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interests / alt.toys.transformers / Re: Rising Prices and Rising Costs: The Future of Collecting

SubjectAuthor
* Rising Prices and Rising Costs: The Future of CollectingZobovor
+- Re: Rising Prices and Rising Costs: The Future of CollectingIrrellius Spamticon
`* Re: Rising Prices and Rising Costs: The Future of CollectingGustavo Wombat
 `* Re: Rising Prices and Rising Costs: The Future of CollectingZobovor
  +* Re: Rising Prices and Rising Costs: The Future of CollectingAvaran
  |`* Re: Rising Prices and Rising Costs: The Future of CollectingZobovor
  | `* Re: Rising Prices and Rising Costs: The Future of CollectingGustavo Wombat, of the Seattle Wombats
  |  `- Re: Rising Prices and Rising Costs: The Future of CollectingJoseph Bardsley
  `* Re: Rising Prices and Rising Costs: The Future of CollectingEvil King Macrocranios
   `* Re: Rising Prices and Rising Costs: The Future of CollectingZobovor
    `* Re: Rising Prices and Rising Costs: The Future of CollectingGustavo Wombat
     `* Re: Rising Prices and Rising Costs: The Future of CollectingZobovor
      `- Re: Rising Prices and Rising Costs: The Future of CollectingGustavo Wombat

1
Rising Prices and Rising Costs: The Future of Collecting

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Subject: Rising Prices and Rising Costs: The Future of Collecting
From: zmf...@aol.com (Zobovor)
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 by: Zobovor - Mon, 31 Jan 2022 03:54 UTC

So even though we saw a price hike in recent months (most retailers are charging $22.99 for Deluxe-class toys now instead of $20), there is some supporting evidence that Hasbro plans to raise prices even further, no doubt due to the ever-growing expense of raw materials and transportation.

The most recent Deluxe-scale toy to debut on Hasbro Pulse is the DK-2 Guard named DK-2 Guard, who was selling very briefly for $22.99 (I got my order in just under the wire) before jumping up to $24.99. It's unsure whether DK-2 Guard is at a special price point due to his larger-than-usual configuration, or whether this will be the standard pricing for Deluxes going forward.

https://hasbropulse.com/products/transformers-generations-selects-deluxe-dk-2-guard

Also, a Canadian online retailer called Toysnowman is reporting that Hasbro has announced a price hike on all Transformers price point of roughly six percent; for example, the Titan-class price point is going from $249.99 CAD to $264.99 CAD.

https://toysnowman.com/

Finally, the news site Marvelous News is reporting that Hasbro is raising prices on the Marvel Legends action figures:

https://marvelousnews.com/252-30087

These toys have traditionally always retailed for $20, and jumped up to $22..99 at about the same time the Transformers toys did. So, there's a strong chance we're going to see another price increase across the board.

A lot of fans on the Transformers message boards have mentioned just giving up collecting altogether, or at least heavily scaling back, and frankly who can blame them? It used to be that $100 could get you ten Deluxe-class toys, but if this price hike goes into effect, a hundred bucks will get you four Deluxes (and that's not including sales tax).

My wages are slowly increasing (I get about a two percent raise every year) but they're simply not keeping up with the increase of goods and services in this country. Even when I was strapped for cash and living paycheck to paycheck, I still managed to tighten my belt and find the cash for a Beast Wars toy here and there. It was difficult, but doable. That was around 1998 or 1999, when the minimum wage in Utah was $5.15. Now, in the last 20 years, the price for Deluxe toys has more than doubled, but the minimum wage has only gone up two dollars. (I make more than minimum wage, of course, but I'm just using that as a baseline to illustrate my point.)

I'm not planning to give up collecting any time soon (indeed, if anything I'm spending more on toys than ever before, thanks to NECA and Super7) but I can certainly appreciate fans electing to simply bow out. More and more, I see people on Reddit say things about a new action figure sculpt like, "Wow, that looks really good... too bad I don't collect those any longer" or "I can't believe how much that costs... I'm glad I got out of the game when I did." On eBay, people are unloading entire collections and citing rising costs as the main reason (they don't always disclose this on the auction page; sometimes I'll just ask the seller out of curiosity).

There's going to come a point where Transformers are just too expensive to collect. It's going to mirror the pricing chaos of the 1980's, where retailers would sometimes massively overcharge for Transformers, just because there was no real precedent for the whole transformable toy concept so they really had no idea what to set their prices at. Only this time, it's not just going to be odd, random retailers who have bumped up their pricing... it's going to be everybody, everywhere.

Zob (how much can you get for a kidney these days? You don't really need both of them, do you?)

