What a peculiar specimen.
A few years ago, there was a gold chromed G1 Hot Rod up for sale and the reputable seller claimed it was a genuine Takara Employee give away. Problem is, no one has ever produced any hard proof that this toy is in fact a Takara employee give away. No one is denying that the figure is indeed cool looking, but my spidey senses tell me that this is not a legitimate Takara creation. What proof do I have? None, just my gut feeling. The gold guy is back in action on Ebay right now for the starting bid of $7,000. That’s a high price to pay for something that could’ve been made rather recently in the right workshop…
There are definitely some crazy Hot Rod fans out there that would love to get this figure in their collection so maybe $7k is the magic number? Lucky 7 baby! Peep the auction here.
My precious...
I was the original buyer and I am convinced it’s real. After I bought the item, I got my friend Hydra to help me communicate with the seller via emails he translated to/from Japanese. I sent this email to the seller after I bought the item:
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Dear sir,
Hello! I am the purchaser of your gold “HOT ROD” Transformers
toy. (You wouldn’t recognize my name or email address, because I am
an American, so I had to use a proxy bidding service to purchase the
item.) I was just wondering if you could tell what you know about
this item. I have never seen it before, so I am very interested in
learning about it. For example, how did you come into possesion of
it? Was it part of a contest or special store campaign? Did it come
from a Takara employee?
Also, do you have any more interesting Transformers items you are
planning on selling? If you have more interesting Transformers like
this toy, I might be interested in purchasing them.
Thank you very much allowing me to purchase this item from you, and
thank you for taking the time to read my email.
*********************************************
This was his response:
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When Takara made a contract with Hasbro over 20 years ago, some toys were manufactured for export. I was subcontracted for manufacturing, and was in charge of storing those samples. The gold chrome figures were distrubuted as anniversary items to staff members. The domestic version of the jet plane you won was also produced for export, but I don’t have the sample anymore. Since it was over 20 years back, it may have gotten thrown out.
*********************************************
His story about storing samples of toys from around that time was consistent with all the other dead stock items he was listing on Yahoo Japan. And chromed staff items are something Transformers fans have known about since Hydra translated the Convoy Trophy article on TF Pulp:
http://www.allspark.com/content/view/778/37/
Plus, I bought the item for $450 via a buy-out offer. If the guy was scamming, he could have sold it for a *lot* more than $450–He didn’t know that it was very, very valuable.
If you get the toy in hand, you’ll find it looks authentic. The card it’s on has the very slight warping you typically see of 25 year old toys. The factory stickers have been applied perfectly. It looks real.
I can understand skepticism, but to me, everything points to it being real. There was no scam here, just a guy selling a bunch of old stock toys, who happened to have something very, very valuable among them and didn’t realize it.
Anyhow, I don’t own it anymore. The Ebay seller is the one I eventually sold it to.
Here are more pictures:
http://www.allspark.com/index.php?set_albumName=album16&option=com_gallery&Itemid=4&include=view_album.php
Thanks for stopping by Might Gaine. Like I said, you were a reputable source. 🙂
Thanks for the additional information!