Toys, Tales, and Tensions: Inside the Transformers Collectors Club

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Sam.

(00:28):
Welcome to the Triple Takeover Toycast.
A fortnightly podcast allabout Transformers and, yes, occasionally
other toy lines as well, we promise.
But tonight is definitelyabout Transformers.
And do you know what, everyone?
Liam's turned up with hisChristmas jumper on, so I think he's
got the wrong brief fortonight somehow.
What?
Ho ho, ho, ho, ho.
Was that what you were gonnasay when you thought that this was

(00:48):
the Christmas recording thatwe were doing tonight?
No, that I did that.
That was a very.
I don't know what's going on.
There would have been no whatho hos in that one.
Right, okay.
All right.
That's for another night, adark night.
What I really love is yourChristmas jumper has got little reindeers
on it and it's perfectlyaligned with the bottom of the screen
for me.
So it looks like you're justtrotting across.

(01:11):
Prancing.
Yeah.
Prancer, Dasher, Dancer.
You do look very nice, Liam.
Very festive.
You look quite dashing.
Oh, I like it.
Yes.
On Donna.
On Blitzen.
Are we gonna talk Blitzenwings tonight?
Yeah, could do, could do.
Sure.
Well, let's save it for theactual Christmas recording, why don't
we?
Dolph knows.

(01:32):
Sure.
Scraping the barrel.
Yeah, very much so, yeah.
I think you're a little bitdisappointed that this wasn't the
Christmas chat.
Is that fair to say, Liam?
Well, up until about 10minutes ago, I was prepping for something
else come entirely, like.
And you know me, I don'treally care, but this was a, you
know, Patreon thing that I was doing.

(01:53):
I was.
I've spent hours, like,getting ready, like, God, man, I'm
so close.
Just piles of photos,everything ready to go.
And then when you came on, Ithought you were joking.
When you were like, it's no,that's Wednesday, I was like, no.
So I am fully prepared forwhatever we're talking about now.
Right.
Absolutely Had a schedule.
This is the thing I was goingto say.
Jason checked the calendar.

(02:13):
I was well impressed.
I actually looked on the spreadsheet.
I kept thinking of you tellingme the this plan, and in my head
it was that on the 24th, it.
All melded together, didn'tit, Liam?
Because today is Doggy Barco's birthday.
So Happy birthday, Doggy Barco.
Maybe I'm over tired fromplaying with a 2 maybe so chasing

(02:35):
around the house.
Yeah.
How old Was she today?
9.
Oh, she's a spring chicken.
That's lovely.
Yeah, she's the best clearyears in her left, I'm sure.
Yes.
Yeah.
And plenty of vets bills leftin her.
Pod member.
You know, it's dead funnybecause obviously I give her loads

(02:56):
of force and today I give herextra force.
And, you know, when she'sgetting treats, she's like, oh, this
is great.
Then the treats stop.
It's like, oh, my God, leaveme alone, please.
Just go into other rooms toget away from it.
Like, hello, it's your birthday.
It's my birthday.
Let's have an avocado.
She's like, oh, not this again.
Oh, God bless you.
That's exactly like me on my birthday.
Perfect.
She walks past Trypticon.

(03:17):
She's like, father, help me.
Save me from this.
Bless.
Brilliant.
Well, yeah.
So, Liam, we are actuallytalking about Transformers Collectors
Club tonight.
Are you up for that one?
Are you all on brief with that?
I am well up for that one.
I've definitely got somethoughts and opinions from 2014 on
this.
I was going to say from alittle while back.

(03:38):
Yeah, Jason, it sounded likeyou had some dark thoughts on this
one as well.
Is that the sort of vibe I waspicking up there?
A little bit.
Do you know, there's.
It made me laugh.
So for anyone that goes andlooks at the wiki, but there's.
I don't know if you guys sawit, but if you look at the bottom
of the wiki and I'll need tobring it up now so that we can actually
see it, but the note that's atthe bottom, just.

(04:01):
Well, one.
It made me crack up because itwas going along the kind of vibes
that I was feeling for theCollectors Club as well, which it
says only members receivedmembership benefits, making the organization
an evil entity that existedsolely for the purpose of denying
fans benefits that they didn'tpay for.
Which is like.
Well, you could have stoppedat the.

(04:23):
Before you got to the.
Didn't pay for.
And that's my general opinionon the club.
I can't wait to give theseguys a kick.
And I have waited for you guys.
Oh, wow.
Okay.
Okay.
There we go.
Okay.
All right.
I didn't know that this wasthe vibe we were going for tonight.
I used to have a very deep axeto grind with these people.
And.
Wow, I thought I was gonna be.
Bringing the bad vibes.
It's the TransformersCollectors Club, but only if you're

(04:44):
in America.
Yes.
Sod everybody else.
I feel like I brought a knifeto a gunfight here, honestly.
Like, what have I walked into?
This is the bloody okay Corral.
I'm wearing a.
Well, a festive jumper.
And now we're gonna be onSanta's naughty list for this kind
of chat.
Okay.
All right, well, we'll get toall of that.
Don't worry.
I mean, it is worth us sayingbefore we get to all of that, that
we do have a couple ofsponsors for the evening, one of

(05:04):
which is TFSource.com so youshould go and check them out for
all your Transformers needsand talking about collectors clubs
and being a collector and, youknow, and that's a little segue there.
Very natural.
But we also have Valar asanother sponsor as well, don't we,
Jace?
We do indeed.
For all your collectioncataloguing needs as well.

(05:26):
I'll update everybody becauseI know you're all fascinated.
My whole plan of getting mycatalogue moved over from the previous
app to Vallart has hit a snag,which you brought up last time.
6 0.
I've started taking photos again.
Oh, no.
Yeah, new photos.
Yeah, new photos.
So I was like.
Because I've got a room set up.
Too tempting.

(05:47):
And it was just.
And I was like, you know what?
And because when you upload toValar, it'll give you a little analysis
of what it thinks it is.
And I wanted to play with thatand see how good it was.
So I was giving it some kindof very clean images.
See how it get on.
Trying it with a G1 jazz and.
Well, any jazz, actually.
World's smallest.
It does struggle when you'redoing things like that.
Being a bit tricksy.

(06:07):
But it was very much aboutsorting my collection and cataloging
it properly.
But it's great, you know, it's great.
Were you having fun doing it?
Yeah, I did.
I have a lot of fun.
Yeah.
It was really nice.
And I do.
I do enjoy it.
It's really nice.
And it's so much easierbecause it's just online now.
So whether I jump from mylaptop to my phone or to the tablet,
I can just get into it andjust get on, which is really nice.
So, yeah, it's been good.

(06:28):
I need to sign up for itbecause I really want to put it to
the test, you know, like, bygoing in like, you know the classic
ebay sellers where they'vemistransformed everything?
Yeah.
And they're like, this mightbe Optimus Prime.
You're like, that looks like alunchbox with a.
With a pen sticking out.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You know how they alwaysmistransform everything and see.
See if it can figure out whatit is from that.
Man.
Beast Wars Depth Charge is theOne, if you've ever looked up Beast

(06:52):
Wars Depth Charge on ebay, theresults are invariably hilarious.
Just because clearly no knowshow to transform this thing.
That's what, you know, noafter seller or anything.
Anyway, so it's.
It's all over the place.
It's just like an explodedmess of a toy in most of the pictures.
Yeah.
That sounds like all the movietoys, doesn't it?
Yeah, it very much is.
You could just tell.
It's got that energy of like,someone's clearly got fed up with

(07:14):
it, thrown it on a chair or abed or something and just gone, ah,
that'll do.
Just take a picture of it.
There it is.
You buy it if you want it.
This famous back kibble.
And I love that toy,absolutely love that toy.
But it is that whole backkibble part of it, which is confusing
if you don't know that that'sall basically to be stored on the
back and.
Where the wings are going and all.
That kind of stuff.
A logical toy.

(07:34):
Not at all.
Yeah.
Yeah, it was very much.
And again, beast.
Well, there we go.
That's Depths of Transformers.
That's what it is.
Yeah.
I'm just wondering how muchValar Charge.
Well.
Oh, God, he started already.
Look at him.
Honestly, if you sign up usingTriple takeover, you get 25% off.
So that is worth mentioning.

(07:54):
Yes.
So, yeah, if you haven't comeacross Ballart yet, then it is like
an online platform where youcan catalog your collection, you
can upload photos.
It's, you know, it's stillearly days for them, but the sort
of figure identifier thingdoes work pretty well so far, I think,
at least in sort of, I wouldsay 40, 50% of the time, it's getting
it.
And I think the idea, isn'tit, that the more people use this,

(08:15):
the more reliable it willbecome as well.
So, you know, we're in theground floor a little bit at this
point, but.
But yeah, go to velart.co.ukand check it out and see if it's
something that you might need.
And as Jason says, you can geta little bit of a discount by using
the code Triple Takeover as well.
Yeah, listeners, why don't youcome on over, you know, while these
guys stop making a fool out of me.
Why don't you come out over toa Val Artery?

(08:40):
What the f. I mean.
The famous song by that womanwho's Dead.
Yeah, it was another bandbefore that, wasn't it?
Some other band.
In any case, that pun took solong to happen.
It Required planningpermission, I think, honestly.

(09:02):
Maybe I've been on the wine.
Yeah, right.
My goodness, that was the mostscripted this has ever felt.
Yeah, it really did.
Yeah.
Yet it was right off the cuff.
Yeah.
Liam's got pages of nose cuff.
Yeah, he does.
It's true.
Nothing to do with tonight'sepisode though.
No.
All about something else, but yeah.
So Transformers CollectorsClub is the topic du jour and that's

(09:25):
what we're going to talk about tonight.
And actually, funnily enough,this one was also a bit of a commission,
believe.
Believe it or not, because wehave been doing a few of these recently
where, you know, we've hadPatreon commissions where we have
minisodes that we do as partof our Patreon, which you can check
out@patreon.com triple takeover.
Of course.
We'll talk a bit more aboutthat in a little bit.
But one of the perks is thatsome of our top tier patrons can

(09:46):
ask us to do minisodes onparticular topics.
And the person thatcommissioned this was Siege Maximo.
So thank you very much to themfor suggesting it.
And I think initially theywere talking about us doing something
on like botcon and like thewhole thing as well.
But we're going to keep it toTransformers Collectors Club specifically
because I do kind of thinkthis is a really interesting little

(10:08):
lineup of toys and a wholekind of interesting arrangement.
It's obviously not somethingthat happens anymore, but.
Well, I'm saying things andI'm aware that you both clearly have
very strong opinions here.
So do you want to have at itor how do you want to get into it?
Well, do you want to talkabout what the Collectors Club was?
Because it's kind of confusingwhen you say it someone what it is.

