It has been bought to our attention that there is, and has been, auctions appearing on ebay for toys claiming to be, or hinting that they could be, lucky draw items including a black Astrotrain.  There is no such prize figure and what's more the figure appears to be a fake using the "lunchtime special" mold.

TakaraTomy are not releasing, or considering to release, G1 based prize figures at this time. The only prize figures recently have been based on Transformers Prime and will be based on the Transformers Go line and are well documented now on TakaraTomy's websites as well as staffs Twitter accounts.

­KOToys.com have updated their forum with three new images of their upcoming non-official Transformers Classics Ghost Dirge and Transformers Classics Ghost Ramjet toys.  The figures are clear plastic versions of the Classics / Henkei toys to go along side the Ghoest of Starscream figure. You can view the latest images of this knock-offs below.

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­Mike, from KO-Toys have posted some images of the boxes and instructions that their knock-off cassettes will come in along with the following update

"Thats good cause one dino cassette needs one part a bit tighter, so we were hoping last time would be the last adjustment but it looks like we will need maximum 1 more, which will add 1 more week to it.  I will post the tighter samples later (also they are using more of the right pins). here are some of the package design photos"

GenZhao then later added that these figures are likely to be released next month.  You can see copies of the images below.

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Thanks to Genzhao for pointing out that we have become somewhat lazy and have not updated all of the galleries and news story on both Transformers At The Moon and Lucky Draw Transformers which are related to chrome figures to clearly state which are official items and which are fake.  We are sorry for this, any of you that spoke to us at Auto Assembly last year regarding the figures that we had on display would have learnt about some of the fakes as well as how to spot them.  We have posted various comments on a few message boards around the globe over the last year on fake chrome items as well as making some references to them in news stories on our own websites.  We are going to try to run through all of our own news stories and galleries to try to ensure that it is much easier for you to tell whether the items are genuine or not.

We originally planned to have three dedicated toy gallery section on the last revamp of www.luckydrwatransformers.com one to official items, a second for known fakes and a third for unconfirmed items.  Unfortunately due to time this did not happen, but it is something we will look into introducing in the future.

For quick reference there are known fake lucky draws of the following figures:

Gold Henkei Convoy (the most common).  There are at least three variants of the fakes including the one that we own.

Gold Henkei Galvatron (loose variant) - The loose toy with the orange parts is assumed to be a fake.  you can compare it to our carded version within that gallery

Gold Beast Convoy - We do not own this toy but at least two fakes are known to have been produced and sold last year.  They had no weapons, were chromed in the same darker chrome as the fake Henkei figures (a much darker chrome than the chrome Takara were using in the 90s when the Beast Wars Lucky Draws were released).  The toy is a chromed over reissued and not the original Primal / Beast Convoy figure.

Gold Encore and 25th Anniversary Convoy - There are boxed and un-boxed, long and short smokestack variations of this toy.  It was produced in 2008 / 2009 by HeerosToyMaker / TinTinHappy.  The toy is a custom chrome figure.  Again much like the above toys, the chrome is the darker "orange" and distributed by the same sellers.

Silver Henkei Convoy - Again made by Heero.  You can see through the silver to the base figure.

Silver Protoform Optimus Prime - Also made by Heero, this toy is one of the better fakes

Silver G1 Convoy - We purchased this toy back in 2004/2005, showing it off to the public for the first time in 2006 and then later on this website.  Its a fake.

Silver Binaltech Smokescreen - We do not own this toy but found the pictures online.  It is another custom

Silver Chrome Soundwave - From the same source as all of these figures.  This tyo was produced back in the early 2000s and is believed to be fake.

Silver G1 Starscream - Though the source of this toy is unknown and there was talk about official chrome figure during one of the BotCon rarities panel, we believe this figure is a fake.  What is for sure is that it is not a Lucky Draw item