The Allspark did something pretty awesome today.

[Terminal Hipster]

What'd we do, you ask? Well, a copy of Hasbro's catalog for the 1986 Toy Fair showed up on Ebay, which includes several photos of pre-production Transformers figures from that year's line. There are several colour and mold variants pictured, and the catalog offers a neat look at what some figures might've looked like back in the day.

But with a $500 asking price, it wasn't too likely any fan would end up buying the book. So the membership at the 'Spark - including Jim Sorensen - pooled their resources, kicked in a few bucks each, and placed an offer on the book... and got it!

The plan is to have the Transformers pages from the catalog scanned at high resolution to be posted for everyone to enjoy at TFWiki.net, then the book will be re-auctioned with the proceeds either going to charity or to maintain the Wiki. That last part's still up in the air.

Neat, hey?

http://www.allspark.com/content/view/6744/20/

[Malwave]

^^ yeah, I'll say

it's good to see people with kind hearts in such a crule world nowadays...makes me still have faith in mankind x3

[Quantum]

Very classy move Allspark!

[OneShallFall]

Very cool guys THANK YOU!

[Terminal Hipster]

Thanks guys. As a little follow-up, there ended up being some money leftover when we bought the book, so the guys organizing the drive for the catalog decided to donate the surplus (as well as whatever comes from re-auctioning the book once it has been scanned) to the Hasbro Children's Hospital in Rhode Island. To make that even sweeter, the call for donations is going to stay open until Sunday night with whatever ends up coming in going to the charity.

Here's some info on the Hasbro Children's Hospital:

http://www.lifespan.org/hch/about/history.htm

I think it's pretty nice that what started as some Transformers fans wanting to see some pictures of toys in a promotional booklet from 1986 is going to end up helping some sick kids in 2010.

(And yeah, this is an Allspark drive, but I'm sure no one from there would mind if anyone from here wanted to chip in at this point.)

[Mumps]

Wow, thats really awesome of them!

[JLvatron]

Originally Posted by Malwave

it's good to see people with kind hearts in such a crule world nowadays...makes me still have faith in mankind x3

Mankind?


"Cruel world" is what G1 Silverbolt said goodbye to when he was willing to sacrifice himself for the world. It gives me faith in heroic Transformers like him!!!