The Toy being unlicensed is not a confirmed fact. The release is illigitimate, proven by the box, but a toy being licensed is is up for debate. What makes a toy physically real and not a copy or a fake is the mold use.
I am sorry but no. Licensing is defined as an agreement (a contract) between one company holding the intellectual property of a product and the other one being the manufacturer. The exact terms of the contract are well defined, including the packaging, the colors, the materials to use and the amount of toys to produce. Everything beyond the scope of this contract is unlicensed.
That means that even a toy produced with the same molds, with the same plastics and the proper packaging could be unlicensed if produced in an amount exceeding the one defined in the agreement.
Of course, such toy would be very hard (even impossible) to discern from a licensed one. But in our case, this is much easier, the box is fake, so that makes the toy illegitimate AND unlicensed.
If you are not convinced you may ask the same question to anyone with a basic legal background. You may also ask to grading companies (AFA and others) if they would accept to grade such toy, and if not, why ?
And it really seems like the factory linked with Lena is using the real legitimate mold from Takara.
So looking at that, it makes far more sense that the factory is using the legitimate MP Megatron mold (which had been cleaned up recently to make the gold Megatron) to make the MP Megatrons we see sold on Lena. They were most probably not told to make more and Takara most probably sees none of the money when one is sold, making it all illigitimate from a business point of view.
I am sorry again, but there are a lot of "it seems" or "it makes sense", but no evidence. These are all contextual clues, not proofs. I could find several other explanations about why Lena did not list anything during one year (she stopped selling everything, not just only TFs) or why she is selling masterpieces Bumblebee now (and it is interesting to note that Lena has recently got a negative feedback for selling a fake MP-21R...).
But them using the same mold means this toy is licensed.
Certainly not. See above.
Because if the toys ss the same as the original release in terms of production, and that toy was licensed, then its all just semantics.
Okay I will try to adopt your point of view. Let's say that these toys are "real" in the sense they are using the same molds.
Yet, given that there is no contract obligations, you have 0 guarantee that the company used plastics validated by Takara, or the proper metals, etc... So yes, in best case you end up with a product accurate (in proportions) to the original/licensed toy, but you have no idea of the quality associated to your toy. And given that the manufacturer is acting outside of the law, chances are they cut cost on material quality.
Licensing contract defines everything, not just the mold.
Anyways, there was an analysis done by Jordan Rouse of the Talk Transformers facebook group who wanted to make sure his toy was legitimate (he had bought from Lena) and it turns out to be exactly the same to the legitimate releases. However, as I argued with him, that doesnt mean he has a legitimate release since his box is fake.
That's interesting, because there are several key points here. The toy is accurate, but obviously unlicensed (so a fake). Which also means that Lena has (again) consistently sold unlicensed toys as real Takara products...
Do you have a link to this analysis ?
Looking at all the evidence presented, what makes most sense to me is that the factoy kept making more toys using the legit molds to make some extra money. Same with the casettes.
Yup. So they are stricly unlicensed and fakes (but I agree, everyone will define fake differently, for me as for most of collectors, fake=unlicensed).
Posted: Fri Apr 29, 2016 1:36 pm
