69 replies to this topic

[Soupie]

Or, maybe just add this onto the SR discussion thread. (Sorry, URS.)

[Universal Ruler Supreme]

Hope I didn't kill the conversation, cause I was in on it too, but I noticed that it wasn't going to end anytime soon, so I figured I'd just seperate the discussion from my project page. John or Veers can put this where ever they want to really.

[Universal Ruler Supreme]

Thanks for the info and pics Soupie. Did you by chance buy any of these four packs from Jkaris? Cause the color pack matches some of the ones He sent me pics of. Also it would appear that the serial #'s are all the same for the 4 packs. Guess they have no more significance than to help stores keep track of their stock.

[Soupie]

Woah, I post there, you respond here...



I believe I got all those 4-packs from my homeboy Doc Moore Jiggy J, so he may have gotten them from Mr. J Karis.

[Tortle]

Maybe that’s it?! The color figures are all made at the same time. Because the 28-packs are exclusive it’s too hard operationally to mix flesh and color. So all of the 28-pack Flesh “units” are shipped first. This is why colors seem to appear in the 4- and maybe 10- packs first.

I think it's possible, but I always assumed that they produced the mixed red, blue, purple and flesh 4-packs to slowly introduce colored figures on the market. Instead of producing all available MUSCLEs in a bunch of different colors, which kids may or may not like, Mattel tested the waters by providing a limited production of colored MUSCLEs in just a few colors. Maybe you're right in that the four-packs were used first because they're the easiest to mix up. They also might have been chosen because they're the most visible. Regardless, when Mattel determined that the colored figures were a good idea, they then expanded production of all-colored figures into the 28-packs and 10-packs, and increased the number of colors available.

I had the same problem with a #82 Magenta, plus #91 Red and #151 Red. Although the Reds differed more in intensity - almost as if there was a Dark Red and Light Red. I’ve seen the same thing with Purples too - dark deep Purples and lighter, ashy Purples.

Could these be legitimate differences from different factories?

Maybe. But I would guess that different color variations were caused either by sunlight or by aging plastic. I'm sure that in different storage conditions (humidity, temperature, smoking, etc) the plastic would age differently and effect the color.

Perhaps the game is the official start of color figure production?

I was kind of thinking the same thing a while back. But that does call into question why neither green nor light purple were used in the initial red/blue/purple 4-packs. Maybe to differentiate the figures?

[Universal Ruler Supreme]

I think there’s still a possibility of the figures being created at the same time. But it’s more contingent on Mattel making a very conscious effort to slowly roll-out the color figures. OR! Trying to use up the remaining Flesh figures!

Maybe that’s it?! The color figures are all made at the same time. Because the 28-packs are exclusive it’s too hard operationally to mix flesh and color. So all of the 28-pack Flesh “units” are shipped first. This is why colors seem to appear in the 4- and maybe 10- packs first.

Because the 4- and 10-packs are more random it’s easier to dump existing Flesh stock into the packs. Once the Flesh is used up we see Red/Blue/Purple staying in the packs with other colors replacing Flesh.

Well, with the current Half/half 28 pack examples I've received, the same figures are always flesh and the rest are colored. The only way to support the theories of Dumping existing stock, and all colors being made at the same time would be to find, for example, a legitimate thug busters set with the colored and flesh figures switched around. If the 28 pack figs are exclusive, and they had an excess in old stock, and they removed half of the fleshies and replaced them with r/b/p figs, then we would see the other 28 pack figs probably packaged in 4 and 10 packs. The fact that they are exclusive tells us unless they switched up the packing combinations of the trees in flesh and color, they would have to have been making the fleshies and colored r/b/p figures at the same time. I believe once we find more color combinations of 28 packs they will reveal the truth about color production.

This change could help explain the rarity of certain colors. They’re “rare” because their production started near the end of production.

I agree with this however.

Lately, I’ve been struggling with some other Color things too.

First, shades. I know we’ve talked about MUSCLE color deterioration and dirty MUSCLE’s, but could there be legitimate shade differences? This weekend I was sorting some figures and was having a difficult time picking out the “cleaner” MUSCLE.

