I was informed on another thread that my fear of buying any toys with gold in it was misplaced because the gold plastic syndrome has been cured in modern times. But I have to wonder after what year was this problem solved.
I remember reading Armada Optimus Prime had this problem with its gold joints, so I know it must have been sometime after that.

If anyone can tell me after what year it was safe to start investing in toys with gold in them, I'd appreciate it. Thank you.

 

Well Superion Micromaster has it and that was around the 25th anni. Some people say that Protoform Starscream from the movie line "2007" has issues. Gold plastic doesn't rear its ugly head until years after its made unfortunately unless its the Star Wars Mill Falcon Chewbacca. I guess figures to keep an eye on are Leader Starscream (ROTF).

 

it hard to pinpoint and it may not fully be cured as to my knowledge the most recent figure to have it is the Star wars crossover Han Solo/Chewbacca Millennium Falcon.

so i am not sure if there is a set in stone year.

 

Ack. As recent as 2007 there have been problems? Okay... so some time after that point.

 

Micromaster Superion was actually produced during Cybertron as a scarce KB Toys exclusive, so they likely just didn't bother replacing the gold on the set when they re-released it a few years ago.

 

Yeah, I had a Protoform Starscream crumble not long after I bought it. But the problem seems to be really rare with him, so I assume they fixed the issue early in his production run.

As far as I know, there's been no reports of problems with ROTF Blazemaster or leader Starscream, so it looks like Hasbro was right when they said they fixed it.

 

People have been reporting it in the gold plastic on HFTD Starscream, but it may have to do with the fact those parts are always on constant tension. Unconfirmed for Screamer, but Blazemaster has had no reported incidents. I'd still watch out for him, though.

 

this is one of those things that people have been saying for the last 15 years or so, yet we keep seeing more and more of it.

I would say that it's not fixed - it's merely a case of the later gold plastic stuff not having aged enough to become brittle yet. I'm sure that in 10-15 years we'll have loads of crumbling HFTD Starscreams out there too.

 

The gold parts on my 2007 Legends Scorponok are incredibly brittle now, I'm not going to touch him now.  

 

Wut? Huh?

Micromaster Superion was released as a KB Toys exclusive in Universe 1.0 packaging in 2006. The figures were later also available at pharmacies, but I think they came from the same production run.

The Cybertron packaging was a European thing, as we didn't have Universe 1.0. We got the Protectobots and the Constructicons under Energon, and the Railbots and the Aerialbots under Cybertron.

Keep in mind the typical incubation time for GPS is several years.

 

So great... we really do have to worry about Leader Class Starscream then? It's most likely going to happen? Just great...

 

yep I have first hand experience on the gold joints of armada optimus ,
had two, both of them broke an elbow , the right on one and the left on the other
got me thinking that if I glued them together I would have rack n ruin 

I have also had a problem when the left hand side of the waist transformation joint on HFTD leader starscream (its cracked)

 

There was some info from Hasbro about this several years ago. Someone asked about this a few months ago and I found the info.

Here's what was posted:

There wasn't a definite date given in the response, or a definite figure which marked the end of the issue (I suppose the problem could pop back up) but since this was a 2009 QA, I think it's safe to say that it was resolved by 2009, if not earlier.

 

As soon as people see gold colored plastic on a TF they immediately start worrying about GPS.

In most cases the gold colored plastic isn't the GPS type of plastic. (In some cases it's even plastic that's been painted gold.)

I'm absolutely not worried about Leader Starscream. That's not GPS plastic. The same holds true for Armada Optimus. I had FB version snap at the exact same place in the elbow. Has nothing to do with GPS, but simply lots of stress when moving a joint that's too tight.

Also, every plastic will crumble with age. Parts of my G1 Onslaught turned to dust, my G1 Brawl had plastic parts pop out, and several other older figures have either crumbled or shattered, and in most cases it wasn't GPS but simply age.

 

time will tell - Hasbro have said similar things in the past unfortunatly :-(

Who knows, maybe the reason why they delayed the Linkin Park Soundwave was due to testing various plastics with GPS in mind and why it ended up looking so very, very fugly.

 

The most recent GPS victim in my possession is Movie 1 Legends Scorponok, where the stinger piece snapped off a few months ago, and while that was being reattached with glue, most of the various prongs in turn snapped clean off.

 

Is it true that the gps problem on legends scorponok is more an issue of the "rubber" plastic drying out and becoming brittle. Not an issue of gps per say, but rubber.

 

That's not GPS, that's an inferior plasticizer that dries out after just a year or two.

 

How do you know though? Leader Class Starscream seems to have the Swirls and Flakes in it. Isn't that the definition of GPS plastic? Also some people are reporting him cracking and breaking... so then what?

 

You are correct. While there are a shit-ton of different plastics used in Transformers toys over the year, the general rule of thumb is that if it has swirly gold flecked plastic, it's *susceptible* to GPS.

Max Rawhide is partially correct in that all plastics "age" and their physical properties change, usually in the form of degradation. There are many factors that contribute to this, the most common would be oxygen in the air, light (certain kinds of light progressively degrade the plastic. Sunlight and flourescent being the worst of the most common varieties.)