The Energon Pub

Thursday, June 7, 2012
My Grail- and Original Takatoku Valkyrie

Takatoku VF-1S Super Valkyrie 1/55 - and yes, the box that it came in was important

I know many TF collectors have their own personal "grail". They range from rare G1 figures to a genuine Shattered Glass Exclusive. My grail is not even a Transformer so to speak. It is what would later become the Robotech Variable Fighter, made by Takatoku/Macross, and even later Jetfire.

I received this figure as a child after my Guardian (in the Navy) went on an overseas trip to Japan. My cousin/brother got the Armored Valkyrie. I had no idea of what it was when I received this gift, but I loved it. This particular figure got put away back in his box every time I was done playing. He was different from my other Transformers….just the box itself told me this one was special, because I couldn't read a word of it, lol. Time passed and "Jetfire" made his way to the US, a figure which IMO pale in comparison to mine. Furthermore, I was able to enjoy mine for years before the other kids, and no other kid in my neighborhood or the neighborhoods around it had a Jetfire quite like mine. I had bragging rights.

Time passed, and I moved toward adulthood and into my biological father's home. As I entered further into independence, the toys of my childhood that I packed away ended up accidentally being tossed or donated…all I can say is, I hope they were appreciated and taken care of by their next owners! As an adult, this is one I definitely wanted to save a place for in my collection, and finally here he is!

I still haven't figured out how to post a pic here, sorry so small. Larger pics posted to my blog:
http://skywarped.blogspot.com/2012/06/m ... kyrie.html

Correction….I can post pics now

At the moment, I have no real grail. my first real grail was Botcon Antagony, who represented on of the most rare (and most expensive) of the Beast Wars figures that I wanted to complete my BW collection. I got lucky on an eBay auction and she's been on my shelf now for two years.

Following that catch, it was on to more modern things as I started to fill out my Classics/Universe collection with other non-Classic figures. This included the Botcon 05 set. The Box set with Deathsaurus, Ironhide, Chromia and fodder was common as heck and easy to get at a decent price. The exclusives however were much more difficult. Flamewar was the first, found at a few BotCons ago for a decent price. Flare-Up followed a year or so later on eBay for a surprisingly good deal. That left Ratchet. I had seen one on eBay with a BIN for $500, naturally I didn't want to pay it. Someone did though and I didn't see him on eBay again for 2 years after that.

I vowed that this would be the year I found him, and budgetted accordingly for it at BotCon. I asked almost every single dealer there, some maybe twice. The answer was a resounding and unanimous "Nope, sorry." Degected, I turned my attentions away to other things and literally almost tripped over a late-coming seller unloading his suitcase of interesting oddities. I coyly asked "So, you don't happen to have a BotCon Ratchet in there?" his reply was "No, I left him at home, send me an email and we'll work something out." A couple emails back and forth and a few weeks later and now I'm the proud owner of a BotCon 2005 Ratchet!

Now I'm not actively hunting for anything elusive, rare, old or otherwise. I'm happy with the state of figures past now all I really care about is what's coming down the pipeline.

Your quest for Botcon Ratchet just goes to show that treasures and trash are a matter of perspective.

I really am having a hard time figuring out what exactly is the grail of my collection. Among my collection is are boxed Masterforce figures... Gilmer, Blood, Dauros, Lander, Cab and a load of others. The whole of those figures to me are my grails. Maybe Lander is the number 1 in there, given it's status as a mail away toy in Japan at the time.

One man's trash is another's treasure... Pretenders!

not to be cliche but currently...Fort Max! I had the privilege to hold one at my local collectible toy shop and I fell in love! He is so BIG! and HEAVY! and I must one day own that beautiful behemoth!

The damned thing goes for some top $ and I have a tendency to be a bit of a deal hound when it comes to vintage figures so there goes alot of my choices. Someday...its a personal promise.

Of the items I own? Probably Buster Prime. When I got it back in 2009, it was real cheap and common. Did not think much of it then. But well, the movies were what got me started in TFs, so Buster prime would be my grail, since it's a real nice representation of movie prime.

As for the stuff I wish to own... Probably Botcon G2 Redlux set. Or any botcon set for that matter. I have been wanting to go there for the longest time. I'll also looking for Botcon Skyquake and Banzaitron, as well as SG Prime...

G1 Scorponok

tough to say. There's plenty that I still want for my TF:TM collection (see my sig), more than a few of which don't even really exist. Terrible, terrible Universe Galvatron is waiting to be replaced by something cool. Nice new Dinobots wouldn't go amiss either.

I don't want MIB/MOSC stuff, and very few G1 toys actually hold any appeal for me beyond their characters. Sculpting and engineering has come so far since then. I don't own any Botcon stuff, and whilst a lot of it looks cool, there's only a few of the toys I'd actually consider spending the sorts of money that people ask for them. The G2 boxset did have Pyro/Spark though, and he looks really good. Clench from the same set is pretty nice, but not sure I'd be bothered about the whole set. Banzaitron and Kick-Over have been pretty cool repaints of characters I'd never have expected to see. If I ever got the chance to pick them up at a relatively good price I'd probably jump on them. SG doesn't interest me at all.