Here’s a specific example (picture coming soon): #30 Magenta
Both figures seemed completely mint to me. Neither seemed dirty or sun damaged. But one figure seemed like a darker, richer Magenta and the other was a lighter, almost ashy Magenta.

I had the same problem with a #82 Magenta, plus #91 Red and #151 Red. Although the Reds differed more in intensity - almost as if there was a Dark Red and Light Red. I’ve seen the same thing with Purples too - dark deep Purples and lighter, ashy Purples.

Could these be legitimate differences from different factories?

Well, I work with auto body paint and repair, and like most businesses who work with colors or paints, we have to mix our paints on site according to the specific color mixtures we have for each color code. Even on newer cars, there is often times differences in shades of the same colors for 2 reasons. One, there are different shades of mixtures to make (ex. red 3R3(D) D = darker as oppose to normal hue), or Two the color is even to hard for a computer to mix perfectly. But If it's mixed manually even the slightest drop of a color can change the whole batches hue. I've seen hue differences in Kinkeshi, muscles, and even Model Kits. Colors are super sensitive to mix and will not always be perfect. There is a red color we use at work that has gold metallics in it. This is one of the hardest colors to mix, and sometimes even when we get the color nearly perfect according to the charts, if the car we are painting is even slightly off it won't look right. All in all, I don't think this is a big deal at all.

The second issue I’ve been struggling with is the MUSCLE Board Game. The copyright on the game says, “1986” and “Figures made in Japan.”

But it’s not in the Mattel Catalog and color MUSCLE’s don’t come out until 1987. Perhaps the game is the official start of color figure production?

You know I said the same thing a long time ago, but nobody agreed with me at the time. However I completely agree. When looking through the colored 4packs both trees from the board game were completely common. I think the board games production may have been right before and during the Half packs, and probably was stopped right before colors. I don't recall seeing any of the board game figures in any of the half packs I saw. Not to mention that the green board game figs are extremely common in the colored packs, usually the grape figs were red in the colored packs. Really not sure of the significance.

[Universal Ruler Supreme]

I think there’s still a possibility of the figures being created at the same time. But it’s more contingent on Mattel making a very conscious effort to slowly roll-out the color figures. OR! Trying to use up the remaining Flesh figures!

Maybe that’s it?! The color figures are all made at the same time. Because the 28-packs are exclusive it’s too hard operationally to mix flesh and color. So all of the 28-pack Flesh “units” are shipped first. This is why colors seem to appear in the 4- and maybe 10- packs first.

Because the 4- and 10-packs are more random it’s easier to dump existing Flesh stock into the packs. Once the Flesh is used up we see Red/Blue/Purple staying in the packs with other colors replacing Flesh.

Well, with the current Half/half 28 pack examples I've received, the same figures are always flesh and the rest are colored. The only way to support the theories of Dumping existing stock, and all colors being made at the same time would be to find, for example, a legitimate thug busters set with the colored and flesh figures switched around. If the 28 pack figs are exclusive, and they had an excess in old stock, and they removed half of the fleshies and replaced them with r/b/p figs, then we would see the other 28 pack figs probably packaged in 4 and 10 packs. The fact that they are exclusive tells us unless they switched up the packing combinations of the trees in flesh and color, they would have to have been making the fleshies and colored r/b/p figures at the same time. I believe once we find more color combinations of 28 packs they will reveal the truth about color production.

Ok, you’ve confused me. But I feel like you’ve strengthened my belief if I understand you correctly.

But before we go any further, are you saying that there were Flesh/Red/Blue/Purple 28-packs? I thought 28 packs had always been all Flesh or all Color. This point could throw a monkey wrench in things for me.

At any rate, my “dumping” thoughts center more on the 4- and 10- packs. I believe that production on the 28-pack had to be more controlled (probably why the figures appear to be exclusive). But with the 4- and 10- packs it seems possible that production could vary. So the decision is made to include Color figures. There MUST be some amount of figures already produced. Splitting the 4- and 10-packs allows for the new product to be noticed by consumers and stops Mattel (a company in financial difficulty) from absorbing a large amount of “scrap.”

Once the Flesh is used up – boom – all color packs.

Alright! First off check out Jkaris last post in this topic, and look at the pics.
http://www.littlerub...amp;qpid=169830

Okay. With the pics in mind, now try to decipher what I said. I took for granted that you saw that thread.

On another note.
It is really easy to stop production of something and then to continue it. Factories are usually paid by the unit. That's by the amount of product that they produce. Factories don't say, okay all we are gonna make for the next 3 years are muscles. Nope, chances are Bandai had the same factory produce many different toylines throughout those years. I don't see anyone making a profit if all they made were muscles or kinkeshis. So it would be more profitable to both Bandai and the Factory to produce more figures in as many colors in as short amount a time as possible. It would be easy for Bandai to request the factories to continue pumping out flesh figures, and then add 3 more colors to the mix. The factory would simply switch off colors every couple of hours or so. Can you imagine the number of figures they could produce in an 8 hour work day? Surely they could meet the quota before then. I mean look at how many Kinkeshis there are on Yahoo auctions JP! The second wave of figures Has to have been flesh/r/b/p. The final wave of figures had to be a random assortment of each other color. In the many of the color packs that Jkaris sent me pics of (which are surely from the same case), the colors pretty much stay the same throughout, but eventually there are changes in sculpts colors. This would mean that they packaged figures almost immediately after production! Usually when one figure starts to change up many are shortly to follow. This is the information I have seen thus far. I think during the Half/half production they just told the factory to stop producing flesh figures, and just pack and ship the ones had remaining, and wait to start production until they were ready to just produce all colored figures. Then numbers in production of each color started to level out through the rest of the lines life. R/B/P figures outnumber the rest, but that's only because they got a short headstart in production. I hope that makes sense.

[Soupie]

I think there’s still a possibility of the figures being created at the same time. But it’s more contingent on Mattel making a very conscious effort to slowly roll-out the color figures. OR! Trying to use up the remaining Flesh figures!

Maybe that’s it?! The color figures are all made at the same time. Because the 28-packs are exclusive it’s too hard operationally to mix flesh and color. So all of the 28-pack Flesh “units” are shipped first. This is why colors seem to appear in the 4- and maybe 10- packs first.

Because the 4- and 10-packs are more random it’s easier to dump existing Flesh stock into the packs. Once the Flesh is used up we see Red/Blue/Purple staying in the packs with other colors replacing Flesh.

Veers, I think I finally understand what you're saying, but you didn't actually say it, so I may be wrong.

You're saying (1) Mattel has a bunch of Flesh figures left over, and (2) a bunch of new colored figures - Red, Purple, Orange, Green, all of them. Mattel says, lets not release all the colors at once, because we've just GOT to get rid of these Flesh figures. We'll hold some of the colored figures (Light Blue, Orange, Green, Magenta, and Salmon) in storage and use Red, Purple, and Dark Blue to sell the with the remaining Flesh figures. When the Flesh figures are FINALLY gone, then we'll SPRUCE up the Red, Blue, and Purple figures by breaking out the other colors we have STUFFED away in storage...

But you seem to agree that this seems odd, Veers, because then you say:

This change could help explain the rarity of certain colors. They’re “rare” because their production started near the end of production.

If the colors -- Light Blue, Orange, Green, Magenta, etc. -- had a "special" production run at the "end," wouldn't this simply be a "3rd" production wave?

It just doesn't make sense to me for Mattel to have made 8 colors at the same time, only to stuff 5 of them away. I think if all 8 colors were made at once, we'd have half/half 4-packs and 28-packs with 2 Flesh figures and 2 Light Blue, Orange, Magenta, Green, or Salmon figures -- as well as Red, Purple, Dark Blue.

(Is the catalog picture the main reason you believe they were all made at once?)

Although the Reds differed more in intensity - almost as if there was a Dark Red and Light Red. I’ve seen the same thing with Purples too - dark deep Purples and lighter, ashy Purples.

Could these be legitimate differences from different factories?

Before I started collecting GPK Cheap Toys, I would have said no, in my opinion. However, myself and many other Cheap Toys collectors have documented several common and consistent color variations among Cheap Toys. All of the color variations have been confirmed by multiple collectors pulling them from mint bags and boxes. (The kicker is that mint boxes can have a color with BOTH variations -- for instance, a mint box can be found to contain both Light Blue and Regular Blue figures. Therefore, aging and sun fading can't be blamed -- but neither can separate factories for that matter.)

