Hallmark Keepsake Grimlock Christmas Ornament

[Zobovor]

Picked this up at the local Hallmark shop in town tonight:

http://www.hallmark.com/ornaments/keepsake-ornaments/transformers-grimlock-ornament-1595QXI3141.html

This is the third in the series, with Megatron being released in 2015 (you can get him for pennies on the dollar right now on eBay) and Optimus Prime released in 2014 (and is now insanely expensive on the secondary market).

The ornament is a faithful reproduction of the original G1 toy, only at a smaller scale. He's about three inches tall at the head and about four and a half inches from nose to tail. So, bigger than the unofficial WST toy but a little smaller than Pretender Grimlock. He has zero points of articulation; despite the seeming presence of screws holding his legs in place, they are falsies and do not operate. Small children expecting to be able to move his dinosaur arms could probably snap them off rather easily.

He's painted in a glossy grey color, which makes him look a little more like the Heroes of Cybertron version since the G1 toy was rendered in glittery plastic. Authentic touches include semi-translucent smoke-colored pieces for his Diaclone seat, dinosaur neck, and robot chest shield (all glued in place, from the looks of it). Parts that were originally vaccum metalized are realized on the ornament as metallic silver and metallic gold paint. (They picture him as vaccum metalized on the Hallmark web site, but this is not what the ornament looks like.)

Also, all his factory-applied and consumer-applied stickers of the G1 toy have been faithfully reproduced as metallic foil stickers that have been preapplied. He has three Autobot symbols——one on the top of his dinosaur head, one on his robot chest, and one on his dinosaur tail (representing the place where the rub symbol was on the 1985 edition). Each one is square with a white border. When I first saw the ornament on display, I had thought they were badly-applied tampographs. The fact that they're actually stickers means you can try to peel them off and reapply them if they haven't been applied very precisely. He even has stickers for his robot knees, despite the fact that they're tucked away at the bottom of his dinosaur tail.

There is a metal loop embedded into the toy's back so you can attach an ornament hook (sold separately) and hang him from the Christmas tree or alternate venue of your choice.

I paid $15.95 plus sales tax, which is a lot for a tiny Grimlock that doesn't do anything. Still, in a few more years I anticipate this being a fun and interesting series of characters, and I'm dedicated to collecting all of them, so this is the asking price. It's possible Grimlock will be available for only a few dollars next year, or maybe his value will skyrocket ridiculously like Optimus Prime did. It's hard to say for sure.


Zob (not sure if I actually want to hang these anywhere or not... our tree is adorned only with glittery bulbs and it's really classy, and I don't want to ghetto it up with plastic robots)

[David Connell]

On Thursday, November 17, 2016 at 8:47:55 PM UTC-5, Zobovor wrote:
> Zob (not sure if I actually want to hang these anywhere or not... our tree is adorned only with glittery bulbs and it's really classy, and I don't want to ghetto it up with plastic robots)

You don't get any classier than a robot T-Rex! Personally, I avoid the glass ball ornaments because I find them dull.

My tree gets adorned with cats (both plastic and real - can't keep the little buggers out!), Opus, Snoopy, superheroes, Godzillas, spaceships, squirrels, Santas, and yes, plastic robots.