Alyosha's beginning to cast the Japanese Headmaster warriors
Blaster Master
Oh....holy....crap!
To do this, you've got to drill out the rivets, and totally destroy the
figures...
Zobovor
> Oh....holy....crap!
>
> To do this, you've got to drill out the rivets, and totally destroy the
> figures...
Yeah, but with the money they make from selling the bootleg versions,
they'll make enough money to buy genuine replacements in no time.
I'm of two minds about this. I recognize that this is the only chance
that some people will ever have to own these toys, but isn't part of
the appeal the fact that the original pieces are so rare?
I mean, just for example, people used to go crazy over Targetmaster
Stepper. He was, like, the rarest and most coveted Japanese toy
ever. People would pay upwards of $1000 for him. That's a one with
three zeroes at the end. Then he got reissued, and now he's just
about worthless. Targetmaster Ricochet gets lumped together with the
other worthless Toys "R" Us reissues like Skids and Hoist and
Inferno. You can get one for, like, six bucks right now.
Once a rare and valuable piece ends up getting mass produced, doesn't
it sort of cease to be rare and valuable?
Zob
Onslaught Six
> Once a rare and valuable piece ends up getting mass produced, doesn't
> it sort of cease to be rare and valuable?
Value is vague and indeterminate. I bought the Ricochet reissue
because I always thought Stepper looked awesome, and also I have a
thing for obscure characters. Roadbuster and Whirl were (probably)
produced in no lesser numbers than any of the other 1985 Autobots, but
weren't show characters and only showed up in a handful of comics
stories. They're obscure characters, and that's part of why I love
them. If I wanted a Roadbuster, he probably wouldn't cost me any more
than a Hoist would have cost me, pre-reissue.
Likewise, I'm not too interested in these Headmaster guys because
they're 'too' obscure. I don't even know their names. Or what I'd do
with them, since I own no Headmasters.
Gustavo Wombat
Headmasters missing heads are pretty cheap on eBay, so you could
easily get some bodies for your Headmasters. And some of the
Headmasters are pretty nice.
Gustavo!
ahsan.sa...@gmail.com
> http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/radicons-customs/276725-casting-rare-jp...
>
> Oh....holy....crap!
>
> To do this, you've got to drill out the rivets, and totally destroy the
> figures...
Wait, what?
Someone care to translate what all the hubbub is all about?
SteveD
>Once a rare and valuable piece ends up getting mass produced, doesn't
>it sort of cease to be rare and valuable?
If something can be trivially physically reproduced, there's no reason it
won't be. The originals are, of course, still just as rare (and now even
rarer, if an original had to be destroyed to make the copies). However,
the existence of bootlegs shouldn't come as a surprise.
Among "true collectors" - those who only buy official originals - the item
is still rare and valuable. It's only among those who would be perfectly
satisfied with a replica that things of the appropriate shape are finally
no longer rare - which is presumably just the way they like it.
I'm actually on the side of the replicators, if the original company is no
longer producing or making money off the products and has no plans to do
so in the future.
Of course, my idea of a fun time is building a machine able to turn out
ten-kilo blocks of solid diamond, setting up a facility to automatically
machine the blocks into piles of faceted gems, and tossing handfuls of the
resulting carbon glitter into crowds outside newspaper offices.
-SteveD
SteveD
Someone's setting up to produce unofficial replicas of twenty-year-old
Transformers toys which were previously very difficult to find. Partly
because they were only released in the Japanese market, and partly (from
what I can tell) because they were somewhat low-volume even there.
<http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Headmaster_Warrior>
This has, of course, set off the predictable complaints about (a)
unofficial replicas / bootlegs, and (b) "devaluing" toys which were
previously expensive purely because of their rarity.
The problem with the last argument is that Transformers, particularly
these days, are semi-trivial to replicate en masse (at least physically)
for only a couple of times the original shelf price. If something becomes
so rare and wanted that people are prepared to pay hundreds of dollars for
it, it tends to end up either officially reissued or bootlegged to hell
and back - the last particularly if the original mold has been lost.
To be blunt, if you're collecting things for their long-term investment
value, there are probably better choices than cheap mass-production
plastic toys favored by the kinds of people who know how to connect a
volumetric laser scanner to a 3D printer.
I've got some less common items in my own collection, but I don't hold any
illusions that they're inherently worth anything more than the plastic or
paper they're composed of. And to be honest, I'm much more into the
engineering and aesthetics than rarity value. If someone handed me a
boxful of rare Japanese Transformers gratis, I'd most likely only keep a
handful of the more intriguing ones, and distribute the others to some
more... _completist_ local collectors.
(Hmm... might keep the cassetticons. Or not.)