(10:31):
It is.
It isn't exactly what itsounds like, I don't think.
No, that was a source of a lotof confusion behind their gatekeeping
ways.
It's basically.
Or it was.
It was run by Fun Publicationsor Fun Pub, and it started in 2005
and it was essentially asubscription service.
Now there is also a thingcalled Transformers subscription

(10:51):
service as part of this, butthat is basically what you're doing.
So you sign up as like amember or what have you.
And there were variousbenefits including like comics and
things like this as well.
But the main thing I thinkpeople think of with this and the
main thing we're going tofocus on is the toys.
Now there was like membershipfree toys that you got over various

(11:12):
years from like 2005, all theway up to, like, 2016.
Then you had the opportunityto buy further toys that you could
kind of only get in most casesas part of the club.
Although actually a lot ofthem became available in other ways
as well, or, you know, gotresold later on, obviously, and things
like that.
And then you also, later on,from 2013 onwards, got access to

(11:34):
the Transformers figuresubscription service or the tfss.
So it was kind of like severaltiers of stuff, basically, but a
lot of exclusive toys,repaints, some of which, I think
are super cool, it has to besaid, and some of which are really
desirable now.
Like, super, super desirable.
Back in the day, it was thefirst time you could get the battle
charges again when they did.

(11:54):
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
The Wheeljack mold intoRunabout and Run Amok.
Well, they did a lot of toys,which I think is worth mentioning.
They did do a lot of repaintsand things that people were dead
excited about, and thingsthat, you know, people were genuinely
like, oh, my God, I can'tbelieve we're getting a new toy of
that character.
And it's the kind of stuff now where.
Fast forward to now.
And it's like.
Well, yeah, exactly.

(12:16):
It's.
It's so strange because now,like, every.
You know, everything that youcould sort of imagine is being done.
But back then, like, if youwere fan of, I don't know, Beast
Wars Rampage, the idea that hewas getting another toy was like,
oh, my God.
Do you know what I mean?
They're doing that.
That's so weird.
That's what it's like in it.
It's like the bison meme.
You know, back in 2015, youget to the Beat Force.
Megatron was the greatest dayof your life.

(12:37):
To me, that was Tuesday.
Yeah.
Because that's what it's like now.
It's like all of thosecharacters, obscure characters have
been done.
Yeah.
Even more obscure charactershave done some of them multiple times.
But back in the day, on theother side of the Atlantic, where
we were, you just used to lookat it through the Internet and you
see the pictures of it.
You'd be like, wow, I wouldlove to buy that, but I can't because

(12:57):
it's a real pain in the ass.
But the other thing as well, that.
So this was always mixed inwith botcon, wasn't it?
It was, yeah.
The same people were running it.
Was it Fun Pub?
It was Fun Pub, yeah.
So Fun Pub had acquired thelicense for.
Well, it wasn't Botcon at thetime, but they renamed it back to
Botcon but the officialTransformers convention, basically.
And then this started as allkind of a wrapping with that.

(13:19):
And you can see it thatthematically, a lot of the toys,
the kind of way that they'represented and a lot of the branding
and stuff is very much botcon adjacent.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Which kind of made it evenmore kind of annoying in a way, for
those of us who can't go tobotcon because it's so far away and
expensive.
It's like.
It kind of felt likegatekeeping to me.

(13:40):
There's a lot of.
That was you could buy it, butonly if you're really rich abroad,
you know, because it was so.
Yeah.
Expensive.
And they wouldn't ship.
There was a time when theywouldn't ship abroad quite early
on.
And then when they started tobe like, maybe, yeah, we could ship
abroad, but it's going to costyou, like, £50.
And it's like, well, yeah,yeah, you.
Might as well just have notbothered again.
It's just.
It's very much the haves andthe have nots.

(14:00):
And I didn't.
I really hated that vibe.
Something that I was a fan ofand collecting and picking up stuff
because you know how I collect.
And particularly back then,it'd be random bits and bobs.
It was a stuff.
And it'd be like, oh, it lookscool, I'll get that.
And just to see stuff and belike, it puts a negative spin on
it is what it was doing.
Yeah.
And I can totally understand.
Really frustrating andannoying because they'd be like,
here's this super skill catchthat everybody really wants.

(14:23):
It's going to be in limited numbers.
And then they started askingabout doing that at botcon.
Do you remember?
Making it a real pain in theass to get things having different
tiers at botcons and you hadto queue up to get one exclusive.
And then with the club theystarted doing.
I think this is when peoplestart to turn off it.
If I remember rightly, towardthe end, they started not telling
you what toys were coming,like the year in advance.

(14:46):
They would be like to sign upbecause Master Universe did that.
I can't remember if it's them.
I'm kind of merging themtogether with.
And it certainly.
I think there was a bit ofthat with the subscription service
stuff.
Yeah.
Was that they.
They just kind of.
Yeah, they kept it a bit sortof under the radar, as it were.
But as I say, I mean, some ofthis stuff, even the club figures
and things, and certainly somefrom the subscription service, I
think ended up Being given outof bot cons and things as well and

(15:07):
stuff like this.
So.
But that's what sort of makesit more annoying.
That was the kind of thing islike, it was very much fun about
how much giveaway and be like,well, yeah, well, there's not enough
interest, obviously.
And you're like, oh my God,there is so much more to the world
than the United States of America.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean, I know they don't seemto think that anymore.
Again.
No, well, I don't know.
It reminds me actually in morerecent times of like when they first

(15:28):
did Haslab Unicron, you know,when they first put that out.
Oh yeah.
This is amazing.
The transformer you've wantedall these years and it's available
to everybody in North Americaand it was kind of like, oh, yeah,
okay, cool, we'll just goourselves then.
Sure.
Obviously they sorted it outand you know, fair enough.

(15:49):
But that was because peoplemoaned and it's like, you know, complain
about people moaning, butyou're like, but in some of these
cases it's really well justified.
Yeah.
Because we are in a globalcommunity now and as a fandom, like
when they are putting theirannouncements out, they're not locking
them all behind regionlockings and stuff like that, are
they?
They're very much like, here'severything that's coming out.
There's no caveat of.
But only if you live incertain parts of the world.

(16:10):
That's not how social mediaoperates and stuff.
And it's like that with Mattel.
I stopped buying the Jurassicpark stuff and you know how much
of a Jurassic park fan I am.
I was going to say this is serious.
Yeah.
Like quite early on becauseit's really good.
But they were locking most ofit into the North America and then
they were doing the thing withtheir own version of haslab.
Mattel Creations, actually,that's what it's called.

(16:32):
But they were doing reallycool stuff and they'd be like, it's
only available in North America.
Then, you know, the same withall the human characters from the
films.
They'd be like these amazingfigures again, only American.
It's like there's no reasonfor it.
It just kind of puts you offand it just annoys you really, because
you're like, I like buyingthese things and I feel like I'm
being no.
Totally locked out orsomething whilst I'm having to look

(16:53):
at other people in all of the.
Because we are engaged in allof these fandoms.
You know, when we look on ourTwitter feeds and blue sky, we do.
As much as.
I don't really create stuff on there.
I just kind of follow peopleback and forth.
But you do tend to lean tofollowing people whose interest.
You know, you'll see a picture.
Oh, that person looks quite cool.
They've posted a photo ofsomething I like.
I'll follow them.
So that's what happens is youtend to see all the stuff you're

(17:15):
interested in.
No, I mean.
But yeah, you can't have that.
It's kind of just dumb in this day.
Yeah.
You know, the thing for me was.
So I agree, Liam, that it wasand is gatekeeping.
There's a couple of thingsthat I was reading up on this and
I don't.
Because TransformersCollectors Club was us.
So I was like, well, I'm nevergoing to get that.

(17:36):
And keep in mind, this is like.
When did.
When was it started off again?
2005.
2005.
Yeah.
But it ran for years.
It ran for over a decade.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, that's.
But the thing was that caughtmy eye is that it was kind of raf
with a few issues, wasn't it,that it would start up and unfold
and start up and they'd losethe license.
And it was a bit.

(17:58):
It all seemed a bit.
Stop.
Starty.
And then it got connected to botcon.
Are you sure?
Yeah.
No, there was the botcon fiasco.
Well, it was kind of fellapart, but it was.
And they are tied to botcon.
It's the same people.
But.
But there was a bit before FunPub, which was the 3H productions.
Well, that was.
That was.
Yeah, that was before all this.

(18:18):
So.
So 3h was, you know, theHartmans and they.
They had the.
The license to do botcon andwhat have you before it.
And then they lost the licenseand then Funpub took it over.
Yeah, but when Fun Pub had thelicense, they were pretty consistent
for the time that they had itand everything.
But it was within, like, period.
Yeah, okay, this happens.
But within 10 years, they werelike liquidizing and then selling

(18:39):
off the toys and stuff like that.
So that's kind of my point,which was it was more that this.
It was like all these different.
There was the comics overhere, there was botcon over here.
And I totally get.
And I'm all right, actually,with conventions having exclusive
figures.
I like that.
I actually think that makessense, right?
You're paying to go to this figure.
And we had.
We were lucky tf.

(19:00):
Well, we had one at TF Nation, remember?
And that was really fun in that.
Did we.
Yeah, we got it.
Was the masked toys.
Was it the Mass toys?
When the little SantianiBumblebee in blue as glyph, wasn't
it?
Yeah, exactly.
Was that exclusive?
Was it?
Oh, it was a TF Nation, yeah.
Okay.
All right.
So I got it.
And it's lovely.
It's a lovely little toy.
But why does it have to be exclusive?
This is the thing that always bugs.
Me, but that's my point, Liam,is that this was the collectors club,

(19:23):
was something that you joinedoutside of buying a ticket.
So if I go to a convention,I'm buying a ticket, going to a convention,
and as part of that, I get abonus to get this toy if I want to
at the convention.
Right.
But the collectors club wassomething that was running for years
and years and years, and all Iwas seeing was lots of toys that

(19:44):
I'd never be able to get myhands on.
And that's why I kind ofwondered towards the end, when they
started to go into, like,liquidating it, that they just started
selling toys.
That's what seemed to happen.
And then these toys, becausethere's a flip side to this, right,
where people were going andgetting them, and then those toys,
because they were onlyavailable there, obviously became
more expensive.

(20:05):
Well, this is a fair point, tobe fair.
Yes.
So a lot of these toys are not.
Well, I suppose what's weirdis that some of them are certainly
not rare, you know, as in youcan look on ebay and there they are.
And there's various examplesof this.
Some of them are more rare,and some of them are really widely
sought after.
And, like, you know, you justdon't see them.
But a lot of them do command ahigher price.

