Hi -
I see Swoop show up from time to time and am always AMAZED at how much money he is going for. People are always asking a lot for him and I was wondering WHY?

I don't follow Transformers, but still have all mine from childhood and know I have Swoop. I believe he is well played with - but I have one and just don't understand why he's worth more than the others.

If I recall he was the first (and for a long time only) dinobot I had. I think I later on got Grimlock and the brontosaurus.

Anyways just curious if anyone knows anything about transformers.

Second question - what is the most rare gen 1 figure that was widely released in the US?

there are several parts of Swoop that are very fragile, especially in the beak area, add to that his popularity since the 80's and the several accessories that may be lost.

You could ask why V.2 Snake-Eyes costs so much since there had to have been at least as many of him made as every other figure from those years.

Yeah, swoops breakability makes him a bit more sought after. Although, even his weapons fetch a bit more than the other dinobots. IMO, he also has an added coolness factor over the majority of Dinobots.

I wouldn't be surprised if prices come down on him since there are MIB Chinese Knock Offs that are identical to the original popping up on eBay.

The most rare Transformer....that's a good question. It could vary if you're talking about original distribution numbers, or finding figures today ranging from a beat up body to a mint, complete one.

Maybe Reflector, but that was a mail-in exclusive, so perhaps not fitting of "widely released".

Fortress Maximus may be another candidate - at least a complete one. I'd imagine there were few per store since there's only so much shelf space and it was rather expensive.

A complete Monstructor and Piranacon set, especially the latter in the giftset, are very rare too.

He is also the most short packed of the bunch (along with Snarl). The first three, were the first wave, and snarl and swoop were the second, and there are fewer of them. PLus, they did not make Sludge and Swoop in G2, so those two have even fewer when the two sets are combined. Thus overall Swoop is the rarest of the 5 (then add on top of that, the comments above about fragility etc).

John M>

Thanks for the input y'all.
I had no idea he was one of the harder ones to find. I don't know if the beak on mine is broken or not? it was intact the last time I played with him, but years of storage may have impacted that. Hopefully not.

Regardless,
Thanks for the help

Swoop was one of the first transformers I got. His beak broke taking it out of the package, but he was still really cool.

I got the Piranacon gift set a few years later...still some of my all time favorite toys.

I don't think I've even seen Reflector before in person.

Reflector is terrible. The middle robot looks, well, sort of like he did in the cartoon, but the other two look totally different. Hasbro didn't even paint them to match the third robot, one is red and one is blue. I had Reflector as a child, it was important to me back then to have all the original Decepticons and it irked me he was never released in stores, but I was disappointed when I got it.

As a camera it looks like the Reflector in the series. I don't know the story as to why he was included in the cartoon but not in the original toy lineup. Anybody here know why?

I can remember Swoop being hard to find when I was a kid.