Reprolabels: They're looking for your help!

g60force wrote:10 whole dollars... .... hahah lolz... and 10min letter they make 100000 moolah

Kimmitron wrote:Wat a rip off.$10 bucks only and they are making tons of money.Why not ask Hasbro or Takara and see how much they
are going to charge them.

Kimmitron wrote:Wat a rip off.$10 bucks only and they are making tons of money.Why not ask Hasbro or Takara and see how much they
are going to charge them.

Seibertron wrote:

Kimmitron wrote:Wat a rip off.$10 bucks only and they are making tons of money.Why not ask Hasbro or Takara and see how much they
are going to charge them.

Are you guys nuts? They are NOT making a ton of money off this. And even if they were, who cares? They're providing a very valuable service to collectors of G1 Transformers toys. Do you guys have any idea what goes into making these sticker sheets or the molds that cut the stickers? I can't believe how rude some of you are being about this.

Botch the Crab wrote:I am floored by the negative comments here. ReproLabels is so unbelievably handy, their quality is so high, and their prices are so reasonable.

If you are lucky enough to actually have the sticker sheets for these characters, $10 is a great price for taking 5 minutes to scan and email something.

Don't forget, also, that ReproLabels also provides the factory-applied stickers that weren't on the sticker sheets, and these they create manually by painstakingly reproducing the originals.

Anyone who is griping about "only" getting $10 for a scan, or thinks they can do these themselves, well have at it. I'd like to see you approach the quality that ReproLabels provides.

Kimmitron wrote:Wat a rip off.$10 bucks only and they are making tons of money.Why not ask Hasbro or Takara and see how much they
are going to charge them.

JackStraw wrote:However, with all due respect, I do feel that it is valid to question a business paying a paltry $10 for something that they are going to turn into a product that they can then turn around and sell infinitely.

JackStraw wrote: They are still a business and are trying to turn a profit not some kind of not for profit charity organization.

monstergrotusque wrote:Isn't it possible to remove the stickers from existing figures for scanning?

JackStraw wrote:However, with all due respect, I do feel that it is valid to question a business paying a paltry $10 for something that they are going to turn into a product that they can then turn around and sell infinitely. They are still a business and are trying to turn a profit not some kind of not for profit charity organization.

Burn wrote:

monstergrotusque wrote:You'll have a hard time trying to remove stickers that have been in place for 25 odd years in one piece.

monstergrotusque wrote:Agreed that it is not the easiest solution to the problem but it's certainly not rocket surgery either.

Removing a sticker from a figure is possible and could be a viable solution if these sets don't show up.

JackStraw wrote:Also, I for one have a very very hard time putting reprolabels created off of a scan on a vintage G1 figure that I paid a lot of money for. It's like putting new after market parts on a vintage car. It can be neat, but it's no longer so much vintage. Even if they looked exactly the same, it's still not right...and they don't look exactly the same.

HighPrime wrote:Applied stickers are not hard to remove.

In fact, they are easy as pie. I will pass on to you what I learned from Heroic_Decepticon. All you need is Zippo lighter fluid... yes.. you read that right.. Zippo lighter fluid.

Read on here:

http://heroicdecepticon.blogspot.com/20 ... -from.html

I've done this a few times already and works like magic. If you want to be extra careful, remove with an old G1 tech spec decolder. It is super thin, and will slide under the sticker without damaging it. (my tip )

JackStraw wrote:Also, I for one have a very very hard time putting reprolabels created off of a scan on a vintage G1 figure that I paid a lot of money for. It's like putting new after market parts on a vintage car. It can be neat, but it's no longer so much vintage. Even if they looked exactly the same, it's still not right...and they don't look exactly the same.

Burn wrote:

monstergrotusque wrote:Isn't it possible to remove the stickers from existing figures for scanning?

You'll have a hard time trying to remove stickers that have been in place for 25 odd years in one piece.

Ain't that the truth!

JackStraw wrote:However, with all due respect, I do feel that it is valid to question a business paying a paltry $10 for something that they are going to turn into a product that they can then turn around and sell infinitely. They are still a business and are trying to turn a profit not some kind of not for profit charity organization.

