Date: Thu Jun 1, 2006 2:19 pm (PDT)
   From: "crazysteve"
Subject: Re: It gets worse now...


> Besides the inserts, how the heck are we going to know which ones
> are real or reproduction?!?

  I bought the repro Smokescreen, Prowl, and Bluestreak boxes before
the ebay seller's account was suspended and they arrived yesterday.
I'm pretty sure nobody (who knows their stuff) will confuse these with
original boxes. Here's some pictures of the repro box fronts:

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j251/crazystevefigure/bx/prwl.jpg
http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j251/crazystevefigure/bx/blstrk.jpg
http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j251/crazystevefigure/bx/smks.jpg

   These repros are printed on white paper stock unlike the originals
which were printed on grey paper. The repros have very obvious
perforation points along the edges where you can see how the box was
seperated from a larger piece of paperstock. The originals have crisp
clean smooth edges.

  The insert trays look and feel like they're made from a slightly
lower quality plastic than the inserts that came with my eHobby chrome
and anime Streaks. The tray plastic is noticeably thinner than the
much thicker eHobby versions. The Prowl tray doesn't have an indent
molded to accomodate the police lights on the roof, but oddly enough
it looks like there's an indent in Smokescreen's tray to accomodate
his rear spoiler.

  The printing on the right side box flap of each box is way more off
center than the originals-you can see here how everything is shifted
too far to the right:

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j251/crazystevefigure/bx/sides.jpg

  Little things like that make these very distinguishable from the
originals. The boxes are made by a guy named Keith Smith and he's
written that they're slightly larger depthwise than the originals.
I've noticed they're exactly the same dimensions as the eHobby Streak
boxes.

   Keith also includes repro insrtuction booklets with each box. One
thing I found interesting was that the instructions for Smokescreen
are in the 1984 style with the boxart on the first page and full color
 panels with photographs of the toy in the various stages of
transformation. My original Smokescreen had the 1985 style
instructions that were printed in black/white/red with line art
instead of photos.

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j251/crazystevefigure/bx/sminst.jpg
http://www.tfracetrack.com/instructions/g1/autobot/smokescreen.jpg

  Keith explained to me how his ebay account was suspended because of
a dispute with a pretty rutheless and shady buyer. He expects his
account will be restored after the investigation. I think these box
repros are pretty cool and I hope Keith can continue with his plan to
repro all of the original 84-85 cars.

steve in repro box
1