-SteveD
Zobovor
> This has, of course, set off the predictable complaints about (a)
> unofficial replicas / bootlegs, and (b) "devaluing" toys which were
> previously expensive purely because of their rarity.
Did it sound to you like I was complaining? I don't own any of the
Headmaster Warriors and I have no intention of ever owning them,
genuine editions or otherwise. This doesn't affect me, personally,
one way or the other. I was speaking purely from a hypothetical
standpoint.
What I was driving at was that there isn't anything intrinsically
appealing about these toys. They're just simple transforming heads.
They're not even complete toys on their own, because you need a
Headmaster body to connect them to. The point I was trying to
illustrate was that I think the *only* reason these toys are notable
is because of their rarity and value, not because they're particularly
clever toy designs, and not because they represent beloved, memorable
characters that are near and dear to the hearts of fans everywhere.
To go back to my earlier Stepper example, it's not as if you're
experiencing anything fantastic and new in owning the toy. He's just
Jazz with Targetmaster Cyclonus' gun. Big deal. He didn't even
appear in the Headmasters cartoon. It wasn't because people loved the
character's media depiction, and it wasn't because people were blown
away by the novelty of the toy's design and the sheer ingenuity of his
transformation. Stepper was—past tense—significant because he was so
hard to find. Now, nobody talks about him at all.
Anyway, I apologize for being predictable.
Zob
Onslaught Six
> To go back to my earlier Stepper example, it's not as if you're
> experiencing anything fantastic and new in owning the toy. He's just
> Jazz with Targetmaster Cyclonus' gun. Big deal. He didn't even
> appear in the Headmasters cartoon. It wasn't because people loved the
> character's media depiction, and it wasn't because people were blown
> away by the novelty of the toy's design and the sheer ingenuity of his
> transformation. Stepper was—past tense—significant because he was so
> hard to find. Now, nobody talks about him at all.
Again, I beg to differ. But that's because I actually gave Stepper a
character in my head. He's an Old West-style gunslinger. Robot cowboy!
With a machine gun. Yes.
robo_rob
for the sake of reproduction. On the other hand, more people will be
available to own them now. Even though it will be unlicensed, it will
be a chance. Even though making them easier to get will reduce the
peoples want to have them. So it's a gamble for the reproducer,
hopefully he doesn't charge to high of a price. That way more people
would be more eager to buy the toy (even though it will kill some of
the aftermarket value, if not all), at least they will be out there.
Though I'm wondering how exactly successful this endeavor will turn
out. Price, sales, quality, and after effect.
TigerMegatron
that have animal alt modes.
Zen the Obscure, aka Nez Pierce
> I'll be buying e'm. I've always wanted those rare Japanese headmasters
> that have animal alt modes.
I like that they are deliberately inverting the original color
scheme...should be easy to tell the repros apart from the originals
that way, eh?
Zen
ahsan.sa...@gmail.com
> On Nov 6, 5:14 am, SteveD <use...@vo.id.au> wrote:
>
> > This has, of course, set off the predictable complaints about (a)
> > unofficial replicas / bootlegs, and (b) "devaluing" toys which were
> > previously expensive purely because of their rarity.
>
> appealing about these toys. They're just simple transforming heads.
> They're not even complete toys on their own, because you need a
> Headmaster body to connect them to. The point I was trying to
> illustrate was that I think the *only* reason these toys are notable
> is because of their rarity and value, not because they're particularly
> clever toy designs, and not because they represent beloved, memorable
> characters that are near and dear to the hearts of fans everywhere.
Maybe somebody lost a head? I remember how peeved I was when I let one
of my friends borrow my Powermaster Prime (Mint in Box, I might add,
'cause I was sorta protective of my good toys), and he not only lost
Hi-Q, but broke the switchy thing that keeps the cab from transforming
without him.
Jerk. I really should've broken his Voltron lions, but I guess I'm too
much of a decent chappie to do something like that.
Gustavo Wombat
I think they are more appealing than Stepper, since they are molds
that weren't used elsewhere, and they are a bit different since they
turn into animals.
Animal headmasters make sense in the Japanese world, where Headmasters
are just small robots, but in the US it would be the fairly ridiculous
concept of a Transformer being binary bonded to a lion, which is
pretty awesome.
Gustavo!
Thunder Strikes Twice!
> I like that they are deliberately inverting the original color
> scheme...should be easy to tell the repros apart from the originals
> that way, eh?
That wouldn't bother me if I bought them. I just think the idea of them
is cool (the colors matching the originals or not is irrelevant).
t.k.
Travoltron
> http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/radicons-customs/276725-casting-rare-jp-headmasters-vol-1-leone.html
Thanks for the heads-up, I'll totally be getting these.
Since they won't be making these in the original colors, I'm requesting
they make mine in their anime colors. I hope they can do it!