Awesome pics, dokuroking! I love that crazy all-metallic-blue Gats Blocker in the fifth pic down. Crazy! A boot, I assume?

Also, those multi-color Battle Buffalo's at the top (more boots?) are killer, too!

Yes he's a made in Japan bootleg. The two beside each other are both the same toy (there are several more color variations I've seen). They come apart into ships and in the chest there is a digital clock!

The army of BB's are from Argentina and they're bootlegs of a bootleg animation. In the 80's there was a really badly animated Korean and Austrailian co-production film done called Diatron 5 (aka Space Transformers). Nearly everything in that movie is stolen from Takara toys, you'll see Big Powered (Diatron 5), Scope Dog, and Battle Buffalo (Diatron 3). The toys from Argentina are unlicensed toys of that movie. The colors are all mix and match. My friend and I split 8 of the regular size and not a single one was exactly the same colors. It seemd to have been whatever was laying around haha.

Hey G! folks: I just posted scans I made of the “Microman Secret File” on Flickr. Started a thread here.

According to what I understand, around the time the toys came out with this catalog, Hasbro began working with Takara to import the toys to the U.S. as the Transformers. So the whole “Secret File” concept as well as Microman were shelved in favor of Hasbro’s vision. So this is a glimpse of a different path these toys might have taken had Hasbro not come along. Pretty interesting.

Excellent up. Thanks! There is so much there that wasn't released

Thanks, but my collection sux. I did just manage to pick up a beater Great Robot fortress, so I'm pretty psyched about that.

I love all the various Buffalo boots you have. Some really great stuff.

dokuroking, since you appreciate bootleg Diaclone toys, you might like this. I was going through some pics I had when I came across this one:





I also have pics of the boxes for some of those Battle Buffalo ones you have. Do you have the boxes, or might you interested in seeing them?

Wow! That is fantastic. I've never seen this before. It's a bootleg of Diaclone Big Powered from the same Argentinean bootleg line. If any one ever sees one of these for sale please let me know. I have the boxes and cards for all of my BB bootlegs, but thanks for the offer. Of the full sized versions I have two different boxes (it was sold prebuilt and as a model kit, exactly the same toy though). If you'd like good pics of those let me know and I'll be happy to shoot them for you. Thanks a lot for posting this. I really want that super crazy Tawian bootleg of BB too:

I guess I should check this section more often. I collect vintage Takara Diaclone + Microman, with a focus on Microchange. Been a slow train - I'm about 8 years into it. I'll try to get pics up soon.

I have some Diaclone, carded Joustra cassettes, etc. Been slow pickins in the last few years. Not much shows up in Japan (though definitely more over the last year or so), and when you do see stuff, either the condition or price isn't right.

a great set of reissues!

Transformers Encore 19 Cassettes Decepticons vol. 3 *Preorder*

Wow, Andy - that's one heck of a collection! Very nice!!

my favorite..so nice to see them all boxed!!!

Yeah the gift set on the right was my grail for a long time. Still after the Jaguar. I see them once in a while but never in the right condition or price. I'm pretty picky with these figures, so like I said, slow train.

Wow, that's amazing, andy! To think that this was lurking beside the RxH and Cronic this whole time.

Love the Microchange cars and your set of the Egg-robos (!!).

Why do you have two boxed versions of the race-style Fairlady Z? The boxes look different, but can't figure out what it is.

Are you still looking for the Beet Zegna?

i wish i could afford some of that old diaclone stuff.
i mostly pick up the transformers universe stuff.
i like how it has a foot in both worlds, G1 fashion(ish) with updated transformability.
the kup in the botcon wings of honor set looks fantastic!
sorry to shoot away from the whole vintage thing going on here....

Nice stuff andy, those multiples look crazy all together.

Thanks! Yeah I was into Takara and SW long before I got into the new sofubi.

The Fairlady on top is by Gig, an Italian company that licensed the figures from Takara in the early 80's, before Hasbro came along with the TF concept and set the world on its head. The bottom Fairlady is the original Takara figure from Japan. Actually, I'm pretty sure the cars are identical and both MIJ, but the packaging is different. Same with the Joustra and Diakron figures. Good old diecast metal!

Oh, but one thing I should add is the Gig figures didn't come with proper missiles. They had these plunger things instead, probably out of child safety/choking considerations, would be my guess.

I'm good on the Beets for now. Going forward for the time being I'm focusing on finishing up a couple of the car sets. Hopefully I can find a mangy old Convoy or toy so I can complete mine via the tried and true kit bash style.

@Dokuro - I don't think I have any multiples in the cases. Some are different packaging versions, and some of the minis came in red and yellow versions. The Cassette Man figures came packaged with different cassettes.

Yes I see that now. All of the Microman minicars look like you have a store going there. Nice job rounding up all of those versions.

Wow, nice collection! So are those Meteor Robos the Italian releases and the original MicroChange releases?

Also, Shiantai is the company that released most of the Taiwan "knock-off" MicroChange stuff here in the U.S. In the case of Cassette Man, I can't tell from the picture, but in addition to some being released with different mini-cassettes, the packaging itself has variations. Some of the boxes I've seen have a large SHINATAI logo in the lower right. More common are the ones that just don't have that large logo.

He's got both of those versions of the meteors.

Do you also have the Mashin Hero Wataru versions?

@MZone - Right, I managed to put together both meteor sets. All of my Cassette Men were Taiwan finds, so none have Shinatai markings (or any company name/logo at all). Imagine that - a local bootlegger not putting identifying markings on their products.

Actually, they did a great job with the knockoffs. Plenty of amazing boots came out of Taiwan in the 70's-80's, since a lot of Japanese toys were made here, so the tooling was at hand.

@Dokuro - I don't remember what the Mashin Hero Wataru is. Have you got a pic/link?

Hey andy, it was an anime series in the 80's followed by Mado King Granzort. Both of them used big face robots (the inspiration for Gurren Lagann). They released a set of Meteor robos for that show.:

Ah very cool thanks for the info! I have seen the figures before but didn't know the origin or connection. I love all the cool tie ins and licensing that went on in the 70's-80's.

BTW, I'm putting up a few vintage Micro things for sale in a few minutes in the Sale section. Been meaning to clear out a few things. Figure I'll give ya'll first crack.

Those gun robos are awesome.

Anyone collect Robolinks/Union Fighter Blockman?
I've lost a lot of the parts to my sets over the years. They were really fun to play with.

I do:




my bootleg mini blockman collection: