What Figures have Gold Plastic Syndrome?

Discussion in 'Transformers Toy Discussion' started by Death Dancaa, Sep 1, 2020.

  1. AutobotAvalanche

    AutobotAvalanche Number One in Boogieland

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    To quote myself from the last thread on this topic,

    "The problem has never been the color of the plastic but the swirl and flaking Hasbro added to the metallic colors to make them look more... metallic. Something about that makes the plastic brittle and crumbly after time. Unfortunately the name GPS makes people think the color alone is the cause. CW Slingshot doesn't have that flake and swirl so he's completely fine."

    It's a damn shame TFWiki continues to perpetuate the name GPS because at this point it's misinforming fans more often than it's recording the historically used name for this phenomena. Just dyeing your plastic gold doesn't suddenly make it explode. It's specifically the swirl and flake Hasbro uses for certain "metallic"-colored characters, only sometimes. I've never heard of a case of Blazemaster breaking.
     
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  2. Strife

    Strife Well-Known Member

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    This is probably an extremely obscure case, but I'll share it anyway. If 18 or 19 years ago you bought the KO set of Car Robots Baldigus / RID Ruination... namely this one:
    [​IMG]

    beware. Armorhide (the tank) is a GPS nightmare. The Scramble City head/peg and torso/legs suffer from GPS. Again, I can only speak for this specific KO that was on Ebay for years. I cannot speak for the official Baldigus release from Takara.
    [​IMG]


    Not sure about the weapon, or the actual "gold" parts of Mega-Octane. But this guy came apart with no force whatsoever (namely, the head snapped off).

    I mention this because the coloration of the official Ruination in the US was different, and at $30, these Scramble City sets (there were a few more) were an amazing steal and a lot of folks bought them. Well... they age too. Handle with care.
     
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  3. CheggyChonkers

    CheggyChonkers Heroic Master of Buying Toys

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    Oh okay, that makes me feel a lot better. Blazemaster is unironically one of my favorite Movie toys.

    Isn't this the same set Thew reviewed in a Knockoff Beatdown? :lol 
     
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  4. imfallenangel

    imfallenangel Well-Known Member

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    The list on the wiki is debatable and lots are missing...

    The Trident for Terradive is an accessory that has it. (mine had the folding joins crumble on me... twice as I had bought a spare and it did the same).

    Non-gold coloured; the movie scalpel is known to have ALL the ball joint connectors crumbling... I bought one still in package (100% new) just last year, and all of the legs crumbled as I was taking it out for the first transformation (didn't even make it through one, all the legs were broken).

    I've had toys that were fine, that were set aside for a bit, and the moment I played with them when they were always solid before, they snap apart... so I no longer consider ANY plastic toy to be above some sort of degradation...

    Heck, it's not just plastic either: I have a couple (non-transformers) that the metal parts oxidized or degraded and broke/crumbled, leaving a bit of white dust that indicated this such of degradation did occur.

    So to me, "GPS" is just the standard name for "abnormal degradation".... and sadly, it happens a lot.
     
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  5. Strife

    Strife Well-Known Member

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    Hahaha yeah:


    But that one, Superion, Devastator, Abominus, Defensor (with a red Hot Spot), Menasor, and Lio Kaiser were all released in this $25-$30 boxes sets that were pretty awesome at the time. They had varying quality. Devastator was pretty cheap (no Diecast), but Superion, Abominous and Defensor were pretty much identical to G1 with some sticker differences. More importantly it ecnomically got people their Combiners a few years before G1 reissues became a thing. And it got a lot of Transfans at the time, their show-accurate Ruination.

    Devastator was interesting too because folks would get the KO box (which was easy to get on Ebay) and not feel bad with the upgrade kits that were all the rage at the time to give him more size and posability to work with the Supercon Optimus Prime we pretended was G1 Optimus, and the Energon Wheeljack we pretended was Wheeljack.