Here are some examples:


Light Blue & Regular Blue


Light Red & Dark Red

I would actually be surprised if there weren't similar variances with MUSCLEs.

[Soupie]

(Sorry, Veers, I started writing my post before your 2nd to last post... Yes, it took me that long. )

[arforbes]

Although the color shades can differ with time due to sunlight exposure and dirt, I disagree that time alone causes the shades of color to differ. If Muscles are kept out of harms way, they will be just the same color as they were when they first came out. I have opened 4-Packs and other figure packs with bright beautiful colors to this day, so I doubt that Muscle colors "age" over time. I think it is elements such as sunlight and water/dirt exposure that changes their color.

But it is true that even MINT figures differ in color, especially Magenta, Salmon, and Purple. I think it is simply the way the factories mixed the colors. No two factories will have the exact same mixtures, there had to be some room for differences. And even if the same factory pumped out these different colors, I could definitely see this change in mixture happening at a later time in production. Of course I would assume there were likely slight color differences in the plastic at different stages of production. This may have been contributed to different times of production and/or different factory mixes. No two mixtures could have been EXACTLY the same.

Take these pics for example...(The Salmon #85 is for comparison)




A tangerine Orange #166, never have I seen this color EVER. Probably a mixture mistake. The figure is mint, not faded and no dirt, and I bet the other figures that were in this particaular tree when they were poured are the same exact color, but have not been found. Could be the mistake of a single tree pour, explaining why only one of this color have been discovered in all these years.

Edited by arforbes, 30 July 2007 - 01:08 PM.

[Universal Ruler Supreme]

Alright! First off check out Jkaris last post in this topic, and look at the pics.
http://www.littlerub...amp;qpid=169830

Okay. With the pics in mind, now try to decipher what I said. I took for granted that you saw that thread.

Ok, this is the second time. Either you're being a d*ck or I'm misreading the tone.

Either way, if the 28-packs came in Flesh/Red/Purple/Blue then that pretty much ends the discussion. It was three major production waves.

Having said that, I think we need to continue to keep an open mind. We don’t have a sealed 28-pack with Flesh/Blue/Red/Purple (that I know of) and the catalog presents a different picture. I wonder if this is how the last guy to think the Earth was flat felt?

Sorry. I wasn't trying to be a jerk. No intention of that. I'm just having a hard time trying to explain to you what I mean in a way you will understand it. I see now that you seem to be basing most of your beliefs on the catalogs contents, when you should be trying to understand the facts that Soupie and I have been posting. Catalogs will almost always feature doctored test shots, or painted prototype toys. You can't base your opinions solely on what mattel features in their catalog. That's like saying the final series of Visionaries should must have been released if they were in the hasbro catalog. Anyway. I got to go, But I'll be back.

[Soupie]

Not to add fuel to the fire (but let's face it, that's what I usually end up doing...) but I'm not exactly sure what your saying either URS. I need to re-read what you wrote above.

Well, with the current Half/half 28 pack examples I've received, the same figures are always flesh and the rest are colored. The only way to support the theories of Dumping existing stock, and all colors being made at the same time would be to find, for example, a legitimate thug busters set with the colored and flesh figures switched around. If the 28 pack figs are exclusive, and they had an excess in old stock, and they removed half of the fleshies and replaced them with r/b/p figs, then we would see the other 28 pack figs probably packaged in 4 and 10 packs. The fact that they are exclusive tells us unless they switched up the packing combinations of the trees in flesh and color, they would have to have been making the fleshies and colored r/b/p figures at the same time. I believe once we find more color combinations of 28 packs they will reveal the truth about color production.

The second wave of figures Has to have been flesh/r/b/p. The final wave of figures had to be a random assortment of each other color. In the many of the color packs that Jkaris sent me pics of (which are surely from the same case), the colors pretty much stay the same throughout, but eventually there are changes in sculpts colors. This would mean that they packaged figures almost immediately after production! Usually when one figure starts to change up many are shortly to follow. This is the information I have seen thus far. I think during the Half/half production they just told the factory to stop producing flesh figures, and just pack and ship the ones had remaining, and wait to start production until they were ready to just produce all colored figures. Then numbers in production of each color started to level out through the rest of the lines life. R/B/P figures outnumber the rest, but that's only because they got a short headstart in production. I hope that makes sense.

