Showcase #64: "The Sweet 16" Super Rare Kinkeshi
Besides the vintage 418 Kinkeshi collection & Part 30 sculpts, amongst collectors the Super Rare Kinkeshi are "Holy Grails" of sorts. For "Holy Grails" or "Super rares" they sure are readily available but the problem is the price.
In the collection you have sixteen (not counting the 2 Super "Super Rares" haha) total and you can find some of the sculpts in almost every Mandarake branch in Japan & online (Mandarake or Yahoojapan).
These "Super Rare" Kinkeshi have no markings whatsover and some eventually became real characters in the Kinnikuman manga. Their existence is due to theree things:
1-Thanks to Weekly Shonen Jump
2-The readers of Kinnikuman
3-Bootleggers!
*Some of the information I got from Nama Niku:
In 1984 Weekly Shonen Jump and Kinnikuman creators Yudetamago had a contest in which the readers of Jump could create a new character for the Kinnikuman manga.
In the process many characters made the final run or "top sixteen" list (rough sketches shown in Weekly Shonen Jump).
Leave it to those bootleggers to sculpt those fan creations and release them in gashapon capsule form! (Pachi versions).
Even before they made official debuts in the manga!
What is not known is how many made it to circulation or which regions of Japan etc
As a result they have become the thing of legends and myths! especially in terms of value and scarcity for some particular colors or sculpts.
Getting any of the sixteen is an investment and you might get lucky on yahoojapan on a sleeper auction but most of them sell for upwards of 30,000 to 300,000 yen!!! (depending on the sculpt)
I only own two of the sixteen and even if I wante to collect all sixteen finding some of them is really difficult; the most common to find but not any less cheap being Train Man, MR. VTR & The Hawkman.
Edited by kayfabe1985, 10 March 2018 - 09:23 AM.