It makes me wonder if Tomy are facing some budgetary issues as a company, its unusual for them to so drastically downgrade the quality of their products for any other reason. I should imagine the gold expo model would be quite a bit more expensive to produce, but if that was a problem you'd think they would have released two versions. The current one as a base model and the expo design as a 'pro' or 'deluxe' version at an appropriate price uplift.
On the other hand I wonder if the expo model was a true production model, or one that they printed on a high end 3D printer and whoever did it used a 'silk' or 'glitter' type filament that can look truly metallic. Only to find when they come to injection moulding it was not easy/feasible/cost-effective to make them out of the same material?!?
On the other hand I wonder if the expo model was a true production model, or one that they printed on a high end 3D printer and whoever did it used a 'silk' or 'glitter' type filament that can look truly metallic. Only to find when they come to injection moulding it was not easy/feasible/cost-effective to make them out of the same material?!?
Happily collecting things all my life...