(20:27):
It does vary, though, because,like, some of the free stuff, I mean,
for example, some of it isdirt cheap.
The sideburn, which was one ofthe freebie figures, actually.
See, every year they did afreebie figure for signing up.
We were talking about this at Reading.
Again, the sideburn.
This exactly what you're aboutto say.
About, you know, what I'mgonna say.
That was the next.

(20:47):
You know, and I still.
It's one of those things thatactually burns me.
Like, very few things likesideburns ever.
Yeah.
Sorry, that's what I sound like.
I get it.
That is what you sound like.
Yeah.
Taste your own medicine.
But, yeah, you know what I'mgoing to say?
Last tfn, was it last TFN orthe tfn before I Think it was.

(21:07):
TFN before we were.
Paul saying when you saw it.
Yeah, I couldn't believe howmuch it was.
Yeah.
Paul Hitchens at the Space Bridge.
And I think I was justchatting with Paul and I just literally
looked down and I was like, isthat timeline sideburn just there
for 25 quid?
And it was.
And it was in mint condition,completely perfect.
You know what I mean?
Still in the original bag.
It never been opened becausethey come.

(21:28):
A lot of them come in bags andthings, of course, never been open,
seemingly.
And yeah, 25 quid.
So that was the bargain of theconvention, I think.
But.
So that.
But that's the thing.
They're not.
You look on ebay, some ofthese toys, particularly the freebies
and things.
Well, I say particularly the freebies.
Some of the freebies and someof the other toys are very cheap.
But then you get others.
Like there's the.

(21:49):
The first five years, they dida combiner Nexus Maximus, which is
cool.
Yeah, very cool thing.
I mean, that's on ebay.
Yeah, well, that's on ebay now.
I checked tonight because Iwas like, how much is this stuff
going for these days?
I know it's pricey, but how much?
That's on ebay now for $650.
Yeah.
So, you know, that's the thing.

(22:10):
Right.
So when you were joining, it was.
What was it?
It was.
The price for the yearlysubscription to the collectors club.
Does it tell you that anywhere?
Yeah, I think it was $42 forone year.
Yeah.
Going to say, so what?
So over that.
So that's.
Did you say that was six figures?
Yeah, six figures, yeah.

(22:31):
Yeah.
So we're looking at like $252for those as well.
I mean, look, all of thisstuff, I mean, it's no surprise that
it will have appreciated alittle bit or whatever else, given
the nature of it.
So, you know, it could beworse on the aftermarket today, but
still, that is a lot of.
A lot of money.
But there are other examplesas well.
I mean, some of it really goesfor big money and whatever else,

(22:53):
those.
Toys have been superseded.
Now.
A lot of those.
Well, a lot of those were.
The reason they were so soughtafter was because we're never gonna
get a character.
Yeah.
A sort of a toy of that.
Like, the absolute nadir ofall of this stuff was the Botcon
box set, which was the.
Do you remember the classicsbox set.
Oh, yeah.
Like Dark side, something like that.
But they had.

(23:14):
They had the Thundercrackerand Skywalker.
The Thundercracker and Thethrust, I think it was.
And.
Yeah, and a couple of others and.
Or Dread Wing was in there as well.
But they.
I remember seeing that andbeing like, oh, my God.
That's a thing so many peoplewould like to have.
And it's like, two things aregonna happen here.
It's like one, it's obviouslyat a faraway convention that there's
no way of getting it fromunless you literally fly across the

(23:36):
world or live there.
And I feel it's very unfair tojust be lucky to live geographically
close to something get.
Code lottery.
But then I was like, thesecond thing is, that's going to
be so sought after on thesecondary market, it's only going
to skyrocket.
And.
Well, yeah, those charactersthen become unobtainable, you know,
like real main characters.
And then they get the idea.

(23:56):
It was like Classics was dead.
And so that was the ide.
But the idea at the time wasthey weren't going to do a Thundercracker
or any of those again.
And so it became that thing oflike, oh, you know what I mean?
And it's like, absolutely.
Why couldn't they have madethis more widely available to people?
Well, there are some.
I mean, even now, there aresome that still.
Because they're.
They're not so much figuresthat can be superseded.
I think some of the ones thatstill retain value now.

(24:17):
I mean, stuff like UltraMammoth is a great example of a toy
that I don't think it's like,you know, super rare or stupidly
expensive or anything likethis, but it still goes for money.
And like, actually thatanimated Cheetor now as well apparently
has crept up quite a bit.
I didn't even realize, becauseI picked it up at a point when it
was still relatively okay.

(24:39):
Like, it wasn't too bad.
But actually, Plastic Crackwas telling me the other day, I like
that one.
That's good.
Yeah.
He was telling me that it goes.
The one from the Blur mould.
Yeah, it was the Blur mold.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's really nice that.
It's cool.
I really like that one.
And that's the type of thing.
So I like those variations and.
Okay, so.
So to sing the Collectorsclub's praise and botcon.

(25:02):
Jason, don't make me not loveyou anymore.
You know, I've got to bringthe equal vibes here, right?
Because.
There are some really goodfigures, really nice color schemes
in this.
Even that double pretendOptimus prime in Haikyuu, which I
saw, that was quite a lit.
That was one of the Last ones.
That came out, wasn't it?
I love that one.
Just for how quirky and howtotally feeds into so many different

(25:26):
parts of the toy lore that I loved.
And I genuinely do feel thatthere is a love and a passion behind
all of this capitalism, youknow, ultimately.
Oh, definitely.
And I think that's why it isfrustrating as well.
I don't think they were profiting.
They weren't.
Let's be honest, they weren't.
But they did create somereally lovely, lovely toys in this

(25:46):
run as well.
And okay, now we've got Hasbrodoing this to a certain extent on
a bigger scale.
But it's different, isn't it,when you've effectively got a kind
of licensed fan kind of publication?
Yeah, no, it is.
I mean, that was what I wasgoing to kind of say.
I mean, the reality is wedon't really know the economics of
all of this.
And I would hasten to venturethat I would imagine the profit margins

(26:08):
on this stuff is not what yousee at Mastering.
It must be like this, if at all.
I'd be amazed if they made any money.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
I'm sure it wasn't the mostprofitable endeavor that's ever been
done or anything like this.
So I think it was.
It did kind of have the spiritof like being run by fans for fans.
And I agree with you about thekind of exclusivity thing and all

(26:29):
of that.
Certainly for me, it wassomething that I looked at as like
casual interest but nevergoing to get any of this stuff.
And the fact that I havepicked up a mere few bits from it
in more recent times is sortof more.
Just because it's become morewidely available than anything.
But certainly there was a lotof things that I thought, I'm only
ever going to see this througha computer screen.

(26:51):
And that's.
That.
That's bad though, becauselike I say.
No, yeah, I agree.
It's.
You're part of a community ina fandom and it kind of feels like
you're being kept out because,yeah, obviously there was the issues
with postage and stuff, andit's just like finding it to one
place just always felt like,yeah, it's.
I don't.
I don't think that their planwas, haha, let's lock everybody out.
No.
Well, then maybe Hasbro shouldhave done this themselves.

(27:13):
Their own collectors.
Well, yeah, that's an issue.
But they weren't always just.
It's that kind of irrational thing.
Whereas I understand why theydid it.
And if they hadn't done that,then these figures wouldn't exist.
That's one thing.
But on the other hand, I feltlike I was being excluded from something
that.
Yeah, I feel.
You know, and I feel like weall did.
And it.
It just was.

(27:33):
It just rubbed me the wrong way.
Do you know, the thing is,though, and I know this isn't an
entirely.
This isn't entirely fair, butthe robot points on the back of boxes,
where you could then collectthose up, send away, and you'd get
the toys that Hasbro basicallydecided weren't good enough to do
his mainline releases omnibus.
Getting all the power dashesand stuff like that, which now, you

(27:54):
know, I've got a few of thepower dashes, and they're just brilliantly
ridiculous.
I love them to bits, but.
Yeah, as a releasable figure.
But it was a different vibefor that, wasn't it?
And you had to make the choiceof like, I'm going to collect those
points and then put it in anenvelope and send it off with my
money and I'll get a thing back.
Which was done by Takara.
Well, Takara and Hasbro atthat point, wasn't it?
But we.

(28:15):
And we had the stuff here as well.
We had, like, the Stars Club,which was part of Hasbro.
But at this 2010, you know, Iwas trying to remember what was going
on in the kind of buying sceneat that point.
The chicken diary.
Well, that's never reliable, Liam.
Right.
So that's not gonna.
Where were you in the world, Jason?
That's the big question.

(28:35):
Did you have a date, funnilyenough, at this point?
So that's when I founded mycompany in 2010.
So I was.
Yeah, I was busy doing that atthat point as well.
But I wasn't buying a lot ofTransformers at that point.
But I'm just thinking aboutwhat was coming out.
And these things generallycome out of, you know, a gap.

(28:55):
And that's the thing fans are doing.
Yeah, yeah.
Which I love.
I think that was.
That was a big part of it.
And I think the point aboutmaybe Hasbro should have done this.
I think the point is Hasbroweren't doing this.
And obviously these guysacquired the license for it, and
they absolutely filled a holefrom, you know, pardon the expression,
but, you know, kind of theyplugged a gap in the market, I think

(29:16):
is probably the better way tosay it, but, you know, because.
And I think probably people ormaybe Hasbro wouldn't have even perceived
that it was a gap.
But you look at It.
In some ways, it's almost likethe spiritual successor to something
like Universe and things likethis, with all the kind of crazy
repaints, which at the timewere seen as pretty outlandish or
like, what is this stuff?

