Hello and welcome to the SKORBIA, where I keep a list of the unlicensed Transformers I found while I was living just outside of Uijongbu, South Korea from May of 1998 through June 1999. I had one year to explore the area in and around Seoul so I went looking for Transformers. I found that South Korea was still about one year behind in terms of official release distribution, but it turns out they had an incredible selection of bootlegs based on Transformers from all generations.

By bootleg I mean any item not made or created with the parent company's acquisition of distribution license from Takara. While many of these items are direct copies of existing Takara toys, some of them are totally unique creations Takara never produced. Examples include the G2 Optimus Prime wristwatch or the G2 stationary set with transformable Transformers character erasers. Since these original toys use Transformer likenesses I have included them here.

Back then there was very little information available on these bootleg toys and I had no idea what was available and whether or not they were official releases. Since then some information has popped up but their legitimacy as licensed products still remains questionable. It is obvious to me that these toys were all made and distributed unofficially without license from Takara. The greatest evidence is the uniform lack of copyright stamping on any of the toys.

This is by no means a comprehensive archive or information resource, it just covers what I found and bought in and around Seoul, Uijongbu, Mang Wolsa, Sang Il, and lots of other South Korean cities and provinces. There were many Transformer based bootlegs I saw but didn't buy, or that I suspect existed because of evidence supplied to me by the shopowners. South Korea remains a bootleg haven for those who are willing to scour the countryside and get a little lost riding the subways as I did.

I'm not selling any of these, and I don't know where you can get them aside from the occasional ebay auction. Besides, you shouldn't be buying bootlegs in the first place. Naughty naughty!