That first mirage dio I made I sold for £49 or something like that. To think a sticker costs more than what I put together is confusing to me.

 

Hard to believe right, but yeah it's true  

 

I had a "decent" Kronos as well, as decent as that figure could be, anyway. I sold him a few years back, and I kind of regret it, if I'm being honest. Not because I think it's a good figure...like you said, it's a piece of 3P history. And the packaging is still pretty cool with the magnetic display flap.

 

i think its more to do with the act the dude spent money on the artwork, and had to get decent printing, i think he was in italy so more expensive that states for stuff like that.

Anyway, ill admit not having the box annoys me. But only when i look in my crawl space every few weeks, then it subsides  

 

Just bumping my own post because everybody is still talking about boxes and I’m still curious about how much packaging costs, if anybody knows anything about that.

 

Unless I missed something I'm starting to think the socalled Takara clifjumper is not an official, if it is why doesn't it Carrie an official number?, Jetfire is mp-57 for this clifjumper no official mp number affiliated with this definitely not the way takara do things. I'm thinking this is a fourth party product

 

Definitely Takara, per showz and Baba, but Takara haven't announced it. Hence no number as yet.

Pics are from stolen copies from the factory, hence the KOish feel at this point.

Expect a formal announcement, with number and proper solicitations, shortly

 

If these are stolen pics then this is not the final product, I'm not sure but I can't remember TT advertising something that's not an official announcement from them, third party is well known for that not Takara. with third party show-z baba they've used renders gray prototypes for pre-order don't believe I've ever seen that done for a Takara product. I'm just curious I could be wrong

 

Those sellers will use any pics to sell. They've even used fan digibash pics to sell MP52+'s...

The pics they're using are just the ones online right now. They've been around ages but no listings went up. Suddenly, they're listing it as coming, yet no solicitations have leaked yet.

But Baba has been seen replying to say that it's expected to happen soonish.

Right now, Takara aren't acknowledging the stolen item pics at all. Radio silence.

But once they solicit the figure, they'll announce him as MP58, 59, 60, whatever, and then the regular retailers will list it with TT images. Whether showz change theirs from the tabletop of "some guy", or not, who knows?

 

One month to go very excited, really hope there's no delays on this

 

Super looking forward to FT Cliffjumper. I have him on preorder at BBB. (Show Z preorder was sold out.) What are the chances FT will have a Bumblebee coming out soon based on this mold? I noticed FT has never done the most popular Transformers. (Optimus, Megatron, Bumblebee, Starscream.)

 

Coming out, highly likely. Soon would depend on your definition of soon. There’s always quite a bit of time between announcement and release, sometimes years. And there’s no announcement yet, even though they likely will do it.

they could always surprise drop something, that would be cool. But I don’t think that’s how they roll these days.

 

Here's how pricing works for everything in the world. If they include it, it costs a fortune and the high price reflects that. If they don't, it saves nothing and the still-high price reflects that too. The same rule applies to oil, labor, taxes, and every other cost that goes into production. Companies will blame whatever they think will get you off their backs.

I want a real box for Cliffjumper damn it.

 

Haha I forgot about this whole box thing, but thanks. I will continue to assume there’s a specific number attached to this estimate, which depends on the thickness of the box, quality of the cardboard and so on. Perhaps a small cost that they will say is much bigger.

 

it's my belief that FT doesn't want to stir the pot and create issues with Hasbro & Takara, I think that's the reason they haven't done any of 4 main character's they did release soundwave though but under a different umbrella witch is Robot paradise so it is possible. but I think those will probably be some of the last characters they'll do.

 

So video soon?

 

Last year we got a release in Feb but nothing in March (I think). Lupus reissue and the two Thomas repaints still to come somewhere between Parkour and Recorder?

edit: On a separate note, we got 9? new molds last year (2023). They have something like 16? new molds on the line right now. Hopefully that takes us through to September / October 2024.

 

I want to believe that the minibots are on a different release schedule than the rest of the bots at FT.

 

I know you said you forgot about this but I work in an adjacent industry and have a passable knowledge of some of the costs. So lets figure it out!

I'm making lots of assumptions here since I don't know exactly how or where they produce the box or exactly what printing method they use or exactly how many they order, all of which would greatly affect the cost.

Third party boxes usually appear to be E flute ctns (1/16" thick) with high quality litho mount graphics and I'm guessing quantities of under 2.5k (no price break at that qty, next tier would be 5k for a small break). That could easily be $5+ per ctn. ( knock off 10% if they hit 5k)

I've had some small vac-forms made for product cards (around 6x4x2) and the per pc cost at 2.5k was $0.32. Obviously most MP figures would require a much larger vac-form and possibly 2 if you do separate top/bottom. Thats probably in the $2-$3 range though I have no real experience at that size so I'm estimating.

Then there is stuff like wafer seals (the circle stickers that seal flap), these are fairly cheap, $.04-ish. Though XTB uses hoity toity printed wafer seals, I bet those are $.10 per. Each fig gets 2.
Plus most 3P comes in a plastic bag, bags aint free, sucka! $.10 per.

I can't speak to styro costs or the cost of stuff like the embossing that some companies use.
None of this includes Labor costs which could certainly be as much as the materials costs.
These are all US costs as those are all I am familiar with.

As a simple example, something like XTB Stack is probably around $15 in packaging materials & labor if it were packaged/produced in the US. I'm not even accounting for the multiple small bags that accessories require or the printing of instructions.

When the dude was selling expensive FT Trailbreaker stickers, the price seemed high at first but after thinking about it, they probably cost him a fortune because of low quantities. Set up costs don't change and can kill your per pc cost on small runs.

 

This is actually an excellent, informative read, and exceeded my expectations for an answer, but I knew SOMEBODY out there had an answer for me. Thank you so much for typing that out!