the leg pieces are held in place only by friction. One of his front wheels has no securing pin or screw.

There are glued on strips of plastic providing friction. I don't have a production scrapper so I'm not sure if these are improvised or representative of the final version.

Two of his wheels have obviously hand-painted silver detailing.








The legs are silver hand-painted red plastic.






I'm not sure what the sticker says, here is a close-up.






Some more modification. Both sides are like this.







There's not much of Hook left. His front torso plate, back crane assembly and two arms are present. The front torso plate just pushes on (no screw) and holds the arm assemblies in place.











There are visible milling marks left behind from the master.








I believe this is Devastator's chest piece.
The lot contained two of these in black and one in navy.

Also, found after I photographed these: Devastator's belt piece in the same yellow as Scrapper.






This looks like a completely scratch built launcher of some kind. Does anybody know what figure this design belongs to?







What else?

Here is where I need you guys' help. It's hard to keep track of all the minute variations and what it all means, if anything, when it comes to G1.

Let's have a look at the more standard figures in the lot.


This Skywarp is perfect - so factory fresh. It even has little shreds of factory environment plastic waste hanging from it. All the joints are very tight and it only has the kind of assembly line rubs and scratches that make it feel like time travel in your hand.

The launchers have springs, but they don't fire very well anymore (the same is true for nearly all the launchers in this lot, although there is a Sideswipe launcher that can shoot 3 metres!)

His un-ridged canopy is present, but the figure came like this - without it being assembled on the figure.






The stamping.






Solid wing sections, here showing Thundercracker's as well.

Unfortunately, the wings are not the hand filed variety  .






Thundercracker has had his stickers applied, and is as minty as the Skywarp!

His hands were missing, however.








Starscream is missing a lot, and he has a small paint chip at the top of his air intake. Otherwise, a very nice condition.

His only tail wing is the hollow type, although it came in a separate baggy so is maybe from another Starscream.








A sealed on card, pre-rub, solid wing Skywarp. The stamp is the same as the loose example. Accessories are in baggies.






And where are the Autobots at!?






Hound has the small type of accessory hole and peg.






I notice that the dangly sprue left overs stick out quite proud on the rubber tyres and on the front of the chrome wheel-arm things. Is this normal, or a sign of factory second-ness?






Lastly for today, an interesting Shockwave.

His rubber hose is in perfect condition. He stands up very easily. He has very few signs of use apart from something is going on with his gun arm.



The emitter of his arm weapon has been sawn off deliberately, and his electronic cable has been deliberately cut right inside the battery compartment! Why?!?


If it wasn't for this example having a rub sign, I might privately entertain the notion that the Takara 'packaging designer' cut the cable to better pose his arm in this pose we all know from.. the box art  . Ah well, who knows?




There are still lots of small bits and bobs left, and I'll need some help IDing a lot of the accessories. If you guys think this is interesting, let me know!

Cheers

 

Nice

 

Well, that is a crazy first post! I'm no authority and am not terribly sure what to make of all of that...other than it is an interesting lot with some nice examples of early G1 toys. It would be nice to round up boxes and paperwork for the sealed Wheeljack and Skywarp.

Are there any mold stampings on the Constructicons? Here's a Diaclone Devastator page by Fred's Workshop...has some insights that might be useful here. In particular, the colors of the Constructicons, Hook's clear windows and the blue chest piece seem to jive with the original Diaclone release of these toys. You might have something really special here...hopefully an expert can offer more precise/accurate information.

FredsWorkshop.com

 

Diaclone Adventure World?

 

Those are all counterfeit. Send them to me for disposal.  

 

Interesting finds, for sure. Curious as to whether @Maz has any thoughts.

 

Nice post! Keep them coming!

 

This reminds me of Q taking Picard back to the moment life began on Earth...

 

Wasn't this from a lot on Yahoo Japan
ダイアクロン ミクロマン ジャンク多数 タカラ - ヤフオク!

 

Neat.

 

Wow. Minty jets...

-

 

Great stuff, thanks for sharing. I saw this auction with a few hours remaining and noticed some pre production items in there. Foolishly my attention went elsewhere and I forgot to bid.

The purpose of the styrene strips on the Diaclone Construction Robo pieces is fairly self-explanitory. To ensure a better fit of the joining parts - largely present in, but not limited to, first shots (the visible milling pattern from the unrefined steel mould would back this up). Do They have copyrights?

