New Arrivals - Early July 2014 (Part 4)

Yet more Optimus Prime, but this time how about something that has never been seen before? I received a box just days ago where the contents far more closely resembled the type of Transformers I have been collecting for pretty much half my life. A box of vintage foreign variant G1 Transformers, and one in a box that had never been seen until about a month ago, buried for two and a half decades. Back in my comfort zone!

Notice logo on tech spec bar

For real, this is a Yugoslavian Optimus Prime, or rather a Plasticos Iga Mexican Optimus Prime toy in a Mexican Optimus Prime box (and it should come with Mexican Iga paperwork) but the box logo has been changed from Iga to the Yugoslavian toy manufacturer (from the 80s/90s) "Marcanka" to reflect its sale and distribution in the Balkan market. It was revealed to the fandom by Serbian collectors on TFW2005 and those good folks helped me track one down. The main thing here is that the awful red eye paint application is there as well as the missing cab stripes, implying that Yugoslavia got imported Mexican TFs after the toxic safety checks were carried out in Europe to remove lead paint from the toys. This is a 1989 release at the earliest, and available in Yugoslavia throughout the early 90s.

The other Transformers that came with the Optimus from Yugoslavia were also Mexican G1 imported into the country, but this time sold in the same unaltered Iga boxes that were found across Europe. Hound and his funny green, Twin Twist and his red face, as well as Sideswipe with his matte red and grey face together with brighter green Constructicons. All Mexican, all sold in Yugoslavia in the 90s.

The Sideswipe sadly came with some damage, Hound was missing a mirror and the spring was sticking out of the launcher, every single figure had missing parts and was clearly used, but technically nothing was broken - and of course I knew most of this beforehand. These are not the rarest of Mexican TFs (Sideswipe is very tough though) so sourcing parts won't be quite as excruciating had the whole thing been of unique Yugoslavian construction. I quite easily popped Optimus into a G1 styro for the photography as the new owner no doubt will.

I will be writing a good deal more detailed piece on the Yugoslavian Optimus Prime - the kind it deserves - very shortly now that I have the photos done, but it was quite nice to taste the vintage G1 TF well once again after basically abandoning it in favour of Masterpiece, Animated, Macross and 3rd Party this year. So how about that, no Animated this time.

Unless you count this beauty...

All the best

Maz