The Energon Pub

How is wheeljack a shelfwarmer?

for me, at least, Alternators were never a problem, it's just that when they were first out I didn't know a helluva lot about them or TF's. Actually, you can still find tons of 'em in Maryland, I've seen a few Meister's and some Prime's as well.

Although, we never got Rumble or Ravage...

In my area they were absolutely impossible to find.
I had to buy every one of mine through online sources. I bought them as they came out so they weren't anywhere near the prices they command now. The bulk of my alternators I bought from a retailer on Amazon.com that sold them to me for right about retail price. I told him my situation and he was real cool about saving me one of each Alternator when they came out.

I can honestly say I never once even saw an Alternator on a store shelf and believe me I was looking!

I have a clear Mirage BT-18 on its way that I won on Ebay yesterday, he was the final piece I needed. Can't wait to get that one.

The only alts I ever saw round my parts in Aus was: Somkescreen, Sideswipe , Hound, one odd Swindle, one Grimlock, Optimus Prime, and of course the so very strange distribution of the SDCC exclusive to the Mr. Toys stores.

After Sideswipe and Hound (to an extent) where shelf warmers for quite sometime we didn't really see anymore of the alts until there was a large influx of Optimus Primes, particularly at K-Mart.

I think that's all I remember seeing...Burn or Trunks might have a better idea though.

Silverstreak
Windcharger
Shockwave
Optimus
Wheeljack
Ravage

That's all I ever saw. Wheeljack is a bit of a shelfwarmer.

Silverstreak was the first to turn up, and seemed to be released multiple times. The result, another shelfwarmer.

Through my experience, it wasn't so much that they were hard to find as much as it was that when they sold - they were gone forever.

At the same time, I'm one of those people who had to play catch-up due to not getting into the line until it was almost over. Even though the release of MP-01 got me back into the world of Transformers after a 15 year break, and seeing Binaltech Hound at a local Japanime store intrigued me, it still took a lot of convincing to get me in Alts. I initially thought the revised figures of Hound, Wheeljack, Jazz, Tracks, Smokescreen & Silverstreak looked amazing, but thought that the revisions to Sunstreaker, Sideswipe & Prowl looked like **** (still do), and absolutely thought making characters like Shockwave & Grimlock into cars was beyond retarded. Add to that, I spent a LOT of time on the forums researching Binaltechs vs. Alternators and determining which was the most/best bang for the buck if I was to start collecting them.

Then out of nowhere, my girlfriend bought me Sunstreaker, and that started me down the Alt path. I found 90% of them in stores locally, sometimes for full price and sometimes on discount for as low as $15. Fast forward to a couple of months ago when I decided to buy doubles of each one, I can't find ANY of the same figures I once used to see sitting on shelves EVERYWHERE for $15-$30 for under $50-$150 anymore. Insult to injury is that I even *did* have doubles of a lot of figures like Hound, Mirage, Wheeljack, etc., before I realized I actually needed them, and took them back to the stores after not being able to re-sell them. Now I'm paying double to triple what I originally bought or saw them for up until only a few months ago. Even the awful shelfwarmers like Skids, Rollbar, Swindle, etc. now go for double their original price, but when they were in the stores, they couldn't give them away let alone sell them.

It's been the same situation with the Commemorative Reissues, Titaniums & Classics - once stores were sold out, you rarely saw them back in active stock. Maybe a few characters here & there, sure, but never the same quantities as the original shipments. Even the movie toys are victim of this right now. People around here - in a major Million population central city - count finding Deluxe 08 Bumblebee and Voyager Ratchet & Ironhide in the same regard as striking gold since they've become so obscure.

And this will ALWAYS be why I blame Hasbro and their poopy distribution for being the reason why so many lines seemed to have "failed" according to them. If anyone could actually find Titaniums & Alts easier than finding the Lost Ark, the toys would have sold. But what can you do when you either have no choice at all or only have crap like Alt Ricochet, Skids, Camshaft, Rollbar or Titanium GI Joe Megatron & WW Sunstorm sitting on a shelf to choose from?

Nevertheless, I find it amazing that it only takes 4-6 months of a figure being in limited distribution to now be considered "ultra rare!" on eBay... as is the situation with Alts in particular. The prices they go for are unholy. Guess the only good news is that those of us who still have most of them MISB will be able to buy a house if we decide to sell them in a couple more years :)

Some of the Alts besides those-we-are-not-supposed-to-mention were slightly difficult to find. Prime and Mirage, Jazz and Decpticharge are the ones that come to my mind. At some point or another, I had all of the Alts as well, but have sold a number of them because the 'novelty' of the line wore off for me. I only have a few left and may be trying to get rid of them in the not too distant future.

Anyway, I don't think they were that hard to find, at least not 'round Chicago. The only ones I never found at retail were the Walmart Ravage and Rumble which I had to get online. All the rest though were fairly easy to get.

no they weren't... people just didn't get into them until too late. many many moons ago, they were all ova the place at my walmart BEFORE super walmarts started appearing.

I have the worst luck, I never saw any. I still have horrible luck, the only store even close to where I live (I'm pretty rural) is Fred Meyer, and while luckly my girlfriend works there and I can mooch off her discount, they never have anything.

I swear, whenever I waltz through the toy asile, you would think a meteor hit the TF section, because the shelves are full except for that one section. I finally saw that they had ONE All-Spark Power Megatron, and other than that I've only seen a (as in 1) Robot Heroes Starscream/Mirage loiter around the shelves for a few weeks. That was cool, though, because I love the RH line.