(29:37):
You know?
But it kind of was.
Found a life, that stuff founda love, I think, in the fandom almost
after the fact.
And then by the time thisstuff came out, I mean, this started
only a couple of years afterUniverse 2003.
And you can see that pretty quickly.
It starts slowly but pretty quickly.
They kind of get to the pointof like, doing some pretty funky
stuff, like the timelinesNightbeat that Maz talked to us about

(29:59):
in a recent.
We do a Unicorn at the weekend.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
We do a Unicron trilogyminiseries, of course, on our Patreon.
And Maz was looking at thisone that's from 2008.
And that's a great example ofjust, like, they really cooked with
that.
You know, they took anexisting mold that's not everybody's
favorite toy, but theyapplied, like, this really cool Deco

(30:19):
to it.
And in that way, it does kindof feel like the sort of successor
to something like Universe.
And actually, I think that alot of fans would have been excited
about that.
So I agree with all the pointsabout distribution and whatever else,
but I think this was a sort ofa bit of a passionate endeavour for
these folks doing it.
You know, I think there was alot of love going into it.
A lot of smart choices andclever choices about molds and decos,

(30:44):
but also character choicesthat appealed or had quite a wide
appeal.
You know, things that youwould look at and, like, the one
I always think of is thatrampage, which was done out of the
Transformers Prime Megatron.
And I look at it and I justthink, do you know what?
That is so clever.
Like, not only does it lookcool, but it's a really clever choice

(31:05):
of mold to retool intosomething like that.
So it's like the.
The other Cheetor, the onefrom Clocker, I think it was.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's the.
The.
You're right.
Yeah.
That's a.
From a bot concept, isn't it?
Yeah, that was really clever.
Yeah.
See, I just lumped them all intogether now.
All right.
I was gonna say basically thesame thing, but there was a thing,
like, we talked about Hasbronot being involved, but I don't know
if you remember this, but onthe bottom of the toys, like the

(31:27):
Generations toys would alwayshave the Transformers Collector's
Club logo.
Yes.
That's true.
On the underside, underneath.
On the inside of the card,underneath the bubble.
If you looked at the bottom.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Often spot that attachedthere, and it'd be like, God damn,
these people.
I mean, it was.
They were involved, obviously,in the respect that they're making
the toys.
They've given out the license,you know, so it's not that Hasbro

(31:49):
weren't involved.
They were very aware.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, they will have signedoff on all of it and everything as
well.
Really?
Well, sure, they would havehad their input.
But it's like you said therewhen you said it's like a precursor
or a, you know, Successor toUniverse 2003.
In some ways, it's a precursorto Legacy and all of these lines
that we have now and.
No, it is all of these thingsbecause it was so varied in a way

(32:12):
that nothing else felt like atthe time.
Like, you know, the characterchoices are so similar to what we
have now, just in tone andstyle, when they'll be like, here's
a G1 guy.
But then here's somethingcompletely off the wall, and it's.
I think they basically actedas a test bed in some ways, or a
testing ground for Hasbro,because a lot of what they do now
is kind of informed by whatthey did, and not in a way where

(32:35):
they're looking at the cluband going, this is what we should
do.
Exactly what they did.
It's more like that kind ofset the stage for what the fandom,
you know, would become.
The kind of interestingshowing how varied it is and how
much demand there is for these characters.
Yeah, the tastes and appetites.
Yeah.
What is interesting is whenyou look at, like, individual characters

(32:55):
and you see what toys they'vehad over the years, and there are
sort of two categories.
One is either characters thathad their first ever toy as a Transformers
Collectors club or figuresubscription service or whatever
toy.
So something like Nacellerealized an idea that had been around
for years because of an oldcatalog or whatever, this G1 nacelle.

(33:19):
And they did that under thecollector's Club.
But then that, of course, hasnow been done as part of Modern Generations
as well, I think Legacy or whatever.
So that's really funny,because then that character has two
toys, Collectors Club and Legacy.
And it's just.
That's fascinating to me.
But then there's also stufflike, you know, Croc that we talked
about recently on.

(33:39):
On your miniseries, Jason,your Titans Return miniseries, where
actually, again, you know, youget the G1 Action Master and Then
you get something from thecollectors club timelines or whatever,
you know, so it's just.
It's really random choices.
Yeah, it is.
You know, it's the timelinesactually that I wanted to talk about
as well, because the ones thatgot me and where it kind of needled

(34:02):
me like for Liam as well, was the.
There was a 2008 Seacons set.
Right.
Which is such an eclectic mixof colors and it's.
He's gone.
Still gets him.
Seahons, siacons.
Did I say seacons?

(34:23):
You did say.
Did you not even realize?
I didn't even realize.
I thought you were being on brand.
So.
Good.
I'm just.
I'm going with it.
Yeah, brilliant.
But so again, I wasn't aware,though, because I.
It was like, where did thisone go?
I was kind of vaguely aware ofthis being a US kind of stateside
release and stuff like that,but reading on it today, it was actually

(34:45):
supposed to be a proper release.
Going to Walmart.
Yeah.
Actually then, you know, beingkind of a full release to North America,
which never happened in the end.
So it ended up becoming acollector's club.
And that one does stand out alittle bit because it's G1 moulds
and everything as well.
But it's quite interesting inthe fact that this is like, oh, we

(35:07):
can't sell this.
Let's put it into thecollector's club instead as well.
And it's actually a reallydesirable one for me out of all of
the ones.
But it's nice.
Yeah, I have it.
It is nice.
The only thing is, is thatit's very loosey goosey.
Is it?
Lol.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think the wiki mentions about.
About the mould degradation,but it is true.
It's gotta be said.
It's hangs together fine andit looks great on a shelf, so no

(35:29):
concerns there.
But it wobbles with an elf atthe minute.
That's what.
With an elf.
Elf on my shelf?
Not with an elf.
There's no elf on my shelf yet.
So can I say we're still inNovember as we're recording this,
so Christmas jumpers and elveson the shelves or whatever.
Well, my Christmas tree's upthough, you.
Know, so Christmas begins onNovember 1st, my friend.

(35:50):
December 1st.
What do you think poor Santa'sdoing all year?
Do you think he's just sittingaround until he hits December 1st?
Dude's got work to go.
At least we can do.
Give him our support all year round.
Building all toys that Liamcan't get because they're in the
collectors club.
Exactly.
But, yes, certainly that SeonSet C A concept is a good example.

(36:11):
I mean, I think it's a niceset all the same, despite its problems
and things.
But it is.
I can sort of see how theywould have put something like that
from.
You know, okay, we're notgoing to release this.
Let's put it in here.
That's a little bit rid in a way.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally.
Yeah.
Where they're just like, well,we didn't release this in Beast Wars.
Let's just shove it out here.

(36:31):
That's fine.
You know, we need something tofind some shelves.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
We've got a mold.
Looks a bit like Beast Machines.
Optimus Primal.
Who gives a.
Just stick it out there, lads.
Yeah, they'll lap it up.
And they did.
So true.
Yeah.
So it is a bit funny, buthonestly, I. I can't feel too.
I totally understand all thepoints that you guys are making.

(36:53):
I think I came in with thiswith a different energy because I
wasn't prepared for one of the.
I wasn't.
I didn't have the same vibe necessarily.
We just have major fomo.
That's what we are.
Which is understandable.
Which is understandable.
I think.
I think I never.
I obviously have a couple ofthese things now.
Not many, and there are morethat I would like.
But I definitely do feel itnow on the aftermarket, that it's

(37:16):
crazy how much some of thisstuff goes for.
But that's.
I don't want to say it's aseparate conversation because it's
very much tied in.
But that is like its ownthing, because aftermarket stuff
for things like this, andparticularly for a lot of the botcon
sets as well, I just think is wild.
Like, it's.
Well, that's the thing.
So I was going to.
Because the animated botconset that I got, that's not part of

(37:36):
this, is it?
That was just a.
No, that's botcon.
Yeah.
So that kind of brings menicely to the.
Kind of Just tying off what Isaid earlier.
Right.
Which was right or wrong.
I prefer that a collector'sclub, in my mind, should be a collectors
club that is universal.
Universal.
And you're getting access tocontent that then maybe.

(37:58):
Actually the toy part of it isthe tricky bit.
Right.
Because that's just.
Then you've got to fulfill andpost and all this kind of thing.
I was gonna say I. I do wonder.
And again, I feel like.
I feel Like I'm making excuseshere for these guys or, you know,
kind of running interferenceon your critiques and stuff.
But I do wonder with thedistribution side, because you own
them all.
I don't own them all.

(38:20):
I was looking down the listand I was thinking, how many of these
do I own?
Not many.
How many times has six talkedabout toy they went.
Which I do own.
Yeah.
So far I've got like five orsix, you know.
No, that is a bingo game.
The Siacons are made up of alot of different robots.
The sideburn.
I'll do.
I'll do.
I'll go through.
I'll own the sideburn.
I own the animated Cheetor.

(38:41):
I own the.
I think there's a third one.
I own Ultra Mammoth.
There we go.
Yes, that's three.
Three more than I own.
And the sea.
And the seacons.
That's four.
Yes, yes.
But is it four?
Because that's individual.
It's one set.
That's one set of toys.
Six, seven, eight.
And the Pretender Megatron I have.

(39:03):
So that's two, nine, tendouble figures.
That's five.
That's five.
I own five of them.
That sounds like ten to me.
Yeah, no, that's fine.
Individual robots.
Yeah, that's five.
That's five.
And I do have the little comicaccurate Rat bat from the Joe set.
Oh, that's quite cool.
But just the rat bat.

(39:23):
I only wanted the Rat batbecause it's the.
The masterpiece.
What was the Megatron?
I don't remember the Megatron.
The Pretender.
Megatron.
Oh, no, I do.
Oh, yeah, of course I do.
Yeah.
It's very cool.
I got it because I only wantedthe shell.
It's the Grand Maximus.
Yes.
G1 Shell.
We saw that Megatron toy fustand one.
I think we did.
Yeah.

(39:43):
And I was pretty tempted.
But super cool.
They had that came with theLegends, the generations Legends
Megatron, didn't it?
It did, yeah.
And I'm not too fussed aboutthe inner bot, but it actually works
really well with Action MasterMegatron, weirdly, like when you
put the shell with the ActionMaster because he kind of looks a
little bit pretendery.
So Counterpart Oil slick, was it?
Oil.
Oil Master.
That was Oil Master.

(40:04):
Yeah.
Just the gorilla.
That was based off theunreleased Pretender monster thing
from back in the day, wasn't it?
Double pretender.
Yeah.
Which would have been.
Would have been cool.
See what I mean?
Like as interested in weird stuff.
You see that?
You're like, wow, that was cool.
I would love to.
Yeah.
Oh, oh, no, it's very.
Can't possibly get it if I was rich.
That's.
That's kind of.
I think.
Yeah, yeah, some of that stuffis available now.

(40:25):
But I was going to say though,like with distribution and that.
I do again, not to makeexcuses, but I do wonder if it was
maybe just more complicatedthan we're kind of thinking.
Oh, no, it would, it wouldhave been like.
It.
It would have been a nightmare.
It would have been a tall nightmare.
Absolutely.
Back then, international shipping.
But then, yeah, at the sametime it's.
It's still a thing, you knowwhat I mean?

(40:46):
It's still going worldwide.
No social media and everywhere.
That's the kind of.
And it's particularly towardthe late era where they were crossing
into Generations territoryreally heavily with some quite big
hitters of characters and stuff.
And it felt like it was almostrunning side by side it.
So it was constantly likehaving your face pressed up against
a window of like, oh man,they're putting that character into

(41:08):
there.
They're probably not going todo that in the main line.
Yeah.
Remember when they did like,what did they do, like the Thunder
Attack Mayhem Squad orwhatever the hell, you know, Remember
it was all like, yeah,bludgeon as the combiner was guy
and all those and you're like.
Like this is kind of.
Just kind of funky and cool.
But you know, then, then theystarted selling stuff off and then
you contact them and they'd belike, yeah, postage is $50, you know.

