20th Century Toy Collector

The Exciting Story Of G1 Transformers in Europe!

MB Transformers: Part 1

“Introduction”

Welcome to the very first part of what will become a 10-part series of articles on a very specific and, in my very humble opinion, very interesting part of vintage G1 (Generation 1) Transformers collecting: the MB (Milton Bradley) Transformers!!

1985 MB Transformers Dealer catalog

 

Now, why write so much about such a specific part of Transformers collecting? Well, first of all, because I like to! In 1985, when I was 10 years old, the very first Transformers that I found in my local Intertoys toy store in my birth place in the Netherlands were Transformers by MB. I distinctly remember seeing the MB logo on the packaging. At that young age I was already very perceptive and noticed that there was no Hasbro logo to be found anywhere on the box, while the commercials that I saw on weekend mornings on Sky Channel told me they were made by Hasbro (a name that I would continue to associate with kick ass toys for years to come). I did not think much more about it and basically forgot about the MB Transformers when Hasbro started releasing Transformers under their own name a year later in Europe in 1986. After having casually collected G1 Transformers since 2002 or so I got reacquainted with MB Transformers in 2009 by reading Maz’s excellent article “Milton Bradley and the TF Red Tracks”. The article had tons of information on this under lighted segment of G1 collecting and featured lots of photos of MB Transformers in their packaging, which sparked something in my brain that caused the nostalgia flood gates to open in earnest this time. I decided that I would collect all the MB Transformers that I could find! In the two years that have passed since, I have already amassed quite a few MB Transformers that found their way into my collection. It is this passion and nostalgia that I feel for this toy line, combined with my having a rather obsessive and neurotic personality, that makes me want to know as much as I can about this subject matter and makes writing an article about it my idea of fun!

1985 MB Transformers Store catalog (back and front)

 

The second reason that I feel is validation for wanting to write such an extensive amount of information on this subject matter is that, because of my afforementioned passion and obsessiveness, I have done a lot of research. I’ve looked at promotional material that MB released for the toy line in detail, I’ve examined all the packaging of the MB Transformers in my collection, noticed similiarities with a certain other toy line, correlated, cross referenced, theorized, pulled some levers, tweaked some controls and in the process came to some interesting conclusions and, what I believe, solved some long standing mysteries about the toy line. Here’s my chance to collect all this information in a structural manner and to allow other, fellow enthousiasts, or even casually interested collectors, to read about the MB line and reference it for their own collecting needs whenever they want, as I have thankfully done numerous times with Maz’s afforementioned article.

MB Autobot cars (from my personal collection)

 

Now, I don’t want to imply in any way that I am an absolute authority on this subject, nor would I like to imply that every bit of information presented herein is irrefutable or not open to discussion. Some of it is just my interpretation of how, why and what happened, based on the information that I have gathered myself or gotten from other sources. I will make an endeavour to keep the information in these articles up-to-date whenever new information surfaces or whenever standing theories are proven wrong.

OK, ready? Grab yourself a beer, a cup of Joe or whatever your beverage of choosing is and join me as we begin to take a long walk into the world of the Transformers, Hasbro, Milton Bradley and Ceji Joustra set in a funky period called the mid-1980’s!

 

“More than Meets the Eye”

In 1984 Hasbro released a new toy line called ‘The Transformers’ in the United States and it took the country by storm. Aided by a popular Marvel comic and an animated series it was a runaway hit and the start of a toy line that continues to exist to this day. That’s a fairly exceptional thing in the world of toys, where most succesful toy lines run for only a few years. It was no surprise that Hasbro decided to export this succesful product to other countries around the world and Europe was a logical target. Europe has always been a fragmented market and this is certainly reflected in the way that the Transformers line was introduced in 1985 in Europe. For various reasons different companies and brands were tied to the marketing and distribution of Transformers in Europe. The UK had regular Hasbro branded Transformers, Italy saw GiG branded Transformers and most of mainland Europe got MB branded Transformers. This situation was ultimately consolidated to Hasbro-only branded Transformers for the whole of Europe by the end of 1986.

