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Scott Bernard

Comments

11 comments posted
Cool review, Leonardo! I

Cool review, Leonardo! I like how this toy feels so connected, and yet also disconnected, to what we normally cover here. ("It's the same thing, only different", as Tommy Chong once said.) I was a big fan of GI Joe and similar figures back during this time and yet I don't recall ever seeing these. It seems somehow I was just completely oblivious to Robotech in all media back then.

"This must be settled the way nature intended....with a vicious, bloody fight!"
Onyx Blackman
Principal, Flatpoint High

NekroDave's picture
Posted by NekroDave on 10 June, 2008 - 15:03
Monkey Head!

one of my favorite figures from the line. I think I like the line because of its freakishness. Plus in the 80s the whole line was blown out at toys r us stores for a dollar a piece, so as a kid i had a lot of them.

about the arms- most of the ones i've owned (about 7 or 8 in an insane quest for a Scott with a nice paint-job)

I had an almost complete set of these figures for a long time, I was missing Lunk and the Black Miriya.

if you're interested in this line of figures, they can had for cheap on ebay, in the 90s, they were re-issued by Harmony Gold, except for Lunk, and most of the reissue macross figures didn't come with helmets, except rick hunter. Both the Matchbox and HG versions are made of really cheap plastic.

It's pretty common for loose figures in this line to have broken thumbs, splitting shoulders, loose knees, and for the foot-peg holes to be filled with broken pegs (the holes were a little too small for GI Joe figure stands and most kids found this out the hard way!)

The order of these figures, from most difficult to find to easiest, is:

Lunk (very rarely comes up for sale, maybe once every year or two at the most)
Black Flightsuit Miriya
Matchbox Minmei
Matchbox Roy Fokker
6" Miriya
Matchbox Red Flightsuit Miriya
Matchbox Max Sterling
Scott Bernard
... and the rest are about the same to find. At least for me, when I was putting together the set in 2000-2005.

The Big R's picture
Posted by The Big R on 10 June, 2008 - 18:52
Broken Thumbs and Hearts

It really is a great line of figures to make a run for, and it's great that you got so close to completing it. I do own the Black Suited Miriya as it was my original figure I bought back when I was a kid, I also thought the Red one looked better I didn't realize until a few years ago what a rare variation it was.

You're right, freakishness is the perfect word for the line! It really puts my brain in a knot! Looking back they seem to be a bit charming to me now like the Vinyl Macross toys and such.

We'll fight them on the Beaches!

Showapop's picture
Posted by Showapop on 10 June, 2008 - 19:16
Shelbyville Mospeada

Thanks for the comment on the review! The line kind of came and went and half of the toys were unavailable to purchase. There were so many great toy lines out in 1985, GI Joe's Brilliant 1986 line was soon to be released, not to mention Mask, Inhumanoids, Transformers, He-Man, etc. and quite frankly most of the Matchbox produced Robotech toys were unattractive and out of proportion. As you can with this figure the designers didn't seem to have a clue with what made the series click. It was a huge let down! They really isolated their own fan base!

Cheers!
Leonardo

We'll fight them on the Beaches!

Showapop's picture
Posted by Showapop on 10 June, 2008 - 19:06
Minmei

The thing about the Minmei figure is not that it is hard to find. It is. It just was not released during the Matchbox run at all and was only released as part of the later Harmony Gold-only run. You can tell because the cards are different and plastic is a lot s******r. This Scott looks like it came from the HG run, by the way. For what it's worth, I have a Minmei I got off of eBay for about 5 bucks a couple of years ago.

-Jeremy

Destroy All Podcasts DX's picture
Posted by Destroy All Pod... on 11 June, 2008 - 11:39
Hey Jeremy Hope all is

Hey Jeremy Hope all is well,

I actually bought Scott figure with the Rand and Corg figures from the Sears catalog back in 1986. I wish I had the Catalog page to go with the article.

I guess that's the real question, was Minmei released back in the 1980's? I never saw it, but they must have made a few as they are in the catalogs and print ads at the time and the molds were used to produce the HG reissue. If a collector is content with the HG reissue, so be it it, but if the Minmei figure was issued in the 1980's with a Matchbox package then it would be difficult to locate. I personally believe it would be like chasing ghosts and would be content with the HG reissue.