(41:31):
Well, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
That was the other thing thatalways knocked me.
I think this is where my mainaxe to grind actually comes with
the club is they never had aconciliatory tone when people ask
them about international shipping.
It was that for a time theyhad a very like attitude.
Yeah.
Like, it'd be like quite rudeabout it.
Oh, you know what I mean?
There was, there was thisattitude for a while and I think

(41:52):
that always felt.
I picked up on that quite fastfrom seeing it in places.
Unless you weren't like it allthe time.
But once it, Once you see it,it sticks.
You just.
Yeah, this is the general attitude.
Whereas I assume they justmust get emails constantly, like,
oh, for God's sake.
Yeah.
From you?
Yeah.
Why can't I have it?
Why can't I have it?
Did you get your mum to writeto them, Liam?

(42:13):
Did your mum write in at all?
Did that not work?
I know because then I would have.
Then I would have had fivelike you, right?
Oh, yeah.
You'd have got one for free,like your TF Nation just this last
weekend, wouldn't it, Liam?
Just wandering around, beinggiven free toys the whole day.
Have you still got that giantbook with the thingy case that you
were just showing off thatsomeone sent you for free?
Yes.
Thanks.
A minute ago.
Have you?

(42:34):
Literally right now.
Yeah, we were just talkingabout your weekend just gone, weren't
we?
So.
Oh, man, what a weekend.
So many lovely guys.
Yeah, very much so, yeah.
Isn't this why we need to goto botcon, Liam?
Because then you could getsome of these in botcon.
It's not even a thing anymore.
Well, it is a thing.
It is a thing, but it's not athing, is it?
It's botcon in name, but it'sa different thing now.

(42:55):
Yeah, I think that's not thething, but it's sort of a thing.
Yeah.
It's not the same botcon.
It is.
It is botcon, but it's not.
I would love to have gone tobotcon, because Maz went and he had
a great time and amount ofpeople I know who went and said it
was amazing.
But again, outside the world.
But obviously then we haveTFNation, which is way better.
I would have absolutely killedto have gone to botcon back in the

(43:17):
day.
But I think this and botcon,as you sort of said, you know, Jason,
I think, was that, you know,obviously, I think there is some
blurred lines around all ofthis anyway.
And the fact that, you know,it's the same people organizing it,
ultimately, it's all comingfrom Hasbro, anyway.
And I think the fact that alot of the figures feel very thematically
in step, where you're getting,like, super cool character choices

(43:39):
that are quite unusual and notbeen done in ages or ever or whatever
else on repaints of existingmoulds done in really cool ways,
all of that feels very tied in.
So it is kind of hard toseparate collectors club and figure
subscription stuff frombotcon, I think.
And I find now when you talkto people about it online, there's
a lot of confusion becausepeople talk about a bit like you

(44:01):
did, Jason.
I think a lot of people justcall it all botcon.
So, yeah, that animatedcheetah, I've had people refer to
it as bokcon Cheetah, youknow, many, many times.
Yeah, it was totally an association.
It's like the classic gif.
This is the same picture.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Spider man pointing each other.
Yeah, exactly.
It was the same people.
And I think my tone toward itas well, I Will say is flavored by.

(44:23):
It is very of the time likethat era where these things were
starting to crop up.
None of these companies weredoing international shipping and
it was like a.
No, that's true.
That that era is like greatBugbear for everybody else.
Like Mattel, when they weredoing the Master Universe subscription
club and it was only for theUS and then once they expanded it
and the postage was hideouslyexpensive, the old Spectra creative

(44:46):
guy there would come out andhe'd be very much a guilt trip of
like, well, if you don't buyit, we won't be doing any more.
This kind of like I think thatyou have to buy it or the line's
gonna die.
We're gonna.
You don't want reason.
It's like these really sort oflike guilt tripping things like that.
And because the club stuff washappening at the same time and other
things like that, they allstarted to blend together into this
one.
Kind of very much like bloodyAmericans just taking everything,

(45:10):
keeping hold of it.
Wow, please let us have it.
And then making us feel guiltyfor us not being able to bloody buy
it.
Yeah, I get.
Yeah, it's.
But you know, you think backactually to more recent times and
it's only really in the LastHasLab or two that they've started
to really sort out worldwidedistribution for those.
I know I mentioned aboutUnicron but like Star Saber, when
that launched, they were doingit through Zavi and all kinds of

(45:33):
random stuff.
And that went wrong.
Very wrong.
Very wrong.
You know, like really wrong.
But it's.
And still I don't thinkthey've got has labs worldwide.
I don't think that.
Yeah, there are stillterritories out there.
Difficult with logistics,isn't it?
Is obviously a difficult thing.
Yeah, well.
And that is.
The thing is logistics isobviously way more complicated than
certainly any of us canappreciate for a global effort like

(45:54):
that.
And I think we have to get.
Because the thing is, right, Ilike the Collectors club for what
it was aspiring to do it to dofor the fandom.
Okay.
Which is to have a club that'savailable that does.
Because we're touching on thecomics and stuff like that.
But there's a lot of materialfor your money that you got joining
that club.
And as we did.
It's in Generation Mech's bookthat James has written as well where

(46:19):
it talks about the fandom overhere and how we were all writing
vanzines or doing artwork andwhat that is.
And that's ultimately what Ido love about any club is that, okay,
yes, this was specifically forNorth America, but it does keep Transformers
going.
Keeps it, you know, boiling away.
We're getting all thesedifferent variations.
And that creativity that comesout of it is really nice as well

(46:42):
to see and to be part of thatand to just see what North America
does, what Europe might do,what Britain does, whatever, you
know, and it's like got thiskind of mix.
But if right now for Hasbroand them trying to do their line
and they're still notworldwide, it just goes to show how
difficult this is.
Yeah, no, exactly.
I think that's the thing.

(47:03):
And I don't mean to makeexcuses for any of it, really, but
I think the point is thatclearly distribution of this stuff
is far more complex thananybody can kind of appreciate.
And I think with.
Is it that hard to whip downthe post office.
I knew you were going to saythat, honestly.
But when you've got a thousandto send Liam, back in the day, it.
Felt like that when I waspicking up all those generations

(47:26):
reveal the Shield Wind chargesand from Wilco's and send them over
to the States.
It did not cost $50, I'mtelling you now.
Yeah.
I think the point is, is thatwith the scale of these guys that
they would have been workingat as well, although it's not.
It's not a small operation,but it's still relatively small.
But it probably would havebeen just quite a headache for them

(47:46):
as well.
It's almost not big enough tokind of, you know, make it more of
a concern, I guess.
I don't know.
But certainly I do agree withyou, though, that a shame that it
was so North America centric.
And although, yes, you couldget some of this stuff that it was
at a real premium forelsewhere in the world.
So.
Which is definitely a littlebit of a shame.
And it is a shame that a lotof it has been sort of priced out

(48:07):
now as well on the oldaftermarket, because certainly I
looked down the list and I'mlike, wow, some of this stuff is
so cool.
I would love to get it, but Iknow some of it is just off limits
now.
We saw the Energon Megatron,the Shattered Glass one, which looked.
And I was like, looking at itlike, it's amazing.
Absolutely stunning thing.
And that's just like lookingat it, I could never own that because

(48:29):
the price will always be onthe secondary market.
Just far out of my league.
It's just a kind of a shamething because you look at it go,
I Would love to have been partof the Collectors Club back in the
day.
Well, that was Bot one as well.
That one.
That was a proper botcon job.
But yeah, even.
Even then, it's that.
That's where it does kind ofmeld in.
And you think all of theseexclusive toys, it's just become

(48:51):
a real.
A real rich person'sconsideration really, isn't it?
Let's be honest, this is.
I suppose the one thing thatwe need to remember is that we are
in the collector's club now as well.
So that's very much what we'retalking about.
See what you did there, Jason?
And that's a different beast.
Right?
This isn't mainstream releases.

(49:11):
Oh, sorry.
I get it now.
It's just something.
It's literally in the title, Liam.
That's what it was.
He was being clever.
I was being clever for once.
Exactly.
But back to Siacons, becausethat's the way you say it.
I mean, what are some of thetoys that you guys would have liked
or do really like from the list?
Are there any particular onesthat stand out to you?

(49:33):
Well, yeah, as I already said, the.
It was the Double Pretenders.
I really liked those onesbecause it's when I started getting
back into Pretenders and justthought they were really lovely.
The.
I've already mentioned aboutthe G1 for the.
The Siacons as well, of course.
But other than that, you know,that initial release, which was the
Nexus Maximus, is the type ofthing that you just wouldn't get

(49:58):
except in this type of thing,if you know what I mean.
It's transparently plastic,isn't it?
And what figures were theyactually, that.
They used as well?
It was from Energon Combiners.
It was all Energon.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was.
Was the different componentsfrom different teams?
I think so some of them arefrom Bruticus, some are from Superion.
Yeah, it's clear.
That's what it is.

(50:19):
And it just looks so.
And it's that kind of stuff inthe collector's club that I really
liked that were these runs ofplastics that you just wouldn't get
in a mainstream release.
And, you know, it's probablyone of those toys now.
I don't know how fragile it isor not, but it looks beautiful.
It's a candy red.
Looks great.
I was to say there is one onebay right now, Jace, if you want
to, you know, if you're tempted.

(50:40):
I'm on an embargo for buying,enjoying what I own.
There we go.
That's what it is, yeah.
Yeah.
Was this a Pentor?
What's that?
That was a collector's club,wasn't it?
Do you remember the Serpentor from.
Yeah, the Rat Bat Scourge.
It was, I think.
I can't remember.
Let's just throw that in there.
Yeah, no, it was.
You're right, it was.

(51:01):
Yes.
That was part of this as well.
I was trying to remember, butthat was part of the subscription
service.
It was made out of Generations Ratbat.
There was a Nova Prime.
Do you remember the Nova prime from.
The Nova prime, which was thetruck, wasn't it?
They did it at the first Dion.
It was.
That's, you know, stuff like that.
Dion is super cool.
Now that actually you can getquite easily.
Dion, because it was.

(51:22):
It was a redeco of.
Now we have one Universe Flushshot, wasn't it?
Yeah, well, even then it was.
It was one of the freebietoys, so I think it was quite widely
available.
But, like, Sideburn, really,where it's like.
It seems like it should beharder to get than actually, it is.
The one I think that I wouldreally have liked is the.
I don't even know if it's thatexpensive anymore, but the Chrome
Dome from the Transformers prime.