Re: Rising Prices and Rising Costs: The Future of Collecting

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Subject: Re: Rising Prices and Rising Costs: The Future of Collecting
From: Ob1ken...@att.net (Irrellius Spamticon)
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 by: Irrellius Spamticon - Mon, 31 Jan 2022 15:19 UTC

On Sunday, January 30, 2022 at 9:54:05 PM UTC-6, Zobovor wrote:
> So even though we saw a price hike in recent months (most retailers are charging $22.99 for Deluxe-class toys now instead of $20), there is some supporting evidence that Hasbro plans to raise prices even further, no doubt due to the ever-growing expense of raw materials and transportation.
>
> The most recent Deluxe-scale toy to debut on Hasbro Pulse is the DK-2 Guard named DK-2 Guard, who was selling very briefly for $22.99 (I got my order in just under the wire) before jumping up to $24.99. It's unsure whether DK-2 Guard is at a special price point due to his larger-than-usual configuration, or whether this will be the standard pricing for Deluxes going forward.
>
> https://hasbropulse.com/products/transformers-generations-selects-deluxe-dk-2-guard
>
> Also, a Canadian online retailer called Toysnowman is reporting that Hasbro has announced a price hike on all Transformers price point of roughly six percent; for example, the Titan-class price point is going from $249.99 CAD to $264.99 CAD.
>
> https://toysnowman.com/
>
> Finally, the news site Marvelous News is reporting that Hasbro is raising prices on the Marvel Legends action figures:
>
> https://marvelousnews.com/252-30087
>
> These toys have traditionally always retailed for $20, and jumped up to $22.99 at about the same time the Transformers toys did. So, there's a strong chance we're going to see another price increase across the board.
>
> A lot of fans on the Transformers message boards have mentioned just giving up collecting altogether, or at least heavily scaling back, and frankly who can blame them? It used to be that $100 could get you ten Deluxe-class toys, but if this price hike goes into effect, a hundred bucks will get you four Deluxes (and that's not including sales tax).
>
> My wages are slowly increasing (I get about a two percent raise every year) but they're simply not keeping up with the increase of goods and services in this country. Even when I was strapped for cash and living paycheck to paycheck, I still managed to tighten my belt and find the cash for a Beast Wars toy here and there. It was difficult, but doable. That was around 1998 or 1999, when the minimum wage in Utah was $5.15. Now, in the last 20 years, the price for Deluxe toys has more than doubled, but the minimum wage has only gone up two dollars. (I make more than minimum wage, of course, but I'm just using that as a baseline to illustrate my point.)
>
> I'm not planning to give up collecting any time soon (indeed, if anything I'm spending more on toys than ever before, thanks to NECA and Super7) but I can certainly appreciate fans electing to simply bow out. More and more, I see people on Reddit say things about a new action figure sculpt like, "Wow, that looks really good... too bad I don't collect those any longer" or "I can't believe how much that costs... I'm glad I got out of the game when I did." On eBay, people are unloading entire collections and citing rising costs as the main reason (they don't always disclose this on the auction page; sometimes I'll just ask the seller out of curiosity).
>
> There's going to come a point where Transformers are just too expensive to collect. It's going to mirror the pricing chaos of the 1980's, where retailers would sometimes massively overcharge for Transformers, just because there was no real precedent for the whole transformable toy concept so they really had no idea what to set their prices at. Only this time, it's not just going to be odd, random retailers who have bumped up their pricing... it's going to be everybody, everywhere.
>
>
> Zob (how much can you get for a kidney these days? You don't really need both of them, do you?)

A lot of Target stores raised their Legends prices last October, a lot of the Eternals figures were $22.99 and a lot of the villains wave was $24.99.

Super 7 is charging $22 when they were overpriced at $18. NECA raised prices across the board with their basics going from $20 to $24, and their Deluxes going from $30 to $32 to $35 and soon to $38

At least it's not printers. They've gone up anywhere from $50-$250 over the last year, and are still in short supply in most retailers. The printers that do show up are significantly lower quality than models from previous generations, eliminating features like 2 sided print, touchscreens, USB flash drive ports, and fax. People aren't happy but I'm supposed to continue on as if nothing has changed.

Eventually the current Transformers Authentics offering at Family Dollar and 5 Below will be the $15 offering at Walmart and Target

Re: Rising Prices and Rising Costs: The Future of Collecting

<stat2l$s7$1@gioia.aioe.org>

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From: gustavow...@yahoo.com (Gustavo Wombat)
Newsgroups: alt.toys.transformers
Subject: Re: Rising Prices and Rising Costs: The Future of Collecting
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 by: Gustavo Wombat - Tue, 1 Feb 2022 09:04 UTC

Zobovor <zmfts@aol.com> wrote:
> So even though we saw a price hike in recent months (most retailers are
> charging $22.99 for Deluxe-class toys now instead of $20), there is some
> supporting evidence that Hasbro plans to raise prices even further, no
> doubt due to the ever-growing expense of raw materials and transportation.

