
2005 Boards member BB Shockwave has shared with us something cool tonight – scans of the Transformers pages of the 1995 Toy Fair catalog. This catalog covered the end of the Generation 2 line, so it shows a whole lot of these early toys that never got released. Showcased herein are toys such as the Soundwave and Jazz Laser Cycles (recolors of Road Pig and Road Rocket, respectively), SGT Hound and General Optimus Prime autorollers (recolors of Road Block and Dirtbag, respectively) plus the Combat Hero Optimus Prime and Megatron recolors and the legendary Megatron & Starscream ATB.
There’s also a whole page dedicated to the Go-Bots assortment which was actually released, but weirdness rears its head here with several characters having altered names, i.e. Bumble Bee instead of Bumblebee.
Check out the scans attached to this post for a look at lots of never-released goodness.
BB Shockwave
So I looked this up recently when I wanted to find a good pic of the unreleased Combat Hero repaints, and realized "oh yeah Dropbox is long dead". So I replaced the link with a Mega one in the first post.
payres
Hound should have been the Green Truck. The White Digger should have been Prime, or better still in those colours, Ultra Magnus – look at the head sculpt
Bass X0
Yeah. I'm thinking the toy came first then the identity came second for these. Someone must have realised how ridiculous they were and cancelled them or delayed them until it was too late to release them.
Vexwing
^ As far as I know there were only ever packaged production samples for these that found their way to Hasbro employees and then collectors. Same goes for the Jazz and Soundwave laser cycles. Stealth Bomber Megatron is the only "unreleased" G2 toy that saw a very limited test market release.
I can't find any completed listings on ebay to gauge a price, but I imagine it varies wildly; they only turn up for sale once in a blue moon.
Nevermore
Did they actually get released, or did a small number of packaged samples find their way into the hands of collectors?
NYFUNNY07
What are the average prices of the unreleased Combat Heroes? Some got released (see attached)
Nevermore
You mean the RID Spychangers (which were later also available with Tiny Tins)? Those are actually redecoed G2 Go-Bots, so they're the exact same sculpts.
http://tfwiki.net/wiki/File:G2GoBots-gangmolding.jpg
AzT
The "Gobots" reminded me of the "Tiny Tin" molds – – Ironhide and Mirage especially. I still have a Tiny Tin Prowl, purchased at Food 4 Less (of all places!) in early 2003.
Gryph
My mom used to work at Kenner for several years. She quit when I was still really young. While she worked there, she would occasionally bring home a Star Wars action figure or two for my brothers. When I was born she got a few things for me, for when I got older. It turns out one of those things was probably among the rarest Star Wars figures ever made. An unpainted missile firing Boba Fett. It's somewhere in this house, but I haven't seen it in well over 20 years.
I asked about it at a collectable toy shop I used to go to, and the guy said something like that would likely go for several thousand.
GODPRIMUS1975
Some of those i had. too bad i lost them especially the gobots
Nevermore
I could say I didn't include yours because you don't have them in packaging.
TF@TM
As Nevermore says we have most of them on our site, for Megatron ATB and Starscream, as he missed that link
Starscream
Megatron
General Unreleased
Robowang
I did the EXACT same thing at a KB Toys just outside Toledo. Exact reasoning. I was in 8th grade, so obviously didn't understand that whole "test market" thing.
Edgewise
They got cancelled due to the end of the G2 line.
Sgt. Hound: Yes. So…
The new Scoop would make a great base for a new Sgt. Hound!
A payloader in arctic/urban military camo, what's not to love?
rhodium1977
Just out of curiosity what is your absolute worst toy related regret. This ATB Megatron is rare so I am intrigued by something worst than that.
BB Shockwave
You are welcome! The guy I bought this from had more catalogues (1984 and 1996), not sure if those got sold or not.
A guy in Romania once told my friend Megatron he had a G2 Soundwave as a kid… which was a motorbike. He was sceptical as back then it wasn't really common info that this toy existed – he thought the guy had some KO instead. But no, afterwards in emails he described it as a Laser Cycle and even had the backer card…
So we bought it and… it got lost in the mail. It was "pay-on-delivery", even, so it wasn't a case of the guy scamming us. Gah! Murphy's law strikes again.
Cool! I only have the black armor version… guess I have one more toy to hunt down.
As for the Batcave – I need to buy a bigger flat first.
Mospeada
I love the TF Go-Bots…that's a great ad.
Solrac333
Yup. I remember looking at these thinking "What the hell happened to Transformers? These look like Gobots." Not realizing that Hasbro bought up Gobots by this time. Love the '84 catalog the best.
gawddammit
Wow, I never knew those made it to some stores…great, now I have a new grail.
Dark Magnus
Hasbro make Tigatron Megatron NAOW!