Not necessarily because you're not clear, but because it is confusing with all the sculpts/colors/waves/etc. You could very well have made a solid case for three waves in the above writing... but I'm going to have to re-read it couple times before I can tell.



My main argument against two waves has less to do with facts per se, and more to do with the "producing all the colors at once but not using them in the 50/50 Flesh packs" idea not making sense, imo.

[jkaris]

Ok, here it is simplified:

Wave 1 - Flesh
Wave 2 - 50% Flesh - 50% mix of Red/Dark Blue/Purple
Wave 3 - Full Color Mix

The Belt and Ring were only produced during the flesh run.
The Game was produced some time between Wave 2 and Wave 3.

[Universal Ruler Supreme]

Ok. That's what I wanted to know. If I was just confusing one person or most. Johnny pretty much got the whole thing summed up, But I was just trying to explain my beliefs, with examples from my research to back it up. I may have overexplained, or just assumed that everyone was keeping up with my thinking and didn't give enough information in my statements. Again Sorry Veers. I really didn't mean to appear like being an arse. Let me see if I can make better sense of things. Here is a revamped version of one of my previous statements with some deletions. I hope it makes more sense.


"With the 28 packs that Jkaris showed us, I have come to the conclusion that Half&Half 28 packs will always have the same figures in flesh and the rest in r/b/p. (There are Half&Half 28 packs, I have been aware of these since I started collecting.) With this in mind, I decide to try to disprove the theory of dumping off old flesh figures stock by packing them with r/b/p figures, as well as the theory that all colors were produced at the same time. My thinking can be negated by finding a legitimate Half/Half 28 pack with flesh figures that oppose the previous flesh figures packed in the Half/Half packs. For example, If Trees 1, 2, and 3 in the Thug Busters set was made in flesh, and trees 4, 5, and 6 were made in Blue, if we find a set with Trees 1 2 and 3 in Blue, and 4 5 and 6 in Flesh, then my theory is irrelevant and we are back at a stalemate in hypotheses."

I also feel that Half&Half and All Color 28 packs hold the truth of color production waves.


I'll try to explain the second statement Soupie is unclear of as well.


"I feel that there are 3 waves, 1st is flesh, 2nd in R/B/P, and third is Random assortment of All colors.
In The Colored 4packs Jkaris sent me pictures of (which most are surely from the same factory case) The same figures often appeared in the same color (like Green) Throughout most packs. But there are packs that show a change in these figures colors. So I feel that Figures were packaged immediately after production.

In my Opinion I feel that Bandai or Mattel informed the Factory, during Half/Half Pack run, to discontinue the production of Flesh figures, and to pack and ship their remaining Flesh until they ran out. When they were ready, they initiated the production of a combination of all Colors.

This means that they would make Red, DBlue, LBlue, Purple, Salmon, Green, Orange, and Magenta figures at the same time with no discretion to previous colors being made. Within the remaining life span of the muscle toy line, the number of each color produced eventually leveled out, with the exception of R/B/P figures. This being due to the fact that R/B/P figures were made first. If the line would have continued longer, we would no doubt see all figures in all colors all of which being common and pretty much in the same numbers."

Alright that's it I watered it down and worded everything differently. Let me know if it makes more sense please.

[Soupie]

Ok, here it is simplified:

Wave 1 - Flesh
Wave 2 - 50% Flesh - 50% mix of Red/Dark Blue/Purple
Wave 3 - Full Color Mix

The Belt and Ring were only produced during the flesh run.
The Game was produced some time between Wave 2 and Wave 3.

Haha, yes, that much is clear! What is unclear is how we know for certain these three distinct packaging combinations -- Flesh, 50/50, All-Colors -- indicate three production waves. It doesn't follow that just because there are three distinct packaging combinations, there were three production runs.

Which is why I appreciate the analysis URS has been doing of the 4-packs and 28-packs, and why I'm trying hard to follow along with his conclusions. I too believe there were three production and release waves, but I'd like at least 2-3 "facts" to back up this belief.

Okay, on to URS's writings:

My thinking can be negated by finding a legitimate Half/Half 28 pack with flesh figures that oppose the previous flesh figures packed in the Half/Half packs. For example, If Trees 1, 2, and 3 in the Thug Busters set was made in flesh, and trees 4, 5, and 6 were made in Blue, if we find a set with Trees 1 2 and 3 in Blue, and 4 5 and 6 in Flesh, then my theory is irrelevant and we are back at a stalemate in hypotheses."

At the risk of sounding like an enormous dunce... Why would this make your theory irrelevant? What would it mean if you found a set with Trees 1,2, and 3 in Blue and Trees 4, 5, and 6 in Flesh? I'm sorry, I just don't understand what that would mean...



(1) Would it mean the Flesh figures were extras "dumped" in the 28-pack? (2) Why would it mean that?

In The Colored 4packs Jkaris sent me pictures of (which most are surely from the same factory case) The same figures often appeared in the same color (like Green) Throughout most packs. But there are packs that show a change in these figures colors. So I feel that Figures were packaged immediately after production.

You've mentioned this before, but I just can't understand the significance. You're saying that you find a sculpt in, say, Red many, many times and then you find the sculpt in, say, Dark Blue. Then you see that other sculpts begin to show up in new colors as well. Right?

(1) Why does this mean that the figures were packaged "immediately" after production? (2) Are you implying that since they were "packaged immediately" they were therefore not extras dumped into the 4-packs?

[Universal Ruler Supreme]

My thinking can be negated by finding a legitimate Half/Half 28 pack with flesh figures that oppose the previous flesh figures packed in the Half/Half packs. For example, If Trees 1, 2, and 3 in the Thug Busters set was made in flesh, and trees 4, 5, and 6 were made in Blue, if we find a set with Trees 1 2 and 3 in Blue, and 4 5 and 6 in Flesh, then my theory is irrelevant and we are back at a stalemate in hypotheses."

At the risk of sounding like an enormous dunce... Why would this make your theory irrelevant? What would it mean if you found a set with Trees 1,2, and 3 in Blue and Trees 4, 5, and 6 in Flesh? I'm sorry, I just don't understand what that would mean...



(1) Would it mean the Flesh figures were extras "dumped" in the 28-pack? (2) Why would it mean that?

It wouldn't Exactly mean the flesh figures were extas, what it would really mean is that both my Hypothesis of Flesh being made along side r/b/p, and the Excess Flesh Stock hypothesis would both be plausible, but neither one or the other could be confirmed. As long as there continues to be no pysical examples such as the one I posed, then my hypothesis would be the most likely. Irrelevant might not have been the best word choice.....I just like to type it.

In The Colored 4packs Jkaris sent me pictures of (which most are surely from the same factory case) The same figures often appeared in the same color (like Green) Throughout most packs. But there are packs that show a change in these figures colors. So I feel that Figures were packaged immediately after production.

You've mentioned this before, but I just can't understand the significance. You're saying that you find a sculpt in, say, Red many, many times and then you find the sculpt in, say, Dark Blue. Then you see that other sculpts begin to show up in new colors as well. Right?

(1) Why does this mean that the figures were packaged "immediately" after production? (2) Are you implying that since they were "packaged immediately" they were therefore not extras dumped into the 4-packs?

(1) It would have been most efficient to have packaged the figures as soon as possible, aside from the fact that they could have switched colors after a certain amount of time during a work day. The next case of packed figures might have been abundant with the previous cases scarce figures.
(2) It is possible that they could have been extras, but look at the numbers! There was NO drop in the amount of r/b/p figures produced. It is however possible that while the factories stopped producing Flesh figures, they continued to make r/b/p figures. Then they could have focused mainly on the Other 5 colors, and just packed in the r/b/p figures as they packed up the other colors. If this is true they would have probably run out of r/b/p figures eventually. So good point Soupie. If someone has a case of colored figs that is practically void of any Red, Dark Blue, or Purple figures then this would most likely make a lot of sense.

So all my current info points to Fleshies being made along with r/b/p figs, but now the question of the r/b/p figs being dumped excess in the full colored packs has been asked. Again I believe that question can be solved by the 28 packs. I really never anticipated that the 28 packs would reveal so much information! But now that I think about it they are a constant throughout the muscle line! I love this Hobby!