Chinese Joes

[gutstheberserker]

Does anybody know anything about Chinese Joes? Is the Duke MOC rare or valuable?

[Obiwanjacoby]

A *large* number of these Chinese G.I.Joe figures were made available to toy dealers in the United States and abroad. Eight figures in particular are extremely easy to find - the Chinese Duke, Chinese Flint, Tiger Force Roadblock (named Barricade, Lifeline, Dialtone, Destro 92, Cobra Commander 82, and a Chinese-exclusive Major Bludd.

The US secondary market was flooded with these 'round about 1996-97 (IIRC). All the Chinese carded Joes in general are not as rare as say. . .the carded Japanese figures or a carded Euro-exclusive. Just an example for reference.

The Chinese Duke is the rarest of all the Chinese carded figures. Some would say it's the CC, but I'd argue against that. Because he's packed missing his original gun. And with the built-in recharger on his back, this makes it more discouraging that way.

Apparently, there's not only the Chinese Duke with the Hit & Run arms as seen on Yojoe, but rumors persist of an "elastic cuff" Duke on Chinese card. Still waiting for pics though. I just think there's alot of confusion on this.

If there's one thing that needs to be ironed-out, it's terminology regarding Duke. The archives need to be cleared-up regarding "cuffs", "elastic", and "rolled-up" sleeves. There's also confusion as to which elastic cuffs were used on which figure. You got Hit & Run elastic, Stalker, elastic. . .GAH!

You get the idea. Hope this helps.

-PJ

[gutstheberserker]

Thanks -- that is useful information. I was also confused by Yojoe's terminology of the Duke cuff variations.

[airedevon]

My two cents: I have found that the YoJoe quote Obiwanjacoby posted above is quite accurate.. that is, that eight of the first wave figures are all relatively easy to find with a little patience... As was said earlier, there was a whole bunch of them widely available in the US in the late 90's and many of them are still around...

Also several of the second wave Chinese carded figures are still fairly available today- (those with both Chinese and English on the front)...BUT... There are some Chinese figures from both waves that are unbelievably hard to find - and some of them get quite pricey!!

--scarce/rare figures from the first wave include figures like Storm Shadow, Snake Eyes, and several others...

--scarce/rare figures from the second wave include Static Line, and a few others..

I am still a few figures short of a full set of Chinese carded figures (from both waves) and I have been actively searching for them for about four years! :-) By contrast when I started collecting Japanese carded figures, I was able to put a full set together in a very short time... And I think that is true today, as well...

I love the packaging of both lines! Well worth the search imho :-)

Aire

[airedevon]

PJ, that's interesting about the rumor of 2 different arm variations for the Chinese carded Duke... I hadn't heard that before. I was aware of the 2 different arm variations for the Japanese and US versions, but I didn't know about the possible Chinese variation.. Thanks for sharing that!

Does anyone have any further info on this?

Aire

[Obiwanjacoby]

PJ, that's interesting about the rumor of 2 different arm variations for the Chinese carded Duke... I hadn't heard that before. I was aware of the 2 different arm variations for the Japanese and US versions, but I didn't know about the possible Chinese variation.. Thanks for sharing that!

That was a couple years ago. It might have been a confusion between Japanese and Chinese carded Joes. You see it on ebay all the time.

-PJ

[airedevon]

Yea, that would make sense.. Thanks for the clarification! I'll keep my eye out just in case :-)

[Obiwanjacoby]

--rare figures from the first wave include figures like Storm Shadow, Snake Eyes, and several others...

--rare figures from the second wave include Static Line, Rock Viper, and several others..

Here's a cardback of the rest.


-PJ

[airedevon]

PJ thanks for posting the cardback! The Rock Viper I'm looking for is from wave one (not wave 2)... sorry about that :-) I corrected it above !

THANKS!
Aire

[Falcone]

why doesnt the international archive have all the chinese and japanese figures listed?