Question: What is a Lucky Draw
Answer: The terminology Lucky Draw refers to a competition prize draw, where winners are selected by random. Lucky Draw Toys are the prizes given away, usually these are very limited.
Question: Who runs Lucky Draw campaigns?
Answer: : Lucky Draw Campaigns are run in Japan usually by magazines. The main magazine which runs Lucky Draw competitions is Telebi Magazine (TV Magazine). Bom-Bom Magazines and Comic Bom-Bom also run Lucky Draw
campaigns. In later years TV Boy also run prize draw campaigns as did DVD production companies and some stores. Hasbro UK also gave away hardcopy Transformers Animated toys in a competition, where winners were choosen at random.
Meanwhile Hasbro HK gave away 10 gold Movie Optimus Prime statues to people who spent over a certain amount of money at a convention. Although this meant the figure isn't a Lucky Draw toy, most fans count it as one due to it's appearance.
Question: Who came up with the name Lucky Draw?
Answer: Lucky Draw Transformers is not an official name for the toys. We're not sure who first dubbed the toys Lucky Draw, they are in fact just competition prizes, where the winners are chosen at random (possible by lucky dip). As yet we are unable to trace the origin of the term Lucky Draw figure.
Question: Is Transformers the only brand used in Lucky Draw campaigns?
Answer: No, many other Japanese toy lines feature Lucky Draw items. Many of these are also gold chrome coloured.
Question: What is the difference between a Lucky Draw, Magazine Exclusive, Mail-Away or Store-Exclusive toy?
Answer: Many toys are often referred to incorrectly as Lucky Draw toys. Most of these are actually just Magazine toys. The lines which divide the categories can often be difficult to make out, but the following rule of thumb normally applies:-
1) Lucky Draw - A toy offered in a competition by a magazine or sometimes a DVD. Extremely limited in number (usually between 5 and 50), the winners are chosen by random. It is this random draw which defines the toys as Lucky Draw. The Lucky Draw items mainly consist of chrome gold or silver toys, black or an alternative colour.
In recent times the chrome gold / silver have become the most recognised Lucky Draw toys.
2) Colouring Competition Prizes - Consist of the rarest Transformer toys. Sometimes the second and third place toys are regular Lucky Draw toys (such as Gold and Silver Galaxy Convoy). However the toys which are the actual Colouring Competition Prizes are the Custom Coloured toys, such as Galaxy Convoy. These toys are limited to
1 in nature and should really never find their way onto the collectors market.
3) Magazine Exclusive - These toys are often limited in number, or are made-to-order. Made-to-order toys, such as Tigertracks, are often mislabelled as Lucky Draw toys. Magazine Exclusive toys are made in larger quantities than Lucky Draw toys (usually 1-3000). Black Tracks (limited to 300) is a toy that we are not 100% sure in
which he falls, Lucky Draw or Magazine Exclusive.
4) Store Exclusive - This are available in the US as well as Japan. The toys are made in larger quantities than the Lucky Draws and in some cases more than the Magazine toys (although sometimes they can be produced in lower quantities). Some Lucky Draw toys (Black Fire Convoy and Black Micron Legend Megatron) were also released as
Store Exclusive draw prizes. The most common Store Exclusives are Toys-R-Us Japan, Jusco and e-Hobby Store. The e-Hobby store exclusives are often made in quantities of 10,000. The Jusco toys are often given away as gifts (such as the Clear Flipchangers and Clear Spychangers). Toys-R-Us Japan has a mixture of regular store exclusives as well as free gifts.
5) Mail-Away toys - Ratchet was released as a mail-away toy in Japan, a little like Reflector and the Omnibots in Japan. Several G1 toys were released using this method in Japan. The toys are made in fewer quantities than the regular released toys, but are made in far larger quantities than the Lucky Draw items.
Question: Are Lucky Draw toys the same as the "lunchtime specials"?
Answer: No, the so called "lunchtime specials" are a mixture of testshots (usually clear) and fake "staff made" toys.
The Lunchtime specials were produced to allow Takara / Hasbro to see any flaws in the moulds. It is believed that some of the left over parts were then constructed into other toys which were sold to collectors -
leading to the belief that the toys were all fakes.
Lunchtime Specials are mainly clear (known as clear white), but are also clear red,
clear blue, clear green, clear black. There are also chrome Lunchtime specials (silver, blue, black) which are harder to find.
Various knock-off Lucky Draw Transformers toys have been produced, mainly WSTF Starscream and Convoy moulds. JustIToys also produced a
Lucky Draw Gold Flamethrower figure, although again it is not an official Transformers product.
Question: So how much are they going to cost me?
Answer: This is impossible to answer. If you are willing to pay the money, then what ever you are happy with is a good price. Here’s a run-down on average price you'd probably be asked to pay :-
Deluxe Sized toys - $200 to $500
Mega sized toys $300 - $800
Ultra sized toys $800 - $1500
Beast Wars, Beast Wars II, Beast Wars Neo Lucky Draw toys will cost you far more than Micron Legend, Superlink and Galaxy Force toys.
They are older and were made in far less quantities. A few of the toys from this era have sold for $2000 - $3500 each. Popular toys such as Gold Masterpiece Convoy will probably cost you well over $3000 if you can find one.
Lucky Draw Transformers are far less sort after then they used to be. In 2004-2006 they were all the rage amongst Transformers collectors. However at the back end of 2006 into 2007 the demand dropped, with collectors focusing on Transformers testshots and unreleased products. This was also at the same time the Lucky Draw Transformers figures stopped being made (as the Transformers Movie toys were being developed).
