Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2006 17:23:56 +0200 (MEST)
   From: Martin
Subject: A few details on the China G1 Prime


Taken from an ebay auction:


"Overall I'm pretty happy with the one I opened up (yours will be MISB;
this is my own KO OP I'm describing :-).  As one would expect, it
looksand feels more or less exactly like the original (with some exceptions
I'll talk about shortly).  The box is such a perfect reproduction of
the original, it gives me chills.  In particular, the battle scene on the
back is reproduced beautifully.

It has blue windows and blue eyes like New Years Convoy.  It gives him
a nice TV version look.  The fists and gun are the "bloated" versions. I
never had any bloated accesories for Optimus before, so it was a
strange experience for me, but they fit the toy well, I think. The trailer is
stamped:

© Takara Co., Ltd.
1980,1982. (raised block)
Made in France

For those wondering: No, the trailer does not come with the side
stickers already applied.  You have to put them on yourself and it's a pretty
difficult task.  I was able to get mine on straight, but there are air
bubbles beneath them.  Grr.  My advice is to take that part very, very
slowly.

Also, there are no silver torso stripe stickers for the cab. They
don'teven come on a seperate sheet like the trailer stickers do. That was
probably the most disappointing thing about this toy.

Here are some other differences from the original:

1) Roller comes preassembled, so he pokes out a bit in in his little
section in the stryrofoam; That's not really a big deal, though.

2) There's no little "To get the toy out, poke the holes on the other
side" paper in front of Roller.

3) NO INSTRUCTIONS or catalogue or other inserts besides the stickers.

4) The box just sort of "feels" cheaper. Like the material they used
for
it was of relatively low quality.

5) The box flaps have the same problem as the China "re-pops" (the
ones with the little black sticker in the corner; my friend
ThunderIronMoose3000 coined the term) from the late 90's: "you can see
a point where the normal print which was fading from red to dark red
suddenly is cut off, and a just plain red strip is present. " (see
http://www.oocities.org/futuristgroup/vchina3.html for more info).

Also, mine had a couple other small problems, but I'm not sure how
widespread these are:

1) The trailer stickers have some wear on them; I think this is
probably because of cheap sticker sheets and paint, but I'm not certain.

2) The elbows and the knee joints feel a little looser. The joint
holding up the top of the gun/cannon/repair thing in the trailer is *really*
loose. I often use the arm beneath it to support it.

3) The paint on the diecast came ever so slightly chipped , and the
chromeon the legs is starting to wear off already only after a couple
transformations >_<

4) The wheels have lots of styrofoam muck on them. Thankfully, though,
that comes off easilly after playing with it for a while.

5) The heat-sensitive insignia sticker is peeling a bit around the
edges. It came that way.

Again, I'm not sure if all of them have those problems, but that's
what's happening with the one I opened."



Seller is a an old bud of mine, so I can vouch for the info he gives
to be believable (disregarding the sales hype).

Martin