Mego Micronaut Toy Prototype: Salesman's Sample Lobros

Mego Micronaut Toy Prototype: Salesman’s Sample Lobros
Collection of Ray “AcroRay” Miller, 2015

Micronauts Lobos Sample collection of Ray Miller Photo by Bob Beverly

Discovery:

This artifact was auctioned as a genuine Mego “salesman’s sample” in late 2014, astoundingly fetching only a price typical for a normal, packaged Mego Lobros. Its new owner quickly flipped it for a modest markup, without the “salesman’s sample” claim continuing in its pedigree. In spite of these odd circumstances, I was confident it was genuine and acquired it for my own collection.

This is the first actual vintage toy prototype of a Mego Micronaut – one that is directly attributable to Mego’s operations – to surface in the public hobby. While there are a couple of vintage toy artifacts that might be prototypes of Micronaut toy concepts, those obscure items’ origins and the intentions behind their creations are unknown. Only paper concept illustrations, engineering blueprints, photography and packaging artwork – even a handful of original factory tooling – have remaind to document Mego’s own development process for the Micronauts.

Micronauts Lobos Sample collection of Ray Miller Photo by Bob Beverly

Details:

This is a rare “salesman’s sample” of the Micronaut alien invader Lobros – confirmed by other experienced Mego collectors familiar with the piece’s auction source and with other well-documented Mego samples that have come from a retired department store chain executive, who had been given the piece by Mego. The Salesman’s Sample would be a stand-in, demonstrating to potential corporate customers how the latest Micronaut product they were pre-ordering would appear to their toy departments’ shoppers, since the actual Micronaut product was still in stages of development and manufacturing overseas. This would have been hand-made in 1979 or 1980 at Mego’s offices in New York city or by one of their many product development contractors, assembled from test shot and proof elements, carefully crafted to be as bright, exciting and authentic as possible. Millions of dollars in sales could rely on a sample like this.

Micronauts Lobos Sample collection of Ray Miller Photo by Bob Beverly

The packaging card is a printing proof and distinctively lacks a diecut peg hole, but is otherwise identical to the brilliantly illustrated final product. The plastic blister is unevenly formed in comparison to a factory-made one, and is taped – rather than heat- or glue-sealed – to the backing card. The bulbous blister and sticky tape show the dust and wear of years, and are separating from the card, but would have been bright and crystal clear in 1979 to display the toy adventurer inside.

In the interest of exploring the figure completely, I carefully cut the tape along one loose edge of the blister in order to lift it and remove the Lobros sample.

Micronauts Lobos Sample collection of Ray Miller Photo by Bob Beverly

The Lobros figure is a test-shot and is generally true to the final toy, but is distinctly different in many fine details. Mego’s Micronaut alien invaders are cast completely in color, using no paint applications. But this is made in unusual non-production plastics, entirely hand-painted in glossy bright colors, except for its properly glowing green plastic brain. Lobros’ tongue-tendrils are orange in the final production toy, but painted a bright yellow here.

The sample’s ankle cuffs are thickly painted red, while they are orange plastic on the final product. Note that Ken Kelly’s packaging illustration shows Lobros with no tongue, a blue ‘brain’, and red ankle cuffs on his feet, because his deadline pre-dated some final changes to the toy, as do aspects of this hand-crafted piece. And while the figure’s test shot weapon pieces, tongue, wrist connectors, ankle parts and feet are painted, they are actually cast in sliver plastic under that paint – the same dense, flexible silver plastic used in the Micropolis building sets’ hinge connectors. That type of plastic doesn’t accept most paint well, so flakes of paint are scattered inside the package blister, having broken free from numerous corners and edges of the silver plastic parts

Micronauts Lobos Sample collection of Ray Miller Photo by Bob Beverly

Micronauts Lobos Sample collection of Ray Miller Photo by Bob Beverly

Micronauts Lobos Sample collection of Ray Miller Photo by Bob Beverly

Under a tidy layer of fine red paint, the rest of the body parts are all made from the milky tan plastic often seen in action figure test shots. This test plastic peeks through the paint in nooks and crannies – the inner edges of the body halves, the post inside the jaw were the tongue and brain attach, inside the screw cavity in the figure’s back, and elsewhere. The red paint is a slightly deeper red tone than the retail toy’s red color. The pelvis is also shot in the tan plastic, but painted glossy orange.

Micronauts Lobos Sample collection of Ray Miller Photo by Bob Beverly

Micronauts Lobos Sample collection of Ray Miller Photo by Bob Beverly

The fine details seem to exactly match the final toy. Its transparent shoulder joints are ‘stock’ Micronaut parts, also used with Micronaut alien invaders. The test shot in highly articulated, but this sample’s feet and ankle cuffs were super-glued on, immobilized, and the glue caused some white hazing along the figure’s legs & torso. The test shot’s joints and fit of parts have varying degrees of tightness or looseness, more so than the final product. Its glow-in-the-dark brain falls out of the clam-like mouth easily, and seems slightly different in shape from the final product, suggesting pending tooling adjustments.