Cheers
LF

We'll fight them on the Beaches!

Showapop's picture
Posted by Showapop on 11 June, 2008 - 16:49
HG

The HG run lasted for years and years and trickled out of China between the late 80's/early 90's and the start of the Exo-Squad/Robotech reissues which was about 1994. Check this out:

http://www.toyarchive.com/Robotech/st1/3minmei.html

I still see this one on eBay from time to time and it never goes for that much. The big problem is with the Chinese factory HG was using, the molding is all sloppy and soft. I don't know if they didn't let them bake long enough or what. It's similar the quality drop between the original Micronauts and the Palisades reissues from a few years back.

If your Scott is from the original Matchbox run, I guess you just got really unlucky and had bad examples. My Matchbox Dana is much nicer than my HG Dana and my Matchbox Rick and Lisa are both way nicer than my HG Roy.

-Jeremy

Destroy All Podcasts DX's picture
Posted by Destroy All Pod... on 11 June, 2008 - 18:10
Great review,

Great review, Leonardo...love the history lesson it comes with! I had Rand to go with my Cyclone bike...but the foot pegs on the bike broke off in Rand's feet and, yes, Rand's thumbs snapped off. So sad...

This review (and the burst of modern Mospeada products coming out now) makes me wish for an inexpensive line of Revoltech-ish action figures of the Mospeada cast, plus in-scale bikes they can ride on, and another line of the characters wearing non-transformable ride armor. That'd be cool...

--
Sanjeev

Sanjeev's picture
Posted by Sanjeev on 12 June, 2008 - 15:39
Quality Out Of Control

Maybe that's the fourth problem with these toys...quality control was never up to par with the other toys at the time. GI Joe is very much the benchmark to judge 80's 1:18 scale figures with. I think we all agree our Matchbox Cyclone Motorcycle pegs are broken off...more on that later when I review the Cyclone.

I've just picked up Microman Evangelion MA-40 Ayanami Rei Uniform Figure and I've seen the Lupin figures and that would be a great line to license more anime characters to. $6.00 isn't alot for the figure and it would still be a Japanese toy and be in the spirit of a inexpensive GI Joe style toy.

Thanks Jeremy for that link and It seems I did get a crappy version of the toy!
Cheers!
LF

We'll fight them on the Beaches!

Showapop's picture
Posted by Showapop on 12 June, 2008 - 23:48
This was one figure I tried SO hard to love...

...but it was just so, so hideous in many ways.

I got mine back in the late 80's. He was at a Toys R Us down in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, marked down to like under 2 bucks. The quality does seem a bit off in a few areas from mine.
What a happy day it was when I found his (non-transforming) cycle. It was at a Kiddy City that was going out of business up in the Lehigh Valley Mall area of Pennsylvania. (As I recall, it was sitting next to an Interchangeables green and black version of Baron Karza).

Thanks for clearing up the issue on his gun. I liked it, but something seemed wrong. As you said, it wasn't his gun to begin with!

If I ever find Scott and his cycle amidst my toy bins, I'll probably have to go on eBay and hunt down the figure who has his real weapon!

You threw me a bit on the yellow node on the gun's front and the sticker on his side. I thought I had a weird, cheaped-out variant until you mentioned you'd added those lol. You should mention things like that sooner.
: p

JINZONINGEN 73's picture
Posted by JINZONINGEN 73 on 19 March, 2009 - 11:29
Painted Gun and such

Thanks for the reply,

I never saw the Scott Bernard on the pegs in So California, I've always assumed they were sold on the East Coast for some strange reason. I'm glad I own it but I was so let down by the experience.

For a while there, when I was kid I got hung up on painting my figures, which I now regret, luckily I didn't paint Scott except for his gun.

Cheers!
LF

Leonardo Flores
CollectionDX Staff Writer-West Coast Bureau

Showapop's picture
Posted by Showapop on 19 March, 2009 - 14:51