International Spotlight: Rubiplas (Cobra Mortal)

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Mar 142014
 

From the desk of Cobra Mortal:

“After a short hiatus I’m back with another edition of “International Spotlight with Mortal”. This time we will be covering Rubiplas, a short lived, but far from forgotten company in Venezuela. Because of the short run, information on the company, figures, vehicles, and so on is really hard to come by. However, I felt it was one I had to cover. With that said, here’s what I was able to put together for you guys.

The Venezuelan government forbade importation from 1983 to 1992 so the Rubiplas Company only made figures from 1990 to early 1992. Using molds and production sheets acquired from the Plastirama Company, Rubiplas produced series 1 and 2. Now this is where things get foggy. It hasn’t been confirmed that Rubiplas made Scarlett, Glenda, or Grunt because no examples of the figures or cards have been found. I personally would think that they got all the molds to make these figures but at this point it is still unknown. Rubiplas also got molds and production sheets from Auriken and later from Hasbro to produce series 8 and 9. After the market was opened back up to imports Rubiplas closed the factories because it was cheaper to import the figures and later became Faventoys.

Rubiplas figures are some of the hardest figures, if not the hardest to find. Due to the fact that the Rubiplas production run was so short the figures and vehicles command a very high price tag, much higer than Plastirama. Other than the price difference, series 1 and 2 of Rubiplas are very similar to Plastirama but can be disguised by color, paint apps, and accessories. Probably the most noticeable differences figure-wise in series 1 are that Flash and Rock N Roll are much darker that their Argen counterparts, the color is closer to Estrela than Plastirama. As far as accessories go the weapons for both are solid black (other than Zap), but the Rubiplas weapons are much more ridged and not easily bent. Most of the series 1 and 2 Rubiplas helmets are Blowtorch helmets and only Short Fuze and Breaker had the standard ones.”

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CCE Canadian Spotlight: M.O.B.A.T – Char D’assaut (by Mike Hayden)

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Feb 272014
 

From the desk of Mike Hayden:

“As a new Admin to this great group (Crimson Cobra Elite) and one of the few Canadians in the group, I have decided to do a spotlight on a Canadian G.I. Joe exclusive vehicle.

This vehicle is an asset to Cobra Commander’s vast organization and one of my personal favorites, ladies and gentleman, I present to you the Canadian exclusive Consumers Distributing Cobra M.O.B.A.T also known as the Char D’assaut (French).

The Cobra Mobat was released by Hasbro Canada in 1983 and exclusively sold at Consumers Distributing Catalog store. The stores had nothing in them but a few counters with catalogs, pencils and order forms. You looked through the catalog, found an item, filled out the form, took it to a customer service rep and he would return with your product. That easy.

In the early 80’s, Walmart ,Toys R Us and KB Toys had no meaning to Canadians, let alone Canadian children. Zellers, Sears, Woolworths and Consumers Distributing were the only stores we knew that carried our favorite toy: G.I. Joe…

Though it may not have the most original name…”

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– images courtesy of yojoe.com –

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CCE Domestic Spotlight: Starduster (by Law)

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Feb 022014
 
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From the desk of Law:

Hello ELITE brothers and sisters. I have been working hard behind the scenes at making CCE the biggest baddest group on Facebook. That does not mean I have forgotten it’s time for the next installment of the domestic spotlight. This episode I bring you due to popular demand another mail in figure STARDUSTER. One of the coolest mail aways hasbro did it was still not an instant success, in my opinion due to its powder blue suit.

Starduster was available for mail order though hasbro direct from 1987-1991 before it was discontinued. There were 3 different versions of starduster offered though that time span. The versions have come to be known as v1a, v1b and v1c(v1c being the most common one available), Like steel brigade which we discussed last time starduster was made up of reused recolored body parts from previous figure molds. The versions were different in certain ways, mainly body parts used to create the figure but also there accessories. One main stay for all figures was the use of steelers head and flints arms for every figure.

Version 1A was made up of:

Recondo’s waist and torso.
Roadblock’s legs.
Flint’s arms.
Accessories were grenade launcher, helmet, visor and jet pack.

Version 1B differed only by…   click VIEW / DISCUSS below to read the full article.

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SPOTLIGHT: Crimson Cobra Elite

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Dec 052013
 

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Please join us in welcoming our friends at Crimson Cobra Elite to our community of Joe brotherhood and relative awesomeness.

“CRIMSON COBRA ELITE (CCE) is a Facebook group dedicated to the collecting of Vintage, Modern, and Foreign G.I. Joe figures. Like OG13, CCE is a brotherhood of like-minded collectors that come together to buy, sell, trade and talk about everything Joe related. At CCE, we also have a few informative articles once a week, and with these articles we strive to expand the collectors knowledge to help his or her collection grow. CCE holds contests and does trivia as well, and is a up and coming page.”

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