Cobra Stickers vs. Ruben?

[MikePrime]

\r\n \r\n I have read that they pre-cut their stickers. I think that site is run by the same people that make Transformers stickers, Reprolables.com. I often buy sticker sets from them and they make good Transformers stickers. So I would expect the quality from Cobrastickers.com to be the same.\r\n \r\n

[C-GDSM 2487]

\r\n \r\n MY mate get mine from cobra strickers i found them very good
\nwell worth the money top class
\nnever used ruben
\ni read some were you have to cut them out ???i dont know like
\ni said never used his..
\ni am happy with cobra strickers \r\n \r\n

[FireFox91]

\r\n \r\n I have used both so I think I can give a pretty good comparison.
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\nRuben seems to have the better selection of replacement stickers for vintage stuff. His are very sharp and high quality. In some cases, his look better than the Hasbro stickers. You have to cut all of his out yourself which can be time consuming, but also allows you to get a better presentation if you have an eye for that level of detail. His stickers also appear to be thinner than Cobra Stickers or the original Hasbro stickers.
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\nCobra Stickers are very much like the original Hasbro stickers. They are all pre-cut and have the same thickness. They stock a lot of custom stickers sheets and faction logos which are nice for customizers. The down side to them is that they are expensive. Their stickers cost much more than Ruben for sure. In terms of original sheet repros, they have a good stock but not as many as Ruben. Ruben has most of the most popular vehicles, Cobra Stickers still is missing quite a few.
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\nOverall, both are excellent sources for stickers. You actually can\'t go wrong with either. It just depends on what you need stickers more mostly. After that, it is price and pre-cut/cut yourself.\r\n \r\n

[max27]

\r\n \r\n Does J Ruben have a website or a post on here with a list of what he has with prices? Also does anyone know if he has any generic Joe/Cobra sheets or Subteam sets?
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\nThanks\r\n \r\n

[navy viper]

\r\n \r\n Jaimanstone,
\ndo you know why he was thinking of not doing the repo stickers ? I\'m just asking for your opinion here if you dont know for certin ? Do you thnk I should save up & buy all that I plan on restoring from him in case he does decide to quit ? I\'ve read many threads about him & his stickers & what you said really kinda surprised me? I would have thought he just about had the market all to himself ? I\'ve used "COBRA STICKERS" with great succes (until it\'s time to pay for them) .The other "faction" stickers do get you thinking of really- would be /could be customs and are really cool I think ? let me know if you have the time\r\n \r\n

[Flophouse]

\r\n \r\n I\'ve supplied Ruben with about 75% of his decal sets, in fact I just sent him another template with 5 vintage vehicle sets and I have another ready to go once the others are done, He\'s never mentioned anything to me about quitting. I know he just bought his own business down there and I\'m sure is very busy with that and his kids, but as far as I know, as long as I keep sending him decals he\'ll get them made.
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\nI recently sent him some Canadian conversion decals for Mobat, Vamp MkII, Rolling Thunder, and Dragonfly. I was also going to see if he\'ll do some 25th decals as Hasbro\'s were crap.\r\n \r\n

[navy viper]

\r\n \r\n wild Bill,
\nits nice of you to reply to the comments of other members. buisness is buisness -there\'s allways someone better & cheaper and not allways at the same time. I\'m glad we have you & Ruben . I would be happy to see another who does more custom stuff , such as the same sticker set for like the skystriker but done in different colors (grey/silver) to give it a "realistic millitary" color scheme ? I don\'t know if that could ever happen but if the hobby grows bigger w/ after marker suppliers, I guess it could be possible ? anyway welcome & keep up the good work . I wonder if it is possible to do surveys on here to see what collectors would like to see from you guys ? I\'m not sure if thats possible on here (?) but it would be nice\r\n \r\n

[AmbroseKalifornia]

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I would be happy to see another who does more custom stuff , such as the same sticker set for like the skystriker but done in different colors (grey/silver) to give it a "realistic millitary" color scheme ?