Promotional photo from 1985 MB Transformers Dealer catalog

 

These European MB Transformers were often the exact same toys as were available in the US, but of course the packaging was different and there are enough variants and mysteries in this line that make it very exciting to collect! It is these variations that make the early European releases interesting from a collector’s point of view and this has not seemed to have gone unnoticed of late. In the past year specifically (2010) the MB releases have exploded in value, going for insane prices on the collectors market. An MB Jetfire sold for 600 euros, the mythical red MB Tracks has gone for more than 900 euros twice this year, both on eBay, and it looks like there’s no slowing down yet in the line’s popularity. It will come as no surprise that the MB releases are most popular in the countries they were originally available, being the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Germany, Spain and (most likely) Austria, but there is increased interest from the US as well from collectors who have long completed their US and Canadian G1 lines and are looking for something different. Another category is that of collectors who are looking to collect every single worldwide release of a specific G1 character. Very often they get stuck on obtaining that elusive MB version of their favourite character. So let’s take a look at how and why the initial waves of Transformers in these countries were released under the MB brand! To do that, we will first delve into the past of MB…

“Milton Bradley”

MB stands for Milton Bradley, which is the name of the man who founded the company. The beginnings of MB can be traced way back to the 19th century. Milton Bradley was born on the 8th of November 1836 to craftsman Ottis Bradley and his wife Fanny Lyford in Lowell, Massachusetts. After working as a technical draftsman for several years Milton was unsatisfied with his current job and taught himself lithography and print-making. He founded his company in 1860 in Springfield, Massachusetts, simply called “Milton Bradley” and did well for himself selling a lithograph of Abraham Lincoln, which he created during the presidential campaign of that same year.

Milton Bradley

 

As fate would have it, the image of Lincoln that Milton Bradley sold was of a Lincoln before he decided to grow a beard. After Lincoln grew his iconic beard, the lithograph became obsolete and sales plummeted. Instead of simply creating a new lithograph of the bearded Abe Lincoln, Milton Bradley set his sights on someting new. Inspired by a board game given to him by a friend, he created “The Checkered Game Of Life” (precursor to the “Game Of Life” a.k.a. “Spiel Des Lebens”, “Destins” and “Levensweg”) and arguably ignited the board game industry in the United States. The Milton Bradley company became synonymous with board games and went on to become the biggest and most well known board game manufacturer on the planet in the 20th century, responsible for such memorable games as “Connect Four” (“Vier Gewinnt”, “Puissance 4”, “Vier op een rij”), “Battleship” (“Schiffe versenken”, “Bataille Navale”, “Zeeslag”) and “Yahtzee”.

MB's "The Game of Life" (Dutch and French versions)

 

“1984 Takeover by Hasbro”

After 124  years of standing on their own, the Milton Bradley Company announced in April of 1984 that it was holding talks with an undisclosed party about “a possible business combination”. That undisclosed party turned out to be a firm originally called Hassenfeld Brothers, Inc  from Pawtucket, Rhode Island founded in 1923 by two brothers, renamed in 1968 to the shorter name: Hasbro. On Friday, May 4th 1984, Stephen D. Hassenfeld, CEO of Hasbro Industries, Inc. announced Hasbro’s intent to take over the Milton Bradley Company. Two giants in toy manufacturing would become one.

Various U.S. newspaper articles on the Hasbro MB takeover in May 1984
(retrieved from Google News Archive)

 

The takeover seemed to be a perfect fit. The Milton Bradley Company was the uncrowned king of puzzles and board games, a market that Hasbro wasn’t really that active in. But even more important, MB was a major player in the European market. Hasbro, up until that point, was only active in the US, Canada and the UK. Besides a presence in the UK, Hasbro did not have any production facilities or distribution networks in place in Europe. Taking over MB would mean that Hasbro would establish itself as a major European player nearly overnight.

And so it was that about half a year later, on September 7th, 1984 a shareholder meeting was held simultaneously in New York and Springfield (the latter was the home base of MB), where an overwhelming majority of shareholders of both companies voted for approval of MB’s takeover by Hasbro Industries. The Milton Bradley Company was now owned by Hasbro and Hasbro Industries renamed itself to Hasbro Bradley, Inc. to emphasize the new cooperation.

Hasbro's logo during the 1980's

 

“Hasbro calling the shots”

Given what we now know about the date of the takeover (September 1984), it puts the first year of Transformers released in Europe by MB in 1985 in a whole new perspective. It is often assumed by Transformers fandom that MB was still an independent company when they released the first Transformers in mainland Europe in 1985, that they were then taken over by Hasbro afterwards, who then proceeded to rerelease the line under their own name after their takeover was complete. In fact, by the time Transformers were introduced in Europe in 1985 under the MB brand, MB was already fully owned by Hasbro and had been for about a full year. So it was Hasbro who actually introduced Transformers in mainland Europe in 1985 themselves, albeit through their newly acquired subsidiary MB.