    Modern G1 fans have no idea how good we got it compared to the early 2000s.
     
  6. Mecheon

    Mecheon Grumpy Dinosaur Nerd

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    Different sorts of degradation though. As the person who was pretty much the first to report the Movie Scorponok Legends issue, it has a different feel

    Snap some shots of the damage to Terradive's trident if you have any because he's basically like how I have Bigmos these days in the 'do not touch' side of things. Likewise on the Armada Optimus, because if its just a case where the GPS has started to hit, may not have been widespread yet
     
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  7. iacon45

    iacon45 Missing: One Custom Title

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    I have a MISB Armada Superbase Prime I have been wanting to sell but the reports of GPS keep me from doing so. I would hate to sell it to someone only for them to open it and it breaks immediately like you suggest. :( 

    Not necessarily "gold" plastic syndrome but I have had figures that had clear plastic that just crumbled similar to the GPS issues. My Energon Demolishor's (dump truck) arms snapped off at the elbows just barely moving them while cleaning. Both joints were made of clear green plastic.
     
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  8. Strife

    Strife Well-Known Member

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    I think the thing to remember is that compared to your average marvel legends, interacting with a transformers toy at almost any level is comparatively extremely traumatic to it. The entire point of it is to transform, and that mean putting our naturally oily monkey paws all over this precisely molded and carefully painted piece of plastic. And then it involves utilizing nearly every articulated part of it to contort and transform it. And sure, it's made for that, but so are Marvel Legends made for posability, and you'll never maximially extended every single joint the way you essentially have to every Transformer, every time you want to transform it.

    Even taken care of and barely transformed, all Transformers will become far more fragile to interact with over time. It's something of a cruel irony that Transformers are the toys that perhaps would benefit most from silver and chrome paint jobs, and yet, as all Transfans know, you transform such Transformers at your peril.

    The apothesis of this is Mp-36 Megatron. He's gorgeous. He's immaculately painted. He's also fragile and scuffs easily and I've never transformed him. I have a KO one that I don't mind messing up to Transform him. But the genuine article? He's a glorified action figure that has the potential of transformation, but doing so would be destructive. Same with MP-44 Optimus Prime. $350 (Amazon.co.jp), and I'll probably Transform him once a year, tops. One may ask, what's the point of a Transformer you can't transform? And that's an excellent question. But really that's the least of the irrationality of this hobby.

    Moral of the story: everyone should assume every thing we buy is designed for short-to-medium term interaction. Beyond that, it's a gamble. It's kind of ironic that many of the year one G1 Transformers (1984) are built with such hardy part shapes, paint jobs and materials, that they'll outlast most of the CHUG and MP stuff we buy today.
     
  9. SPLIT LIP

    SPLIT LIP Be strong enough to be gentle

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    The reason the flakes weaken the plastic is because they don’t bond with it, and make the plastic more or less Swiss cheese.

    The reason it’s much more common on gold is because gold is a particular colour that plastic can never really match, so it relies more on the addition of metallic flakes to make it shiny than metallic blue and red. More flakes means more weak points in the plastic, especially around the swirls where the flakes are most dense.

    What bothers me more is when GPS is ascribed to something that’s got nothing to do with metallic plastics, like Energon Scorponok or Transmetal Megatron, the latter being particularly troublesome because the toy has metallic bronze plastic. However the bronze is fine, it’s the brown plastic that’s brittle, and for no other reason than the plastic is just weak and degraded faster than others. But it gets attributed to GOS despite having nothing to do with it.
     
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  10. Death Dancaa

    Death Dancaa Rocknrollicon

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    That’s a concerning thought. But I couldn’t tell you. My brother had Blazemaster but it’s been sitting in the attic for some time. No idea what state it’s in now.
     
