The Energon Pub

tigertracks 24 wrote:

Auto Bot wrote:Among all these, Soundwave is the most sought-after?

Not by me... I am currently hunting down the japanese exclusive 1 day show licensed Ultra Magnus with transforming trailer armor.

I've bid on two and when they went up to $500, I stopped bidding.

The variants: Cliffjumper, Bluestreak, Thundercracker, and Skywarp tend to be the most sought after, as well as Hot Rod.

Holy crap! 500 bucks?!?! That's not sane anymore.

tigertracks 24 wrote:

coolpop wrote:

tigertracks 24 wrote:

Auto Bot wrote:Among all these, Soundwave is the most sought-after?

Not by me... I am currently hunting down the japanese exclusive 1 day show licensed Ultra Magnus with transforming trailer armor.

I've bid on two and when they went up to $500, I stopped bidding.

There's this $429.99 BIN been sitting around a few days already, hopefully the price will come down to a more sensible level. Good luck hunting your piece bro!

Cheers,
Coolpop

Yeah, maybe after the holidays... My wife thinks it's a pretty silly thing to spend so much on something so small, so I am in no hurry to get him.

eh to be honest... I have both the "diaclone" and g1 colours of that 1 day ultramagnus special, and the plastic quality on him is dismal at best. Its not nearly on par with the plastic quality of the normal releases and the prototypes heerotoys makes. Its not that its brittle, its just it feels and looks alot flimsier, and like it could break even with delicate care over a long period of time.

If you really want to have one in your collection, go for it by all means. It is a nifty little thing to add to the ever growing collection of worlds smallest transformers, however, if you do choose to get one of these... you have been warned. The plastic quality is incredibly disapointing...

Auto Bot wrote:

tigertracks 24 wrote:

Auto Bot wrote:Among all these, Soundwave is the most sought-after?

Not by me... I am currently hunting down the japanese exclusive 1 day show licensed Ultra Magnus with transforming trailer armor.

I've bid on two and when they went up to $500, I stopped bidding.

The variants: Cliffjumper, Bluestreak, Thundercracker, and Skywarp tend to be the most sought after, as well as Hot Rod.

Holy crap! 500 bucks?!?! That's not sane anymore.

did you even read my post autobot?

Soundwave is rather common as far as his release in the series went. But like his g1 counterpart, the character is incredibly popular, and thus, a common toy becomes in demand due to character.

Is he the most sought after figure in worlds smallest transformers? God no. The most sought after are the rares and semi-rares I already established in my last post, because the rares were only 1 in every 48 blind packaged figures (or 1 in every 4 boxes), and the semi-rares only 1 in every 24 (or 2 in every 4 boxes).

Skywarp alone has gone as high as $400-500.
Red bumblebee/cliffjumper has been around that price too.
Prime's trailer was about $200 before heerotoys began making his replicas and variants about 2 and a half years ago.

Ultra magnus (the white prime repaint, not the one day special) while being rare, isn't in as high of a demand as say the rare figures from wave 1 (wave 1 was much more limited than wave 2, because wave 1 was not expected to do so well and be so popular. Wave 2 was released in higher volume because of wave 1's popularity and overwhelming success. Wave 1 figures are becoming increasingly harder to find unopened or unplayed with. Think of wave 1 becoming alot more like expensive vintage g1 transformers. That and soundwaves popularity in general both add to why he is one of the more common figures from worlds smallest transformers that is becoming increasingly harder to find.)

But to pay for 500 bucks for such a small toy. I just can't digest that.

Auto Bot wrote:But to pay for 500 bucks for such a small toy. I just can't digest that.

Thanks for the warning headshot. And most of us will never pay that much for that figure...because most of us won't find one. It is not a common item to say the least.

tigertracks 24 wrote:

Auto Bot wrote:But to pay for 500 bucks for such a small toy. I just can't digest that.

Thanks for the warning headshot. And most of us will never pay that much for that figure...because most of us won't find one. It is not a common item to say the least.

Yea it's a rare limited custom figure that comes unpainted.
But TAK liked it so much they gave it a 1 day license.
But still $500 is a heck of a lot of money and people complain about Jin's customs fetching high prices.

OK, as promised WST Starscreams Ghost:











I have the original Takara WST Starscream(non-ghost) and the clear WST Thundercracker as well.