The actual use of said pieces varies greatly, but if this came from a packaging designer they would likely have been used for photography (on the box, or for internal use). The hand-painted details and monochrome sticker are clearly pre-production traits but then there seems to be a production sticker on the left abdomen. Seems to have a bit of everything going on there.

The scratch-built launcher belongs to the Diaclone "Scavenger".

The fresh Seekers seem to be late in the EP (engineering pilot) chain, and speaking in terms of archaeology; it's important to keep that Starscream tail wing in the baggie (and anything else it came with) together. In my experience accessory groupings of this nature don't always make sense immediately but will absolutely have been purposeful at the time.

The sealed pieces are also part of the pre-production stage. While they may be final production, they won't have been circulated. I have a Snarl like this, with the flaps cut off. This appears to have been regular practise when taking photographs of the mock-up and final production box alike to ensure a crisp visual.

Lastly you might be onto something with the Shockwave, though the art was done by an American illustrator.

Due to the very nature of these engineering marvels, the pre-production structure of G1 seemed to be far less rigid than with other toy lines. If it didn't work, try something else. Glue something here, paint this etc. Everything was done for a purpose and nothing by happenstance. The thing I find most fascinating about this area of the hobby is trying to find out exactly what that purpose was.

Congrats on the haul, and thanks again for the pics.

Ras

 

Thanks for the responses guys.

Thanks for the link to Fred's Workshop, the colours and accessories make more sense now.

@wildfly It does look a bit like Diaclone Adventure World, haha.

I've managed to have a root around and have found what appear to be more of the Devastator-like parts from the bundle of loose accessories.






There are no copyrights on either of these two.





And here, like a beautiful bust of the big green guy that was to come - the head!






Next up, two parts of Reflector. The Viewfinder guy (his actual name?) hasn't had his sticker cut and can't be fully transformed as a result.

Notice the weird goldish plastic on one part of the other guy's leg.. more on that in a bit.








I'm not familiar with Reflector, so is this normal? What seems to be gold plastic syndrome effecting only the goldish parts of his shoulder blades and knees. Are his shoulder parts even meant to be plastic? His parts seem to be a kind of rough looking brittle plastic.

When I received him his knee joint on the goldish half of his leg had shattered, as had the goldish piece of plastic on his left shoulder.






A Hasbro stamped Silverbolt, nice and white. Although, like the other seemingly normal G1s in this lot, he is a pain to transform. Overly tight, requiring far more than finger or hand strength. I went easy on him so he isn't fully transformed here.





Another trait I've noticed is what looks like poorer QC. Or were sprues and chrome imperfection normal in G1?





Lastly, pleased to see two perfect examples of this guy.




One seems to have had super glue (krazy glue / cyano) on his feet in the past.




Across many random accessories, and pieces of plastic on these figures, there seems to be a rough kind of texture, like minor pock marking. I can't see any of this on my other loose G1s, I'm not sure if it means these were uncirculated factory seconds for test / photography / package fit purposes. I'll try get some good macro pics to demonstrate what I mean.

Thanks for the great read @Ras !

 

This is really sick. That Shockwave made me wince though. Press F to pay respects.

 

Yeah I was out at about 50,000 yen. It was hard to make anything out in the pics.

 

I remember that lot! though it was odd to see a black Devastator chest piece...

 

Here are some of the loose accessories and other things that were included.

Looks like there is a black Astrotrain rifle and a chrome Dinobot sword. What are those fat looking Prime guns?




Here are some more combiner parts and some Gun Robo ammo.
Looks like the prototype Hook has his gun!
What are those sprued red weapons? They remind me of the mini-cassette weapons and the peg is the same size.




This might be another prototype, probably non TF. Any idea what it is?







Time for something more familiar, including Shockwave's sawn off gun emitter. Sideswipe's launcher fires very powerfully.





Who are these guys? Some nicely articulated robots.




And lastly, I love the magnet feet on these guys!




Thanks for looking, guys.

 

Based upon what I see - there is a lot of Diaclone / Micro Change items in your pictures. I do not have enough parts to the Construction Robo team to know the original condition. But looks like you have more than 1 set's accessories. I have also not seen the Devastator Head w/o painted or detailed eyes before so makes me wonder if some is truly pre-production vs. age? The dudes at the end are icons of the Micro Change line.

 

The big black gun with the scope and big hole in the middle is Blasters.
The black gun above it next to the Dinobot sword is Swindle's.
The big silver one in bottom corner is Megatrons.

 

There's a Zeon logo on this part so it's Gundam-related.