  11. ApocalypseThruster

    ApocalypseThruster Local “Why aren’t they here?!” Poster

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    I only have the Armorhide and Rollbar versions of the KOs. Can tell because my Armorhide has a red mouthplate instead of a red visor, and it has the purple & mismatched logos. Moved the pieces around, nothing came off, plastic was sturdy. Rollbar on the other hand, had his windshield snap off when I was trying to convert him to vehicle mode. Glad that I found out these were KOs and not the real thing. Does your Armorhide have the code "081709-1920-090905" on the left side?

    Have an incomplete Blazemaster. Played around with one of the arms I had in my parts bin for a bit, nothing seemed to break off. I tried squishing the plastic with my fingers and bending it a bit, no sudden breakage, plastic stayed intact. The plastic isn't swirly, so that may be the reason why.
     
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  12. R3M1NGT0N

    R3M1NGT0N Well-Known Member

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    No clue. But my brother got one new in box a few months ago and after 2 transformations the knee was already cracked.
     
  13. 1210Megawatts

    1210Megawatts Time Traveller Extraordinaire

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    Does anyone know if the Cybertron Deluxe Beast Planet Megatron has the potential for GPS-like degradation?
    I only ask because a majority of his joints are shiny gold plastics, which makes me worry that I'll have to replace him with his 10th anniversary Beast Wars counterpart.
     
  14. ApocalypseThruster

    ApocalypseThruster Local “Why aren’t they here?!” Poster

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    No idea. Repugnus from the same line has GPS, so it’s not out of the question, honestly. Whoever has a junker/incomplete version of the figure, mind testing this?
     
  15. DecepticusPrime

    DecepticusPrime "Essential" Personnel

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    Did Cybertron Dark Scorponok suffer from GPS? i am aware of the shitty shoulders, im looking to do the seibertron fix for my 2 scorpys soon but if DS is a GPS victim i may not bother with him
     
  16. ApocalypseThruster

    ApocalypseThruster Local “Why aren’t they here?!” Poster

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    There’s nothing reported on the web about him. Looked at pictures online, and I don’t think he has swirly plastic (granted, I’m on mobile right now, so I can’t exactly look in HQ). Not all gold plastic suffers, even on the same line (I.e. Archadis and Randy, one of whom is still holding up, the other who is… yeah.), so I doubt Repugnus is concrete proof that Scorps will break. If anyone wants to show me proof otherwise, then feel free to reply.
     
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  17. Death Dancaa

    Death Dancaa Rocknrollicon

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    I don’t own one personally so I can’t confirm 100% but I’ve heard that Dark Scorponok is ironically the most durable iteration of the mold despite having the most good parts.
     
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  18. Mecheon

    Mecheon Grumpy Dinosaur Nerd

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    Don't also forget that despite Bigmos being a GPS sufferer, its not his gold plastic that's doomed. Its his teal plastic. Sometimes you can tell if its gonna be an issue (Seriously, we called out Protoform Starscream yonks before he started falling apart), but other times it'll just, happen. Like Motormaster

    I'm not aware of Beast Megs or Dark Scorponok having any reports, but given stuff after them has popped since, along with stuff from the same time (Repugnus, Protoform Starscream), it seems like they may both be fine. (well except for the Scorponok mold issues which are, normal for that)
     
  19. Genodectes

    Genodectes Well-Known Member

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    Had one in a sealed box for years, his arm sheared off within seconds of opening, his other arm has cracked apart too. He’s far from durable …..
     
  20. ApocalypseThruster

    ApocalypseThruster Local “Why aren’t they here?!” Poster

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    upload_2022-3-23_23-30-41.png
    If it was in these spots, that's not GPS; that's just the part being shoddily engineered. It's been a thing for every Energon Scorponok usage (don't know about the BotCon usages, though apparently Double Punch has his shoulder misassembled), and that, along with the pieces being gold-colored on the Energon release (the one most people got), caused people to flag it as GPS for years before it turned out it was just a design flaw. Same thing with Armada Optimus (not Bendy Prime, the Super Base one.)
     
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