Yes, they're a business. And they're paying for assistance

.

Some feel not enough. In 2011 $10 isnt much, I think it may have looked better if they offered a whole bunch of free product instead of $10 - even if the cost to them was less than $10. When I told my wife about this she had the EXACT same reaction as one of the first posters: "Wow, ten whole dollars!?"

I think the great misconception here is that Reprolabels are going to make a lot of money out of this. I don't see that happening. For each sticker sheet scanned, I really couldn't see them selling more than $1000 worth.

Is anyone privy to Reprolabels financials? No? Thought not.

I think that would be very interesting. I'm sure gross or net revenue isnt very high, but I bet the profit margins are through the roof, to the point they would never want anyone to see.

As someone said earlier, $10 for five minutes of scanning. $120/hr ... does that really sound poultry to anyone? Really?

JackStraw wrote:
I strongly believe in "if you dont have anything nice to say dont say it", but being this is a discussion forum I dont think anyone's opinions here are out of line. My only reason for getting involved was not to bust Repro's chops, but I felt the first few posters who made comments about the paltry $10 had their chops busted a little bit, and wanted to say that whether you agree like I do, or not, these opinions are not crazy.
Peace

JackStraw wrote:However, with all due respect, I do feel that it is valid to question a business paying a paltry $10 for something that they are going to turn into a product that they can then turn around and sell infinitely. They are still a business and are trying to turn a profit not some kind of not for profit charity organization.

monstergrotusque wrote:I'm sure it would be next to damn near impossible to get untouched sticker sheets for these guys.

I'm thinkin if the cattle call for these stickers was posted for a number of weeks so that more people could see that Reprolabels are looking for help. That would offer the request for help enough time to be seen by more folks who may have these sheets.

JackStraw wrote:My sole point is just that the people who complained about it are entitled to their opinion. I'm sure this site which I love and respect probably has a relationship with them, but the folks who find the $10 offer a little...cheep or whatever shouldn't be flamed or scolded.

Seibertron wrote:Hopefully someone comes out of the woodwork with Crosshairs, Misfire and Slugslinger so that I can finally do galleries of those guys at long last.

Geekee1 wrote:

HighPrime wrote:Applied stickers are not hard to remove.

In fact, they are easy as pie. I will pass on to you what I learned from Heroic_Decepticon. All you need is Zippo lighter fluid... yes.. you read that right.. Zippo lighter fluid.

Read on here:

http://heroicdecepticon.blogspot.com/20 ... -from.html

I've done this a few times already and works like magic. If you want to be extra careful, remove with an old G1 tech spec decolder. It is super thin, and will slide under the sticker without damaging it. (my tip )

Interesting, although that solution is still not 100%

Geekee1 wrote:

JackStraw wrote:Also, I for one have a very very hard time putting reprolabels created off of a scan on a vintage G1 figure that I paid a lot of money for. It's like putting new after market parts on a vintage car. It can be neat, but it's no longer so much vintage. Even if they looked exactly the same, it's still not right...and they don't look exactly the same.

This is not really true though. The overwhelming majority of collectors that I have seen do not even take into consideration whether or not the stickers are original or repros, in fact they put repros on their figs. I have yet to see an incidence where that is the case, although you may certainly be the first.

Geekee1 wrote:Life lesson, opinions CAN be wrong.

Seibertron wrote:I definitely prefer original stickers to reprolabels, but some times it's just not possible. I've been searching for stickers for Crosshairs and Misfire for years. Their stickers just never show up on eBay. Reprolabels will be my only chance to get stickers for these guys at this point. Doesn't mean that I'll stop searching for those stickers even if I apply future Reprolabels on them. I can always apply the "real" stickers later if I so desire.

Seibertron wrote:

JackStraw wrote:My sole point is just that the people who complained about it are entitled to their opinion. I'm sure this site which I love and respect probably has a relationship with them, but the folks who find the $10 offer a little...cheep or whatever shouldn't be flamed or scolded.

I disagree. They're being naive, rude and ungrateful. They could've easily left their comments out of this post.

Geekee1 wrote:Life lesson, opinions CAN be wrong.

JackStraw wrote:As for not telling the difference between repro and original labels; back to my vintage/classic car analogy: If a vintage car seller rebuilds a car and uses new parts or parts from different cars and no one notices, isnt the integrity of the "vintage" distinction still compromised?
I consider myself a purist when it comes to collecting and I sincerely hope we can agree to disagree on some of this stuff.

Geekee1 wrote:

JackStraw wrote:As for not telling the difference between repro and original labels; back to my vintage/classic car analogy: If a vintage car seller rebuilds a car and uses new parts or parts from different cars and no one notices, isnt the integrity of the "vintage" distinction still compromised?
I consider myself a purist when it comes to collecting and I sincerely hope we can agree to disagree on some of this stuff.

That's why is said that it isn't really true. Although I see what you're getting at, the vintage car community is quite different from the transformers community. Car collectors prefer original. In my experience this does not apply to TF's. Reprolabels are not frowned upon at all in this community, with very few exceptions. Not arguing your preference which I very much appreciate, just saying your comparing apples to oranges.

Geekee1 wrote:

JackStraw wrote:As for not telling the difference between repro and original labels; back to my vintage/classic car analogy: If a vintage car seller rebuilds a car and uses new parts or parts from different cars and no one notices, isnt the integrity of the "vintage" distinction still compromised?
I consider myself a purist when it comes to collecting and I sincerely hope we can agree to disagree on some of this stuff.

That's why is said that it isn't really true. Although I see what you're getting at, the vintage car community is quite different from the transformers community. Car collectors prefer original. In my experience this does not apply to TF's. Reprolabels are not frowned upon at all in this community, with very few exceptions. Not arguing your preference which I very much appreciate, just saying your comparing apples to oranges.

Seibertron wrote:I get what JackStraw is saying about car collectors. As a pretty die-hard Transformers collector who owns just about everything Hasbro's dished out over the past 27 years and loves his G1 Transformers very much, I'm not a purist in the sense that I have to have the original G1 Smokescreen as well as the reissue Smokescreen. The reissue was fine for me, and in many/several cases the reissues are better than the originals (such as reissue Star Convoy for example which had several improvements over the original, not to mention all of the reissues that have working springs in their weapons whereas the original US versions do not). I prefer original stickers, but repro stickers aren't a deal breaker.

Geekee1 wrote:

Seibertron wrote:I get what JackStraw is saying about car collectors. As a pretty die-hard Transformers collector who owns just about everything Hasbro's dished out over the past 27 years and loves his G1 Transformers very much, I'm not a purist in the sense that I have to have the original G1 Smokescreen as well as the reissue Smokescreen. The reissue was fine for me, and in many/several cases the reissues are better than the originals (such as reissue Star Convoy for example which had several improvements over the original, not to mention all of the reissues that have working springs in their weapons whereas the original US versions do not). I prefer original stickers, but repro stickers aren't a deal breaker.

Exactly!

JackStraw wrote:

Geekee1 wrote:

Seibertron wrote:I get what JackStraw is saying about car collectors. As a pretty die-hard Transformers collector who owns just about everything Hasbro's dished out over the past 27 years and loves his G1 Transformers very much, I'm not a purist in the sense that I have to have the original G1 Smokescreen as well as the reissue Smokescreen. The reissue was fine for me, and in many/several cases the reissues are better than the originals (such as reissue Star Convoy for example which had several improvements over the original, not to mention all of the reissues that have working springs in their weapons whereas the original US versions do not). I prefer original stickers, but repro stickers aren't a deal breaker.

Exactly!

AGREED!

Seibertron wrote:

Geekee1 wrote:

HighPrime wrote:Applied stickers are not hard to remove.

In fact, they are easy as pie. I will pass on to you what I learned from Heroic_Decepticon. All you need is Zippo lighter fluid... yes.. you read that right.. Zippo lighter fluid.

Read on here:

http://heroicdecepticon.blogspot.com/20 ... -from.html

I've done this a few times already and works like magic. If you want to be extra careful, remove with an old G1 tech spec decolder. It is super thin, and will slide under the sticker without damaging it. (my tip )

Interesting, although that solution is still not 100%

I agree. The first couple of figures I tried it on, I felt like I was using magic. It was amazing. But the honeymoon feeling ended very abruptly when a sticker ripped right in half on the very next figure. I had difficulty with all of the stickers on that figure. Perhaps I used too much of the lighter fluid so the paper had become so saturated that it easily tore apart when I tried peeling it off? I haven't figured out what the magical time frame is for waiting for the stickers to become loose to how much lighter fluid to use.

Seibertron wrote:

JackStraw wrote:

Geekee1 wrote:

Seibertron wrote:I get what JackStraw is saying about car collectors. As a pretty die-hard Transformers collector who owns just about everything Hasbro's dished out over the past 27 years and loves his G1 Transformers very much, I'm not a purist in the sense that I have to have the original G1 Smokescreen as well as the reissue Smokescreen. The reissue was fine for me, and in many/several cases the reissues are better than the originals (such as reissue Star Convoy for example which had several improvements over the original, not to mention all of the reissues that have working springs in their weapons whereas the original US versions do not). I prefer original stickers, but repro stickers aren't a deal breaker.

Exactly!

AGREED!

Civil discussions FTW! Hot damn.

Hal7300 wrote:

Seibertron wrote:

Geekee1 wrote:

HighPrime wrote:Applied stickers are not hard to remove.

In fact, they are easy as pie. I will pass on to you what I learned from Heroic_Decepticon. All you need is Zippo lighter fluid... yes.. you read that right.. Zippo lighter fluid.

Read on here:

http://heroicdecepticon.blogspot.com/20 ... -from.html

I've done this a few times already and works like magic. If you want to be extra careful, remove with an old G1 tech spec decolder. It is super thin, and will slide under the sticker without damaging it. (my tip )

Interesting, although that solution is still not 100%

I agree. The first couple of figures I tried it on, I felt like I was using magic. It was amazing. But the honeymoon feeling ended very abruptly when a sticker ripped right in half on the very next figure. I had difficulty with all of the stickers on that figure. Perhaps I used too much of the lighter fluid so the paper had become so saturated that it easily tore apart when I tried peeling it off? I haven't figured out what the magical time frame is for waiting for the stickers to become loose to how much lighter fluid to use.

I've used lighter fluid to remove stickers from a few of my TFs, and it's worked a charm every time.

I discard the old stickers and buy new sets from Reprolabels - my recently acquired G1 Hardhead is the latest to be restored.

I only wish i had the means to help them out with a few scans as a way of saying 'thank you' for the excellent service they provide.

Botch the Crab wrote:

monstergrotusque wrote:Agreed that it is not the easiest solution to the problem but it's certainly not rocket surgery either.

Removing a sticker from a figure is possible and could be a viable solution if these sets don't show up.

Spoken like someone who has never tried to remove stickers from his G1 toys, much less removed them in a condition where they are scannable. I can tell you from much experience that your G1 stickers will not come off easily or nicely, much less in a useful form.

monstergrotusque wrote:

Botch the Crab wrote:

monstergrotusque wrote:Agreed that it is not the easiest solution to the problem but it's certainly not rocket surgery either.

Removing a sticker from a figure is possible and could be a viable solution if these sets don't show up.

Spoken like someone who has never tried to remove stickers from his G1 toys, much less removed them in a condition where they are scannable. I can tell you from much experience that your G1 stickers will not come off easily or nicely, much less in a useful form.

Yeah i've had a couple come off with relative ease and others have fallen to pieces and turned to crumpled shreads. Nevertheless.....the small success i've had is were my logic originated from that maybe it could be a viable solution. EXCUUUUUSE ME!!

I don't know that this was such a touchy subject with some folks. I'm all for Reprolabels and have given them a good chunk of my change to spruce up my G1 collection.

I was just throwin out an idea.