MichaelandChrissy.com

The Transformers Collectors’ Club exclusive “Topspin” figure came in the mail yesterday.  Since Fun Publications took over the TFCC and Botcon duties, they have worked with Hasbro to consistently release excellent exclusive figures.  Each year for the last four years, they have given away a free basic-sized combiner piece to all current members.  I’ve got them all, but I can’t believe that I’ve been a TFCC member for four years now! 

So far, the exclusive pieces have been two repainted limbs from Energon Superion and two repainted limbs from Energon Bruticus.  This works out nicely, since each of those gestalts had two sets that were effectively the same mold, only repaints of each other.  So, TFCC has given us the first Energon combiner that has non-identical limbs.  

Just one more piece to complete the TFCC exclusive combiner set.  Rumors say that the torso piece will be the Energon Storm Jet (not “Silverbolt”?) mold.  Can’t wait to put all the pieces together to display my Collector’s Club set next to my completed Energon Superion and Energon Bruticus sets. But that will have to wait until next year!

I can’t wait for Botcon 2008 to happen. I look forward to Botcon every year, even though my Transformer collecting days seem to be winding down. I’m looking forward to seeing the exclusive figures as well, since there seems to be a lot of good ones this year.  One of the extra figures available to attendees this year will be “Shattered Glass Blurr”, who will be a repaint of “Cybertron Blurr” (2005).

This mold was a retool of “Armada Blurr” (2002), which came with a Mini-Con sidekick named “Incinerator” instead of a “Cyber Planet Key”.  An additional ”flight mode” is common to all three figures. The entire rear end of the vehicle mode was retooled to allow the wing gimmick to be triggered by the Planet Key instead of the Mini-Con.   In addition, a new head was given to Cybertron Blurr to make him look more like “G1 Blurr“.

“Universe Swerve” was released in 2004 with his Mini-Con, “Roadhandler“, as a repaint of Armada Blurr. This character was named after G1 Swerve, but that version was a white and red truck, a retool of the red and blue G1 mini-bot, Gears.  Swerve was once again upgraded in 2005 as “Alternators Swerve”, a figure that I was never able to find (and still fetches a huge sum on eBay).

Besides the box set, Fun Publications also produces a special figure that is only given to attendees, a freebie just for showing up. This year’s extra figure was a Classics Mirage, molded in clear blue plastic to simulate his “invisibility” power. Mirage also comes with instructions and a “tech spec” sheet. You get this one at registration time along with the box set.

Fun Publications also makes two other exclusive sets available to attendees, but these cost extra. This year we got both sets: one Alpha Trion and Weirdwolf set and one Springer and Huffer set. All four figures are repaints of Cybertron figures, and they did a very nice job on them (better than last year, I think). The lines to buy these two sets were long and slow, but it’s well worth it to pick these up.

I always keep my exclusive toys, but Chrissy sells hers on eBay. Last year, we saw the sets go for huge amounts of money, but that dwindled to smaller numbers as time went on. Last year, Chrissy waited a week or two before putting her sets on eBay, so we only got about double what they were worth. This year, we decided to bring the laptop along and put the sets on eBay as soon as they were in hand. They sold almost immediately, and Chrissy ended up with $1300 in her pocket.

Registration was at 4:30 on the upper level of the Providence Convention Center. There were Botcon signs everywhere, and they had set up a huge Optimus Prime standup above the staircase leading to the registration area. We had to wait until 5:30 before the “blue” group was able to register (there were four groups that were assigned according to how soon you registered), so we waited in the general area until we could get in line. The original Transformers movie was projected onto the ceiling and there were people walking around dressed up as G1 Transformers, so there was plenty to gawk at while we waited.

We finally got to the front of the line for registration. This is where you get your name badge, your movie tickets and your exclusive box set. This year, the box set was made up of repaints from the Classics line: the three seeker jets that didn’t come out at retail (Thrust, Thundercracker and Dirge), a Jetfire mold painted like G1 Dreadwind and a new Bumblebee repaint named Bugbite. You can’t get the other two exclusive sets in the registration line, however. To do that, you have to wait in another line (and it didn’t seem to move at all).

We heard a rumor that people would be allowed to go through the exclusives line as many times as they wanted to in order to get as many sets as they wanted. The line was rediculously long, so we assumed that it was because people were returning to the back of the line from the front. We were pissed. We found out, however, that this wasn’t true — your name badge was marked when you bought the sets, so each registrant could only get one set until everyone had a chance to get one. Once this was understood, we decided to wait until the next day to wait in the rediculous line.

Chrissy is already posting her exclusive Botcon 2006 figure sets on eBay. The Megatron/Waspinator set cost us $100 at the convention, and she sold it on “Buy It Now” for $315. The Laserbeak/Buzzsaw set (supposed to be the original cassettes, but reformatted like Agent Ravage) cost us $50, but she put out an offer for $125. There are no takers yet, but she might relist it without a reserve price since it’s a pain to bid on reserved items. It looks like she’ll make enough to get that new camera that she wants (ours was put to shame at Botcon). Once those auctions are done, she’ll put the boxed set out there.