Tonight is a small Anglo-Dutch party. My very good friend Maz from TF-1.com and I are proud to present to you some of our most interesting work to date. We hope you will find it is also some of our best work to date, because we’ve certainly poured our collective hearts and souls into it. Both articles that we’ve just finished writing go into amazing detail on a subject matter that we are pretty passionate about: European Joustra Diaclones and MB Transformers respectively.

First off, above you can see some of the graphical design for the latest installment in my series of articles on MB Transformers, which is now finally online! This fourth chapter examines the very close ties between the afforementioned two vintage toy lines from the mid-1980’s. This is the big one. Both in size and in message. Some numbers; the first two installments were around 2,500 words each. The third installment was the biggest one yet with approximately 5,000 words. The first draft of the fourth installment came close to the 9,500 mark! That was way too big. I also found the flow of the article was just too chaotic and I commenced on a 2-week long redesign, which ultimately saw this article end up with 7,500 words. Still quite large, but I now feel confident that it is ready for consumption and succeeds in getting my message across.

Content wise, this is why I embarked on this unholy mission of writing a series of articles on MB Transformers. The previous three chapters, while informative and enjoyable in their own right, were all leading up to the information that can be found in chapter four. It ties an important and relatively unknown portion of early European Transformers history together. This is the story I wanted to tell. This is what I think happened between MB and Joustra in 1985 and I think it’s very exciting. This is what I needed to get out of my system and share with fellow G1 Transformers enthousiasts on the world wide interwebs. I guess observant collectors will have put this together before, but to my knowledge this information has never been published online in such a comprehensive way and since it’s been more than 25 years, I thought it was high time it got told! I really hope you enjoy it!

Please don’t think that the rest of the series will be boring. Although I cannot deny that this is really the high point of the series, there is still much more to tell and you can count on my usual nerdy and meticulous methods of investigation and obsessive attention to detail for the remaining 6 chapters. I won’t give out an estimate for the release date of the 5th chapter, because I need an even bigger break than after the last chapter. It’ll be here when it’s here. For now, enjoy the “MB and Joustra Connection” by clicking here.

“Joustra Diaclone Lancia Stratos”

But like I said, that’s only one half of the party! As soon as you’re done reading the “MB & Joustra Connection” there is some further reading that I can heartily recommend from my favourite vintage Transformers site, TF-1.com.

Through an amazing bout of luck and coincidence my good friend Maz got his hands on a very, very rare Joustra Diaclone wave 2 item; Lancia Stratos, a.k.a. pre-Wheeljack! This is the first time a Joustra Diaclone Lancia Stratos has surfaced publicly complete inside his packaging! You can count on Maz to thoroughly examine this item and place it against the background of both its earlier and later incarnations, accompanied with many, many photographs in his trademark style. It’s the next best thing to owning one yourself! At this moment this is the only known Joustra Diaclone Lancia Stratos in the world of which publicly available, photographic evidence exists! Check out TF-1.com’s amazing scoop by clicking here.

UPDATE:

The fourth installment of my series on MB Transformers is ready to go and will be published today at 2200 CEST (Amsterdam), 2100 BST (London), 1600 EDT (New York). There’s a reason behind this exact publishing time aside from trying to act dramatic, because a new and exciting article will be going live tonight at UK based TF-1.com around that same time. We’ve chosen to synchronize the publication time of our respective articles for practical reasons. All I can say is that TF-1.com has a real treat in store for fans of European Transformers. So that’s not one, but two pieces of new and original content on European Transformers that you can look forward to. Good times!

ORIGINAL POST FOLLOWS:

Regular visitors of this website will be familiar with my ongoing series of articles on the subject of European Transformers released by MB (Milton Bradley) and everything that surrounds it. So far I have published three articles on this subject matter and my goal is to finish this epikos with a mammoth total of 10 articles. A constant concern that I have in everything that I write for this site is that I want to strike the best achievable balance between hardcore geeky information that will appeal to the hardcore collector and content that is still digestible by the majority of visitors, who might have nothing more than a passing interest in the subject matter. To whichever category you feel you belong, I want you to feel welcome whenever you visit this site. That’s not always an easy task. But what continues to fuel my desire to keep on writing is the number of unique visitors that have read my MB articles so far and the number of visitors who are visiting this site on a regular basis. I’m quite humbled by the number of visitors and some of the reactions I have gotten so far. Very cool.

I know there are several of you out there who are very eagerly awaiting the fourth installment in my series on MB Transformers (Hi, Christophe!). I’m afraid it’s still not finished yet. The third installment was the biggest one yet and was twice the size of the second installment! Well, much to my own surprise, the first draft of the fourth installment was even double the size of the third installment! After walking away and coming back to it after a couple of days, it was clear to me that the fourth installment needed some trimming and improvement. I am currently wrestling with both the length of the article and the visual presentation. With so much information that I want to convey in this chapter, the visual aspect is more important than ever.

All I can say is that this fourth installment will be my favourite! And although it’s shaping up to be the most challenging chapter for me to write yet, I’m having lots of fun creating it. I hope some of that fun will be reflected in the article itself when you get a chance to read it in the near future. Transformers remain my number one passion….. and if you feel the same…. well, you’re in very good company here. :-)

I’m a real list nazi. One of the many aspects of collecting that I love is to make lists and check off things. It gives me a wicked buzz whenever I acquire something I was looking for and thus am able to place a big fat checkmark on one of my many lists, getting closer and closer to completing something. I know, I’m crazy that way, but I’m willing to bet that a lot of collectors know exactly what I’m talking about! I recently acquired some nice new additions to my MB (Milton Bradley) Transformers collection, so I was able to put down another couple of those big fat checkmarks on my list.

What you see above is the fruit of my obsessive labour. It’s a list of all known Transformers released by MB in 1985 in Europe, ordered by assortment. As you can see, my collection is now 79% complete, which still amazes me, because I only started collecting this line just two years ago. I have a special page dedicated to my MB Transformers collection, which also contains photos of all the items in my collection. I have now updated this page with my latest additions and if you’re ever in the mood you can check it out here!

MB (Milton Bradley) released a total of four jets in 1985 as part of their European Transformers line up. There were two assortments. The first one (number 9109) featured coneheads Ramjet, Thrust and Dirge. There was a second assortment later on (number 9126) that only featured Starscream. No other jets were officially released by MB in Europe (there was an unofficial MB Thundercracker release inside Starscream packaging). I already had MB Thrust in my collection, but recently I was able to add the remaining two coneheads, Dirge and Ramjet, to my collection and in what shape they are!

MB Transformers Jets - asst. 9109

“MB Ramjet”

First off here’s a photo of the MB Ramjet that I scored. The toy itself is in great shape with unapplied stickers and comes complete with all paperwork; red decoder strip, Milton Bradley 1985 pack-in catalog, MB’s quad lingual instruction booklet and an unused Ramjet sticker sheet. The box is so shiny and bright that it almost hurts! Check it out:

“MB Dirge”

Thankfully, Dirge is no exception. Although the sticker sheet is missing and the stickers have been applied, the toy is in fantastic condition!! Again, the box is in such great condition I just couldn’t believe the state it was in for something that is 26 years old and so rare.

Together with Thrust I now have the 9109 assortment complete, which was a real kick as I am drawing ever closer to completing my MB collection!!!! Here’s a photo of the complete assortment.

Stay tuned for more stuff, because I had so much luck in the past 2 weeks scoring cool stuff. More Transformers and Dutch G.I. Joe’s coming up soon!!

“MB Trailbreaker”

Been a nice week collection wise. I managed to add three G1 (Generation 1) Transformers to my collection, being an upgrade for my MB Trailbreaker, a European Powermaster Optimus Prime and a European Soundwave. I took some quick snapshots of the lot. I am most satisfied with my new MB Trailbreaker!

This particular MB Trailbreaker came to my attention through a visitor of this site. As you can see the box is in immaculate condition, with one side still sealed with the original factory tape. The insides aren’t bad either. The styro foam insert and accompanying cardboard support are in great shape, as well as the toy itself. Trailbreaker’s legs are slightly loose, but not in a way that negatively affects the toy either in robot mode nor vehicle mode. Trailbreaker features a lot of chrome and as such this specific Transformer is very susceptible to chrome wear. Although this Trailbreaker looks like he’s been played with now and again, the chrome work is surprisingly intact with only very minor visible wear.

Trailbreaker’s paperwork is included, with the red decoder strip, the Milton Bradley 1985 pack-in catalog and the quad-lingual European instructions booklet. The only thing really missing is the sticker sheet.

“Powermaster Optimus Prime”

The next item is Powermaster Optimus Prime. Released in 1988 in Europe by Hasbro, this was Optimus Prime’s long awaited come back to the Transformers toy line. This is the French/Dutch version of Powermaster Prime that was presumably sold in France, the Netherlands and Belgium (and most likely also Luxembourg). As a kid I remember seeing Powermaster Prime at my local toy store many, many times and I desperately wanted to have him. But as was often the case in those days, I just didn’t have the moolah.

As most G1 collectors will know, the amount of detail and sophistication that went into most of the Headmasters, Targetmasters, Powermaster, etc. completely pales compared to the early G1 releases. I mean, really, instead of die cast metal, chrome finish, rubber tires and actual see-through windows, what we have here is plastic, plastic, plastic and stickers that are supposed to represent windows. It’s a complete disappointment compared to the original Prime if you ask me and I wasn’t blind to that in 1988 either, but somehow I still found this Powermaster Prime to be a kick ass, must have toy. I think what really sold this to my 12 year old self was the absolutely stunning packaging. I mean, just look at how cool Prime looks:

Even if the toy itself was not that grand looking, my 12-year-old mind compensated that with the absolutely bad ass box art representation of Powermaster Optimus Prime. Now, some 23 years later in the dazzlingly futuristic year 2011 I finally have the same Powermaster Prime in French/Dutch packaging that was available in my local toy store. The kicker is that I only paid around 50 euros for it.

“Hasbro Europe Soundwave”

I got it together with the Hasbro Europe version of Soundwave that is pictured below from a Dutch collector who was cleaning out his collection. Good times!

By the by, the fourth installment of my series of articles on MB Transformers is coming along nicely. The text is now about 90% completed, with still a lot of graphical work to be done. It should be online within two weeks or so!