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Morgan

Member Since 05 Dec 2014
Offline Last Active Today, 12:29 PM
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#98132 Prototypes

Posted by Morgan on 26 March 2024 - 06:42 AM

Commander William Riker pre-production paint proof (1992)

 

This one is from the Greg Jein collection, and it's Riker from his bodybuilder days. This one is hand-painted, as you can see, and it has a bit of a matte finish, in comparison to the shiny production figures.

 

It doesn't have a holster on the right leg. One of these proof figures, perhaps this one, is on the back of the 1992 figures in the pictures. On the back of the package it is also without a holster as pictured there, even though the production figures have them. 

 

If you look at the figures on the back of the 1992 packaging (and later for that matter) it's clear that they're hand painted, and the paint finish is quite different from the production figures.

 

 

riker-1.jpg




#98124 Highest number on a Playmates 4.5" figure?

Posted by Morgan on 22 January 2024 - 10:42 AM

Here's a curious observation that was brought up by a reader almost 30 years ago in a letter to one of the action figure mags: The 1993 figures that came with pogs sometimes had very low foot numbers, despite the fact that pogs came later.

 

The explanations for this, as I see it, could be that:

1. Figures were produced sequentially, but some were simply packaged later

2. Some number ranges were produced later

 

Another interesting issue are the Canadian TNG 1993 pog figures on 1994 TNG cards. Some of them have low foot numbers as well. 

 

I'm leaning towards explanation 1: All were produced sequentially, but some batches were set aside to be packaged later with pogs or 1994 Canadian cards w/ pogs.




#98103 Figure Values

Posted by Morgan on 30 November 2023 - 08:05 AM

A Tri-fold Borg recently sold for $1025 + $8.55 shipping after 14 bids.

 

There's perhaps no such thing as a mint example, as many of them have humidity damage or have separated from their blisters, but this one was pretty good when it came to condition. These were being sold at the infamous 1996 Huntsville convention, where people were lining up in triple-digit heat for hours to get the convention Scotty and Sulu figures (and everyone kept them in their packaging, assuring thousands of examples survived in excellent condition), while the Borgs were being largely ignored.

 

This was perhaps a very expensive way to get into Tri-fold Borg ownership in the year 2023, especially given the fact that you can just buy a lesser one on a separated blister and glue it back, such as the example a few posts up. 

 

 

trifold-2023.jpg




#98090 Prototypes

Posted by Morgan on 01 November 2023 - 12:09 PM

garber.jpg

 

 

Cardassian Galor-class Warship (1994)

 

At Toy Fair 1994 the manufacturer demonstrated a Galor-class warship vehicle that would have been part of the second wave of DS9 merchandise. The working prototype featured a sound chip with phaser and photon firing sounds, a light up navigational deflector, and two light-up engines, two on each wing. A total of four buttons were located at the top of the midsection -- you can see four dark dots on the structure at the middle of the ship, right where the tail just begins.

 

The Galor-class made it as far as being announced, along with Ops, but was shelved in the run-up to a pretty busy merchandising year for Playmates with the debut of another wave of TNG figures, a second wave of DS9 figures and the whole "Generations" lineup. And Ops was not seen as a prototype toy, by comparison.

 

Why was it dropped?

 

The answer here is perhaps pretty simple: The Vor'cha, Bird of Prey and the Romulan Warbird were not hot sellers and shelf space was at a premium. The tooling costs for the Galor, which would have been just under a million dollars, also did not square up with how many Playmates could reasonably sell. Retailers had an easier time justifying the DS9 station and the Runabout, which actually appeared in the opening credits, but a third vehicle was just too much and was not expected to be as hot a seller. And buyers, for their part, were first going to buy the space station, then the runabout, and only then the Galor.

 

Perhaps another reason could have been that PM had already reached the limit of DS9 merchandising potential -- the series was notably shaky in its first three seasons.

 

 

garber-Copy.jpg

 

(Assistant Product Manager Jim Garber)

 

 

Alien ships, as all manufacturers of the Star Trek license found out, were a crapshoot at best and a money-losing item at worst. The pace with which the Vor'cha and the Warbird moved off shelves was significantly slower than warp speed -- they were a little overproduced -- and by this point Playmates had already been burned by money-losing items like the Transporter. As the least commercially promising of the three DS9 vehicles (Runabout, Station and Galor-class), the Galor-class simply didn't make the cut.

 

Indeed, it's hard to imagine anyone but collectors buying the somewhat obscure Galor-class. The ship was not seen in every DS9 episode, to put it mildly, and it was not really that much of a "villain" vehicle because it didn't fight with Federation ships on screen. It also didn't look mean or particularly alien -- it was yellow, it wasn't shaped like a bird, and it didn't have any signature "moves." In fact, the Galor-class didn't really do a whole lot more than slowly float into view on the main viewer with its front and nothing else toward the camera, and then some Gul with an attitude appeared on screen.

 

It would be nice to find out now, in the present day, where this prototype is and just how many were made in total. It would be hard to believe that zero of them survived. 




#97969 Here we go again... Playmates is back in the Trek business!

Posted by Morgan on 02 August 2023 - 06:42 AM

It will be nice if they can do the D justice, but I wonder what the cost in stores will be now, you know, in 2023, with The Inflations. This seems like a $50 item at the very least.

 

I'm still weirded out about the choices of ships/figures, given the fact that there are still tons of 1993 PM Enterprises on eBay, and a good number of the more expensive (and higher quality) DST Enterprises. And the collector fanbase already owns one or both of these.

 

So who are they hoping will buy this new one? 

 

I suspect there's a much bigger audience out there for a big Reliant. I'm betting it would get scalped off shelves very quick if it suddenly appeared in stores. 




