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I know Takara is responsible for these wonderful toys, and I know(guess) Hasbro is the western importer/supporter/producer(?????). But, why do some of my pieces have Takara's name on them while some say Takara-Hasbro? I tried doing my homework on this, but never found the answer I was looking for.

So, here's the breakdown.
All of the figures released in 1984-1985 were designed exclusively by Takara (or Bandai or Takatoku or ToyBox) for previous series. Some of these toys weren't released before those previous lines were canceled, or were released in different colors.

Anyway, Hasbro struck up a licensing deal with Takara to sell those toys as Transformers.

SINCE then, many Transformers toys have been designed by Takara and simply licensed by Hasbro.

Some series have been co-developed by Hasbro and Takara (TakaraTomy since 2006). Many times, Hasbro will conceptualize the figures, and Takara will do the engineering to realize Hasbro's ideas.

A scant few toys have been designed exclusively by Hasbro, including the Star Wars and Marvel Crossovers, and some other oddball toys here and there.

Now, who makes the toys? That's a more complex question. Basically, Hasbro and Takara work with (primarily Chinese) factories to commission certain quantities of production. They provide specifications, tooling, and order quantities, and the many factories produce and package the figures with whoever's name on it.

BTW, "Tomy" now refers to TakaraTomy. Since the "Tomy" name was used more outside of Japan than "Takara" when the companies were separate, TakaraTomy has chosen to brand themselves as just Tomy outside of Japan.

Does that answer your question?

I think so. Basically all that "name" stamp is is who's idea it was, not where it came from? I really didn't get to intrigued by the name stamping till I noticed a Scrapper tagged Takara and one tagged Takara-Hasbro. That there makes me raise an eyebrow. If Takara-Hasbro cooperative ideas brandished both there names, then why is an exact release of the same guy carrying just Takara's name?

duttry98 wrote:I think so. Basically all that "name" stamp is is who's idea it was, not where it came from? I really didn't get to intrigued by the name stamping till I noticed a Scrapper tagged Takara and one tagged Takara-Hasbro. That there makes me raise an eyebrow. If Takara-Hasbro cooperative ideas brandished both there names, then why is an exact release of the same guy carrying just Takara's name?

Complicating matters in the fact that SOME toys (or their components) had multiple production runs from different tools. So some figures have more than one branding possibility.

Niceguy is right. Early on, Takara's stamps were the only ones visible, because the tooling was not changed yet. Later, Hasbro added their mark since they were the primary lessees of the tooling. Later releases, for example the 1991-2 European "Classic Heroes" (gold-boxed reissues of old toys) have only Hasbro markings.

I guess the better way to think of it is that whoever is footing the bill to have the toy produced gets their mark on it. In most cases, Hasbro and Takara share molds, and have both. Sometimes, when one or the other is/was the only party selling a given toy, you'll see only one of the two marked.

Region matters too. For example, into the early releases, you will see just "Takara", not Japan or year. This seems to be a US thing. Therefore, you can find the 1984 Transformers with just Takara, then Takara+kanji+Japan+year, then Takara+Hasbro+Japan+year. The seekers however, in their first run have no stamps at all. How about that?

By the way: Shockwave was made by ToyCo.

I'd say it's more timing than region. The "Takara Circle Stamps" on early US '84 releases were a holdover from previous releases, since Transformers came to the US first, and didn't expand globally until later in the year, once the tooling had been changed to reflect more trademark information.