TFARCHIVE FORUMS

This question has weighed heavy on my mind for some time. The only knock offs I bought were Mirage in red and clear, but I thought the quality was pretty good!

I've seen a lot of releases and prerelease images of a number of interesting prospects to add to my collection, most notably the gestalt figures which have been given up to date articulation. Does anyone have any of these yet or is it a case of stick to the MP's?

Lots of video reviews on YouTube. That's where I looked before picking up the Maketoys Hover / Bomber.

Whilst they're premium-price for what you get, it's all short run stuff and there don't seem to be lots of marauding people on the internet cussing out the makers -- there's usually a fair bit of enthusiasm for 3rd party stuff.

To be clear there seems to be two general terms in use.

Knock-off meaning a copy of a mold and produced, usually with very suspect QC, by certain parties overseas. Often found on the cheap in discount and dollar stores. I, for example, found some KO DOTM Legends molds blown up to almost Deluxe size in a 99 Cent City. There seems to be a decent market for knock-off Classics Seekers in mental color palettes.

Third Party seems to generally mean stuff made by a company not affiliated with Hasbro or Takara but, generally, have their own molds, style, and often tighter QC then the official products. While it's a "knock off" by definition, the general quality and uniqueness keep them separated from the directly copied stuff that's generally known as a knock off.

In my limited experience with Third Party stuff I've been pretty pleased. I've snagged several Reprolaels sets as well as the Crossfire-02 sets from Fansproject. I actually own no knock-offs, as of now. Might get a Sunstorm and/or Acid Storm at some point to round things out.

Of the chinese KOs of G1 toys, I think there's only Mirage and Wheeljack that have been much good, but the scale of the bootlegging is extraordinary:

Optimus Prime (in three fruit flavours ; black, clear, regular)
Menasor
Superion
Defensor
Devastator
Bombshell
Kickback
Sharpnel
Grimlock
Swoop
Slag
Snarl
Sludge
Gnaw
Cyclonus
Wheeljack
Mirage (red, regular, clear)
Frenzy/ Ratbat
Ravage/ Rumble
Frenzy/ Laserbeak

Generally distinguishable from legitimate product by solid yellow circles around the character art on the box, some mis-aligned grids and character art ending before it hits the edge of the box. The purple used on the 'con boxes is slightly brighter than on the originals

As for third party, some generally impressive stuff which scratches a lot of itches for a lot of fans. Some of it, like the recent Devastators released, really shows up Hasbro's efforts (Generations Bruticus, anyone?) and is generally of a surprisingly high quality. High cost owing to short production runs and general dubious nature of the product means its not something for me.