For several months, I took a break from the very expensive hobby of collecting vintage G1 reissues so we could get our finances in order. Things are looking up for us in a major way (we're completely out of debt and actually have money in savings for the first time ever) so it was time to dive back in and resume collecting, with an eventual goal of owning every G1 toy sold in the USA.

I actually owned Waverider for a little while. It was one of the toys a buddy of mine donated to me when were were in sixth or seventh grade, after he decided he was outgrowing them. I must have sold it off as a young adult, because I don't own it any longer. In previous months, I'll search for a variety of different characters until I hit upon one I really like. As soon as I saw an auction for a complete Waverider with the original unapplied sticker sheet, I knew this was the one for me. (Unapplied stickers are such a rare treat. I definitely don't expect this every time!)

Where the Decepticon Pretenders were mostly monsters and creatures, the Autobot Pretenders were almost unilaterally disguised as humans. Waverider is from the first series of 1988 Pretenders, who is distinguished from the second batch by having his humanoid head partially hidden by his armor. One supposes that could be a breathing apparatus covering his mouth for underwater missions. He's not overtly animal-themed like later Pretenders such as Sky High or Groundbreaker, but the gold striped pattern on his chest has always reminded me a little bit of bristly baleen whale teeth. I'm not sure if that was intentional or not. The outer shell is predominantly a dark grey, with red belly armor, and the human disguise is Caucasian with blonde hair.

Waverider comes with an eggshell white helmet for the Pretender shell to wear, as well as a belt that helps the Pretender shell halves stay locked together. He's armed with an off-white axe and a black gun. One characteristic of Waverider toys on the secondary market is that a lot of his off-white parts (the helmet, belt, and axe) tend to exhibit some odd brown splotches on the plastic, like a bruised banana. It must be the result of the plastic breaking down chemically as it ages, or something. I got a toy where the splotches are minimal and not completely awful-looking, but they're still there. (I think this plastic was a lot more rubbery in 1988 than it is today. I seem to remember the belt being a lot more flexible. You see a lot of the axes on eBay with broken-off handles, which I think is only the case because the plastic has gotten so rigid.)

When you pop the halves of the outer shell apart, you get Waverider the robot. He's almost entirely off-black with some light grey upper legs and feet, and a gold-painted visor. Like a lot of Pretenders, he's almost completely free of vehicle kibble, so he's designed more like a generic mecha than an early Transformer who usually had visible wheels or car parts or something on his body. He's rounder than a lot of Transformers, with circular-shaped shoulders and knees and helmet, and has a curvature to his upper chest as opposed to the block look that a lot of Transformers exhibit.

The robot can carry the black gun, using a peg on the side of the weapon, which means he has to hold it sideways. His legs and knees will move out to the sides, as required by his transformation, but the only useful articulation he's got is his arms, which move at the shoulders.

To transform Waverider, the arms tuck behind the back and the legs swing out to the sides until they're pointing the other way, like GoBots Pathfinder.. The head flips down to reveal a propellor fan. A pair of tiny wings fold out from either leg, and mouting the black gun on the top completes the vehicle. In this form, he's got a gold painted cockpit. He's ostensibly an aquatic vehicle (the instructions call him a "sea skimmer") but as with a lot of the early Pretenders, it's a case of "this is what he is because we say so." The vehicle has a few perfunctory support struts, but nothing in the way of rolling wheels or working landing gears.

Interestingly, he's got a square-shaped spot on the top of his vehicle mode that's clearly intended for a rub symbol, despite them being continued in 1988. A lot of the 1988 toys were sculpted this way. (I think that early versions of the Triggerbots and Triggercons actually were sold with rub symbols, but nobody else was, as far as I'm aware.)

So, I'm kind of disappointed with the toy I got. For one, the robot is missing a foot. I should have noticed this from the auction photos, and I didn't. But, I've got a second junker Waverider robot already on the way, so I can piece together a complete unit. That part's not a problem. But, the outer shell also has a broken peg where the shell halves connect together, and that bugs me. I also didn't see the splotches on the helmet and belt and axe. They weren't visible in the auction photos at all. I guess it's ultimately my fault for not studying the pictures more closely or asking the seller the right questions. So now I'm torn between hunting down more Waverider parts (or even another complete toy) and piecing together a better one, or just keeping this one and calling it good. I was just so enamored with the unapplied stickers that I really didn't apply a critical eye towards anything else.

And then there's the issue with the belt. I'm not sure if it's just lost so much elasticity that it no longer works, or if there's some kind of undocumented "long belt" and "short belt" variant, and that this belt isn't meant to go to this specific version of Waverider. Either is possible, honestly. I guess I'll try to dip it in hot water later to see if I can stretch it out a bit, and hope that I don't inadvertantly accellerate the chemical process that's causing all the bruised banana splotching.

This is kind of a major let-down, since I've been looking forward to getting this toy in the mail for a while (this was actually my November purchase) and now I'm just super crestfallen about it. It seems like the pattern I've fallen into is one really successful purchase followed by one that's a total disaster. So, maybe I should have seen this one coming. I dunno.

I'll report back here when and if I end up going after some more Waverider parts on eBay, so stay tuned!

Zob (Preteeeeeeeeenders hide the Transfooooooormers inside)

On Wednesday, December 8, 2021 at 5:43:59 PM UTC-7, Zobovor wrote:

> I'll report back here when and if I end up going after some more Waverider parts on eBay, so stay tuned!

Okay. I bought another complete set, this time making sure to ask the correct questions. It had a broken axe, but I already have a complete unbroken one. (It came with the handle, so I was able to fix it up. I'll resell it but make it clear to buyers that it's been repaired.) The second set had a Pretender shell in better shape and a helmet that wasn't all banana splotchy.

The solution to the belt situation was surprisingly simple. Dipping it in boiling water for about 30 seconds softened it up nicely. Made it more like the rubbery plastic I remember from the 1980's. I guess it just hardens up over the decades. No wonder all those Waverider axes are breaking left and right!

So I've finally got a nice unit that I was able to apply the stickers to. I'm glad I was able to do it myself. I'm a stickler about stickers. Nothing makes a G1 toy look worse than badly-applied labels. It's almost like they were letting kids do it or something. Can you imagine!

And now I've got a complete extra Waverider, plus an extra inner robot missing a foot, that I guess I need to sell off. That sounds like a January problem to me.

Zob (still needs like twenty-four Pretenders to complete the set)

On Tuesday, December 14, 2021 at 3:54:12 PM UTC-7, Zobovor wrote:

> The second set had a Pretender shell in better shape and a helmet that wasn't all banana splotchy.

....Aaaaaand apparently there was a THIRD Pretender shell that I ordered at some point, and then promptly forgot all about. Now, in my defense, it's the holiday season (hoop-de-doo and dickory dock) and there's a lot going on.. Gifts to wrap, cats to yell at for climbing the Christmas tree. I'm also selling a lot of stuff on eBay, so that's been at the forefront of my mind.

But, the third Pretender shell was of benefit to me, because it's in the best condition of the three that I've got now. So I guess this really is the way to go. Just keep gobbling up parts until you can build a complete, unbroken unit that's satisfactory. I mean, if I'm spending the money anyway, I might as well get one that I'm happy with, right?

I'm artificially depleting the world's Pretender Waverider supply and I probably need to stop it. Maybe this is why there are no Pretender Iguanus toys on eBay at all right now. There's some guy my age who's bought like 20 of them, trying to piece together the perfect Iguanus, and like me, he's too lazy to sell off what he doesn't need, so he's just got 19 extra, slightly imperfect Iguanus toys sitting around collecting dust.

The good news is, this is the time of year when people start to sell things for super cheap, because buyers won't receive things in time for Christmas, but sellers still want to make a quick buck before the holidays. It's a very narrow window, but it's a great time to look for stuff if you don't mind if it shows up in the first week of January!

Zob (just got a 40-pack of X-Acto blades for about $20, but I remember when that kind of money would get you a 100-pack)