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That\'s a great idea!\r\n \r\n

[Flophouse]

\r\n \r\n I\'m all for anyone who puts money, time, and energy into keeping this hobby alive and enjoyable for collectors, so I wish success to Cobrastickers, honestly. I just happen to have a long association with J. Ruben so I deal with him.
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\nI realize the internet is a huge cauldron of borrowed and reused images so I just thought I\'d point out a little irony. Cobrastickers uses a lot of images from Yojoe on their website, images that are actually mine and that I let Yojoe use. The irony is that all my vehicles I photograph have J. Ruben repros on them. So I just thought it funny that one business selling repros is using sample images from a competitor on their website.
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\nAgain, no ill will to Cobrastickers, I don\'t even care that much that my photos are being used, it\'s just funny that the vehicles shown are covered in J. Ruben\'s decals.\r\n \r\n

[Tolan]

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All my vehicles I photograph have J. Ruben repros on them.

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\r\nShouldn\'t you mention that in each of the vehicle pages that you have done.
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\r\nWhile some of the decals are nearly exact there are a bunch that aren\'t.
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\r\nBTW Do any of your pictured vehicles have repro parts ??
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\r\n....Does it matter ?? \r\n \r\n

[Flophouse]

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Shouldn\'t you mention that in each of the vehicle pages that you have done.
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\nWhile some of the decals are nearly exact there are a bunch that aren\'t.
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\nBTW Do any of your pictured vehicles have repro parts ??
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\n....Does it matter ??

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I would hope and think that collectors looking at the newer vehicle pages would know these are new decals. No vintage decals look that crisp and bright. After this many years, no vintage decal can look that good. Even unused vintage decal sheets are not what they used to be; color in the ink dulls, glue breaks down. I just received an unused original Raider decal sheet, that looked very good, but when the decals were peeled off to apply, the glue was next to gone and the decals would never hold in the long run.
\nSo I will get repros made of them.
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\nI know repro anything is a fence divider. For the record, no parts of any kind on my vehicles use repro replacements. No Flagg parts, no Moray searchlight lens, no Maggot radar dishes, nothing. I only seek the best original parts I can to photograph. But I view decals differently. They are simply not built to last. Even vintage decals in nice shape, still don\'t look fantastic to me, but that\'s just me. I\'ve used this analogy several times before, but I\'ll do it again; You can restore a vintage \'69 Mustang using only vintage engine and body parts and avoid using modern replacement parts, but you can\'t buy gallons of original vintage paint that is still of use. You need to buy new paint. What you can do though is buy specialty matching paint that is matched to your vehicle\'s production year. That\'s how I view repro decals.
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\nI don\'t know of many decals that aren\'t exact matches from Ruben, at least the decals I\'ve provided him. When they are finished, he emails me images of the repros and I point out any errors that don\'t match. I know there is an error on a few Terrordrome decals, but I never submitted those to him and I eventually noticed the error and the decals have been corrected, I just haven\'t re-photographed that toy to show the fixes.
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\nMy goal with volunteering to "remaster", as we call it, the vehicle archives was to show these great toys in a bright, clinical, showroom condition manner. I fully clean and restore each toy I get and then I give them new decals to complete the look. I do this because Yojoe is regarded as the best archive website, but when I first started searching the archives I was amazed at just how crappy the photos were. Granted most of those photos were from last decade and web technology and digital cameras were also crappy.
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\nSo yes, my vehicles have repro decals but do not have repro parts. If there\'s anyone out there who is bothered by this, I gladly invite them to take over for me. It would save me lots of money and not be such a vampire of my free time.\r\n \r\n

[darthdrew13]

\r\n \r\n Dude! Thanks Flophouse! I really appreciate your desire to make the archives the best they can be. Your work is truly amazing. I honestly thought you were using vintage stickers with a few photoshop edits here and there. Nice to know the real deal. I agree with the restoration analogy.
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\r\nI do have a question though. How are you determining the original retail price on the vehicles (or is someone else doing that)? I ask because some prices just don\'t seem right and also we all know different stores had different prices. What if there was a range? That way you could update the page as new pictures of boxes with price tags came in.
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\r\nThanks again for all your hard work! I LOVE the Remastered vehicles! I\'d love to see the same treatment on figures someday!\r\n \r\n

[Flophouse]

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\nI do have a question though. How are you determining the original retail price on the vehicles (or is someone else doing that)?
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\nI\'d love to see the same treatment on figures someday!