I'm putting reprolabels on my WST Dinobots as I type this so they will be up soon too.

I'll put up Prowl or Hot Rod next.

Alright! Can't wait to see Hot Rod.

Nice Ghost SS. Looks clean.

Woo-hoo! My Prime/Meg two pack arrived today!! I was so surprised when it showed up because it shouldn't have arrived until next week, but I'm not complaining!

Of course, it arrived right in the middle of the work day (I ship everything to my business as I spend about 98% of my life there) so finishing the day was pure torture.

Briefly debated keeping it MISB, but decided hell no, it's gonna be a while before I can get some more WST, so I'm opening these suckers up! Absolutely love them!! They look so good next my WST Dinobots! Prime lost a bit of articulation in the down-sizing (not sure about Megs, never had a G1 Megs) but it's completely forgiveable due to the sheer tiny-ness of these guys. Megs seems kind of fragile due to the parts for his transformation, but I still love him!

A quick question about Megs, when transforming him to bot mode, does his head just flip up and rest on the chest part? There's nowhere to lock it in right?

Anyway, can't wait for my trailer to arrive now for Prime and for my Snarl to show up! I'm officially hooked on these suckers!!

Oh, iron maniac, nice Starscream! Not really a fan of the clear TFs but still, it's pretty cool!

I hope to see pics of Megs soon.

rob_charb wrote:Woo-hoo! My Prime/Meg two pack arrived today!! I was so surprised when it showed up because it shouldn't have arrived until next week, but I'm not complaining!

Of course, it arrived right in the middle of the work day (I ship everything to my business as I spend about 98% of my life there) so finishing the day was pure torture.

Briefly debated keeping it MISB, but decided hell no, it's gonna be a while before I can get some more WST, so I'm opening these suckers up! Absolutely love them!! They look so good next my WST Dinobots! Prime lost a bit of articulation in the down-sizing (not sure about Megs, never had a G1 Megs) but it's completely forgiveable due to the sheer tiny-ness of these guys. Megs seems kind of fragile due to the parts for his transformation, but I still love him!

A quick question about Megs, when transforming him to bot mode, does his head just flip up and rest on the chest part? There's nowhere to lock it in right?

Anyway, can't wait for my trailer to arrive now for Prime and for my Snarl to show up! I'm officially hooked on these suckers!!

Oh, iron maniac, nice Starscream! Not really a fan of the clear TFs but still, it's pretty cool!

no megs head just sorta rests there, just like his bigger version.

if you guys really want to see some high res pictures of a larger chunk of the original wstfs... and aren't too lazy to navigate...

remy has a bunch on his site.

http://www.tfkenkon.com

iron maniac wrote:

Auto Bot wrote:

iron maniac wrote:I have WST Soundwave & Ravage, I can post some pics if anyone wants to see them.

Me! ME!

Can you also post a pic of Ravage getting inside Soundwave's chest? Like, partially inserted.

OK, let me snap some pics and I'll put them up in a bit. Soundwave has some die-cast content(feet) BTW as do most of the Takara WST. He's getting hard to find and expensive.

I also have WST Starscreams Ghost which is pretty freaking sweet.

Sorry, but none of the WSTs have diecast, they're all 100% plastic.

kirbenvost wrote:
Sorry, but none of the WSTs have diecast.

The hell they don't. Soundwaves feet are metal, the seekers feet are metal, Primes feet are metal, Megs feet are metal. Shall I go on?

iron maniac wrote:

kirbenvost wrote:
Sorry, but none of the WSTs have diecast.

The hell they don't. Soundwaves feet are metal, the seekers feet are metal, Primes feet are metal, Megs feet are metal. Shall I go on?

Official Takara World's Smallest Transformers? Every single one of mine (Starscream, Megatron, Prime, Prowl, Jazz, Soundwave, Sideswipe, Red Alert) is 100% plastic. Show us pictures of yours if they have metal. The pics of Soundwave I saw posted (and mine as well) had black plastic feet, not metal. The only WSTs I've ever seen that had any metal were the Dinobots, and they're not Takara products.

kirbenvost wrote:
Official Takara World's Smallest Transformers? Every single one of mine (Starscream, Megatron, Prime, Prowl, Jazz, Soundwave, Sideswipe, Red Alert) is 100% plastic. Show us pictures of yours if they have metal. The pics of Soundwave I saw posted (and mine as well) had black plastic feet, not metal. The only WSTs I've ever seen that had any metal were the Dinobots, and they're not Takara products.

