I just grabbed an Astrotrain off e-bay to try to use to fix the one I had as a kid (or, merge to make one fully functional one). Upon opening it looked normal - but now that I'm comparing I'm noticing some things that are different.

Was there a remold/mold fix on the toy? The thing I'm trying to fix - i.e., a piece of metal on the train portion broken because the shuttle 'cockpit' pushed/stressed it during transformation - seems to not occur anymore, the paint on the head is different (silver only), and the wings have a half-circle 'indent' at the very front part.

I can get some pictures up if needed, but am a bit baffled since I can't find anything about a remold when searching/reading about the toy.

 

Hopefully someone more knowledgable about this than me will comment, but my first thought is that you may have a KO on your hands. But I really don't know, or know how to tell.

 

I do believe their was 2 versions

 

Hrm. The one I got is definitely old/worn (stickers/age). Given, someone may have aged it. The wings look like the one in the second (right) picture on TF Source.

The head is also painted all silver, but worn.

Unless it is a KO from the 80's, I think it's genuinely old...or aged.  

 

The flat vs. indent wing-ends seem to be a known variant for Astrotrain:

Variations: Everything Else Decepticon

 

Perfect, thanks! I'm in the pricess of taking both apart to make one, whole one and I've realized why the one I had as a kid broke - I completely missed the fact that the shuttle cockpit slid up and down to NOT break the train chassis part.  

Thanks everyone for the help - And Jalaguy, thanks for that link. Definitely a site I hadn't uncovered that I will use moving forward.  

 

The one on the right is not a production "version" unfortunately, it's the original hand-painted resin hardcopy prototype and the extending arms etc were not carried over to any production version of G1 Astrotrain  :

All the best
Maz

 

There are definitely variations of G1 Astrotrain. There are some that have curved wings and some that have snubbed (or straight wings). It sounds to me like the Astrotrain that you got on eBay is the curved wing variant and that somebody probably painted his head silver - no releases ever had a silver painted head that I am aware of. Can you show any pics of what you have? Here is a good website/resource for the variations of Astrotrain:

Variations: Everything Else Decepticon

The grey Astrotrain in the photo above (in Skywarp181's post) is the painted prototype figure that was seen in the old Transformers catalogs that were packed in with the toy paperwork. It was never produced that way and that particular prototype is owned by Ras. Maz wrote a great article about it here:

E-Hobby Exclusive 48 "New Year's Special Proto Colour Version Astrotrain" (And The Continuing History of Astrotrain)

 

Man, you guys both beat me by minutes.

 

Thanks all! I've rebuild the figure using my original one and the one I got. All came together perfectly and he's sitting on my G1 shelf now. Or my childhood collection shelf.

Both seem to be the same shelf at the moment.  

 

I've always wanted to know, which variation mine is, that came with an Autobot Rub Sign?