(51:44):
That they did with the.
Oh, yeah.
Because the body shape justreally suits that more than meets
the eye look.
Yeah, it does look good, thatone, actually.
Really, really nice stuff likethat is.
But it's all of those thingsthat originated inside either the
club or botcon.
Like Shattered Glass Megatron.
You remember the classic story.
Yeah, yeah.
I will never get to own that.
And it's like, I don't mindShattered Glass colors, Optimus prime,

(52:08):
the purple toys.
But, like, that's the only oneI would really like because it's
specifically that mold and itsuits that mold more than anything
else.
Every other one since it, nomatter what they do, just looks like
a facsimile of it.
Like an imitation that's notquite as good, but it's like, it'll
do.
And it's like, I don't want that.
It's like I just want thething that looked great to start

(52:30):
with that was I was unable to get.
And it's.
There's a lot of that.
When you start looking downthis list of.
Of things.
Like you mentioned the Cheetor.
There was the.
What do you call it?
The Iron Fist from Fall of Cybertron.
Iron Fist is cool.
I nearly chose that one.
I have the third party one,which looks like the more DIA thing,
but it's like.
But there's a thing, isn't it?
Like, I would also have likedthe official release of that.

(52:51):
Yeah, I completely get that.
The Croc.
We spoke about the Croc.
Yeah, that would be great.
For good.
The Croc is so.
Is so fun, honestly, I thinkthat's the thing.
All of these are just fun,aren't they?
They are Astro trained.
Astro Train, Yeah.
One of the early ones I spokeabout, like a.
What was that?
Like a Holy Grails episode orsomething really early that we.
You did, didn't you?
Yeah, yeah.
That is a very cool one.
That was one of those toysagain, another thing where you saw

(53:13):
it and went, I could never own that.
But now it's like years later,it's like, it's not that you can't
own it, it's just very expensive.
But at the time as well, therewas that.
There was a different barrier then.
Oh, look at the cons that camewith that.
That's so cool.
I think the funny thing aboutthat Astro Train is that it kind
of.
There was a point where youcould get it, definitely.
Like, obviously, yeah, when itwas first released, it was exclusive

(53:35):
and whatever else, but thenthere was definitely a point where
it felt to me like it was nothanging about, but it was on ebay
and whatever else, and it wasa little bit more doable.
But I think it's really shotup in more recent times as well.
And I think that's the thingas well is that a lot of this stuff
has just sort of gone out ofsight now.
A lot of.
A few figures on this listfeel like they were on ebay.

(53:56):
They were kind of, you know, there.
Not for the taking necessarilyor not.
Not cheap, but it feels likethey've just sort of disappeared
now and you don't really seethem anymore.
Yeah.
And I think that leads intothe type of collectors that we are
all becoming, maybe.
Yeah, you know, it's like there's.
Speak for yourself, grandma.

(54:17):
It's a bit.
It's nothing.
But, you know, there's a big difference.
There's a lot of peoplegetting a lot older.
They might have a bit moredisposable income as well.
So then.
And this is a whole otherconversation about prices and aftermarket
prices though, isn't it?
But I have seen it, definitely.
And I've seen it in not justthe botcon stuff, but even.
Just the stuff that's evenmore readily available.

(54:38):
Because it's a time thing,isn't it?
And an appetite.
No, definitely.
There's a little Bit ofintrigue for stuff like this as well.
I think if there was one thatI would like to get that I don't
already have, if there wasjust one, it would be the jackpot.
The animated jackpot.
Yes.
Yeah, that's lovely.
That is very much on my radaras one that I'd like to get.
And again, it's on ebay.

(55:00):
It is doable, but it's crazy priced.
I mean, I think I did lookactually and spot that there was
one on ebay right now, earlier.
I'll tell you the price, justbecause I'm like, how much was it?
I saw this as well.
I was watching this before Ihad my embargo.
Oh, what, the one on ebay?
Yeah, the one on ebay.
Because that same seller isselling a lot of rare animated.

(55:22):
So, yeah, it's.
Oh, it's only.
Do you know, I say it's only.
It's $150, so.
Oh, that's not the one.
I was a bargain.
Is that good?
You could get it.
Jace.
No embargo.
Enjoying what I've got.
There we go.
Yeah.
When you keep saying embargo,what do you mean?
I've just.
I've stopped buying.
I've given myself an embargo.

(55:43):
He's actually saying I'mbongo, Liam.
Yeah.
All right.
They drink it in the Congo.
Exactly.
Down deep in the middle of the Congo.
Hippotookan, apricot, lemonand the mango.
I know.
The lion said it must be Humbongo.
I knew that would get you going.
There you go.
Oh, man.
God, I really want some among them.
I love that tune.
I saw someone at TFN and BungoT shirt.
And it's like stuck in my headlike, I need that T shirt.

(56:03):
I want that T shirt.
That's the best surprise.
You don't have it, honestly,but you know what I mean.
Yes, I understand all thecomplaints and stuff and I. I do
kind of get it, but I can'tfeel too mad about not all of this,
I gotta say, because we gotsome good.
Figures, let's be honest.
Yeah, they put out some prettycool stuff.
We didn't.
Jason.
We didn't get those good figures.

(56:24):
He's still on it.
Honestly, I'm not as sure.
75 of them or something, but.
5, 75.
10.
It was 10.
No, it was 5.
It was 11, wasn't it?
It was 11.
Stop trying to negotiate meup, Honestly, so.
But I can't.
I can't feel too mad about itfor Anymore.

(56:44):
Yeah.
At the end of the day, I agreewith you about the exclusive thing,
because I do think that's a shame.
And you see it now.
It kind of grinds my gears abit when you see stuff, like, not
so much to a certain extent,Pulse exclusives, but, like, certain
convention exclusives andthings that are hard to get the exclusives
to.
Things like MCM in London,which is cool that sometimes they

(57:06):
come over here.
But then there are some thingsto some areas in America as well.
And I get why they do it.
Of course, it's to kind ofcreate that intrigue and get, you
know, whatever else.
But it is a bit of a shame.
So I guess there's all thatsort of thing to it.
But I can't be too mad withthe subscription service and the
collector's club.
I just find instead ofintrigue, it creates frustration,

(57:27):
and then people buying it tosell it at a markup.
It's kind of like, who'sbenefiting from this?
Like, Hasbro and whoever elseis getting grief over it and some
other side is making money offof it.
Yeah, that'd be fair.
Fans aren't happy.
Like, it's.
That's a lot of that.
And it's this.
Like, my gripes for them isvery much, I appreciate is, you know,

(57:50):
there were reasons behind itand stuff, but just remember how
I felt at the time.
Like, I was being kept out.
It's like the no Homers club.
But it was like, to knowanybody outside of America, that's
how it always felt.
You know, it was just kind of a.
Particularly when they wereleaning in on doing, like, important
characters that you reallywanted and cool stuff, and it was
like.
It's kind of felt left out ofsomething cool that was happening
somewhere else.
Yeah, totally.
There's no way to get involved.

(58:11):
I can win the lottery.
I can completely understand that.
So.
But I think the reseller thing.
Totally fair comment.
And the.
The whole kind of scalper sideof this and.
Well, whether it's scalping orjust reselling or whatever you want
to call it, but it's.
It's pretty egregious.
Do you remember.
Not the club as much, but doyou remember Botcon used to have
the Create a figure?

(58:32):
Oh, yeah.
Custom class.
The custom class.
It'd be like Minerva animated.
And what would happen waspeople would go in and they would
buy those toys without doingthem up, and they would get themselves
on a list to be in that classto get those toys, to put them straight
on ebay.
For obscene prices.
That's what you would see witha lot of these sets.
People would be chucking themstraight on ebay.
It's like, again, that's mything with convention exclusives

(58:54):
in general.
It just kind of feels like, why?
No, I do.
I do not.
You mean.
I mean, you see it even withstuff like the recent.
With the.
With the Supreme Optimusprime, that was an exclusive to the
Supreme Store there, and therewere people going into the shop buying
however many they could get of it.
And I think in London, youwere limited to like one or two a

(59:14):
person.
I don't know, whatever.
But clearly some people werejust getting them and bunging them
straight on ebay.
And I think it went live at, Idon't know, whatever time it was,
let's say, 11 in the morning,and by like, 11:05, they were up
for sort of three times thecost already.
And things like this.
And you just think off.
Do you know, it's like the HotWheels prime as well.
I would have loved to have got that.
But that's two big brandscoming together.

(59:37):
Yeah.
And, you know, but that's what.
Let's be honest, that's whatthey want as well.
They want everyone to bescrabbling over this.
That's the current atmosphereof the world, isn't it?
Everything is that kind of,like obsessed with putting something
out and creating a fake scarcity.
Yes.
Even though it's like, lookhow cool our product is because only
the fancy influencers have itand stuff like that.

(59:57):
You know, it's everything likethat, like, from phones to games
consoles now, every single thing.
And it's just.
You're just taking it awayfrom people.
And we fall through.
Yeah, but it's like a.
It's on a wider discussion,like even sports games, you know,
going to matches and alsomusic, you know, concerts.
Oh, yeah, yeah.

(01:00:19):
The prices on things are sohigh and it's not because of inflation,
it's because it's like beingtaken over.
Like, there's a desperatething of people taking stuff and
then selling tickets on orbeing like, yeah, I've got.
Look, look at me, I'm at this event.
It's like.
But you're just pricing outall of the people who built this
stuff, who built these brandsin the first place.
There is a middle, a middlebot to that stuff as well, particularly

(01:00:39):
within the ticketing world.
Because I really wanted totake my son to go and see Oasis when
they were in Edinburgh.
I couldn't because the ticketswere £1,000, but that wasn't going
to Oasis.
That was going to theticketing system, Ticketmaster or
whatever.
Yeah.
And that whole part of stuff.
Right.
But that is interesting aswell, though, now, where we are and
how, as you said earlier onLiam, that we could be jumping into

(01:01:02):
TikTok or Instagram or Bluesky and we're seeing stuff and we
know this is getting releasedand there's a time and if it's in
the US it's going to be kindof early doors, depending if it's,
you know, Pacific summertimeor whatever.
And you have to decide to wakeup and go and look at that.
You know, we would have neverseen that back in the day where it

(01:01:25):
was just like, like 28 daysfor delivery, post it, that kind
of thing.
And that's just, you know,where we are now is that we're getting
bombarded by all thesedifferent things that we.
Could be part of.
We're connected.
Someone in Chicago is as closeto you online as your next door neighbor.
Like, you see, I see more frompeople abroad than I do of people
I live next door to.
And it's because you areconstantly looking at these things

(01:01:46):
and so it's happening in realtime and it is just.
It's just that case of like,you want to be part of the excitement
of these things.
Yeah.
It's the formal, isn't it?
Yeah.
But it's like very enforced.
It's not available for youguys, you know.
Yeah, it's just kind of like.
Yeah.
I think in the case of the.
Club.