My take on this is that Hasbro had deliberately chosen to use the MB brand for the introduction of Transformers in mainland Europe in 1985 and not their own brand. Why? Well, I think that the most important reason was brand recognition. MB already enjoyed significant name recognition in Europe back then. Hasbro was virtually unknown. Hasbro could probably easily have used their own brand name in 1985 and only have used MB for the distribution process (as they actually started doing from 1986 on when they started to use their own name for all Transformers products in Europe), but they obviously decided not to in 1985.

 

“Hasbro Bradley makes way for… Hasbro!”

The name Hasbro Bradley, Inc. did not last a long time. On June 7th, 1985 Hasbro Bradley announced they were consolidating all their operations (Hasbro, MB, Playskool, Parker Brothers) under a new name: Hasbro, Inc. The name Hasbro Bradley did continue to pop up on copyright notices on European Hasbro product that was distributed by MB for some years to come.

 

“Next Up: The Pre-TF era in Europe”

That’s it for our first part on MB Transformers where we had a short, introductory look at MB’s history and its takeover by Hasbro. In the next part we will examine the pre-Transformers era in Europe, just before the Transformers were unleashed properly by MB. Transformers hadn’t reached mainland Europe before 1985, but that didn’t mean we didn’t have our share of transforming robots here! This pre-Transformers era contains some important developments that will explain a lot of the hows and why’s of MB’s Transformers line up in 1985! Hope you enjoyed the first segment of this 10-part series and hope to see you back in about a week, when the second part will be published right here!

 

 

 

18 Responses to “MB Transformers: Part 1”

  1. Arkvander says:

    I finally got to sit down and read this, and it is fantastic. I wanted to make sure I had enough time to read and digest all the information. I am very much looking forward to the future installments, this certainly does clear up a lot of the mystery surrounding the European TF releases!

  2. Quint says:

    The same counts for me. I’ve visited this site several times and your info and reply on the MB Tracks was more than welcome (which i now luckely own MIB too). This site is the best resource for rare EU-TF and pre-TF versions and combined with the pictures it’s a piece of art.

    Ga zo door & best regards, Quint

  3. Nevermore says:

    Hey dude,

    a few minor corrections:

    Hasbro didn’t fully consolidate the European market in 1986.

    GiG still continued to be responsible for Italian Transformers toys. There’s an interesting aspect in that GiG originally only had a license from Takara (resulting in the weird interim “Trasformer” line) before Hasbro pressured them into acquiring a second, proper “Transformers” license. Over the years, GiG’s unique license with Takara allowed them to release things that weren’t available in other Hasbro markets (Bruticus giftset, Classic Pretenders as a four-pack without Pretender shells using the decos of the Japanese “Hero Set”, Galaxy Shuttle). The Italian market didn’t get fully streamlined with the other European Hasbro markets until 1990, when the Euro-“Classics” (“gold box” reissues) started. As time went on, Hasbro consolidated their markets more and more with several multi-language packaging variants (including alternate names) that continued until the Beast era (GiG was finally phased out as a Hasbro licensee during Beast Wars in favor of Hasbro Italy), and eventually we got one streamlined type of multi-language package for all of Europe.

    Also, Milton Bradley was still the name of the distributor in Germany until the German MB branch was renamed into the Hasbro Deutschland GmbH as part of an international enforcement of Hasbro’s global brand identity.

    • 20th Century Toy Collector says:

      Hi and thank you for your input! Highly appreciated. I will correct the relevant points in my article with your info on GiG in my next update. Regarding MB, in the Netherlands it was the same situation, but with an added twist. MB International B.V., (the Dutch subsidiary of Milton Bradley International, Inc, later Hasbro International, Inc.) also continued releasing Hasbro branded product from 1986. As a matter of fact, instead of renaming itself as MB Deutschland GmbH did in 1991(?), MB International B.V. created two new subsidiaries called Hasbro (Netherlands) B.V. and MB Nederland B.V. Also, the Spanish and Belgian MB/Hasbro operations were daughters of MB International B.V. The latter B.V. never got renamed and is still in existence today and still owns Hasbro Netherlands.

