As I've mentioned a few times now, Blaze Master is similar to Tracer in that both are helicopters whose rotor blades tend to go missing, and most of the toys on the secondary market are missing them.

I played a dangerous game recently where I lowballed the seller, making offers that I knew he would never accept. He rejected them, and the auction ended with no bidders. Then he relisted. This is typical. eBay will relist things on its own, if you allow it, until they finally sell. I waited a couple of days. I wanted to give him enough time to go, "Man, I should have just sold it to that guy who made an offer." Then I lowballed him again. And he took the bait.

It's not as if I couldn't afford to pay what he was asking. But, I am pennywise and pound foolish. I feel like I'm winning at life if I can get even a small discount on things. (In my mind, it makes up for all the other times I've overspent!)

Where the Micromasters originally had mostly traditional vehicle configurations (cars and trucks for the Autobots, jets for the Decepticons) by the second product year (which would end up being the final product year) they'd mixed things up a bit, and we got a team of all-aerial Autobots.

BLAZE MASTER
"Look out below!"

Blaze Master turns into a MH-53 Pave Low helicopter by Sikorsky Aircraft, a vehicle type more infamously used to represent Blackout/Grindor from the Michael Bay live-action films. He's slightly less than 2.5" from nose to tail. He's a mustard yellow, not actually gold plastic at all as some people and web sites have described him as, with black painted cockpit windows and bright yellow helicopter blades. He balances on two rear wheels, and has no front landing gear to speak of.

He shares a helicopter blade design with Tracer from the Decepticon Military Patrol, and the parts are interchangeable. And, yes, it's the elusive, rare-as-all-get-out helicopter blades that elevate the Air Patrol to typically costing anywhere from $75-$100 on the secondary market, which is insane for a Patrol of four members.

To transform Blaze Master, you unfold the nose to form the legs and swing the tail up and over so it ends up on his back. Like Tracer, the helicopter blades pop off and can plug into the side of his arm for use as a weapon in robot mode.

As a robot, he's just under 2" tall, decorated in mustard yellow with a blue robot body and head and upper legs, and a metallic gold-painted pelvis and face. His helmet and face are not dissimilar to Sideswipe or Snarl. He's a bit leggy, but he's cool-looking.

Blaze Master was on my very short list of toys I knew were going to be very difficult to acquire complete. I wasn't expecting to knock him off that list so soon, so this is great.

Also, every time I mention this guy to my daughter, she asks me if I'm saying "Blades Master," which honestly leads me to wonder if that was his original intended name (it would certainly make sense) and somebody somewhere made an Omega Spreem-style goof.

Blaze Master got a neo-G1 update when he was packaged with Legends-class Generations Bumblebee in 2013. That version was mostly blue with some gold, instead of the other way around.

EAGLE EYE
"Victory reigns from above."

Eagle Eye is an F-18 Hornet, characterized by the dual stabilizer fins and twin engines. (They gave Skydive this vehicle mode during Combiner Wars.) He has two missiles permanently molded to his wing tips. He's pretty much entirely a very light blue, with a black painted cockpit window. The toy is 2.5" inches in length, with a two-inch wingspan. He rolls on two rear wheels, using a third non-functioning nose gear for support.

His legs are formed from the back of the jet and transform by unfolding like Tailwind, while the jet nose folds down to become the robot chest. The non-working front landing gear fits into a slot in the robot's body. The wings can fold towards his back. His design feels unfinished, in some ways, as his legs lack the locking bumps that previous Micromaster jets had. They just pivot loosely, with no resistance.

As a robot, Eagle Eye is two inches in height. He doesn't stand up that well with his wings hanging off his back; having them point to either side helps him balance a bit better. He's light blue with a white torso and head and upper legs, with a yellow-painted face. His arms can raise at least 90 degrees, possibly more if you force it a bit and alllow the arms to pop slightly out of their sockets in order to clear the cockpit mounted to his chest.

Eagle Eye's name was appropriated by Hasbro for use as one of the 1993 Skyscorchers during Transformers: Generation 2 (in Europe, he was named Hawk). Some Takara peripheral fiction suggests that the two are in fact the same character, and that the Micromaster upgraded to a larger body and defected to the Decepticons.

Eagle Eye got a neo-G1 tribute toy, of sorts, in the form of Eclipse, the tiny pack-in toy that came with Generations Gears in 2014.

SKY HIGH
"The sky's the limit."

Sky High is notable as one of the characters during G1 to share a name with an earlier, different character. There was also a Pretender toy named Sky High, sold two years previously in 1988. There seems to be no indication that it's intended to be the same robot (the Pretender was a helicopter). It honestly may have been a simple goof. (Micromaster Barrage from 1990 shared a similar fate, sharing his name with a 1985 Deluxe Insecticon.)

The toy is a super-deformed SST Concorde, the same type of supersonic jet as Aerialbot leader Silverbolt, only with a short and stubby nosecone, which is slightly drooped. He's white with a blue painted front cockpit. Like Silverbolt, his arms serve as wing-mounted engines, with his two landing wheels tucked away and hidden on the insides of his arms.

To transform Sky High, the nosecone folds up and the front of the jet becomes the legs, like Storm Cloud, while the legs unfold and the wings tuck back. As a robot, he has white arms and lower legs and a light blue body (he shares plastic colors with Eagle Eye), with a red-painted pelvis and face. His head design is similar to Grimlock.

Where members of the Decepticon Air Strike patrol can balance in robot mode by using their landing gears as a heel strut, Sky High is designed a little differently, and the landing gear is positioned too high up when he's in robot mode. So, he does not like to stand up at all. The base that constitutes his feet is incredibly small.

Sky High got a sorta-kinda update as Flanker (a redeco of Eclipse), the pack-in jet toy that came with Generations Swerve in 2014. The toy was arguably designed to look like G1 Sky High, or at least his box art.

TREADBOLT
"You can't hit what you can't see."

In the 1980's, the public was vaguely aware that the government was testing some kind of new stealth bomber. Nobody knew exactly what it looked like, but rumor had it that it was some kind of flying V-shaped wing. Speculation about this experimental vehicle ran rampant. There were toys, plastic model kits, and even gummy fruit snacks that tried to capitalize off the buzz about this mysterious stealth jet. (The Thunder Jets brand fruit snacks deserve special mention here. Each box had a fact card about a specific fighter jet on the back, but the most coveted of these was the stealth bomber, which was allegedly so top-secret that the gummy snack wasn't even contained in every package!)

So, Tread Bolt came out at the height of this speculative craze, and was the approximate configuration and shape of the stealth bomber, based on word-of-mouth descriptions and sketches. The bomber, officially designated the B-2 Spirit, was eventually unveiled to the public and its true proportions and dimensions are now well-known (the G2 toy called Dreadwing is a more accurate representation of the vehicle than poor Tread Bolt here).

Tread Bolt is about 1.75" in length with a 2.25" wingspan. His wing tips and nose are much more rounded than the actual stealth bomber, but the public at the time believed that it had no right angles so that it could evade radar detection, so it was assumed rounded edges played a role in this. He's blue with a grey painted cockpit, and the words "AIR FORCE" emblazoned on either side in tiny print.

To transform Tread Bolt, the bottom front of the fuselage unfolds to become his legs. His knees can only bend backwards as required for transformation, not forwards, making him one of the only existing Micromasters not expressly designed to sit in a vehicle cockpit or gunner station.

As a robot, he's two inches in height, with blue arms and lower legs but a mustard yellow body and upper legs (he shares colors with Blaze Master). He has a grey painted face, and he wears a visor but has sculpted eyes on top of that, a little bit like Dreadwind.

We got a blue redeco of Classics Jetfire called Tread Bolt in 2008, but no toys that were Micromaster-sized, making him the only member of the Air Patrol not to get an appropriately-sized neo-G1 homage.

I've been actively shopping for the Air Patrol for a while now, so it's nice to have acquired the team at long last. I paid $60 plus shipping, which is honestly a lot for a Micromaster Patrol. I've seen the set go for less, but always without Blaze Master's helicopter rotors, which is arguably the most important part. I've seen the set sell for a lot *more* with the rotors present, so all things considered I feel like I made out fairly well.

Zob (might go get a couple of Detolf shelves from IKEA this weekend)

Zobovor <zmfts@aol.com> wrote:

>
> Zob (might go get a couple of Detolf shelves from IKEA this weekend)

Three shelves plus the bottom surface means that each member of a
Micromaster Patrol can be on its own shelf!

Definitely do it.

Gustavo Wombat, of the Seattle Wombats wrote:
> > Zob (might go get a couple of Detolf shelves from IKEA this weekend)
> Three shelves plus the bottom surface means that each member of a
> Micromaster Patrol can be on its own shelf!
>
> Definitely do it.

Then post pics to Reddit!

On Monday, June 27, 2022 at 11:54:27 PM UTC-7, evil.king.m...@gmail.com wrote:
> Gustavo Wombat, of the Seattle Wombats wrote:
> > > Zob (might go get a couple of Detolf shelves from IKEA this weekend)
> > Three shelves plus the bottom surface means that each member of a
> > Micromaster Patrol can be on its own shelf!
> >
> > Definitely do it.
> Then post pics to Reddit!

Awesome review, Zob - as always!

Just curious - what other G1 toys are on your shortlist of "likely impossible/very expensive to ever acquire complete?"

It would be neat to see if our collective assessment of such things has changed over the years.

JB

On Tuesday, June 28, 2022 at 9:37:07 PM UTC-6, Joseph Bardsley wrote:

> Just curious - what other G1 toys are on your shortlist of "likely impossible/very expensive to ever acquire complete?"

Well, I'm fortunate enough to already own some of the G1 toys that are considered expensive or hard to come by. So I'm sure I have knowledge gaps—I'm sure finding a complete, unbroken Fortress Maximus is a chore, for example, but I've got my Takara reissue that I'm very happy with, so I've never searched for any of his parts on the secondary market.

Jetfire is going to be interesting. I own the toy, and it's complete with all parts, but I left him in the sunlight when I was a kid so he's got some serious yellowing on select pieces. I may not need to replace the entire toy—I could probably get away with cobbling together a good-looking unit by using parts from broken toys.

Roadbuster is difficult to find complete for less than $200. He's got lots and lots of parts to account for.

I want a Targetmaster Scourge, but the demand for him is insane. I think I'm going to have the best luck by getting a stripped-down junker version missing the wings, and transplanting the head and hands (different peg hole sizes) onto a 1986 unit. I might end up getting a resin reproduction of Fracas. I know it's cheating, but the way I look at it, money and ingenuity are both expenditures, and sometimes it takes both.

I don't think Nightbeat is in as high demand as he once was. I saw a complete toy go for $80 recently. But, he's still on my potentially hard-to-acquire list. I see a lot of units that are a nasty, sickening greenish color and that's absolutely unacceptable. I want mine blue.

For some reason Groundbreaker is harder to find complete than a lot of other Pretenders. I've seen the others go for $80 but he tends to command closer to $130.

I need a new Powermaster Darkwing, and he's a bitch to find unbroken. I think literally every kid who ever owned Darkwing ended up breaking his locking tab for jet mode. I already have the engine and guns.

Horri-Bull is another toy that everybody broke. I have no idea how I'm going to get one that's not garbage. He commands $200 easily. I actually used to have his Headmaster partner, but like an idiot I sold it off years ago..

Vroom is a shitty toy that I'm not looking forward to spending $200 on.

Monstructor. 'Nuff said.

The small 1989 Pretenders are all very elusive and all very expensive. Bludgeon is the only one I own. Doubleheader has this tiny grey gun that's hard to find unbroken, so that will be a challenge.

I feel fortunate in that a lot of the toys I was worried about the most (Skyhammer, Roadblock, Crossblades, Slugslinger, Misfire, Triggerhappy) are ones that I was already able to find in satisfactory condition.

Most of the holes in my collection are toys from 1988-90, of course, so I'm sure there are all sorts of hard to find parts (Trailbreaker's left fist, Menasor's sword, Sunstreaker's humility, etc.) that aren't even on my radar..

Maybe one day when I'm caught up, I'll start replacing my Zhong Jin fakes with legit G1 pieces. There are only a handful of them (like Wheeljack) that really bother me, though. Sometimes I have to think for a second to remember which ones are fake and which ones are genuine. What actually bugs me worse is the black rifles and missiles on some of my official G1 reissues (Jazz, Prowl, etc.) so I might replace those eventually. But, that's several years into the future, if at all.

Zob (every time we get a neo-G1 toy, though, that inevitably drives up vintage pricing and that drives me nuts)

On Tuesday, June 28, 2022 at 12:54:27 AM UTC-6, evil.king.m...@gmail.com wrote:

> Gustavo Wombat, of the Seattle Wombats wrote:
>
> > Three shelves plus the bottom surface means that each member of a
> > Micromaster Patrol can be on its own shelf!
>
> Then post pics to Reddit!

You guys are hilarious! Well, now that's a thing I have to do.

The Reddit crowd is a very weird bunch. Either a joke like that will land and get hundreds of upvotes, or nobody will get it and it will be totally ignored. It really could go either way. But, I'm totally doing it.

Zob (I'll wait until Shelfie Sunday for maximum effect)

On Wednesday, June 29, 2022 at 5:58:47 PM UTC-7, Zobovor wrote:
> On Tuesday, June 28, 2022 at 12:54:27 AM UTC-6, evil.king.m...@gmail.com wrote:
>
> > Gustavo Wombat, of the Seattle Wombats wrote:
> >
> > > Three shelves plus the bottom surface means that each member of a
> > > Micromaster Patrol can be on its own shelf!
> >
> > Then post pics to Reddit!
> You guys are hilarious! Well, now that's a thing I have to do.
>
> The Reddit crowd is a very weird bunch. Either a joke like that will land and get hundreds of upvotes, or nobody will get it and it will be totally ignored. It really could go either way. But, I'm totally doing it.
>
>
> Zob (I'll wait until Shelfie Sunday for maximum effect)

"I know it's cheating, but the way I look at it, money and ingenuity are both expenditures, and sometimes it takes both."

I love this, Zob. So true. (Would time count in the same way, too?)

Hope everyone's doing well,

JB

On Thursday, June 30, 2022 at 1:16:46 AM UTC-6, Joseph Bardsley wrote:

> I love this, Zob. So true. (Would time count in the same way, too?)

Oh, yes, one hundred percent. Sometimes it's better to pay more on eBay for a new toy release to spend an excessive amount of time trying to hunt one down at the brick-and-mortar stores, for example.

Zob (scalpers have families too, y'know)

On Wednesday, June 29, 2022 at 6:58:47 PM UTC-6, Zobovor wrote:

> You guys are hilarious! Well, now that's a thing I have to do.

IKEA was out of stock on the shelves I wanted, so I migh have to order them online and have them delivered. So it might be a little while.
But I'm still totally planning to do this.

Zob (not like you guys really care about my shelving status, but it's in your brains now so you're stuck with it)

On Saturday, July 2, 2022 at 9:24:15 AM UTC-7, Zobovor wrote:
> Zob (not like you guys really care about my shelving status, but it's in your brains now so you're stuck with it)

I keep thinking of absurd display ideas that come in fours. Nothing tops a single Micromaster patrol, but...

Ravage, Rumble, Frenzy and Laserbeak all displayed as tapes

the four minis of any scramble team in vehicle modes

a clone diplay with the Autobot and Decepticon clones in their robot modes

the Duocon vehicle modes separated out could take up four shelves

the Jumpstarters or Battlechargers in both modes

just four piles of decoys, like decoy anthills

Evil King Macrocranios <evil.king.macrocranios@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Saturday, July 2, 2022 at 9:24:15 AM UTC-7, Zobovor wrote:
>> Zob (not like you guys really care about my shelving status, but it's in
>> your brains now so you're stuck with it)
>
> I keep thinking of absurd display ideas that come in fours. Nothing tops
> a single Micromaster patrol, but...
>
> Ravage, Rumble, Frenzy and Laserbeak all displayed as tapes
>
> the four minis of any scramble team in vehicle modes
>
> a clone diplay with the Autobot and Decepticon clones in their robot modes
>
> the Duocon vehicle modes separated out could take up four shelves
>
> the Jumpstarters or Battlechargers in both modes
>
> just four piles of decoys, like decoy anthills
>

The bottom shelf isn’t glass, so you could do sets of 3. Maybe a single
Armada Minicon team? Or each of the RID car brothers?

Gustavo Wombat <gustavowombat@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Evil King Macrocranios <evil.king.macrocranios@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Saturday, July 2, 2022 at 9:24:15 AM UTC-7, Zobovor wrote:
>>> Zob (not like you guys really care about my shelving status, but it's in
>>> your brains now so you're stuck with it)
>>
>> I keep thinking of absurd display ideas that come in fours. Nothing tops
>> a single Micromaster patrol, but...
>>
>> Ravage, Rumble, Frenzy and Laserbeak all displayed as tapes
>>
>> the four minis of any scramble team in vehicle modes
>>
>> a clone diplay with the Autobot and Decepticon clones in their robot modes
>>
>> the Duocon vehicle modes separated out could take up four shelves
>>
>> the Jumpstarters or Battlechargers in both modes
>>
>> just four piles of decoys, like decoy anthills
>>
>
> The bottom shelf isn’t glass, so you could do sets of 3. Maybe a single
> Armada Minicon team? Or each of the RID car brothers?

Each glass shelf devoted to a single car brother, but with normal, “super
mode” colors and the spy changer. It would look just serious enough that
people won’t realize it’s a joke. (Maybe normal in robot mode, super in car
mode?)

On Wednesday, June 29, 2022 at 5:57:07 PM UTC-7, Zobovor wrote:
> Roadbuster is difficult to find complete for less than $200. He's got lots and lots of parts to account for.

And lots and lots of stickers! the two deluxe Autobots had all these stickers and every kid applied them differently. I don't think the instructions show how to apply all of them so it's tough creating the definitive applied labels schema.

I remember when I was on the hunt for a Roadbuster there were tons of 99% complete auctions and all of them were missing that damn scope/sight piece thingy. Nowadays I see lots of auctions for just the scope but nobody has all the other accessories in one shot like they used to. I ended up with two Roadbusters-one without stickers and only one scope between them.

My only real collecting goal was to have all the '84-'85 guys before 2000 and that worked nicely because the reissues began around that time so I know my parts and accessories are real. But I kinda wish I would have expanded the goal to include at least up through '87. Man the pre-2005 auction era was a buyer's market for 87-90 G1. I think sometimes we're too late in the game to get anything at a reasonable price.

> I don't think Nightbeat is in as high demand as he once was. I saw a complete toy go for $80 recently. But, he's still on my potentially hard-to-acquire list. I see a lot of units that are a nasty, sickening greenish color and that's absolutely unacceptable. I want mine blue.

I recently got outbid on an AFA 85 Nightbeat that ended up selling for $97:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/225034616382

....or maybe it didn't. The 'winner' had zero feedback and the auction seems to have ended before it ran its course. I think the seller got cold feet when he saw it wasn't going to pull thousands. The packaging somehow busted open during shipping between AFA and the seller so that may account for the usual crazy bidders not showing up. Still, it almost seems like prices are cooling down. I saw a guy fail to sell a boxed TM Megatron for $300 twice in a row. Starting bids and BINs on those are usually no less than $700. I think he pulled it down halfway through the third attempt at selling it. He probably got tired of my troll offers of $250.

> What actually bugs me worse is the black rifles and missiles on some of my official G1 reissues (Jazz, Prowl, etc.) so I might replace those eventually. But, that's several years into the future, if at all.

Maybe get good at using chrome markers. Those seem to have advanced to a point nowadays where the results are great and so easy to do that even kids are putting up tutorials. I imagine that black plastic is a great base for chrome markering something, probably better than attempting to restore a partially chromed, unevenly worn and faded original.

> Zob (every time we get a neo-G1 toy, though, that inevitably drives up vintage pricing and that drives me nuts)

Well better hurry up and snag a Nightbeat now because Legacy Minerva is coming so he may not be far behind.