Out of all the upcoming stuff in the next year or so that's really caught my eye, whilst not technical "a grail" Ultra Magnus from the FOC line is really nice and I'm anxiously awaiting the pre-order.

I'm honestly quite happy with my collection, sure it'd be nice to add a Fort Max to it but I know that may never happen.

So i'll settle for a Fire Guts God Ginrai to round out my collection of that mold.

If, by "grail", you men the one figure you want but cannot either find or get yet, I probably have a weird one.

Misfire and Aimless.

Most of the stuff that a lot of people call "grails" are really not all that interesting to me. I mostly collect characters from the US G1 show.
I guess the thing I want most right now is a cartoon accurate Ultra Magnus. The City Commander Armor just doesn't do it for me. The Titanium version is way too small.

Strangely enough, I don't have a 'grail'. I do want some rare TFs, but... meh.

I just bought one of mine on Ebay thanks to a very helpful seller (I had bid high on it when he tried to sell it previously, but the winner backed out so he offered me a private 'Buy It Now' listing and even accomodated me by allowing me to pay with PayPal (something he normally doesn't accept).

He seems reputable and is located in Malaysia. The figure is a Japanese Botcon Double Punch:



If he does come through and everything goes well (already shipped, now I'm just waiting and hoping with fingers crossed, especially considering the hefty price I paid, around $450 including shipping), I'll be purchasing a few other very rare items he's got which are also pretty high in price.

I'm still looking for a Botcon Vice Grip and Botcon Antagony. I've got almost all of the other Botcon Beast Wars figure repaints/remolds (I'm a Beast Wars fanatic ).

I won my grail recently a MIB G1 soundwave.I won it for 68.00 shipped the box is in poor shape and missing buzzsaw's weapons but I'm happy.

I was stoked when I got my Soundwave too. He wasn't mint in box though, one of the clips in the cassette chamber is broke…still works. He came with Frenzy and was complete minus original tapes…even had the instructions, bio, and red decoder!

FE Bulkhead has taken his spot as my "Grail"
The reason is, I made a promise to myself that I would complete the TF Prime cast, and get all the FEs that I need. A hefty promise, considering the hefty prices.

I ended up settling for the Wave 2 Voyager Bulkhead…I really liked the color on the Jap version FE

Valandar wrote:If, by "grail", you men the one figure you want but cannot either find or get yet, I probably have a weird one.

Misfire and Aimless.

I bought those guys MIB japanese last week. I love that set, they're things of beauty.

If, by "grail", you men the one figure you want but cannot either find or get yet, I probably have a weird one.

Misfire and Aimless.

That one is not weird at all. The Targetmasters are gems and low in numbers due to many being overlooked back then.

Mainly unofficial stuff:

Oversized Machine Wars Thundercracker

Oversized Tentakil

Machine Robo 45 Magnum that inspired Treadshot

Warcry

Munitioner

Botcon Dreadwind

Well a recent acquired grail is Binaltech Laserwave MISP for 89 bux on e-bay! The 2 grails I currently lust for are G1 Fort Max/Brave Max and Liokaiser. And my all time grail is G1 Overlord...aahhh yeah!

Love my Scorponok, but I currently have a complete Monstructor surrounded by the shells sitting in hutch. Bought them all when they first came out in 88' or 89'. Monstructor is the third full G1 combiner I own.

My grail would be my childhood favorite character and toy G1 UMagnus. Now I'm glad to own it as AFA 85.

I've got my Magnus too!!! him and Skywarp were my favorite G1s

My grail is the Botcon 2006 Dawn of Future's Past boxset. I had a few opportunities to buy the set for 600 bucks a few years ago, but had to pass due to financial reasons. Now it goes for a cool grand which is WAY more than I'm comfortable paying. However, I'm getting a pretty big settlement check by the end of this summer and I told my wife I was taking 1000 bucks to just splurge. I had my eye on some gym equipment, but there's a strong chance I'll try to snag that boxset...

WolfDawg wrote:My grail is the Botcon 2006 Dawn of Future's Past boxset. I had a few opportunities to buy the set for 600 bucks a few years ago, but had to pass due to financial reasons. Now it goes for a cool grand which is WAY more than I'm comfortable paying. However, I'm getting a pretty big settlement check by the end of this summer and I told my wife I was taking 1000 bucks to just splurge. I had my eye on some gym equipment, but there's a strong chance I'll try to snag that boxset...

Well, gym equipment isn't hard to come by, but that set is. I think you know what you must do.

As for my Grail... I don't really know. I've been thinking about this most of the week, and I don't really have a TF Grail.

The Grail of my collection of transforming toys was the Superhuman Samurai Syber Squad figures I got 4 years ago. Since then though, there hasn't been much that I've had that "I'll do anything to have that" feeling for.