Okay... so I am trying to get all of the modern versions of the first six minibots. Now that we're finally getting a Brawn (always been my favorite), it is within reach for me. One figure I missed at retail was Gears. Looked hard, never even saw him in stores. I just found one online, but this little guy isn't even available on Amazon. He's going for $35 to $50 dollars shipped as well. My question is, why is he such a difficult and expensive find? He's not horrible, but is pretty craptacular to be so rare and expensive. What's up with that?
BTW- got the new Bumblebee, and with some help from a Sharpie, converted my previous bee (the Generations Legends one from a few years ago) into Hubcap. Just seemed natural, since that's the mold my Cliffjumper is going to have.

 

IIRC, he came out in one wave, his repaint came out first and he came out around the time of AOE.

 

I've actually been searching since his release. Just knew I'd find him in stores, so I didn't want to shell out for shipping when he was $9 on BBTS. In hindsight, that was really dumb.

 

Ah.. Yeah, I never, ever try to bank on that. If I want it bad enough, I'll pay extra for retail items. Cost of being in this hobby, unfortunately.

 

Yeeeaah wasn't that wave kind of screwy with distribution too? I know Acid Storm wasn't too hard to find after the fact(honestly thought HTS wouldn't be able to give him away).

Honestly screw scalpers and just get the set if you can: Generations Legends 2014 Series 03 - Set of 2 (Acid Storm & Gears) Tri-Logo - Transformers 2010 - 2017 Transformers Generations - Legends

 

There is an open one at a local toy shop. Been there for awhile too.

 

I was looking too. I just went with the igear one for about 20-25 shipped. Figured may as well for about the same price.

 

I'm trying to do the exact same thing as you man. I have Bumblebee and Cliffjumper. After doing research, they all seemed well priced EXCEPT for Gears.

 

Yeah I'm pretty sure Gears was not stocked well in stores, kind of similar to Generations Arcee and Sky Lynx.

I picked one up in store, but I was on my hunting A-game to make it happen.

 

If you don't mind getting Acid Storm too (decent figure), BBTS have him here.

 

If you give it a bit there's a chance Brawn'll get repainted as both Gears and Outback.

 

I can see Brawn getting redecoed as Outback - we haven't gotten an update of the Aussie Minibot in forever. But Gears ... I'm less certain of.

Initially, the response to Generations Gears was that he looked more like Brawn than Gears, which I could see; they didn't do a great job, IMHO, of decoing his head antennae and facial lines enough to make him stand out from Brawn. But I can separate the two well enough now that they're side by side.

Were it my choice, I'd spring for Generations Gears. He stands out enough as a sort-of-Targetmaster that, with getting Eclipse, Acid Storm, and Venin in the same order (assuming you go with BBTS) that the price is justifiable. (Plus, I just splurged a bit on some Reprolabels to see if I can upgrade the Gears I have, so we'll see how it turns out.)

*EDIT* As it turns out, with some basic red Testors paint, a teeny tiny brush, and some patience, you can paint Generations Gears' head and make him look very close to his G1 cartoon appearance. The trickiest part is the lines on his face, but don't give up hope!  

 

If alt mode accuracy isn't an issue you can get Maketoys Cogwheel as your Gears. I stole his cartoon face to give to Generations Legends Gears, who gave his face to Universe 2.0 Brawn.

 

  Very well done. *applauds* Now I wish I'd thought of that (the paint job on my Gen Gears isn't terrible, but that replacement really works well).