Or, with countless news stories about inflation, they’ve decided that they
can try to push the prices up a bit more and gain more profit, since $22.99
seemed to be accepted. Everyone will just assume it is rising costs, when
it is just profit taking.

Wake up sheeple!

Anyway, I don’t think we know and there are examples in both directions.
Probably take a few more years to work out what is caused by the pandemic,
what is caused by the stimulus, and what is just profit taking and rent
seeking.

Americans are spending less on services and more on goods these days —
fewer gym memberships, more home gyms. That utterly changes the stresses on
the economy, and that is largely caused by covid — your home gym isn’t
going to cough the plague on you, demand you wear a mask, or have a
screaming fit when someone makes it wear a mask.

And there’s still the semiconductor shortage, which affects pretty much all
manufacturing.

> The most recent Deluxe-scale toy to debut on Hasbro Pulse is the DK-2
> Guard named DK-2 Guard, who was selling very briefly for $22.99 (I got my
> order in just under the wire) before jumping up to $24.99. It's unsure
> whether DK-2 Guard is at a special price point due to his
> larger-than-usual configuration, or whether this will be the standard
> pricing for Deluxes going forward.

Isn’t he just Ironhide sized? I guess he is Siege Ironhide sized plus a
shield, but that’s a stretch. He also doesn’t have any tooling costs at
this point.

> Also, a Canadian online retailer called Toysnowman is reporting that
> Hasbro has announced a price hike on all Transformers price point of
> roughly six percent; for example, the Titan-class price point is going
> from $249.99 CAD to $264.99 CAD.

Given that the Ark is the smallest Titan, it already didn’t feel worth it.
Also, “The Littlest Titan” should be the next Transformers cartoon.

The toys are feeling slightly cheaper quality again, and that bothers me
more than the price increases. I nearly stopped collecting during The Great
Cheapening, and it was probably dinky little Armada Starscream that kept me
going. I did skip a bunch of toys that I wasn’t overly interested in, and
then go back and pick them up after a few successful toys I was really
interested in.

And speaking of Canada, we have Nazis showing up at right wing protests
there and waving around their Nazi flags and not having the shit kicked out
of them. Come on, Canada, you’re better than this, beat the Nazis. Ahem.

> A lot of fans on the Transformers message boards have mentioned just
> giving up collecting altogether, or at least heavily scaling back, and
> frankly who can blame them? It used to be that $100 could get you ten
> Deluxe-class toys, but if this price hike goes into effect, a hundred
> bucks will get you four Deluxes (and that's not including sales tax).

The 10 for $100 also didn’t include sales tax. But they they were larger
and had gimmicks.

> My wages are slowly increasing (I get about a two percent raise every
> year) but they're simply not keeping up with the increase of goods and
> services in this country.

Fun fact: Union jobs pay 20% more on average. This will drop slightly when
taking dues into account, but is still a hefty increase.

Also, I would not put Transformers into the basket of goods for calculating
inflation.

Rent is up 30% in a lot of metro areas, since last year. Many places that
had emergency rent controls during the worst of the pandemic are seeing
those expire, but we are seeing this even in places where those controls
were never in place. Not coincidentally, homelessness is way up.

> Even when I was strapped for cash and living paycheck to paycheck, I
> still managed to tighten my belt and find the cash for a Beast Wars toy
> here and there. It was difficult, but doable. That was around 1998 or
> 1999, when the minimum wage in Utah was $5.15. Now, in the last 20
> years, the price for Deluxe toys has more than doubled, but the minimum
> wage has only gone up two dollars. (I make more than minimum wage, of
> course, but I'm just using that as a baseline to illustrate my point.)

Minimum wage used to be enough to raise a family, many, many years ago, but
has deteriorated to be basically nothing.

I think we need to raise it to the point where people working minimum wage
full time no longer are going to qualify for Medicaid, food stamps, housing
vouchers, energy rebates… Currently, we are subsidizing businesses that pay
below a living wage by giving their employees services — if we want to
subsidize labor to businesses, than just do that directly so the workers
get cash. I trust workers to figure out what they need to spend money on
more than a government program, plus there would be lower overhead.

> On eBay, people are unloading entire collections and citing rising costs
> as the main reason (they don't always disclose this on the auction page;
> sometimes I'll just ask the seller out of curiosity).

Why would one dump their existing collection? If they had to move into a
smaller apartment, sure, but otherwise, why let go of the hoard?

I’m glad I bought my house when I did. I honestly don’t know how anyone can
afford to move to Seattle, even on tech salaries. We need to build a
shit-ton more housing, and infill more neighborhoods.