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\nI have no input on all that text info, I don\'t actually do the page upgrades myself, I just create all the images and then email them to Phil who does all coding of the page and such. I\'m not 100% sure where the retail prices are coming from.
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\nRemastering the figure archive has been discussed, and I\'d love to do it, but honestly that\'s such a MAJOR labor intensive task that I can\'t do that on a volunteer basis, it would have to be paid in some fashion.\r\n \r\n

[navy viper]

\r\n \r\n I have used cobra stickers on only two vehicles, cobra hiss & the tiger force tiger sting with great success untill now. I got a set of repo stickers from them for the VAMP II, there were a few things that could have been done better. the numbers for the water cans are black & the two original vehicles I have the numbers are white ? not sure of a variation but I didn\'t use the repo number stickers .the "46DP" sticker is smaller then the original but all the other stickers appear to be about the same size .the last thing that bugged me was the scorpion sticker: the original is cut out in a circle where the repo cut out is more oval/ egg shaped ? it\'s not really a big deal but it is obvious that its a repo & not original. I picked this set up because it had a discount price on it & there stickers are a little pricey but not outrageous . I have purchased a set of faction stickers & a set of cobra chest stickers, the chest stickers aren\'t the right size either but they do look o.k. I will continue to use there stickers but I\'m gonna give Ruben a try next time I get some $$ & decide from there\r\n \r\n

[hotdog]

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I have used cobra stickers on only two vehicles, cobra hiss & the tiger force tiger sting with great success untill now. I got a set of repo stickers from them for the VAMP II, there were a few things that could have been done better. the numbers for the water cans are black & the two original vehicles I have the numbers are white ? not sure of a variation but I didn\'t use the repo number stickers .the "46DP" sticker is smaller then the original but all the other stickers appear to be about the same size .the last thing that bugged me was the scorpion sticker: the original is cut out in a circle where the repo cut out is more oval/ egg shaped ? it\'s not really a big deal but it is obvious that its a repo & not original. I picked this set up because it had a discount price on it & there stickers are a little pricey but not outrageous . I have purchased a set of faction stickers & a set of cobra chest stickers, the chest stickers aren\'t the right size either but they do look o.k. I will continue to use there stickers but I\'m gonna give Ruben a try next time I get some $$ & decide from there

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I gave cobra stickers a try after seeing figures restickered with cobra emblems. I had a bunch that i ordered from ruben, but they never mated well with the contours of the plastic chests. well the cobra stickers do, but they are much smaller than the original sized logos. also on the silver sticker sheet at least two of the cobra snake vertical lines are merged. certainly they are ok to resticker a figure or custom with, but so were rubens, except the logos ruben sells for the 3 3/4 figures are more accurate in size, and appearance.-\r\n \r\n

[FireFox91]

\r\n \r\n You would be hard pressed to find anyone to debate what Flophouse just said. Well, hard to find anyone with a good counter argument. I completely agree that repro labels are not only acceptable, they are preferred because they look so much nicer.\r\n \r\n

[WildBill]

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Cobrastickers uses a lot of images from Yojoe on their website, images that are actually mine and that I let Yojoe use. The irony is that all my vehicles I photograph have J. Ruben repros on them.

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I did not know this fact! It is ironic that we are using them.
\nThe pictures look great by the way and kudos to you for taking the time and effort in photographing all those vehicles for the archive.
\nRegards,
\nRJ\r\n \r\n

[Flophouse]

I do have a question though. How are you determining the original retail price on the vehicles (or is someone else doing that)?

I'd love to see the same treatment on figures someday!

I have no input on all that text info, I don't actually do the page upgrades myself, I just create all the images and then email them to Phil who does all coding of the page and such. I'm not 100% sure where the retail prices are coming from.

Remastering the figure archive has been discussed, and I'd love to do it, but honestly that's such a MAJOR labor intensive task that I can't do that on a volunteer basis, it would have to be paid in some fashion.