The Energon Pub

Today I received a rather special item:

Custom Made Takara Style Masterpiece MP-3 Package Set

This set is made by a Chinese TF fan and he only produced 50 sets of them (probably all sold out now). The fixed selling price was RMB150, plus all shipping and fees, it came out to be around RMB314 (I used Airmail for international shipping from China to USA), and this is about US$47.50 shipped.

The purpose of this custom package set is to convert US Masterpiece Starscream into Takara style Masterpiece packaging. Unlike another MP Starscream custom package set seen last year on eBay that only comes with outside color box (you put the whole US MP Starscream w/ original package into this custom box), this new set actually comes complete with inner plastic clampshell tray, plastic nose & tail holder/divider, updated graphic/art instruction booklet & character card.


US Masterpiece Starscream & all accessories placed in the inner plastic clampshell tray


Side by side comparisons with origial Takara MP-3 Green Starscream:

Inner tray with toys & accessories


Color instruction booklet & character card (front). It's a pity that the creator decided to use actual toy shot instead of using toy art like the original booklet cover


Color instruction booklet & character card (back)


First two inside pages of instruction booklet


Front of box


Back of box


Top of box


Bottom of box


Side of box (both sides are the same)


Another comparison photo


Final comparison shot


Overall the quality of this custom package set is very good, I am very impressed with the extent of details the creator has paid attention to match with the original MP Starscream box and inserts (reshoot of the toy with correct position, angle, distance, light source, reflection, placement, art, font, color, etc.). I consider myself very fortunate to have the opportunity to purchase this custom box set, and it will surely add that extra specialty to my complete Masterpiece collection. I will later find time to pull all my Masterpieces out for a big group shot, maybe after MP-8 Grimlock arrives.

Thanks for reading!

Cheers!
Coolpop

Phenomenal work! If I were an MP collector I'd invest in this.

What a cool idea.

Wow, definitely a very nice custom packaging set! Well worth it I'm sure.

Only 50 of them produced, oh well looks like I missed the boat.

I would have totally bought this box, it looks very professional.

Is this still available? Where?

So much for the 50 sets limited run, hahaha. I just found out the Chinese seller I bought from just put out 10 more sets for sale, I guess the creator saw both bigger demand and extra income, and he decided to pump out more.

Here's the Taobao link where I got the set from:
http://auction1.taobao.com/auction/item_detail-0db1-82d03a665234db05257adb1ca852196f.jhtml?pm1=1

It's a bit tricky to buy from these Chinese sources where they aren't set up from international buyers. I have US credit cards and US Paypal account, but they don't accept those. So the workaround method is to buy through a buying service agent, after researching I picked this major player called Panli (http://www.panli.com), set up an account with them and you can fund your account using your US credit cards and/or Paypal account. However the problem is both Panli and Taobao sites are all in Chinese language only, see if you can find a friend who can translate/walk them through for you.

Let me know if you have further question, I'll try my best to help.

I'll try it. Thanks!

Nice review. Are all the pictures re-shot or are they photoshopped modified of MP-03?

if it came with a starscream i tap that i mean buy that

Stormrider wrote:Nice review. Are all the pictures re-shot or are they photoshopped modified of MP-03?

Thanks! According to one of the associate creators, all pictures are re-shoots to exact match the originals. As for myself, I actually don't mind it either way, as long as the finished product is at this professional level, I am all in.

It would be cool if BBTS or one of the other online retailers had these in stock.

It's... a box.

its definitely a photoshop job. if you look at the box top, you can see a mistake in the where the color is. im a graphic designer so i can usually tell a doctored photo. still looks awesome though and would love to get ahold of one of them!

OLD NEWS ALERT!!!!!!!!!


Any Starscream collector would tell you this is not really news. This has been available for sometime.

However, the comparison shots are quite nice and I thank you for that. Not sure why anyone would pay the $50+ they've been asking for this box though on ebay.

Starscream wrote:OLD NEWS ALERT!!!!!!!!!


Any Starscream collector would tell you this is not really news. This has been available for sometime.

However, the comparison shots are quite nice and I thank you for that. Not sure why anyone would pay the $50+ they've been asking for this box though on ebay.

This is the first time it's been posted. Don't get this box confused with the double box that appeared last year.

Stormrider wrote:

Starscream wrote:OLD NEWS ALERT!!!!!!!!!


Any Starscream collector would tell you this is not really news. This has been available for sometime.

However, the comparison shots are quite nice and I thank you for that. Not sure why anyone would pay the $50+ they've been asking for this box though on ebay.

This is the first time it's been posted. Don't get this box confused with the double box that appeared last year.

Storm is absolutely correct!

There was another custom box which has been around quite some time on ebay last year (creator/seller was from Singapore, around $48 shipped), and it's double boxing which I personally didn't really prefer, that's why I didn't go for it.