(Not sure what problems other areas have, as Seattle is special with Amazon
importing 10,000 highly paid engineers every two years, and skewing the
entire market in a way that —say— Miami wouldn’t have, despite also having
35% year over year rent increases)

> There's going to come a point where Transformers are just too expensive
> to collect. It's going to mirror the pricing chaos of the 1980's, where
> retailers would sometimes massively overcharge for Transformers, just
> because there was no real precedent for the whole transformable toy
> concept so they really had no idea what to set their prices at. Only
> this time, it's not just going to be odd, random retailers who have
> bumped up their pricing... it's going to be everybody, everywhere.

Imagine if all the stores were KB Toys.

Anyway, I suspect that if the toy quality gets worse again, I’ll stop
collecting entirely. But if prices just rise, I’ll probably stick with it.
Might be more selective based on space.

> Zob (how much can you get for a kidney these days? You don't really need
> both of them, do you?)
>

Re: Rising Prices and Rising Costs: The Future of Collecting

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Subject: Re: Rising Prices and Rising Costs: The Future of Collecting
From: zmf...@aol.com (Zobovor)
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 by: Zobovor - Tue, 1 Feb 2022 12:25 UTC

On Tuesday, February 1, 2022 at 2:04:23 AM UTC-7, Gustavo Wombat, of the Seattle Wombats wrote:

> Isn’t he just Ironhide sized? I guess he is Siege Ironhide sized plus a
> shield, but that’s a stretch. He also doesn’t have any tooling costs at
> this point.

People are pointing to the fact that neither Earthrise Ironhide nor Ratchet were sold by themselves as possible evidence that the toys are, for whatever reason, possibly too expensive to manufacture and sell by themselves at the Deluxe price point. And are selectively omitting Deseeus Army Drone from the equation, I guess.

You're right that the tooling costs are over and done with, so at this point any Ironhide/Ratchet toy they try to sell is essentially free money. So, that means the $24.99 pricing for DK-2 Guard was a) a mistake, b) an indication that all Deluxes will be priced at $24.99 from here on, or possibly c) DK-2 Guard is a special toy that comes with extra goodies, like blast effects or something, that warrants a different pricing structure.

Zob (main disadvantage of being off work for two weeks is that I am absolutely in no way accustomed any longer to getting up at five in the morning)

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 by: Avaran - Tue, 1 Feb 2022 13:27 UTC

On Tuesday, February 1, 2022 at 1:25:55 PM UTC+1, Zobovor wrote:
> On Tuesday, February 1, 2022 at 2:04:23 AM UTC-7, Gustavo Wombat, of the Seattle Wombats wrote:
>
> > Isn’t he just Ironhide sized? I guess he is Siege Ironhide sized plus a
> > shield, but that’s a stretch. He also doesn’t have any tooling costs at
> > this point.
> People are pointing to the fact that neither Earthrise Ironhide nor Ratchet were sold by themselves as possible evidence that the toys are, for whatever reason, possibly too expensive to manufacture and sell by themselves at the Deluxe price point. And are selectively omitting Deseeus Army Drone from the equation, I guess.

The Deseeus Army drone is a Siege Ironhide repaint though, not Earthrise, so it might just be the case...

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Subject: Re: Rising Prices and Rising Costs: The Future of Collecting
From: zmf...@aol.com (Zobovor)
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 by: Zobovor - Tue, 1 Feb 2022 22:55 UTC

On Tuesday, February 1, 2022 at 6:27:34 AM UTC-7, Avaran wrote:

> The Deseeus Army drone is a Siege Ironhide repaint though, not Earthrise, so it might just be the case...

Ugh. I should not be posting before I've had my caffeine.

Zob (Diet Dr. Pepper is just as nasty as it was 13 years ago, incidentally)

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Subject: Re: Rising Prices and Rising Costs: The Future of Collecting
From: pork.not...@gmail.com (Gustavo Wombat, of the Seattle Wombats)
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 by: Gustavo Wombat, of t - Wed, 2 Feb 2022 06:07 UTC

On Tuesday, February 1, 2022 at 2:55:31 PM UTC-8, Zobovor wrote:
> On Tuesday, February 1, 2022 at 6:27:34 AM UTC-7, Avaran wrote:
>
> > The Deseeus Army drone is a Siege Ironhide repaint though, not Earthrise, so it might just be the case...
> Ugh. I should not be posting before I've had my caffeine.
>
>
> Zob (Diet Dr. Pepper is just as nasty as it was 13 years ago, incidentally)

Go for the Vanilla Diet Dr. Pepper, and then eat it with peanut M&Ms. Delicious.

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Subject: Re: Rising Prices and Rising Costs: The Future of Collecting
From: joe.bard...@gmail.com (Joseph Bardsley)
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 by: Joseph Bardsley - Wed, 2 Feb 2022 07:03 UTC

On Tuesday, February 1, 2022 at 10:07:24 PM UTC-8, Gustavo Wombat, of the Seattle Wombats wrote:
> On Tuesday, February 1, 2022 at 2:55:31 PM UTC-8, Zobovor wrote:
> > On Tuesday, February 1, 2022 at 6:27:34 AM UTC-7, Avaran wrote:
> >
> > > The Deseeus Army drone is a Siege Ironhide repaint though, not Earthrise, so it might just be the case...
> > Ugh. I should not be posting before I've had my caffeine.
> >
> >
> > Zob (Diet Dr. Pepper is just as nasty as it was 13 years ago, incidentally)
> Go for the Vanilla Diet Dr. Pepper, and then eat it with peanut M&Ms. Delicious.

