Dragon Ball Z Preproduction Item! Help!
 

Hey guys, I'm brand new here at ToyArk, but I've been collection toys nearly my entire life. I primarily collect Star Wars toys now, and also I do custom action figures.

My father is a commercial artist and worked for many of the major toy companies in the 80s and 90s. He even has done some of the original GI Joe sculpts back in the 80s. He was also one of the go-to sculptors of the hologram craze. Among that work he did the sculpts for the Dragon Ball Z hologram cards (the ones with a full hologram side, and the Dragon Ball Z logo on a white background on the other side). Guys at DBZ sent him a preproduction Goku 2 up (a 2 up is a sculpt done twice the size of the intended toy, which will later be shrunk down for casting and production) to work from as reference, as well as a large poster sized scan of one of his holograms (the first DBZ one he did) which was a preproduction scan before they were released as cards.

A little history and details for Goku:
I'm interested in getting this Goku appraised. I have some experience with DBZ stuff, loved the show when I was younger, and know that the Japanese versions are always worth more. This prototype came directly from the company he worked for which was either FUnamation and/or Toriyama himself. He remembers that the guys barely spoke english. The Goku has never been on any market, never been for sale/trade, and was sent directly to my father. He was designed in sections and came rubber cemented together, but could easily be removed and broken down for storage. He is unlike any other Goku toy, statue, or prototype I've ever seen. Interestingly his boots have no laces and his belt is sculpted on as part of his pants. He also has a hairstyle and expression I've never encountered in my research. he looks pretty bad a$$! He's also in human form and not SS form. He is cast in unpainted plastic and is hollow. He is approximately 11-13" tall and his feet are stamped in Japanese.

If anyone could help translate the Japanese that would also be awesome!!!

The speckling is just from some light dirt as he has been stored in a box for years. It can easily be cleaned off.

Any help I can get in identifying this piece and determining its value would be awesome!

He is not for sale! I merely want a friendly free appraisal.

Thanks guys!

-AFE

Man...looks like a protoytype resin statue! Your father work with Toriyama?

Yes he did. All the resin statue prototypes I've seen are solid tho. This one is most likely from 1989, so just 4 years after Toriyama released DB. I was talking with some Japanese toy collectors about the value of about $4000. If it's one-of-a-kind it's possible it could be priceless, or worth more than that. That seems like a lot of money, but it's all a matter of finding the right buyer.

that's basically what I would say. It's hard to gauge value on something that's unique. Might try an auction if you're really lookin for a big sale.

Yeah. Basically I didn't want to post if for sale for a high amount and have a bunch of DBZ experts be like "oh that's a cracker jack prize" meaning that it's some run-of-the-mill thing every other collector has already.

I brought this up on a DBZ forum and I think this can shed some light on what you have...

DragonBallToys - Check this out

That may be what it's worth, but it's hard to say whether or not you could actually get that amount, there may not be any buyers looking for what you have. It would be best to leave it up on eBay for about 30 days and see what happens.

Dang. I thought I had something cool. Could you post the image of the figure in this toyark thread so I can see it? The forum you linked to won't let me see it larger until their admins approve my membership.

Wait. The models they mention are 1/18th scale. Correct me if I'm wrong but 1/18th in relation to figures is 3.75" right? Like the size of a GI Joe?

Well if it's from a guy that worked for Toriyama then I'd say it's very cool, I'm just not sure if it could pull in much money unless you advertised it a lot. And I believe so on the scale question. I would link the pics but they aren't really high resolution and they wouldn't be much bigger than what you can see now.

looking at it, its really early dbz. the big hair and un laced top boots shows that. the size of legs to body and lack of muscle sculpt and definition also proves it. as far as the actual year and symbols on the feet, i can try to find out something for u on those

ok after awhile trying to figure out the symbols i got this...on the left foot 2 of the 3 symbols appear in akira's whole name. still working on the others but it might take a min. this shit is fun tho lol

Thanks for the insight gentleman! My girlfriend is having a friend of hers translate the feet for me. Those 1:18 scale DBZ models, from the others in the same series that I've seen are 1 solid piece, and as far as I can tell not hollow.

Another interesting thing as well as the boots without laces is the fact that on his uniform there are no Japanese characters in the circle logos and the others in the series have raised letters. If it's 1:18th scale then this might be a 2 Up for that series. A cast of the full sized original sculpt before shrinking.

Another interesting detail I found last night in looking at this piece is that originally the pieces were put together with some kind of air drying clay and there are partial finger prints in that clay!