Question: Why are Lucky Draw toys so expensive?
Answer:
Bottom line, the toys are very limited in nature. Most are said to be limited to under 20, some under 10 and a few under 5. US Transformer conventions can have over 2500 fans in attendance, that's an average of 1 toy per 125 people!
Lucky Draw toys have no actual value. They were given away free, so cost the original owners nothing more than the price of a stamp and the cost of the magazine / item which offered the toy as a prize.
Many of the toys are then first sold on Yahoo Auctions Japan and fetch prices around $500.00. Only certain collects will pay the money for the Lucky Draw toys, and they can command vast sums of money due to the limited nature of the toys (between 1 and 20 in most cases). When sold on US auction sites, such as ebay.com, Yahoo Auctions US or TFAuctions, the toys are often sold for more money as they are available to a larger audience.
The majority of Transformer fans can be located in the USA, and sellers on ebay often win their items from Yahoo Auctions Japan, and used to double there money.
The Lucky Draw toys are some of the most limited actual released Transformers toys you can own, and many fans like to have one as a centre piece of their collection.
Question: What is the most limited toy?
Answer:
It's hard to know the exact numbers which were made, which is one of the reasons we have started this site. Beast Wars II Gold Galvatron is said to be limited to 1, with others originally being limited to 3. The only guaranteed "rarest" Lucky Draw toy is the Mayuko Iwasa Meister toy, which is limited to 1 in the world. We did not see the final selling price on Yahoo Auctions Japan, but we know it was in excess of $1500.00 - a bargain when compared to some of the selling prices of the other Lucky Draw toys.
The colouring competition prizes of Galaxy Convoy is also limited to 1 in the world, and are therefore equally as rare. These, too our knowledge, have never been sold.
Question: Are all Lucky Draw toys gold or silver?
Answer:
No, although most of the toys released after the Micron Legend series are gold chrome.
Question: Are the chrome toys painted or plated?
Answer:
All gold chrome or silver chrome toys are painted. The paint it thicker than regular paint, which makes the toys tighter than their regular counterparts. Often due to this, the toys cannot be transformed correctly or do not clip together. The chrome paint is easily scratched and there are reports that the paint flakes easily, if played with too much.
Interestingly Gold Lio Convoy has been seen in both Gold Chrome and Gold Plastic.
Question: Are the chrome toys completely chrome?
Answer:
No, official chrome Lucky Draw Transformers consist of both bear plastic and chrome painted parts. Usually the plastic parts will be the same colour as the chrome parts (i.e gold plastic or silver plastic).
Interestingly the Gold Beast Wars Megatron appears to have a purple lower jaw (for the air bladder in his mouth).
Question: Are there fakes?
Answer:
There have been reports of some fake Lucky Draw toys. The majority of these "fakes" are probably actually Testshots of the final toys.
Other limited toys, Gold Wheel G1 Convoy, have had fakes made of them - although we are yet to see any actual fake Lucky Draw toys. With the increasing amount of fan made toys, mainly clear, you need to keep an eye out for these.
Question: Are there variants?
Answer:
Like many Transformers figures that have been produced there are variants to some of the Lucky Draw figures. Confirmed variants include
the Gold MegaloConvoy who has been seen with a normal and gold micron partner. The gold Voyager Movie Optimus Prime figure also has a variant.
We own two of the figures, one has a grey plastic grill on the cab, the other has a gold grill. Another example of a confirmed variant is
Gold Magmatron. On one version the toys missiles are gold plastic, on another versions the weapons are gold chrome.
Question: Don't all Lucky Draw toys come in white boxes?
Answer:
No. Most of the modern Lucky Draw toys come in plain white boxes. Prior to that a few had stickers on them and before that they came in regular released boxes (Beast Wars especially). You have to be careful of re-packaged toys (our Superlink Galvatron is missing the white sticker, so we believe it could be a testshot re-packaged or a store prize draw version).
Also the Gold Masterpiece Convoy figure's box is almost identical to the normal release, but where the text was silver it was changed to gold. - Thanks to
GoldOptimusPrime.com for the reminder.
We have also seen packaging variations for Superlink Galvatron and Beast Wars Blue Convoy.
It has been suggested that the toys are sometimes boxed in which ever box Takara had at handy at the time, though since no official images of
a boxed Lucky Draw figure exist, it is unlikely anyone will ever be able to say for certain.
Question: Where can I buy Lucky Draw toys?
Answer:
The easy answer is Ebay.com and Yahoo! Auctions Japan. The toys are always on there and can be found for good prices, if you time it right. You can also pay very high prices, so you need to keep an eye out. Some Lucky Draw items are on fixed auctions, but if you monitor them you will notice the prices fluctuate. You
can view some of the current eBay Lucky Draw listings from the homepage of this website.
There are a few shops which sell the toys, Kingdom Collectables and Tempting Toys are two of these. Conventions such as BotCon can also be good places to look. If you have access to Yahoo Auctions Japan (you need to have a fixed Japanese address and card details), it is another great place to look.
Once you buy one, or a few, Lucky Draw Transformers, you'll find it easier to get others, as they are often sold through private sales / auctions.
Question: How many Lucky Draw toys are there?
Answer:
Have a look on the
Lucky Draw Transformers Toy page to find out. We may be missing some, but as far as we
know that is a complete list. We will admit that not all the details have come to light.