My Soundwave is pictured in this thread dude. The only ones I have that don't have metal feet are the KO's. My clear starscream & thundercracker have plastic feet. Almost all my other ones have metal(aluminum most likely) feet. It was probably done to weigh down the figures a bit in robot mode. Check yours and you'll see.

iron maniac wrote:

kirbenvost wrote:
Official Takara World's Smallest Transformers? Every single one of mine (Starscream, Megatron, Prime, Prowl, Jazz, Soundwave, Sideswipe, Red Alert) is 100% plastic. Show us pictures of yours if they have metal. The pics of Soundwave I saw posted (and mine as well) had black plastic feet, not metal. The only WSTs I've ever seen that had any metal were the Dinobots, and they're not Takara products.

My Soundwave is pictured in this thread dude. The only ones I have that don't have metal feet are the KO's. My clear starscream & thundercracker have plastic feet. Almost all my other ones have metal(aluminum most likely) feet. It was probably done to weigh down the figures a bit in robot mode. Check yours and you'll see.

I saw your Soundwave, and dude, that's totally plastic. It's not even heavy or cold like metal, and has the appearance and softness of plastic. The only one that even looks sort of like diecast to me is Sideswipe, and I just assumed it was silver paint over plastic.

kirbenvost wrote:


I saw your Soundwave, and dude, that's totally plastic. It's not even heavy or cold like metal, and has the appearance and softness of plastic. The only one that even looks sort of like diecast to me is Sideswipe, and I just assumed it was silver paint over plastic.

NO ITS NOT! Sorry you can't tell the difference, check yours if you have one. COLD, COLD METAL.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree dude, because its silly to keep arguing over something this stupid.

lol...well, I'll have to check mine when I get home. Until then... "YOU'RE WRONG YOU'RE WRONG NYAAAAAAH!!! "

Well, it appears I'm the crazy bugger who doesn't know what he's talking about... because you're right, most of them do have diecast. They're just so well painted and I didn't expect it in such tiny figures. Sorry about that.

kirbenvost wrote:Well, it appears I'm the crazy bugger who doesn't know what he's talking about... because you're right, most of them do have diecast. They're just so well painted and I didn't expect it in such tiny figures. Sorry about that.

LOL
No worries dude.

I think they did it to add some weight to the figures and they don't topple over in robot mode.

I'm going to try and get some pics of WST Hot Rod up later tonight.

I thought WST is not related to Takara?

Auto Bot wrote:I thought WST is not related to Takara?

Takara did make them, yes but they stopped after a certain point and thats when the KOs started coming out because the demand was still there for more different characters that had not been released in a WST.
WST Soundwave and most of the others are official Takara releases. Starscreams ghost and the dinobots, stuff like that are KOs.

Ok. I saw the Dinobots at a shop. I was wondering why there's no Hasbro or Takara marks. Then i was told they're third party manufacturers.

I thought this applies to all.

So i guess Takara WST's will cost several times more than the non-Takara?

But the Dinobots quality are really good. Exact copy of the original G1 Dinos in smaller size.

The WST dinobots are freaking awesome. Period.
The stickers they come with are crap though BUT reprolabels solved that problem. I put the reprolabels on mine the other night.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Transformers-G1-WST-lot-of-7-Prime-Megatron-Bumblebee_W0QQitemZ250186313668QQihZ015QQcategoryZ4696QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Good gawd, aren't these things the size of a quarter? Why would anybody pay this much money for them? I don't get Transformer fans sometimes.

kirbenvost wrote:Well, it appears I'm the crazy bugger who doesn't know what he's talking about... because you're right, most of them do have diecast. They're just so well painted and I didn't expect it in such tiny figures. Sorry about that.

yep, I can clarify from my entire collection (including all official releases, and a large number of non official releases), that jsut about every figure released has diecast in them, if even a small amount. Soundwaves feet aren't the easiest to tell, because of the "mold" marks, but they are definetly cold metal. Sideswipes feet are also metal. Those are also not easy to tell, but if you were to take him apart and hold just the feet in yiour hands, it becomes evident that they are metal. I'm not 100% sure about meg's feet, but I do beleive they are metal as well. Prime and ultra magnus' feet are the easiest to tell that they are metal, followed by the official release seekers. (All the non official releases do not have metal, simply because its cheaper for heerotoys to use plastic, plus for the special jobs that he does such as the chroming or "ghost" variants he does, plastic simply is the only way to go.)



as for why they used metal in the feet, one can only assume it was to put more weight at the base of the figure to balance it better, otherwise there really is no reason for it.

