American giftset Listing. For Japanese and Pre-tf Giftset listing, click here.

American Giftsets

|Vintage(G1)Giftsets|new(modern)Giftsets|07(Movie)Giftsets|

Vintage(G1)Giftsets:

It seems that nearly every individually-packed combiner member in the 1980's transformers line ended up in a giftset at some point. Most of them saw release in America, but a few(Predaking, for example) only saw release in Japan.

List of American Giftsets:
Devastator
Superion
Menasor
Defensor
Computron
Piranacon

It is interesting to note that the giftset-style packaging was released in a number of countries other than the US(Primarily Japan, but also the UK, Greece, etc). Changes in the toy-mold itself are documented in the rest of the combiners section, and in the various countries' variant pages(where applicable, click here). Also of note is the inexplicable absense of one of the Seacon members in the american Piranacon set(well ok, the explanation is that giftsets were 5 members at this point, not 6, but that's no excuse...they didn't leave out one of the constructicons in their giftset...)

No, there is no solid evidence for the existance of US-versions of Bruticus and Abominus giftsets :-) Rumors of production samples/vendor's samples, but no one has come forward with pics, or actual items.

We haven't seen giftsets in America for a long time. I await future developments ;-)

New(modern)Giftsets:

Ruination (urban camo)
Ruination (desert camo)
Battle of the Matrix Giftset(kmart exclusive)
Landfill Giftset(walmart exclusive)
Battle in a Box 1
Battle in a Box 2
Universe Devastator

Giftsets are alive and well again in america, but they didn't start as early as you think. Some folks like to count the Magnaboss and Tripredacus sets from the 95/96 Beastwars assortment. However, as Defensis put it, "...do you go down the parallel trail of thought and count every effing Micromaster Patrol as a giftset? Nuh-uh. Doesn't matter that MMs don't combine. Giftset, to me, rather implies that you could find every unit IN the giftset separately if you so chose(which was not available in the USA market). The point of the giftset, generally released alongside or after the separate units, is so that you don't HAVE to hunt down the separate units. True for the G1 combiner teams, not true for Magnaboss and Tripredacus". Following this train of logic, then, you can't count the BeastMachines release of Magmatron, either.

Later-on, in the 2001 RiD series(a reissue of the 2000 carrobots series in japan), we got a Magnus and Prime that combined. But they were not released as a giftset in the US, so they don't count here either(feel free to look at the japanese giftset listing for those, if you like). This series also spawned a recolor/remolding of Bruticus(now called Ruination)- again, not listed as a giftset here because they were only released individually in the US. Same problem, just on the opposite market ;-)

In point of fact, it took until 2003, when we got another re-release of Ruination(all 5 as an, 'urban camo' redeco from Walmart), that we could finally argue that this was a giftset(after all, you can still pick up individual team members from RiD at your local Kaybee, among others...this is assuming you believe that one of the requirements is a semi-concurrent release). This set is followed in 2004 by another giftset of the same(Desert-camo Ruination, this time). Since these were a giftset format(and again, since you can still technically pick up some of the individual RiD team-members in the store currently:-)...they count here ;-)

2007 brought us recolors of the Energon Constructicons (individual) as Devastator(giftset)... however, since these were recolored from their energon friends *before* they were put in the giftset box, we actually can't count them either (they would have had to have been the same color, and placed in a gs box to count). However, if the color were a limitation, then we couldn't count the Landfill recolor either (it was yellow; individual members were green, red, etc).

So again...technically... the New American Giftset listing would really not be *any* of these figures, excepting one:

Battle of the Matrix Giftset(kmart exclusive)

But what the heck, what fun is that?

Note we have a listing on here for the Armada series(Jetprime Giftset). Obviously, since those pieces(Prime and Jetfire) are both available seperately, they count as a giftset :-) One could argue that certain minicon 3-pks should count on this list too(especially when you consider Perceptor, StarSabre, and Skyboom combine, and have individual modes) but luckily, the same logic that eliminates Magnaboss, Tripredacus, et all from consideration eliminates these fellows here, as well(note that some minicons were released seperately in the Micron Legend series, so I suppose some people might argue that they could count certain ML packs as giftsets in the japanese-series....they are welcome to do so.) Again, we don't count Tidalwave either, for the same reasons we didn't count Magmatron. Isn't this fun?

With the 2004 Energon series shaping up, I'm sure we'll have even more fun :-) Considering that many of the figures can combine with each other...well, here's hoping that they don't release them as 2-pks, as that would count as a giftset just as surely as JetPrime does ;-)

Requirements for a unit to count as an american giftset:

1) The units must have been available both seperately as well as in giftset
format in the same market (in this case, the us market).

(side question: doesn't it have to be a concurrent-release? One could argue
that Ruination counts, as you can still pick up the rid versions at your
local kaybee store...but I have not seen any individual landfill team
members  in a long time. Yet we would count the Landfill giftset? Then a
concurrent release is *not* a requirement? Curious...based on G1 giftsets,
this would still seem like a requirement...)

2) the Units must combine (this seems to be a given, but I thought I would
seek the clarification once again, just for argument's sake).

(side question: if combining wasn't a requirement, then we'd have to count the 
Tankorr/Obsidion 2-pk from Universe, correct? And all the Rid Spychanger 2-pks?)

07(Movie)Giftsets:

Primus help us....almost every single-packed movie toy was also released in Giftset form. Here's the listing (so far):

Movie Giftsets: See also Giftset Listing
There aren't any.

Now, rememebr what we said? The problem *here* is that *none* of the movie toys combine with anything else. Combining being a requirement, NONE of these then counts as a giftset (merely a pkg variant). Only concurrent release AND combining would make these a true 'giftset' (so ignore that urge to put them here).

Back to the Combiners page!