Unreleased Kreo Hound & Hasbro Display

Those of you that are familiar with Toy de Jour (or my [Sam] work history) are aware that we have some connections in the toy industry and mostly at Hasbro. So from time to time we'll get in some neat/rare pieces. A couple years ago a package arrived and included in it was a giant block-made display and a spattering of Transformers Kreo figures. That's about as much info I'm really supposed to give when it comes to who/how these came to us so you'll forgive me if I don't elaborate there. But if you've seen our eBay auctions or follow our Instagram feed you've seen that we get prototype and un-released stuff from time to time.

It took me a while to realize where I had seen this display before, but it was from photos of the Botcon 2011 where the Kreo figures were first shown off. The photos I saw were from www.seibertron.com and featured pretty much all of the figures that were included in this lot. Though some figures were shown in the Botcon photos that didn't seem to make it to me including Megatron, Shockwave, Skywarp and Sideswipe.

There's also a couple weapons missing; one of Thundercracker's blasters and the gun that Prowl was pictured with. I assume this came back to Hasbro after wherever it was displayed (I'll get back to why I'm now switching from saying Botcon 2011 in a moment) sat on someone's desk for a while and folks played with the figures, maybe took a couple back to their desks, and in the process caused the differences between what I saw online and what showed up in person. 

Here's the group shot from Seibertron.com: 

So while I'm certain this display was used for showing off these figures, I'm going to point out that the set I have is not the set shown here and here's the reasons why. 

• The Optimus I received is from the box set that was available through various Hasbro promotions during 2011 and features an open-chest with the Matrix whereas the one shown from Botcon is the first release Optimus that came with the first wave of building sets. (All of the figures shown above are from that first wave of building sets.)
• The display itself is a different build. I looked at these photos quite a bit to compare my figures and this display and there's a few things that give it away. The photo from Botcon has some angled pieces on the sides that cause a sleek look, but mine has squared pieces causing "stairs" that run along the sides. But what I spotted that cinched it for me was the gray stripes under each level. If you look below Mirage in the middle of the Botcon photo the lower level of the gray line has two pieces that meet right under Mirage's feet and pretty much directly in the middle of the whole display. Mine is the opposite and the top row of the gray has two pieces that meet right in the middle. Once you notice that you can spot other differences in the gray lines. 

Those things lead me to believe that this isn't the exact same set that was displayed at Botcon (unless there was more than one display there) but possibly another base that was made at the same time for display either internally at Hasbro (if you've ever been you know that they display quite a bit of their current brands throughout the compound) or possibly at another convention such as SDCC or Toy Fair where they'd need to show the same figures but not have to worry about getting the display from one show to another in once piece. It's quite possible that a few of these bases could have been made and designated for various shows in 2011. 

Left: Botcon, Right: Ours

So all that aside, and just being happy knowing that this display came from Hasbro and I got some free Kreo figures without having to get the big sets that I was never interested in - I displayed this with the rest of my Transformer Kreo figures and went about my happy life. 

Sometime later I was doing a bit of cataloging of my figures and came across this base with the figures which was now no longer displayed but rather now in storage. That was when I realized that one of these little dorks actually never made it to retail though shown off by Hasbro originally.
That would be the mean, green machine - Hound. 

So, every other figure that was displayed at Botcon saw release in those building sets, but old Hound here got the boot. It's possible that he was planned to be included in one of the other sets and not necessarily in his own set since some Kreon figures were included in sets that they weren't the focus of (Shockwave was released in the Megatron set) - and may have been pulled at the last minute. 

Hound did get a couple Kreo/Kreon releases one as a part of the 'Class of '84' boxset released at SDCC in 2014 and as a 'Battle Changer' in 2015. Both of these releases are far off from this design shown originally. The Class of '84 Hound is much more detailed and a darker green and the Battle Changer Hound doesn't follow the same format as the traditional Kreon minifigures with buildable/moveable arms and legs. 

Left: Battle Changer, Center: Class of '84, Right: Unreleased Left and center images taken from TFU.info

So while this design is much simpler than the other two that did see release, the design is much more in line with the first series figures and a pretty neat piece that unfortunately, with the Kreo line overall dying off in the past few years, will probably never see the light of day at mass retail.

This whole display including the unreleased/cancelled Hound is currently up for auction here.