Auto Bot wrote:Ok. I saw the Dinobots at a shop. I was wondering why there's no Hasbro or Takara marks. Then i was told they're third party manufacturers.

I thought this applies to all.

So i guess Takara WST's will cost several times more than the non-Takara?

But the Dinobots quality are really good. Exact copy of the original G1 Dinos in smaller size.

When you say, "I thought this applies to all" are you sayign you thought all the worlds smallest transformers were unofficial? If yes, that is simply not the case. Takara came up with the idea, and then released wave 1 (which I listed before in one of my other posts what was in that wave). The craze for them soon began afterward, with takara releasing waves 2 and 2.5. They had a wave 3 planned which would have included tracks, skids, smokescreen, megatron's stock and barrel extender (would probably be able to combine to make the stand alone cannon), and then others would have also been included (this list is what we know of at the moment as to what would have been in it. However, for whatever reason, Takara dropped the line, despite its high success. I don't recall we were ever really supplied with an answer as to why the line was canceled. After about a year after this announcement of wstfs being canceled, just it toys began working on the worlds smallest dinobots, beginning with snarl, showing early prototypes on their website, which transformers fans quickly began to drool over. This 3rd party company, not only won over Takara's saddened smallest transformers fans, but even opened the door back up for worlds smallest transformers, and a second "golden age" began for the series, despite not being officially licensed or even manufactured by Takara or even hasbro. We are still in that golden age right now. However, if one thing has stayed consistant throughout all this, is that Heerotoys has been producing his "prototypes" since wave 2 was released by takara, and has been improving his own molds, such as the g2 remolded trailer for prime, and the null rays for starscream and the seekers that are more show accurate. He even has released his own remolds for Thrust and Ramjet, with the correct wings for both, no doubt made using the original g1 toys as a reference for making the mold.

As long as just it toys make more smallest transformers once they finish the dinobots off, and heerotoys is always improving his molds, the series will live on. Maybe Takara will even bring the series back from the "dead" and continue where they intended to.

So, yes the worlds smallest dinos are not licensed at all by takara or hasbro. Which is why none of the names on the box are the characters actual names. For instance, on grimlock's version of the worlds smallest dinos, the name grimlock does not appear anywhere on the box. This is done so that "Just it Toys" (the company that makes these worlds smallest dinobots) cannot be sued for copyright infringment, and other such legal related stuff. They are coming rather close to the line though, because the product they are selling, while being created from a completely new and original mold, the mold and product itself are based very heavily off of an existing mold, and existing characters owned by a different company. This also is why in the beginning, when snarl first came out, his original techspec job was that he was a desert warrior, but if I remember correctly, on his box and just it toy's website he was a dezert warrior. Mispelled on purpose for the sake of making it more different from hasbro and takara's character.




And primefan, the reason those are expesnive is a handful of the figures from that auction were only available in wave 1, which was extremely limited in number (due to Takara not realizing how popular these things would become.)

As for the size, no, they are not the size of a quarter. They are roughly as tall as a triple a or even double a battery. Sure they are small, but when you take into consideration these things are literally the larger g1 toy, scaled down into something much much smaller, the coolness factor sorta follows instantaneously. These little guys are perfect to satisfy many fan's dreams of setting up large scale battle scenes, using their favorite g1 toys, and pairing them up with such things as fortress maximus, or even metroplex, city formers that truly look more like cities when they have these ltitle guys with them, as opposed to the original g1 toys. Plus they go great with Unicron too.

All in all, the appeal to these things is, they are tiny versions of the original toys. They are incredibly fun to fiddle around with, and make for some interestign conversations at work if you have a few on your desk. Peoplethat stop by and always notice them, and start asking questions like "oh hey cool, is this a transformer? wow this thing is tiny! Its amazing how they fit so much into such a tiny little thing. blah blah blah."