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Industry Terms and Other Miscellaneous

Mold or Mould. This term is usually used to describe the actual manufactured and assembled toy sculpt, regardless of paint applications or plastic colors. But the term originally applied to the casings that shape or "mold" the plastic into the parts needed to create the figure and its accessories. Also known as a buck, when referring a basic mold that multiple characters are derived from, especially with DCUC, MOTU and similar lines.

Most of the time, the plastic used for a particular mold has four or five separate dyes added to make the base colors of the finished toy. Any additional colored details are painted over these base colors at the factory to match a particular color scheme.

Depending on how complicated the figure is (articulation, alternate modes, etc.), there may be more than one physical mold used in the manufacturing process to create all necessary parts. But the singular term "mold" refers to all of the sections, regardless.

Most modern toys (and plastic products in general) are made using a process called injection molding. For more information on this, go here: Injection molding - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Master Mold - This is the mold created to make the production mold(s). Generally, only one set is made (the top and bottom halves). Depending on how many production molds are made, the master mold can degrade over time until it is no longer viable and is destroyed. Other times, the toy company will destroy the master mold after a set number of production molds have been made, or after a set number of toys have been manufactured (i.e. exclusives).

Production Mold - The is the mold that is actually used in the machines to manufacture a toy. Any number of production molds can be made from the master mold. Generally, a production mold is only used for one run and then discarded.

Deco - Short for decoration, it is the overall paint scheme of a toy. From the base colors of the plastic to the painted details and tampographed items. Every detail put on the toy is meticulously laid out on a color chart during the design phase and is matched during the manufacturing process. Unfortunately, based on the toy's budget and the mold design, certain parts will always be the same color plastic coming off the assembly line because they share the same mold. This is why some decos don't exactly match their source of inspiration sometimes. It also leads us to the next item....

Re-deco (or redeco) - Short for redecoration, it is a re-release of a particular toy mold with a new color scheme. Contrary to popular belief, this is not the same thing as a "repaint." A re-deco means that the plastic itself was made using different colored dyes during the manufacturing process. It does not mean that the original figure was made and then painted over with the new colors at the factory (read: repaint). A re-deco mean a brand new run of figures were produced. Any factory-applied paint applications would still fall under re-deco if changed, since they only cover a small area of the figure to highlight details of the mold.

An example would be MU's "Flame On" Johnny Storm, which is identical to the non-flame Johnny, except the plastic used was translucent, with different dyes for the color.

Redecos are an important and, like it or not, necessary part of any toy line. Designing and manufacturing the base (or master) mold for a toy takes up the bulk of that toy's budget. The actual mass production of the toy is only a small portion. With a redeco, all of that R&D is already done, so the only new costs would be the mass production with the new color scheme (and in some cases, packaging).

The sales of redecos are almost all profit, since the original release's profits go to pay for all that initial R&D. The redeco money is used to fund budgets for new molds and toys. But that doesn't mean that it all goes back into the same line. For example, the massive sales of TF1 merchandise allowed Hasbro to produce a lot of the 2008 Universe releases, as well as some of the Animated line.

Repaint - A released figure where most or all of the existing plastic has been painted over. Should really only be used when referring to custom toys. Unfortunately, a lot of collectors tend to use repaint to mean re-deco, which only tends to confuse the issue. For most toy, it is actually cheaper for manufacturers to change the color of the plastic they use during the manufacturing process than to use the original color in the mold and pay someone else to paint over it using another color.

An example of this would be if someone bought the green MU Hulk and painted his purple paints denim blue. Hasbro would just change the dye, rather than use the purple plastic and then paint over it with blue.

Remold - A re-released figure that has certain parts of its mold altered for various reasons. Going back to MU Hulk, Red Hulk would be an example of a remold. It has a new head and hand, as well as a new deco, but the rest of the mold is the same.

Re-issue or Re-release - This is when a previously released toy is released again sometime after the initial offering. The new release may have different packaging, minor changes to the paint apps and some changes to the mold (usually for safety reasons), but otherwise is identical to the original release.

An example of this would be the recent 25th Anniversary Optimus Prime. The packaging was different (to match the Universe line) and this version also had shorter smokestacks. This change was due to comply with US toy safety regulations. Obviously, re-issues from Japan or other countries do not have to comply with US laws, so they tend to be more true to the original in that respect.

Other times, a re-issue may also get a new color scheme, usually to match the character's appearance in certain media.

Repackage or Repack - This is where a previously released toy is released again, with the only difference being the outside packaging. It does not mean that the toy company took old toys out of the packaging and put them into new packaging in order to re-sell them. The toy company has a new run of the toys made and put into the new packaging.

Running Change - A running change is a minor tweak to an existing figure and/or its packaging.Also with running changes, the original release is never re-issued/re-released again (except for the odd aisle reset/restock with older merchandise).

Changes to the packaging, while still deliberate, are not usually preplanned and result after the manufacturer gets packaged samples back and finds something wrong. Or license-holders request a change. For example, during the production of TF Power Core Combiners, a 5-pack was set to be released as "Spastic & the Stunticons". All the packaging read Spastic as the name of the Commander figure (the others being unnamed drones). That is, until Hasbro found out that spastic is a very offensive term in Europe. So they put stickers on the already-made packaging that covered up the original name and replaced it with the name "Over-Run". If you get one, you can actually peel off the stickers, revealing the original name. That is a running change.

Other examples would be Thor's wave 1 Odin (shield repositioned, paint scheme tweaked), MU Series 3 Marvel and Doc Samson (reversed card art, S.H.I.E.L.D. symbol's color changed), Green Goblin (pumpkin bombs moved) and so on.


Variant - A variant has more drastic alterations than a running change, such as a completely different deco or even remolded parts. But it is still packaged the same as its counterpart. Variants are intentional re-decos/remolds of figures released separately from the originals, but still identified as filling the same slot (i.e. same packaging). It's not a running change, even if the original never gets released again, because it wasn't a minor correction or change in packaging to fix something. It was a deliberate alteration to a figure to produce something different. Examples include: Modern/Classic Havok, Warpath/Thunderbird, Dr. Strange regular/astral forms, the FF box set in modern and Future Foundation color schemes, and so on.

All running changes are variants, but not all variants are running changes. Variants can take the place of the original release, like a running change, but that's not always the case. Sometimes the original and the variant are at retail for equal amounts of time before going out of production.

As for which version of a given figure is the original, it's generally assumed to be the first one released. Or if they are released together, then whichever one is considered the default look of the character. For example, the regular outfits for the FF set were first in the comics, so that version of the set is considered the original, while the Future Foundation outfits are the first variant and the transparent Sue version is the second variant.

But it's not a hard and fast rule. Sometimes the variant is considered the harder-to-find version and the non-variant is the more widely-available version, regardless of who came out first. It can definitely be a gray area, like the two versions of Absorbing Man.