As some of you already know, I collect all transformable versions of Optimus Prime and Megatron, plus a few other characters. But for my Optimus and Megatron collection, I was missing 2 particular pieces: the Happy Meal Energon versions only released in South America in 2005. While the toys we got came with cubes that had lights and/or sounds, the South American ones were completely different molds that had an auto-transform feature. The set was completed by Inferno and Demolisher. Been looking for that set for years (about 4).
About 2-3 years ago, a single Optimus finally surfaced on Ebay, with a BIN. It sold minutes after being listed for about $35 if I recall. Missed it. Never seen a single toy from that set ever listed again after that.
During that time, I was also looking on Mercado Libre (South America's version of Ebay) for Brazil, Mexico and Argentina. Nothing.
Earlier last year, I thought I had finally found one in Brazil. Contacted my Brazilian friend through Facebook (a girl I met on some mIRC Aerosmith site during the 90s!) to ask her if she could buy it for me (sellers never ship internationally it seems). The toy was bagged, so it was hard to confirm if it was the right toy or not, but it definitely was an Energon Happy Meal toy. After sending the initial payment (about $40), it took me several weeks to receive the toy. When I finally got it... much to my horror, it was just the regular version I already had! Oh wait, was it? No, it was some odd variant released a year later. All explained
here, with pictures.
So, the quest wasn't over. Months went by, and I finally spotted the entire set. That was in September. In Argentina this time. Contacted my Brazilian friend again, but it turned out the seller was willing to ship to Brazil, and much less Canada. What to do? Clock was ticking.
A couple weeks later, I decided to find someone in Argentina to buy the toys for me. But who? I had no friend from that country. I asked around, to no avail. Then I had the idea to ask on an Argentina-based Facebook page. Since I'm a mountain biker, I thought I could trust fellow mountain bikers. Found a page, asked around... no answer. Then I thought, hey, there must be Transformers fans in Argentina somewhere. Finally found a page, then the guy in charge of it PM'd him almost right away to offer his help. At last! But that was only the beginning...
The language barrier was brutal! His English wasn't very good, so I had to use Google Translator to communicate with him in Spanish. He finally bought the toys at the beginning of November last year.
Took him about 3 weeks to receive the toys. We were now at the beginning of December. It took us a while to find a way to ship the toys. I thought he would just accept Paypal, walk to the post office and be done with it, but it sure wasn't going to be this simple! On top of that, the police was on strike in his country and somehow the postal services were pretty much paralyzed. He wanted me to arrange pick up with UPS or Fedex so I would cover the shipping right away. After making some phone calls, found out I couldn't do that. He had to ship. We wasted about a month figuring out what to do.
We finally agreed that I would send him the money online though Western Union (he doesn't have Paypal). Which I did. That was at the beginning of January. But he took forever to pick up the money, and when he was finally ready to ship, he needed to leave for 6 weeks to work on a cruise ship. But I wasn't ready to give up! He said he would ship the toys when he was going to return in mid-February. After all the wait... he finally did. And today, months and $100 ($30 for the toys and $70 in shipping - $20 to ship within Argentina + $50 from Argentina to Canada) later, the toys finally arrived!
Here they are in all their frickin' McDonald's glory!!!!
