Description

Non-affiliated, Non-lengthy, Non-articles about Transformers

Monday 17 March 2014

A Big Reveal (Part 3)


Years passed, seven and a half to be precise, and the memory of the Mallorcan find faded into history. Nothing more was discovered or pursued by us regarding the gumball Beachcomber, no more were ever seen by us and it never made the headlines. In early 2014, though, I believed I had finally found another of those Spanish gumball Beachcombers, an opportunity to make up for not being the one to spot the original find in Mallorca, an opportunity for a proper souvenir from that holiday.



Another KO Beachcomber exactly the same. Or is it?

Having secured my own bootleg Spanish 'gumball' yellow and blue Beachcomber, I was once again able to feel proud of my own resourcefulness, detective skills and - at the same time - lament all the many interesting things I had sold from my collection over the years that had I kept together, would have amounted to a monumental collection of oddities, variants and one-offs about which I could be truly proud. Alas, they are all gone, and I have always said that I am not a minibot collector (can you imagine the turmoil of a minibot completist now having to chase these KOs?), so I decided to sell this KO Beachcomber too. 

Blue/yellow KO Beachcomber

Size comparison with Windcharger

Yes, it has sentimental value. Yes, it was a symbol of how I could compete with any of the variant collectors out there despite my limited budget, but I had new priorities, and sacrifice is the name of the game these days. Document and move along, that's the philosophy now. Even though it didn't have any of the unique stickers or the gumball packaging, it was still worth a great deal to a minibot collector, as we can see from the above size comparison, it fits in perfectly with existing official Transformers/pre-Transformers minibots.

KO "Alonso" Spanish Beachcomber Mk II

Throughout this whole experience, something about this second Spanish KO Beachcomber seemed a little less impressive than Ras's one, and it wasn't just the lack of stickers, pristine minty-ness or gumball packaging. It seemed far too close to a regular Beachcomber, but I dismissed it as a general waning of interest and investment by me emotionally in vintage toy collecting. It wasn't until I had sold it, and started editing my pictures for an article, that I realised what I had just bought and sold. Ras kindly allowed me the use of his pictures so I could show the item as it came originally, packaged and stickered. When comparing our robot mode pictures side by side so that I could pick the best one, the penny (or 1 Euro coin) finally dropped.

Minibot collectors everywhere just had aneurysms

They were different, the inverse of each other. I promptly got back in touch with the seller of this second KO Spanish Beachcomber, the blue/yellow one (not to be confused any more with the yellow/blue one). That's when the history and details were revealed to me, details that a choice few already knew. That's when the real discovery was made.

Relax, that's a normal Windy. End of Part 3

All the best
Maz


11 comments:

  1. I'm interested to find out more of the back story on this variant of a variant. I actually prefer the first version over the second one.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Very interesting colour switch between the 2 minis. They look quite like candy too, heh.

    ReplyDelete
  3. If these two are like candy, then some of the others are genuinely sickly sweet! Sorry to make you wait a little bit between this and the next part, but it'll be worth the wait to get it all right.

    All the best
    Maz

    ReplyDelete
  4. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hi Speedy, thanks for your message - I do know this info - I am just choosing to reveal it one step at a time. When the parts are all finished I will happily enabvle your message once more. Please forgive me, I can't help trying to make this dramatic and theatrical!! :D

    All the best
    Maz

    ReplyDelete
  6. No problem Maz. Lucky you read it in time ;)

    ReplyDelete
  7. You know I'm on the edge of my seat...

    ReplyDelete
  8. Hey, I have one of this Alonso Beachcomber! :D

    I'm from Spain and I got it in 1990-91 I believe, always loved Beachcomber since then.
    It's a quality KO, it resisted many battles during its life and it's still in great condition! Mine has stickers in the legs like the blue one.

    Thanks for posting this and best regards!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ahhh the glory days of Fernando Alonso in a Renault :) Yeah these are great for what they cost and have lasted the years very well I think. I still can't believe they were still available in 2007 in gumball machines in Mallorca!

      All the best
      Maz

      Delete
  9. Hey, I have one of this Alonso Beachcomber KOs! :D

    I'm Spanish and I have it since 1990-91, still remember the day I got it...
    I'm going to read the rest of the blog, thanks for sharing this!

    Best regards

    ReplyDelete
  10. It's fun because I never thought about it until I read this article but yes, those are the Team Renault colors for sure. From his name is Alcomber! xD My mother bought it to me in a street market, still remember the day.

    I remember also seeing Seaspray with the single fan but don't remember the color, I think it was a friends toy or something, 25 years ago... damn...

    Congratulations with this finds, that black windcharger looks great.

    I'm starting to learn about this tf world and it's fascinating, it's huge!
    I'll keep reading your blog, great info here.

    Best,
    Alberto

    ReplyDelete