#97928 European Packaging

Posted by Morgan on 04 July 2023 - 10:02 AM

Here's a look at the rare French/German packaging, with distribution partner Ideal, which was based in France.

 

ideal-1.jpg

 

 

 

As the back of the card shows, TNG, DS9, and TOS sets were sold in this packaging variant. 

 

 

ideal-2.jpg

 

 

 




#97914 Errors

Posted by Morgan on 10 June 2023 - 03:34 PM

"The pogs aren't here! What do we have that's pog-ish?"

 

Amazing. And it actually made it out of the factory.

 

I'm surprised they actually got something DS9-themed, so some planning went into this. It's like they used it as a placeholder in case they ran out of pogs or something. 

 

At some point they must have gotten a shipment of these, cause this isn't the only figure with these cards.




#97858 What is the rarest playmates figure?

Posted by Morgan on 18 March 2023 - 08:03 AM

Here are a couple of close views of the Tri-fold Borg backer card. As we know, these were hastily made as a promotional item for industry execs, so this was a straight-up Borg figure solely on a new card, with art from the TNG-era cube.

 

We don't usually see the separated cards separately, but this one was damaged. And, it also appears that a lot of these were not glued awesomely to the cards either, aka the Theater Luke problem.

 

 

 

trifold-1.jpg

 

 

 

One interesting thing here is that there is no mention of PM toys, or any other kind of consumer warnings, barcodes etc. That's because this was a batch-made item via a special order, and not for retail.

 

 

trifold-2.jpg




#97846 Here we go again... Playmates is back in the Trek business!

Posted by Morgan on 25 January 2023 - 11:57 AM

Whoa, interesting choices, but makes sense I guess. These waves are not... overwhelmingly huge, getting flashbacks to the 1996 lineup where a few from each show would appear at random.




#97806 Figure Values

Posted by Morgan on 14 November 2022 - 07:03 PM

Here's something you don't see every day: Bandai O'Brien. And in Nov 2022 it sold for $49.00 + $12.60 shipping after 1 bid.

 

These international packaging variants of the Warp Factor figures are not easy to come by without paying some exorbitant overseas shipping, so no wonder at the result here. On the other hand, this is for the true international packaging maniacs.

 

This one actually features a ton of differences compared to the US cards:

 

- O'Brien is flossing the Enterprise-A here, of all things, instead of the Defiant

- No tribbles game card

- No Warp Factor Series I logo at the top right

- No gold game sticker at top left

- triangular peg

- Bandai logo at bottom right instead of PM

 

These intl figures were not publicized well at the time aside from McCoy in dress uniform, which is a kind of "cheat" anyway cause it panders to collectors, so collector awareness of these figures was low.

 

 

bandai-obrien.jpg




#97776 Prototypes

Posted by Morgan on 18 October 2022 - 12:02 PM

zimmerman.jpg

 

 

 

Dr. Lewis Zimmerman, 1997

 

At the 1997 San Diego Comic Book Expo the company exhibited a Dr. Zimmerman figure, which was supposed to arrive by the end of the year, along with a few others, but ended up not being produced.

 
What's interesting about this prototype is that it uses the 1993 Bashir body that is just repainted by hand.
 
Another item that's interesting about this one is that it appears to be based on his appearance on DS9, rather than Voyager, specifically on the ep "Doctor Bashir, I Presume" which aired in February 1997. So this was meant to be Lewis Zimmerman (with the yellow engineering undershirt) and not the EMH from First Contact, or Zimmerman from his appearance on Voyager.
 
On Voyager, Zimmerman did not appear in the gray starfleet uniform that I recall.
 
The figure in production form, I think, would have been based on the unified Target special FC Picard/Data body, so the use of the Bashir body here is a little interesting, as it doesn't have a number of the FC uniform details. So it wouldn't have gone into production this way.
 
The figure was ultimately shelved, perhaps for reasons of character popularity not making the cut: the whole Projections Barclay thing may have been considered to be played out by now when it came to that episode, and Zimmerman's various appearances. Or perhaps the FC uniform Enterprise crew figures were prioritized. PM went on to produce a number of Target exclusive figures in the FC uniforms.



#97744 Figure Values

Posted by Morgan on 01 October 2022 - 07:10 PM

Canadian Troi with pog sold for $210.50 + $5.75 shipping after 5 bids in Sept 2022.

 

Pretty much a record price for the past 4 years, and a reflection of just how tough these can be to find.

 

A couple of years ago these were going for around $100 or thereabouts, as demand was meh, but the factor of these coming up for sale at all is what played a big role here in 2022.

 

This figure is not hanging out on eBay any given day -- I see only about two or three pop up every year. So these are not easy to find in the first place. 

 

 

 

troi-09-2022.jpg




#97722 Here we go again... Playmates is back in the Trek business!

Posted by Morgan on 22 September 2022 - 06:51 AM

Hello all!! So far I have purchased Spock, Data, Burnam, and Saru.... I hate to say this, but out of these four, Data is the weakest figure... He seems like he is in a different scale from the other 3. His head is very large and his hands seem small due to the odd proportions. I really like Spock and the two Discovery figues.

 

I haven't even seen the figures in person, but I got a sense somehow that Data was quite a bit larger than the others. Also, Khan seems a bit smallish.




#97519 Top 5 Figures You Want to See in the Relaunched Lineup

Posted by Morgan on 30 January 2022 - 10:54 AM

I think new member registration has been inactive for like 3 years now ::sigh:: 

 

Did you try one of the mods' emails?  thehsbr@msn.com




#97498 Here we go again... Playmates is back in the Trek business!

Posted by Morgan on 26 January 2022 - 12:47 PM

I'm glad they've finally figured out that people don't want a new figure scale, like 6-inch or something, and that for many people this is a nostalgia hobby.