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08-13-2022, 04:53 PM | #1 |
Crimson Guard
Join Date: Apr 2009
Location: Florida
Posts: 4,078
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In the JvC/VvV years I returned to GIJoe. In the 2004 convention halls I picked up several loose Funskool figures. Over time I started to look into these figures. There's lots of discussion in the Joe community on what molds Hasbro still has. We knew of some things that Hasbro was still holding onto from things the collector's club produced. There's things like the Maulers when the club couldn't produce them because of broken molds.
Hasbro reps told us in the DTC timeline the USS Flagg's molds still existed except for the flight deck This morning I found one of the old threads here below: https://www.hisstank.com/forum/g-i-j...r-exist-2.html I'm not looking for the list of what's still in existence, there's no way to know plus it's just speculation we've covered for decades. What I'm saying is...over the past ten years or so I got to thinking...what if we could recover the lost Funskool molds? It was mentioned recently on one of the ME threads that Vietnam's now producing the majority of GIJoe but China's got the molds, though with modern techniques they don't need them because of 3D scanning. However, we know of the sunken freighter that was returning molds to Hasbro from either Funskool or Estrela Toys. What if we tried to find out the coordinates to recover the ship? Would the molds still be usable? There's got to be records of the shipment, the travel schedule of the ship somewhere. Funskool was still producing GIJoe in the 2000s, it's not like there's decades to explore. There's likely some fishermen or dock workers who remember the lost vessel. I'm thinking we start some kind of community-funded project to find the ship then hire some divers to recover the 85 Snake-Eyes mold for us. |
08-13-2022, 06:32 PM | #2 |
Crimson Guard
Join Date: Aug 2020
Location: Boston
Posts: 1,359
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A pipe dream at best.
And the '85 Snake Eyes is certain to be on the docket for a laser scan and reissue through Hasbro's new o-ring line. |
08-13-2022, 06:50 PM | #3 |
I LIVE!
Join Date: Oct 2003
Location: Altus, OK
Posts: 6,087
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If any original o-ring molds exist, they’ve been long destroyed. It cost money to store those massive molds, and records weren’t always the most accurate (Hasbro themselves didn’t even realize they still had the tools to IG Destro until the Club spent the time to go testing molds for the con sets).
Funskool basically ended their Joe run around 2003 and the assets were returned to Hasbro, who used what they could for the TRU 6 packs. In 2015, with the Joe brand staggering along as a niche property and rising costs in China, any old tools (pre-ME) were reportedly destroyed/recycled. Since Hasbro was basically not doing anything with them, it was a waste of resources to try and maintain them in storage, assuming some could even be located by this point. Anything we’ve seen this past year in regards to o-rings have been complete rebuilds-all new molds based on the original figures. There is ZERO practical reason to go searching for the remains of the lost South American molds (which included SE v2 and Torch). They’ve been suck for over 25 years. They are NOT usable. It is more cost effective to simply do what Hasbro’s been doing: make new molds for production in Vietnam.
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08-13-2022, 06:53 PM | #4 |
I LIVE!
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Quote:
Again, Hasbro?s got to make all new molds anyway. There are literally no restrictions on what they could make, but I?m completely baffled at the insistence on staying with the pre-85 stylings.
__________________
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheRealDubya
Any sort of panic at this stage is just pure unsubstantiated reptile brain stem fear.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SmokePants
This is why companies are secretive -- because we all want the truth, but most of us cannot handle it.
|
08-13-2022, 07:38 PM | #5 |
Fartbutt McGillicuddy
Join Date: Jul 2020
Location: EARF
Posts: 4,561
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Hasbro keeps to the pre85 crap because people keep throwing money at it instead of not.
That's why. Hasbro isnt insightful. Either way is a lose/lose for us. |
08-14-2022, 12:11 AM | #6 |
Crimson Guard
Join Date: Apr 2009
Location: Florida
Posts: 4,078
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I think it's the story that is fascinating, to me it would be the greatest treasure hunt in history. We don't need the molds, but come on think of how cool it would be if we could find the ship.
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08-14-2022, 02:32 AM | #7 |
Crimson Guard
Join Date: Nov 2021
Location: Springfield
Posts: 1,672
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How do the molds work? Did every Classified Beachhead head come from the exact same carved out steel mold? Do they carve out two molds of his head to make two at a time?
In a SDCC interview, Ryan Ting from Hasbro Marvel Legends was asked about accessory packs and he said something like to get one thing, you'd have to run it and then the unwanted pieces would go to waste. I would have thought the molds would be modular so you piece them together and run them like a Gunpla sprue. I think in one of the livestreams, they said the Ned and Peter two pack used a wristwatch from Luke Cage tooling. Would seem wasteful to waste so many unrelated parts just to give him a wristwatch. For the Classified Destro running change to remove the stupid circle on his forehead, did someone sand out the circle from the mold? |
08-14-2022, 10:28 AM | #8 |
Sith/Jedi Hybrid
Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: Middle TN
Posts: 3,197
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This is insane.
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"I can't promise I'll try...but I'll try to try." BUY/SELL/TRADE: http://www.hisstank.com/forum/g-i-jo...ell-trade.html Feedback: http://www.hisstank.com/forum/buy-se...th-awgmon.html |
08-14-2022, 12:07 PM | #9 |
Crimson Guard
Join Date: Jul 2008
Location: WV
Posts: 3,155
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Somewhat related to this, for years now it was claimed that Hasbro had "lost" many of their older molds. Many were lost when the Chinese government nationalized the factories where they were being stored. Hasbro wrote them off, GIJoe, Transformers and most of their older Star Wars molds.
But as it turns out, don't know the how or any details about the recovery. But one of the Star Wars collecting sites asked about them during a recent Q an A with Hasbro and they said have found many of the older Star Wars molds. Maybe China finally returned them. Maybe they also returned some of the GIJoe molds too. But keep in mind that most likely all of the O-Ring figure molds are gone. They were in such bad shape after Funskool took such poor care of them. That was one of the reasons the club switched to modern figures. At best Hasbro has some of the ARAH vehicle molds still. Maybe they still have the Polar Battle Bear and O-ring Snowjob from the Target past and present set. |
08-14-2022, 12:58 PM | #10 |
Crimson Guard
Join Date: Apr 2009
Location: Florida
Posts: 4,078
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Everyone who's given interesting replies here. thanks, it's more interesting than complaints over Walmart's shipping or discussing Zandar's scarf. I'm going to clear up some things so we're unified on why I wrote this post. First is that it's fun, the first time I saw the story I thought it too fascinating to be true. Yes, my proposal's crazy but come on, one of the core stories in GIJoe lore is Mindbender trotting the globe to collect tissue samples of deceased world leaders. I'm just looking for some freighter that sank. Furthermore, these kinds of threads usually expose interesting facts on toy production not everyone knows of, we're seeing that in replies here now. We don't need the molds, I get it but it's interesting. For years we used to discuss what molds existed to find out what Hasbro might give us down the line. It's not possible to know what's out there from finding molds or losing others but if we separate the figures used by Estrella or Funskool we know that those existed through things like the Hasbro warehouse fire.
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