(01:02:06):
As a fan on the other end ofit, you're like, well, right.
The whole thing for me, myperspective of it is, is it was just
disappointing and annoying.
Of course, totally understandable.
I mean, again, not to keepplaying devil's advocate here, but
I think in the case of theclub, because we're obviously talking
about things like, likeconcert prices and stuff like that.
I wouldn't lump the club inwith that because I think it was
$47 and like, you know, theygave you some free toys and you got

(01:02:29):
to pay for some other ones andwhatever else.
I don't think it was quite this.
I don't think it's the samelevel of, you know, whatever.
But I think the, the reasonthat they didn't ship worldwide and
what have you will have hadits own mechanics and reasoning and
everything else.
But yes, the, the reactionthat it prompts and that sort of
feeling of, of being kept outis understandable and sort of.

(01:02:50):
I think it does kind of promptthat certainly in the world we're
in now, it's been exacerbated,hasn't it, by capitalism and whatever
else.
And, you know.
My final comment, if you like,on it would be that it doesn't actually
bother.
I'm glad it existed.
And it actually doesn't botherme that I don't have any of those
figures, because I would havenever got those figures.

(01:03:10):
And I've got plenty of reallycool stuff as it is.
And I'm actually just gladthat we have still able to see them
and we can experience themfrom afar, shall we say?
It is okay for toys to be madethat you don't get as well.
Like, that is okay sometimes.
Yeah, exactly.
That's all right for someonewith all of Transformers to see.

(01:03:34):
No, no, I totally agree, but Ithink that's also.
There's a sort of subdomain todo that because I sort of look at
the club stuff now and I just shrug.
It's like it's not a sore spotor anything.
Like I genuinely don't care.
And I kind of.
Then I look at stuff like thatfor an hour.
I managed to tap back into 2015.
Right, right, right, right, right.
I wish I could tell him allthe things that are about to happen.

(01:03:54):
It was a dark time.
Yeah, well, yeah.
Sit down.
The last 10 years.
Have been a ride, let's put itthat way.
You wouldn't believe me, but.
But it's that thing now.
You kind of.
You see those toys and.
And it's just kind of become that.
Well, I've got one now, youknow, a different one.
Just.
You kind of hit that note.
And I feel it's kind of sadfor something that was, for its time,

(01:04:15):
so interesting and should havebeen something that's really fondly
remembered.
It's just kind of been left inthe dust by being mostly a thing
that's.
For a lot of people, it's beensuperseded by other toys because
that's why they were trying tofill those gaps.
For a range of people who areinterested, it's too expensive.
And for other people, it'sjust about making more money out

(01:04:36):
of it.
But then there are people whohave got it and enjoy it.
And I'm glad for those people,it's just kind of like.
I just feel like we don't talkabout it and what.
There are so many reasonsbehind that, which always seemed
like a shame for somethingthat was doing something genuinely
interesting with the characterchoices and stuff like that before
everything we're into now andI just.
I'm kind of.
This kind of feels like a shame.
Bit of a bomb note for it to end.

(01:04:58):
I cannot tell you howdifferent a vibe this has all been
to what I expected for.
I was like, yeah, man, I'mgonna talk about some cool repaints.
It's gonna be fun.
And you both kind of came inlike, right.
Let me tell you what's wrongwith global distribution, you know?
You know.
Well, yeah, there was a bit of that.
That's true.
I came in like Negan fromWalking Dead.

(01:05:20):
Jason came in like Eeyore fromWinnie the Pooh.
I didn't like it.
Oh, I always like to be Tigger.
Let's record it again.
That was not your vibetonight, Shum.
Let me tell you.
Oh, well, there you go.
Transformers Collectors Club.
We put that.
That's all right then.
So.
But yeah, I think there aresome cool toys in there, I gotta

(01:05:42):
tell you, but they are a bitof a bugger to track down now.
Fair to say so.
But yeah, just before we go, Iwould like to make sure I just reinforce.
I totally understand logisticsand shipping and all those things
were probably behind all of this.
This.
And I really don't care now,so please don't feel the need to.
I get it.
The caveats are coming out now.
He really doesn't care.
From a long time listeners.

(01:06:02):
He really does not care.
Honestly, he's.
He's totally over it.
Stupid clubs, cut to bumper.
Yeah, exactly.

(01:06:31):
Okay, well, that's going to dous for tonight on Transformers Collectors
Club.
But if you do want to get morelike this, then as we've alluded
to a couple of times, we dohave a bit of a Patreon going on
as well.
And you can getthat@patreon.com triple takeover.
There are five glorious tiersof stuff on there.
And let me tell you, thisPatreon of ours is rammed with stuff,

(01:06:53):
actually.
Like, there are so manyminisodes, miniseries and everything
else recently we were puttingtogether, weren't we?
All in like covers ofeverything we've done just in the
last year.
And it was like incredible,the amount of stuff.
Yeah.
Talked about and whatever else.
Some really cool topics as well.
But actually there are, youknow, three or four preceding years

(01:07:14):
of stuff all on there as well.
So if you sign up now, you getsomething like 110 minisodes, like
almost 100, I think,miniseries as well.
We've got, you know, Tapman,Liam's Tapman, we've got Titans Return,
we've got idw We've gotSkybound, we've got Unicron Trilogy,
all kicking off, and there areplenty of other perks at the other
tiers as well.

(01:07:34):
You can get access to our verypopping Discord Server, which is
really, really good.
And at the lower tier,actually, all tiers, Jason, fair
to say, can ask us somequestions as well, can't they?
They can indeed, yes.
Now I've got an on pointquestion to kick off from Kyla Wilmoth.
Question for the end of thepod segment.

(01:07:56):
How often do you guys feelFOMO influences your toy buying habits?
What are you doing, Jace?
What are you doing?
A whole other hour ofconversation stopped.
Him talking about it.
What are you doing?
You're gonna set him off again.
Kyler said.
Here I found myself working upthe courage to pay US$200 for the
missing link, Sentinel prime,as it's the only way to get it here

(01:08:19):
at the moment.
It's a ridiculous sum, but 10years from now, I'm sure I'll be
happy if I did it.
Yeah.
FOMO strikes again.
So I'm actually going to comestraight in at the moment.
So I have had serious FOMO andit hits me the most when I'm at tfn,
actually.

(01:08:40):
Oh, yeah.
And I see something and I knowthat it doesn't come up often and
normally I've got you two inmy ear.
Going, get it, get it, get it.
And then I walk away from itand it has happened where I've walked
away and I've come back like afew minutes later and it's gone.
Right.
So that is really when it'striggering with the likes of auctions

(01:09:03):
and stuff like that.
I give myself a limit andthat's my limit and I don't go beyond
it, you know.
So is that FOMO or is thatjust being indecisive?
Because, like, I get that a lot.
But I don't feel like it's afear of missing out.
I feel like it's just like Ican't decide do I want it.
I mean, I know you're saying, yeah.
I feel like fear of missing out.
To me, maybe my interpretationis different, but for me it's more

(01:09:24):
of a peer pressure thing.
It's like everybody is getting something.
Yeah.
Which I don't get.
So actually, I wonder, wouldyou say that you can get FOMO on
something that is like,vintage or not current?
Because.
Because it's.
Yeah.
Because that is a rare thing.
So it's not like lots ofpeople are Buying them.

(01:09:46):
Yeah.
So the fear of missing out forme is that more literal version.
Yeah.
So, like, bumper.
So bumper was missing in mymini Autobot collection.
Right.
And when I saw that and Chriswas selling it and I was aware of
it, and I waited an entirenight and.

(01:10:07):
The morning to go and get it.
Yeah.
And when I got there, itwasn't there.
And I was like, oh.
And I had this horrible oflike, oh, I've missed it.
It actually just fallen downin between two boxes and it was still
there.
Yeah.
So I was quite lucky.
So I think that's probably why it.
Bossed it out of a crack.
Yeah.
Basically, like every goodcollector does.
Liam, I hope it wasn't sweaty, but.

(01:10:29):
I think I do know exactly whatyou mean.
I mean, we had one recentlyand you guys both know this, that
another friend of ours, DarkJason, picked up a very rare find
from a particular site online.
And it was a G1 guard city.
And funnily enough, it was meinitially that had spotted it and
posted a link or what have yousaying, oh, my God, check this out.

(01:10:51):
And it ended up going for whatI think was an incredible some, you
know, like a lot of money,but, like, not.
But it was a good price for.
What it is and what it can go for.
I think it went for a verygood price.
He got, you know, I think he'sbeen hit by some customs, unfortunately,
so that's not so good.
But still good, though, wasn't it?
Still good.
Still good.

(01:11:11):
Even with the customs.
It was still, you know, I think.
It was tariffs, wasn't it?
Yeah, tariffs and stuff, whichis a shame.
But the.
The point is, is that Itotally had a flip flop kind of like,
oh, my God, do you know what I mean?
Am I actually going to letthis go kind of thing?
And it would have been theworst thing for me to do, you know,
right now.
It's just not.
It wasn't on the cards andwhatever else, but I definitely had
a moment of like, am I goingto let this go, like.

(01:11:33):
Or is this like a, you know.
I mean, so I'd call that a fomo.
I was going to say, I do thinkthere probably was a little bit of
FOMO in there of just likethat, even though it's a vintage
thing and it's, you know,however many years old of just like,
I don't want to miss out onthis thing.
This could be the chance, man.
But I do also recognize whatLiam's saying, and I do think that
FOMO as It's more commonlythought about is like something new

(01:11:56):
has dropped, every bug isgetting it and people are going to
be spamming pics all over.
You know, so that happened sothat actually thinking back was comics.
That's the last time thatprobably happened where people were
all buying like all thedifferent variants of comics and
they'd be like, all thesevariations and I'd see other people
posting them and be like, oh,I've not got that version, I really

(01:12:18):
want that version.
So.
So definitely had it withcomic books in the past.
And that did influence mybuying because then I'd buy multiple
variants.
And I had to wean myself offthat because it just was just.
I was literally throwing moneydown the drain at that point.
I think it's very easy to getinto that space and I think a lot
of collectors do.

(01:12:39):
I think the only thing you cando is to realize that it's not fulfilling.
And that actually, you know,unless you are personally enjoying
the stuff that you're pickingup and getting some satisfaction
from it, it doesn't matterwhat anybody else on the other side
of the Internet screen orwhatever thinks.
And even if other people aregetting it and seem to be enjoying

(01:13:00):
it, you really kind of have tosort of divorce that part of your
brain and separate it andthink, yeah, it looks cool, but am
I wanting it and am I willing to.
Is it good for me?
Whatever.
Is it?
Yeah, exactly.
Am I willing to pay whatever'sneeded to get it in hand or whatever
it might be, or can I justafford to chill out and just let
it sail away?