I wonder if these same kind of price hikes will also trickle down to the secondary/vintage market? (i.e., even though, in the case of old G1 toys, their manufacturing costs are fixed, will prices rise to keep pace with comparative inflation?)

(To say nothing of shipping costs, as well ... )

JB

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Subject: Re: Rising Prices and Rising Costs: The Future of Collecting
From: evil.kin...@gmail.com (Evil King Macrocranios)
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 by: Evil King Macrocrani - Sun, 13 Feb 2022 22:19 UTC

On Tuesday, February 1, 2022 at 4:25:55 AM UTC-8, Zobovor wrote:

> On eBay, people are unloading entire collections and citing rising costs as the main reason (they don't always disclose this on the
> auction page; sometimes I'll just ask the seller out of curiosity).

It all balances out in the end so I don't worry about the collector shrinkage. For every person selling their collection there's someone buying it. Unless the person or persons buying it are the same handful of entities buying everyone else's collections, which would kinda suck. Because then we'd have a consolidation of all stock into a few massive storehouses, allowing secondary market prices to be rigged by a few players. I don't think that's what's happening but I guess it kind of outlines why it's important to have a broad fanbase buying this stuff up.

I think all this profit taking by the manufacturer has parallels in what happened with Botcon. Instead of keeping costs down so the largest number of people could partake in the collecting, they began to hike prices and cater to the fattest cats with the most money. But the fattest cats are only so many and they only have so much money. I'm sure prices will continue to hike until the market can't bear it anymore but people keep buying so we're nowhere near that point yet.

> People are pointing to the fact that neither Earthrise Ironhide nor Ratchet were sold by themselves as possible evidence that the toys
> are, for whatever reason, possibly too expensive to manufacture and sell by themselves at the Deluxe price point.

I don't follow Haslab toys much but it seems to me they've been packing less popular or unappealing characters together with more popular characters to get both of them to sell. I don't know how popular Ironhide and Ratchet are but they both turn into vans. I mean, they're vans. Hasbro probably said screw it, let's keep the vans off the retail shelves. Because they're vans. What kid likes vans? These are only selling on strength of character.

And they split up Sideswipe and Mirage and packed them with a bird and a dinosaur character that I don't know or care about. That's also smart marketing. I don't think this is a cost issue, I think they're just trying to move molds and get some reuse out of ones with less redeco potential or customer appeal by hitching them with more popular mold reuses.

> You're right that the tooling costs are over and done with, so at this point any Ironhide/Ratchet toy they try to sell is essentially free money.
> So, that means the $24.99 pricing for DK-2 Guard was a) a mistake, b) an indication that all Deluxes will be priced at $24.99 from here on,
> or possibly c) DK-2 Guard is a special toy that comes with extra goodies, like blast effects or something, that warrants a different pricing structure.

I guess from the looks of things that the answer was b). I just saw a couple Guards go on ebay for $50 so the price hike doesn't seem to be bothering some people. Which is weird because Best Buy still has them on preorder for $22.99.

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Subject: Re: Rising Prices and Rising Costs: The Future of Collecting
From: zmf...@aol.com (Zobovor)
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 by: Zobovor - Mon, 14 Feb 2022 00:58 UTC

On Sunday, February 13, 2022 at 3:19:11 PM UTC-7, evil.king.m...@gmail.com wrote:

> For every person selling their collection there's someone buying it. Unless the person or persons buying it are the same handful of entities buying everyone else's collections, which would kinda suck. Because then we'd have a consolidation of all stock into a few massive storehouses, allowing secondary market prices to be rigged by a few players.

Man, that's a terrifying and chilling prospect. I'd rather just not think about that at all.

> I think all this profit taking by the manufacturer has parallels in what happened with Botcon. Instead of keeping costs down so the largest number of people could partake in the collecting, they began to hike prices and cater to the fattest cats with the most money. But the fattest cats are only so many and they only have so much money.

There have been so many BotCon toys at this point. Literally hundreds of them. I think it was different when there were only a handful of them in existence. They were a) unique and special, and b) it was theoretically possible to collect them all as a novelty. The good news is that you can find many of them on eBay now for semi-reasonable prices. Not all of them, certainly, but a lot of them.

> I don't follow Haslab toys much but it seems to me they've been packing less popular or unappealing characters together with more popular characters to get both of them to sell. I don't know how popular Ironhide and Ratchet are but they both turn into vans. I mean, they're vans. Hasbro probably said screw it, let's keep the vans off the retail shelves. Because they're vans. What kid likes vans? These are only selling on strength of character.

