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."
It is not a common item to say the least.
It's not even heavy or cold like metal, and has the appearance and softness of plastic. The only one that even looks 
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