  4. […] At first MB had access to all the non-Ceji moulds like Dinobots, Megatron, Soundwave, Thrust etc, but as they secured the rights to other Takara moulds that only Ceji could release in Europe, the MB TF ranks swelled to a respectable level. The information in MB dealer catalogues such as the ones above have helped MB experts like Mijo piece together a detailed and ground-breaking history for these toys, and you can read a much more detailed account of events in his own capable words starting here. […]

  5. […] for Hasbro in Europe after the Milton Bradley (MB) period, which you can read about in detail here. MB Soundwave (Takara) vs Euro Soundwave (Ceji) Do you want to know a […]

  6. Marc says:

    Sorry dat ik het in het nederland doe maar ik heb nu nachtdienst en ik heb je super website door zitten lezen super!
    Nu wil ik zelf graag alles in doos gaan verzamelen..
    Maar nu al maanden op verschillende website’s gezocht te hebben krijg ik het niet voor elkaar om maar ook wat te vinden!!
    Zou je me mischien de juiste richting op kunnen sturen?
    m.v.g

    Marc

    • 20th Century Toy Collector says:

      Hoi Marc,

      Ben je specifiek op zoek naar de Europese Transformers in MB verpakkingen of ook de Amerikaanse? Hoe dan ook eBay en Marktplaats zijn je beste optie. De TF’s in MB verpakkingen zijn echter een stuk schaarser en komen veel minder voorbij dan de Amerikaanse releases. Het devies is dus om blijvend de lijsten te checken. Een tip is om op eBay een favoriete zoekopdracht in te stellen. Dan krijg je een mailtje wanneer er MB Transformers gevonden worden op eBay. En bedankt voor de complimenten over mijn site. Altijd fijn om te horen dat mensen er plezier aan beleven!!

  7. Corey Bulpitt says:

    I noticed in one of the MB catalogs that the Slag pictured is the one known as the Canadian Red Faced Slag, released only in Canadian packaging. Just something that may be of interest to some people. Also thank you for your great articles and sharing of the knowledge you and others have amassed to create this site.

    • 20th Century Toy Collector says:

      Thx a lot for your kind words! And well spotted about the Red Faced Slag in the MB catalog. If you look further, you’ll find many other oddities in the very same catalog (look at the Triple changers e.g.) ;-)

  8. Marc says:

    Inmiddels zijn we een jaar verder. Ik heb je advies opgevolgd en ze zijn idd heel schaars! Grimlock en wheeljack inmiddels in bezit en dat is het dan ook! Als je nu iets tegen komt zou het dan teveel gevraagd zijn om dit naar mij te mailen? Nogmaals complimenten met je website kijk er nog regelmatig naar!
    m.v.g

    Marc

  9. NLGraffCat84 says:

    WOW!, kudos & props voor dit fantastische artikel en deze site, lang leve het internet! Ik heb mij vroeger altijd afgevraagd waarom er plaats voor kleine poppetjes was in mijn dinobots en prime. Ik heb nog steeds de doos van mijn Slag met MB erop :). Ik heb het Hasbro nooit kunnen vergeven dat ze de predacons en swoop nooit hebben uitgebracht bij ons, maar ja, dankzij e(vil)Bay heb ik nu gelukkig nu de japanse versies.

  10. Michel says:

    Hallo allemaal. :-)
    Ik heb een vraag over MB megatron voordat ik een giga bedrag uitgeef voor een fake.
    Kan het kloppen dat er op de MB megatron versie toch een hasbro stempel kan zitten? Volgens mij moet er alleen een takara stempel op zitten toch?
    Ik heb overal gezocht maar kan niet echt duidelijk een antwoord vinden in mijn boeken of op andere websites.
    Ik hoor het graag van iemand die dit weet.
    Alvast bedankt.

    M.v.g. Michel

  11. Pete says:

    Great article. Very interesting. I’m from the UK.

  12. WheeledWarrior says:

    Great site! I rolled into G1 collecting for the second time (or third time counting my youth) and really tempted to try and assemble a nice MB-collection as well after reading all this. Bit of a challenge, I’ve already found out ;)

    Grtz from a fellow Dutchie

  13. Darren Hayward says:

    Hasbro took over the UK arm of Ideal Toy Corporation in 1983 which was trading as Buckingham Toys which was how Hasbro got established in the UK and Ireland and Ideal and Hasbro took on the UK Ideal line including CHiPs and Dukes of Hazard by Mego and Ideal UK and Hasbro were jointly doing a game called I Vant to Bite Your Finger and Hasbro at first had to clear out the old Ideal stock including Evel Knievel which was why the GI Joe ARAH figures had to be licenced to Palitoy in 1985

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