Strictly speaking, HasLab is just the crowd-funded toys like Unicron or the failed life-sized Cookie Monster. But I get what you're saying.

I would say Ironhide, at least, is a solid first-tier character. He's arguably as important to the Autobots as Starscream or Soundwave is to the Decepticons. I mean, what kid likes cassette players? But Netflix Soundwave sold like crazy. He never stayed on shelves for very long. I don't think it's necessarily kids who are gobbling up the G1 tributes. It probably happens more often when a child grabs a random Transformer at Walmart, but probably a lot less often with the Amazon exclusives. You really have to be knowledgeable about the brand and the characters and deliberately seek those out.
> And they split up Sideswipe and Mirage and packed them with a bird and a dinosaur character that I don't know or care about. That's also smart marketing. I don't think this is a cost issue, I think they're just trying to move molds and get some reuse out of ones with less redeco potential or customer appeal by hitching them with more popular mold reuses.

I would imagine the thought process was to pair a G1 character with a Beast Wars character, not necessarily to pair a highly-desirable item with a completely worthless one. I guess if they'd played things differently, maybe it would have been Maximals like Airazor and Dinobot paired with nobody Autobots like Tigertrack and Diaclone red Mirage. Beast Wars just doesn't seem to lend itself to redeco characters quite as well as G1, because there were so few media characters in Beast Wars.

> I just saw a couple Guards go on ebay for $50 so the price hike doesn't seem to be bothering some people. Which is weird because Best Buy still has them on preorder for $22.99.

That's wacky. Just goes to prove that some people have far more money than sense.

Zob (likes to save money, but only because that means I can buy more toys)

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Subject: Re: Rising Prices and Rising Costs: The Future of Collecting
Date: Sat, 19 Feb 2022 21:33:22 -0000 (UTC)
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 by: Gustavo Wombat - Sat, 19 Feb 2022 21:33 UTC

Zobovor <zmfts@aol.com> wrote:
>>
> I would imagine the thought process was to pair a G1 character with a
> Beast Wars character, not necessarily to pair a highly-desirable item
> with a completely worthless one. I guess if they'd played things
> differently, maybe it would have been Maximals like Airazor and Dinobot
> paired with nobody Autobots like Tigertrack and Diaclone red Mirage.
> Beast Wars just doesn't seem to lend itself to redeco characters quite as
> well as G1, because there were so few media characters in Beast Wars.
>

I’ve been thinking about this… there were some better redeco options than
we got.

OPTIMUS PRIMAL had a couple of interesting options that they didn’t go
with, rather than the disappointing Nemesis Primal. I’ve always wanted a
Yeti, and that could have worked well in a White Optimus motif, whether he
is Ultra Magnus, or some power up mode for Primal, or an entirely separate
character.

Alternately, if they wanted to go with an Evil Optimus, there is Toxitron.
It would require a bit of reinterpretation here and there in all
likelihood, but it would have been interesting and new.

Shattered Glass Primal probably exists.

And, finally, and this is a terrible idea that would either work
wonderfully or be awful…. We’ve had Optimal Optimus in the original beast
colors, so it might be fun to put the original beast in Optimal Optimus
colors.

I think Toxitron and the Yeti are probably the strongest options, but all
are significantly more interesting than Nemesis Primal.

MEGATRON… I hate this mold. Best forgotten. The Jurassic Park deco is very
nice, actually, but needed so many paint operations to draw you away from
the ugly soft plastic with all the really harsh panel lines.

I skipped T-Wrecks despite loving my original T-Wrecks.

Also, I had a screw strip out so his hip fell off. I was apparently
rotating that piece during transformation or something.

Anyway, every line of toys is going to have one that should be forgotten,
and this is it. Rhinox never got a redeco, so we can skip one mold, they
should do Rhinox instead.

RHINOX is only bad in comparison to what came before. There’s not a huge
precedent for redecos of this body, unless you want to get into Fox Kids
Rhinox.

(Actually, that might not be bad… except you would want to fix some of the
colors, and maybe aim for a Magnaboss Ironhide color scheme)

There was an episode of BW where Rhinox was a Predacon, with red beast eyes
and silver instead of gold in robot mode. That’s probably too subtle, but
darken the green and add a bit of purple to the gray of his beast mode (he
often looked purplish in the light of the Nemesis) and we might have a deep
cut winner.

He’s going to end up being called Nemesis Rhinox, isn’t he?

DINOBOT has some precedent for Grimlock, but I don’t think anyone has ever
been excited about BW Grimlock. I don’t hate Grimlock, but I’m not a huge
fan either. Grimlock is an uninspired redeco.

If there’s a budget for remolding, I would have liked to see BW2 Cyborg
Beast Thrustor. The Cyborg Beasts seem like a turn not taken in
Transformers, TM2 designs that were good. He’s also an interesting look at
what a TM2 Dinobot could have looked like — had Hasbro cheaped out.

And if there is that budget for remolding, than remold every last one of
these toys and create a new round of Cyborg Beasts.

TIGATRON is tricky. The orange tiger is right there, and a perfectly fine
thing to do with the mold. Tonytron could either have the mutant head and
be a mutant form of Tigatron (or a new character) or this could be a Jungle
Tigatron (with Battle Mask?).

And the orange tiger paint scheme is excellent, even if the eyes are poorly
done so he looks concussed.

Or they could do something fun.

A purple tiger with orange stripes, as a Cringer homage, would likely just
be tempting the lawyers of Mattel, but it really would be the best wacky
option.

Green with purple stripes, and a new head sculpt, and we might have G2
Tiger Megatron, an idea that might only appeal to those of who wondered
whether Deathy’s moniker was a reference to a desired Megatron who was a
tiger, and who also love G2.

The mold could be any number of other stocky cats, but I don’t think a
Calico Housecat is going to strike fear into the hearts of anyone. And
trimming the tail to make a bobcat would be a pretty emaciated bobcat, and
a robot with a bad weapon. And no characters really fit either anyway.

I would have loved Cringertron, but I think some Jungle variant of Tigatron
would have been the best choice. Just because he never changed colors on
the show didn’t mean he couldn’t. I guess just change the packaging
slightly.

WASPINATOR was always going to be Buzzsaw, but I would change it slightly.
Bumblebee. And stick him into the Buzzworthy Bumblebee World’s Collide 4
pack, which means the yellow wrong-Bumblebee could be any of the other
Pennyracer characters introduced over the years, like Tap-Out.

Adding a Bug-Bite color scheme of Waspinator (see the Botcon Waruders)
could have been nice, but still just a lesser version of the Botcon toy.

BLACKARACHNIA has the problem of being an animal mode that is so specific
that there really isn’t a lot that can be done with it other than a black
widow spider— it’s the problem that Tigatron presents, but worse, because
the various species of black widow all look basically the same… except for
this, the Mediterranean Black Widow.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latrodectus_tredecimguttatus

She’s gorgeous.

And going with a predominantly red and black color scheme in robot mode
would allow for paint apps that are a strong enough contrast that there is
the potential for changing the apparent shape of the robot mode.

The Botcon Flare Up character might fit, but there’s nothing so special
about her that we need to see her again, and the beast mode is a poor fit.
At that point we might as well make her white with pink spots and call her
Arcee.

I’m thinking a new character, named after some character from Greek
mythology, perhaps Medea (who killed her children and bathed in their blood
in some stories) or Clytemnestra (the wife of Agenemnon, who killed her
husband upon his return from the Trojan War).

Blackarachnia is the Predacon who turned good. Clytemnestra is the Predacon
who stayed bad, the one that would have severed Silverbolt’s head.

A new character might not be what anyone wants in life — but the
alternative was the toy colors Blackarachnia that looked terrible, and
which if we want to be authentic should be put on the eventual Tarantulas
mold (Femboy Tarantulas, anyone?)

The bright red colors means that she could be the Target Red exclusive
instead of T-Wrecks.

CHEETOR. Ok, Shadow Panther is actually a perfectly fine redeco, although I
think the yellow is too bright — make it gold paint, and I think he would
be better.

But there’s another option, an homage to a character that never existed and
which we don’t have any pictures of… Pardo, of the Anibots! The G1
Predacons were originally conceived of as the Autobot Anibots who would be
in a zoo in Autobot City and get released during the battle in TF:TM. (I
assume Optimus decided that they were to dangerous to be left free and
demanded they be caged… it’s better than being sealed into a cave at
least).

We don’t know what colors Pardo would have, but I’m thinking blue with red
spots, or vice versa, assuming that the Anibots have Sky Lynx colors.
Leopards are chunkier than cheetahs, so Tigatron might actually be the
right mold, with a different beast head. Remember, though, leopard spots
are rings, not solid, and authenticity on a blue leopard is needed.

So, an organic homage to a robotic leopard that we never saw.

SKORPONOK — I actually really like what they are doing with this one. An
homage to a Botcon toy from back in the day where there weren’t so many
Botcon toys and they still felt special.

I totally approve. Wouldn’t change a thing.

AIRRAZOR — I like BW2 Skywarp. It’s not an essential character by any
means, though, and he doesn’t really match the mold that well. Plus, the
mold is clearly a falcon rather than an eagle.

What they did was fine. A deep cut, even if Skywarp is really Magnaboss
Silverbolt, but not a deeply loved deep cut.

I would have rather Hasbro went out into left field and tried to make the
Seekers into birds. This may have failed very badly.