This new custom box didn't get released until 12/13/2008, when ACToys member "36Zhen" (三十六针), who happens to be a good buddy of the creator "October's Fireworks" (十月の烟火), received his set fresh off the press and posted an introductory post on the forum (http://www.actoys.net/bbs/read.php?tid-319789-fpage-0-toread--page-1.html). I followed the given information, purchased through a buying service agent, which took longer for placing order, receiving order, repackaging, then relay the shipment to USA into my hands. I thought I should be amoung the first people (if not "THE" first) in USA to receive it, so please do not mistaken this for an old item/news.

They did a pretty flawless job. I believe that they did reshoot the majority of it. They are SLIGHTLY off, but not enough that I'd notice without comparing side-by-side. Getting them repositioned like that must have been a pain.

Only 2 flaws that really stand out to me are the reflection of the foot on that marble-colored linoleum-looking base... The foot reflection is silver, not blue like the foot should be.

Other than that, the illustration should have been Photoshopped to match the new colors, if you ask me. All the other MPs have illustrations, not photos. That's the biggest turnoff of the whole set. Everything is topnotch though.

Despite the fact that it looks very nice, I can't even begin to conceive of spending $50 on a BOX...

Not to mention the blatant copyright violations...I mean, I'm sure the laws on that are far looser over there but still...

coolpop wrote:

Stormrider wrote:

Starscream wrote:OLD NEWS ALERT!!!!!!!!!


Any Starscream collector would tell you this is not really news. This has been available for sometime.

However, the comparison shots are quite nice and I thank you for that. Not sure why anyone would pay the $50+ they've been asking for this box though on ebay.

This is the first time it's been posted. Don't get this box confused with the double box that appeared last year.

Storm is absolutely correct!

There was another custom box which has been around quite some time on ebay last year (creator/seller was from Singapore, it was around $35-$40 shipped, I don't remember exactly), and it's double boxing which I personally didn't really prefer, that's why I didn't go for it.


This new custom box didn't get released until 12/13/2008, when ACToys member "36Zhen" (三十六针), who happens to be a good buddy of the creator "October's Fireworks" (十月の烟火), received his set fresh off the press and posted an introductory post on the forum (http://www.actoys.net/bbs/read.php?tid-319789-fpage-0-toread--page-1.html). I followed the given information, purchased through a buying service agent, which took longer for placing order, receiving order, repackaging, then relay the shipment to USA into my hands. I thought I should be amoung the first people (if not "THE" first) in USA to receive it, so please do not mistaken this for an old item/news.

is that box the same size as the mp-3 greenscream box? would it fit the inserts that the takara mp seekers have or has the size been altered to bo closer to the hasbro/takara us mp screamer size?

Great job!And yeah maybe BBTS should think of staking up on a few of these

Bumblebeast wrote:It's... a box.

It's more than a box, it comes with a plastic tray and a magazine/instruction guide that is directly plagiarized from the original copyrighted material! By their own admission!!!

It used to be a joke, I thought, when these guys would say, "Warning, Seibertron contains Nuts."

edit: Just beat me to it, typh0id. Good call.

Serpent O - R wrote:

Bumblebeast wrote:It's... a box.

It's more than a box, it comes with a plastic tray and a magazine/instruction guide that is directly plagiarized from the original copyrighted material! By their own admission!!!

It used to be a joke, I thought, when these guys would say, "Warning, Seibertron contains Nuts."

edit: Just beat me to it, typh0id. Good call.

You gotta admit that it looks great though.

wow that is awesome! I would love to put a masterpiece in that if i had any!!!

Harpua626 wrote:

coolpop wrote:

Stormrider wrote:This is the first time it's been posted. Don't get this box confused with the double box that appeared last year.

Storm is absolutely correct!

There was another custom box which has been around quite some time on ebay last year (creator/seller was from Singapore, it was around $35-$40 shipped, I don't remember exactly), and it's double boxing which I personally didn't really prefer, that's why I didn't go for it.


This new custom box didn't get released until 12/13/2008, when ACToys member "36Zhen" (三十六针), who happens to be a good buddy of the creator "October's Fireworks" (十月の烟火), received his set fresh off the press and posted an introductory post on the forum (http://www.actoys.net/bbs/read.php?tid-319789-fpage-0-toread--page-1.html). I followed the given information, purchased through a buying service agent, which took longer for placing order, receiving order, repackaging, then relay the shipment to USA into my hands. I thought I should be amoung the first people (if not "THE" first) in USA to receive it, so please do not mistaken this for an old item/news.

is that box the same size as the mp-3 greenscream box? would it fit the inserts that the takara mp seekers have or has the size been altered to bo closer to the hasbro/takara us mp screamer size?

There are two different boxes. The box above is the old box that came out last year. Read the beginning of the thread to see and understand the new box.