(01:13:21):
Yep, absolutely.
And once you do, it's actuallya lot easier and you just go, okay,
great.
And then you've got money for another.
Because it's a weird kind ofself imposed stress in a way, isn't
it?
Absolutely.
For something that's supposedto be fun, like hobby, the hobby
is supposed to be fun.
So adding stress to yourselfis not.
It's not good mentalheadspace, I don't think.

(01:13:42):
But it does happen.
Of course, I'm not saying thatit shouldn't and it's easier said
than done, but it's somethingthat we all need to think about.
Success.
A good question, Kyler.
Thank you so much.
Controversial one for tonight,you know, or on point, however you
look at it as well.
Certainly.
You ever had fomo, Liam, youknow, nothing that you think of in
the sort of past 10, 15 yearsthat's caused you a lot of fun?

(01:14:04):
No, I didn't have fear ofmissing Out.
It was just disappointment.
Yeah, yeah, disappointment.
Don't worry.
Excluded.
Arigato, Mr. Roberto.
Now, before we.
Before we jump into the otherquestions from our patrons, I'm going
to quickly do some shoutoutsbecause it's another perk you get
for being one of our patrons.
Oh, yeah.
We have a Wii selectiontonight of new patrons.

(01:14:27):
We have David Watkins, who'scoming at Goldplex Classics level.
Thank you very much.
David Despo Label.
Very good.
Name six was butler level.
Liam Williams has come to joinus as well.
Another Liam Strong name we have.
Well, talking about strongnames, Oak Nuts.
Which is, you know, you'regoing to create strong trunks of

(01:14:52):
a tree from a tiny acorn.
Is that a redeco of Peace Wars Heinraad?
Oak Nuts.
Maybe it's Maz's cousin.
You know, Golden Balls and Oak Nuts.
Gold Box Classics came in atOak Nuts.
Thank you very much.
Anyway, move along.
Nemesis Slime as well hasjoined us.

(01:15:12):
And Ultra Pittus.
Oh, these are fantastic.
Some good names there.
Strong name game.
Really good.
Really good stuff as well.
Thank you all for joining us.
Much appreciated.
Now to a few more questions.
This one's from Zeff.
What's the best use of anArmada Super Kong mold, including

(01:15:32):
original releases?
And why is it long rack ArmadaSupercon mold?
Yeah, so I am literally havingto look that up right as we're talking.
Jason, you've sprung this onus a.
Little bit Google prepped forwhatever this is.
Yeah, I don't know.
What I can think of is Optimusis a Supercon, isn't he?
Oh, yeah, that's right.
Exactly.
Yeah, he was.

(01:15:52):
There we go.
Yeah, that's one.
There you go.
So the Supercon class was kindof like the.
Yeah, but it was the BendyUltra Magnus Crystal Convoy.
Oh, there's a CybertronOptimus prime count.
Because if that's the case,can I do that one?
Yeah, but the big.
The big one is no Super Cons was.

(01:16:13):
No Super Cons was like deluxe stuff.
Basically.
It was all kind of like.
I'm trying to think likeHotshot was a Super Con.
Okay.
My choice is Optimus primebecause I have it on the shelf next
to me.
I love that.
Bendy Prime.
Yeah.
Bendy prime was a super comm.
Oh, that would be in like mytop 10, I think.

(01:16:33):
Transformers.
Who's part of it?
Thursdays Laserbeak.
The Laser Beak.
Yeah.
Lazy Beak is a super cool.
I'm gonna choose that onebecause that's a triple takeover
store.
Was it repaints or just any.
Any Mould.
Any mould.
Oh, any mould.
I think he said.
Hang on.
Sorry.
What's the best use of theArmada Supercom mold?
Yeah, that's what it says.
Bendy Prime.

(01:16:53):
Easy.
It's so good.
But Bendy prime is good.
I'm gonna be controversial,though, and say I think Bendy prime,
as good as it is, shows itsage now, and it's been surpassed
by the new.
New Legacy toy.
To be completely.
Honestly, one doesn't look asnice, though.
It's more posable.
It just doesn't have the samekind of aesthetics.
I like the new Legacy one.
I like the new Legacy one.

(01:17:14):
It's got a very dead face.
I think it's been surpassed,and I don't say that very lightly.
Honestly.
I'm gonna struggle with thisone because there's some real bangers.
There is.
Really?
Like that Hot Shot and Jolt is amazing.
I love that one.
Yeah, I like the power links.
One more I've got to say.
Right.
Okay, old hotshot.
I'm gonna.
I know exactly what I'm gonna say.

(01:17:35):
Sideways, the bike.
Oh, yes.
Yeah.
With crosswise.
Yeah, the two littleHeadmastery dudes.
Yeah, right on there.
They clip together to form alittle rider, as it were.
I think that's been surpassed, though.
It hasn't, actually, becausethey haven't done one yet.
I think there are rumors of one.
But not Robot Masters.
I think Robot Masters.

(01:17:56):
Robot Masters did do one, butthat was a repaint point of a G2
toy, so that's way better.
So surpassed it.
Is that gonna be your new thing.
Coming out maybe first, right?
Gonna be your new thing now init, anything I say, you're gonna
be like, that's been surpassed.
I'll surpass you at this game,no doubt.
But, yeah, that would be mine.

(01:18:16):
Good.
Love it.
Good questions?
F. Thank you very much.
Much appreciated.
Well, yeah, for one more,would you want more?
Yes, why not?
This is from our good friendAdam jamesyplays.
If, like me, you had to partwith almost all of your collection,
which five toys would you keephold of that you could fit into your

(01:18:37):
hand luggage?
Oh, jeezy crazy.
And you'd give your entirecollection to Toy Fuel?
I can't give my standardanswer here, which is Fort Max, because
it's got to fit in my hand luggage.
So I.
So for me, I always keep G1Bumblebee because it was the first
transfer transformer I ever got.
I would keep G1 prime becauseI love Sim.

(01:18:58):
And then after that, it getsreally difficult, doesn't it?
Because there's so many newfigures now because now we've got
Missing Link coming in and.
Yeah, Missing Link is a pieceof things.
Does it.
Does it.
Do they specifically have tofit in your hand luggage?
Is that like a.
Is there a size.
Well, so this is what.
You can take a small suitcase,though, as hand luggage.
I was going to say.

(01:19:18):
That is true.
Let's see.
Hand luggage.
Yes.
So it's hand luggage bag is.
This is like.
I kind of feel like this is aminisode topic in itself.
And it's like just how we do that.
Five toys.
Five toys off the cuff that,you know, you pull it down.
It is a big ask.
You know what?
That's what we're going to do.
So for Adam Jamesey plays,you've hit us with a good one here.

(01:19:42):
I think we should take thisoff to its own little mini.
That could be quite funny.
But we've also got a lot ofminisodes to do, Jason.
Oh, at some point in 2027, you.
Know, we will deliver.
That could be a miniadventure, I feel.
Right.
Yeah.
I mean, I would say G1 hotrod, but yeah.
Okay, there you're starting toanswer some questions.

(01:20:03):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I amanswering it now.
Yeah.
PMOP would be one instantly.
PMOP.
PMOP.
Hot rod.
P1 swoop boxer unlocks.
I'm taking all my boxes.
Mine all have to be carded inG1 mini bots, don't they?
That's what it is.
G1 brainstorm would be one.
Oh, turbomaster flash.
That's a cool.
Of course, yeah.

(01:20:23):
Oh, God, now I'm getting intotrouble because I was gonna say Rotor
Storm and Stalker.
The two.
It was just essential for me,but now I'm.
I'm used up, you see.
And now I'm going, okay, primeG1 bumblebee sound wave with Ravage.
He doesn't count because he's inside.
I get extra.
Are we hiding toys in toys now?

(01:20:44):
Well, that's just being cunning.
You see.
Crack Grandis open and stuff aload of Micromasters in there.
Exactly.
Team on Powerglide, he'd go in Ultra.
Magnus NK Convoy, Beast Wars Rampage.
So we're not.
We're not doing a minisode onthis now.
No, we're just naming toys.
So we've just done it now.

(01:21:04):
That's it.
I've got so many Rid Primes.
Yeah.
Well, this.
Yeah, the Fort Max.
I'm just gonna say Fort Max.
Just carry Fort Mac Max on each.
This is my hand luggage.
I've got.
That's five, isn't it?
I've done five.
Yeah, you've definitely done five.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
I'm gonna.
I'm actually gonna go for theclassics Ultra Magnus with the add

(01:21:25):
on armor third party set, so Ilove that.
Oh, third party toys as well.
Does that count as one?
Well, the third party armor onthe classic toy.
Good stuff.
Cool.
Thank you.
Jamesey, please.
Amazing.
That is all the questions forthis episode.
Great stuff.
All right, well, hopeeverybody's enjoyed our little trip
down memory lane withTransformers Collectors Club and

(01:21:46):
whatever else.
Liam's still recovering in thecorner over there, just visibly shaking.
Oh, I was just playing my role.
There we go.
Devil's advocate.
Is that what it was?
Okay, that's what I'm gonna go with.
We're just devil's advocate.
Not upset.
Look, I'm just.
I'm still reading from thefact this wasn't a tap, man.
Still got his notes.

(01:22:12):
Life must just be such anadventure for you, honestly.
Just turn up and see whathappens and you know.
Yeah.
You know, keep yourself.
It's a good way to live.
It's a good way to live yourlife, honestly.
God.
But yeah.
No.
So do do check us out onpatreon.com triple takeover do hit
us up on the old socials aswell and let us know what you think

(01:22:33):
about Transformers Collectorsclub and whatever else we're at.
Triple underscore takeover onmost places on Instagram and everything
else as well.
And otherwise, we'll catch youfor the next one.

(01:23:09):
Way down deep in the middle ofthe Congo, a hippo took a different
over and the mango, he stuckit with the others and he danced
in the tango.
The rhino said, I know.
We'll call it.
Goodness in the jungle.
They all prefer the sunny,funny one they call umbango.

(01:23:31):
Libby's Umbango High juicedrinks free from artificial ingredients.
Drink is in the Congo.
Yeah, exactly.
We're down deep in the middleof the Congo.
Hippo, chicken, apricot, lemonand the mango.
I know.
The lion said it must be ongo.
I knew that would get you going.
There you go.
Oh, man.
God, I really want some.
Among God.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang

The Joe Rogan Experience

Stuff You Should Know

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Toys, Tales, and Tensions: Inside the Transformers Collectors Club

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang

The Joe Rogan Experience

Stuff You Should Know

All Episodes

Toys, Tales, and Tensions: Inside the Transformers Collectors Club

Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang