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Sunstar wrote:in light of htis, I just went and quickly bought that KO mini Seeker Starscream I was wanting. It was Marked Knock Off and no shipping and for 15 bucks. SO, that's pretty good. really sucks since well, its because some of the figures are cute.

Very good idea! I may follow your advise tonight!

I wanted to post that on my regular eBay searches that not as many of those damn KO Mirages are showing up. VERY PLEASED TO HEAR THAT HASBRO HAS DONE SOMETHING ABOUT THIS!

Transformers fans are defending KOs? What the hell guys?

I cannot believe some people are actually upset about this, the KO sales clog up ebay so badly, and most KOs are crap.

If this is handled correctly and I don't have to sift through hundreds of 5 dollar devastator "reissues" I will be thrilled.

If you think that a KO sixshot or a KO mirage is a valuable addition to your Transformer collection, and because of that you want the KO market to continue to prosper, I can only hope that your opinion is totally ignored by your fellow collectors and more importantly, ebay and hasbro.

KOs stain the secondary collectors market so badly it saps a lot of the joy out of gen 1 collecting. If any of you defending KOs can tell me that it wouldn't be nice to type G1 into an ebay search engine and not be bombarded with crappy superion and seaspray KOs then you must have your head partially up your own ass.

Some of us want REAL dinobots, I dont think I should have to swim through a flood of KOs to find the real thing.

Megatron_Wolf wrote:Screw you hasbro. Half the KOs out there are never going to reissued. There goes trying to get a mirage or sixshot now. I understand the figures that are still in production but removing the ones that either had their mold "lost" or just cant be reissued is retarded.

I have an idea for the sellers. List them as gobots.

"Screw you Hasbro"?

C'mon man. This is Hasbro's intellectual property. They have every right to have this stuff removed. They also have every right to never make another reproduction Transformer ever again as well.

This action was extremely welcomed. I think it's awesome that they've finally done this.

KO's are really bad, they devalue the TF market and make some buyers like myself very cautious of all auctions. Are you getting a vintage figure from the 80's ? or is it a KO cleverly disguised by misleading wording and or pictures ?

Yes, I do plenty of research on the figures I buy as I try to make them 100% complete...there are plenty of sites to do that on so you know if the figure is accurate or not.

When I first started collecting I thought I'd never have an authentic Devastator so I bought a KO set and a few of them broke in one transformation...a few years later an unscrupulous seller used a phony picture of a complete Abominus and tried to sell me a KO set of the figures but painted them to look more G1 in person...he painted them with a regular brush it was so freaking bad of a job you could clearly see the brush strokes all over...the figures still wreaked of fresh paint to it wa an absolute joke but I got all of my money back.

We just need to be more cautious of what we are buying somehow.

It IS about time something was done about this!!!


Granted, some of the KOs out there are neat looking, and some of the sellers are honest about the status of their products....but not all sellers are that way and pass off KOs as "reissues". It is these unscrupulous dealers that devalue the real TFs for the collectors and drive prices through the roof...or make it harder for people to buy, sell and trade the real deals in open market. Copyright laws and all the legalese that comes with it is there for a purpose, and auction sites and other sellers need to respect these laws when you do business.

I never have, nor will I ever, buy a KO...no matter how frikkin awesome some look...*coughs*WSTStarscream*coughs*

Sid Burn wrote: If any of you defending KOs can tell me that it wouldn't be nice to type G1 into an ebay search engine and not be bombarded with crappy superion and seaspray KOs then you must have your head partially up your own ass.

I get fed up of typing Starscream into ebay search engine and getting DJ Starscream or slipnot.

I think the Knockoff sellers should simply relist them as "reproductions". I know in the Antique Market reproductions crop of fairly often and you need to know your slag to figure out what is what.

I am simply in favour of the reproduction types that are of good quality. The WST figures for example are quite nice. I do like them a lot and I have 4 of those.

Would this affect Diclone? The worse KO I have is an oversided LOC which I have for giggles.

Sid Burn wrote:Transformers fans are defending KOs? What the hell guys?

I cannot believe some people are actually upset about this, the KO sales clog up ebay so badly, and most KOs are crap.

If this is handled correctly and I don't have to sift through hundreds of 5 dollar devastator "reissues" I will be thrilled.

If you think that a KO sixshot or a KO mirage is a valuable addition to your Transformer collection, and because of that you want the KO market to continue to prosper, I can only hope that your opinion is totally ignored by your fellow collectors and more importantly, ebay and hasbro.

KOs stain the secondary collectors market so badly it saps a lot of the joy out of gen 1 collecting. If any of you defending KOs can tell me that it wouldn't be nice to type G1 into an ebay search engine and not be bombarded with crappy superion and seaspray KOs then you must have your head partially up your own ass.

Some of us want REAL dinobots, I dont think I should have to swim through a flood of KOs to find the real thing.

Problem is this will NOT stop knockoffs from being sold on ebay. It will just stop people from properly labeling them as knockoffs in the titles. So this has made the problem WORSE.

I love the inovative knockoffs. The double sizes, the pint sized, the unconventional combiners, the colorful copies. Many of these toys Hasbro has no intention to ever make again anyways. I think Hasbro would have the brains to look at the market and see that a knockoff Dinobot or clear Mirage is selling for $80. Perhaps a hint that they would sell to collectors if reproduced officially and sold on HTS for $30?

If ebay would let knockoffs sell as long as they said "knockoff" in the title, then you could just put "-knockoff" in an ebay search. Sadly now this can't happen. Thanks Hasblow!

I so agree with you Scaleface. More clear labeling, that's what will help reserve the KO market only for those who want them.
The word Knockoff shouldn't be banned, it should be encouraged, or even required.

Guaranteed, the knockoffs themselves won't be going anywhere, they'll just be hiding behind different, more deceptive auction titles and discriptions.

Scaleface wrote:Okay, here's a guide, if the toy looks like this, it's probably a knockoff.

LOL

( kiking my self ) cant belive i wated to long to get mirage

First off, congrats to First Gen for another quick news scoop, you are getting better and better at being on top of this stuff.

This conversation really breaks down into 2 things.

Issue # 1 (Should KO's exist at all?) - A lot of people really seem to enjoy them but my issue is that it's hard to know true quality and authenticity. If you're buyiong a knock off Devsatator for $5-$10 with the figures made in all different colors, and you buy that set basically just for some quick fun, that's one thing. But a lot of people either buy KO's because a) they don't want to pony up the money for the real thing or b) unfortunately because they think they are buying the real thing. Biggest "first glance" difference on many of the knock offs isn't the figures themselves but the outside packaging. So it's pretty easy for someone to pop open a KO and later sell it off as the real thing, especially in a big lot. It could go from seller to seller that way and someone buying it down the line might think a seller with good intentions is trying to scam him/her when really that person was the one who originally was scammed.

Issue #2 (Is removing the listings from ebay the best way to prevent their distribution?) - I think the shame here is that action wasn't taken much earlier because these KO's have really saturated the market. The other point is that verifying authenticity on each and every piece is very very very hard for Ebay and/or Habsro to do. I think maybe Hasbro should allow some kind of contact e-mail for people to report anyone who continually tries selling Ko's as originals and threaten legal action (which they have every right in the world to do.)

There are still some on ebay selling as "remakes", and I give it a week before there are tons of them on there again.

Heck, they are still there is you look hard enough:

http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZperfect-worlder

capellamusic wrote:

Scaleface wrote:Okay, here's a guide, if the toy looks like this, it's probably a knockoff.

LOL

FREAKIN' HILARIOUS!
Brawn is even upside down

I did a quick search and one thing completely completely removed from ebay are all the knockoff metrotitans. There were dozens on there, and now NONE! I'm sure they will be back though.

Scaleface wrote:I did a quick search and one thing completely completely removed from ebay are all the knockoff metrotitans. There were dozens on there, and now NONE! I'm sure they will be back though.

That's awesome because it shows that they are actually making an effort and not just pulling anything thst says "KO" or "Knock Off"

The Metrotitans I saw on Ebay were pretty deceiving description wise as to what they actually were.

I'll add here that knockoffs are great to mess with to make fan characters. It sort of nice to get a cheap figure to paint up, rather than that of an original. with that said, I painted up a G2 Starscream as my fan char.

Sunstar wrote:I'll add here that knockoffs are great to mess with to make fan characters. It sort of nice to get a cheap figure to paint up, rather than that of an original. with that said, I painted up a G2 Starscream as my fan char.

Yeah, I agree with that, they can be great for customs.

Delicon wrote:

Scaleface wrote:I did a quick search and one thing completely completely removed from ebay are all the knockoff metrotitans. There were dozens on there, and now NONE! I'm sure they will be back though.

That's awesome because it shows that they are actually making an effort and not just pulling anything thst says "KO" or "Knock Off"

The Metrotitans I saw on Ebay were pretty deceiving description wise as to what they actually were.

I don't think that's accurate, looking at ebay's history of Metrotitans, 9 of the 10 knockoffs say "KO" in the title, and the one that doesn't mentions it's from China in the text of the description.

http://search-completed.ebay.com/search ... 26fsoo%3D2

Seibertron wrote:

Megatron_Wolf wrote:Screw you hasbro. Half the KOs out there are never going to reissued. There goes trying to get a mirage or sixshot now. I understand the figures that are still in production but removing the ones that either had their mold "lost" or just cant be reissued is retarded.

I have an idea for the sellers. List them as gobots.

"Screw you Hasbro"?

C'mon man. This is Hasbro's intellectual property. They have every right to have this stuff removed. They also have every right to never make another reproduction Transformer ever again as well.

This action was extremely welcomed. I think it's awesome that they've finally done this.

I have always been suspicious that some of the lost molds are actually stolen and are being used to make the KO that are on eBay.

I really hope that this lasts for a while and eBay continues to eliminate the KO on eBay. KO really damage the hobby in so many ways. I think this is step in the right direction toward ending piracy. I think the next suitable step would be for Hasbro to start using trustworthy factories and workers.

does this mean that they will get all the ones sold at places like biglots and walgreens?

Scaleface wrote:

Sid Burn wrote:Transformers fans are defending KOs? What the hell guys?

I cannot believe some people are actually upset about this, the KO sales clog up ebay so badly, and most KOs are crap.

If this is handled correctly and I don't have to sift through hundreds of 5 dollar devastator "reissues" I will be thrilled.

Problem is this will NOT stop knockoffs from being sold on ebay.
Thanks Hasblow!

I think this falls under the 'if' I stated above. IF this is handled properly and isn't just a strainer that weeds out sellers who put KO in the title, it could be great.

IF the idea is to actually weed out KO sellers in addition to products with KO in the headline, I am all for it.

Oh and on a side note, "Hasblow" gives you the hobby you cherish enough to join an internet forum like Seibertron, MAYBE that should generate a little appreciation for the company that kept TF alive for over 2 decades. Defending KOs is like defending someone who steals from you, bashing Hasbro for trying to take back ownership of their intellectual property is just plain stupid.

If someone else owning a knockoff damages you, you must be doing something wrong.

I have a KO G1 Superion almost identical to the origianl I know exactly what he is knew that the day I got him So I dont have a problem having a KO but I wont treat it as the real thing I will use a KO for what it is a look-a-like to the original and only good for stand in purposes when you cant afford the original

I think it was a one-time remove, a guy named funexpo2007 still has the typical KOs up (selling them as "80s version" - not declaring them as KOs)