TERRORSAUR is such a good mold it really is a shame to have him buried away
in the exclusives with a redeco as himself in original toy colors with the
wings upside down.

Laserbeak and Fractyl are both respectable options, and there was an Age of
Extinction release of the original mold as Strafe. Give people as many
opportunities and options to buy this mold as possible. Just fix the wing
falling off problem.

RATTRAP Clearly, we need Lab Rat, a white redeco with red eyes.

By the way, it’s really weird that Rattrap is smaller than a rat. I would
have liked a 1:1 scale rat. A nice, plump, New York City rat. Maybe a
Voyager or a Leader?

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 by: Zobovor - Sun, 20 Feb 2022 01:29 UTC

On Saturday, February 19, 2022 at 2:33:24 PM UTC-7, Gustavo Wombat, of the Seattle Wombats wrote:

> I’ve been thinking about this… there were some better redeco options than
> we got.

The problem is that I'm sure Hasbro wanted to stick to doing redeco versions that existed during Beast Wars, for nostalgia appeal. Creating all-new character redecos seems like a more risky approach.
> We’ve had Optimal Optimus in the original beast colors, so it might
> be fun to put the original beast in Optimal Optimus colors.

I don't think I hate this idea.
> A purple tiger with orange stripes, as a Cringer homage, would likely just
> be tempting the lawyers of Mattel, but it really would be the best wacky
> option.

You know what, though? Mattel skirts that line all the time. There are like a hundred toe prints on Mattel's side of that line.

You're conflating your He-Man characters, though. Cringer would be green with orange stripes. Panthor is the purple one. But I'd accept either or both, honestly. Especially if they came up with a little helmet and saddle for Cringertron to turn him into Battle Catilla.

It would honestly be great. Appeal to members of both fandoms.

> I would have rather Hasbro went out into left field and tried to make the
> Seekers into birds. This may have failed very badly.

Starsnipe, Thunderquacker, and Skywren.

> By the way, it’s really weird that Rattrap is smaller than a rat. I would
> have liked a 1:1 scale rat.

What, the 2014 Generations toy wasn't big enough for you?

Zob (dust allergies are hitting hard today)

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 by: Gustavo Wombat - Sun, 20 Feb 2022 06:09 UTC

Zobovor <zmfts@aol.com> wrote:
> On Saturday, February 19, 2022 at 2:33:24 PM UTC-7, Gustavo Wombat, of
> the Seattle Wombats wrote:
>
>> I’ve been thinking about this… there were some better redeco options than
>> we got.
>
> The problem is that I'm sure Hasbro wanted to stick to doing redeco
> versions that existed during Beast Wars, for nostalgia appeal. Creating
> all-new character redecos seems like a more risky approach.

Except they didn’t do that with Nemesis Primal, Mutant Tigatron or Leopard
Print Harlot Blackarachnia. And I think you’ll be hard pressed to find
anyone with nostalgia for BW Grimlock.

I can understand Tigatron, but no one was ever asking “why can’t black
arachnid look more like the really bad box art?”

We didn’t get Burning Convoy, or Universe Primal.

>> We’ve had Optimal Optimus in the original beast colors, so it might
>> be fun to put the original beast in Optimal Optimus colors.
>
> I don't think I hate this idea.
>
>> A purple tiger with orange stripes, as a Cringer homage, would likely just
>> be tempting the lawyers of Mattel, but it really would be the best wacky
>> option.
>
> You know what, though? Mattel skirts that line all the time. There are
> like a hundred toe prints on Mattel's side of that line.
>
> You're conflating your He-Man characters, though. Cringer would be green
> with orange stripes. Panthor is the purple one. But I'd accept either
> or both, honestly. Especially if they came up with a little helmet and
> saddle for Cringertron to turn him into Battle Catilla.

I don’t know why I wrote purple when I was thinking green.

TigerHawk as Cringer would be Battle Catilla, with wings. And I guess bird
claws.

> It would honestly be great. Appeal to members of both fandoms.

No, it would definitely not. He wouldn’t transform into Cringer, he would
transform into a submarine. With four periscopes that look a little like
cat feet.

>> I would have rather Hasbro went out into left field and tried to make the
>> Seekers into birds. This may have failed very badly.
>
> Starsnipe, Thunderquacker, and Skywren.
>
>> By the way, it’s really weird that Rattrap is smaller than a rat. I would
>> have liked a 1:1 scale rat.
>
> What, the 2014 Generations toy wasn't big enough for you?

The rat that wanders past my front stoop is bigger than that little guy.
(My cat purrs at the rat through the window… not growls, purrs)

I don’t know what dainty rats they have in your neck of the woods, but
Seattle rats are Voyager sized. New York City rats are Leader and Commander
sized. Never saw a Titan, but they were rumored to exist.

> Zob (dust allergies are hitting hard today)

1
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