Transformers Easter Items for 2012

While on the topic of Easter, and with this blog being mostly about Transformers, let's see what Australia had for licensed Transformers merchandise this year for Easter.

Some of it was recycled from previous years, from the same license-holder, but with new artwork (due to DotM being released since last Easter).
And only BigW and Target had Licensed Transformers Merchandise this year. Target had the Square Metal Tins and Giant Eggs, while BigW had everything else.

These are metal tin trucks with eggs inside. Same as last year, with new artwork.

Torches and Yoyos with eggs. Also same as last year, with new artwork.

Square Metal Tins with a sticker sheet and eggs inside. Same as last 2 years, but a Bumblebee version was available this year. (it might have been previously released, but I only have evidence of the Optimus one)

A closer look at both.

And the sides, of last years (Revenge of the Fallen) and this years (Dark of the Moon).

And inside.

The coffee cup with egg, & Money sorter with Eggs.

 
The coffee cup has been done for the last 3 years (with an egg at Easter, and with lollies at Christmas). The electronic money sorter is one of two new items this year for Transformers... and an unusual one at that.  When you think of Easter, a money sorter isn't something that comes to mind.
I put in a few batteries and tried it out, and it had a few problems counting all the coins accurately. It also doesn't have a cancel/deduction option if it makes a mistake - you have to turn it off and redo ALL your coins all over again.

 The coffee cup has new artwork, but each year the cup gets smaller.  It is labelled as a "mug", which is what it started out as 3 years ago, but each year with it getting smaller and smaller, it is now too small to be called a Mug. So I call this one a coffee cup instead.

The shrinking Transformers Mugs/Cups.
The first one is 1 3/4 Cups
The middle one is 1 1/2 Cups
This years, on the right, is only 1 1/4 Cups.
Any more shrinkage and we might as well have little Barbie-sized teacups.

The final item for this year is the second new item, and probably the best, behind the square metal tins.

It is a giant egg, wrapped in shiny foil, and inside it has two lollipops with Robot head covers.

And most importantly, the chocolate on this one actually tastes nice. The small red-wrapped eggs in all the other packs are quite disgusting.

The lollipops and their covers - I was hoping that there were more, with just two randomly placed in each Egg, but recently buying two more of these, they both had the same Bumblebee & Shockwave heads. I was a bit disappointed by that, as it would have been fun to have that "lucky dip" element to it.

And the foil flattened out to show the pattern on the outside.

UPDATE 9th April....
Checked some stores today (the post-Easter discount sales) to find some cheap TFs Easter Merchandise... to eat and to enter the competition with.
Looks like the TFs stuff sold well, as I had trouble finding unsold TFs Easter items. There was a fair bit of other licensed items by the same company still available, but the only TFs items I could find was the Yoyo pack and the Giant Egg.

I bought the last two Giant Eggs at Target Carindale. They were both destroyed (as expected from the giant eggs after weeks on the shelves), but since items were already 50% off, they wouldn't discount them any further. So they were each $6.50... compared with $5 for the broken one I bought at a different Target two days earlier. (they only had 2 left there, and one was broken - but since they seemed to have Easter stuff at 30% off that day, they discounted the broken one from its $9.10 price)
In other words, I paid less before Easter than after, when everything was on clearance.

Anyways, the point of all this rambling, is that I now had another 4 Giant Eggs to add to the one I bought in Melbourne last month (featured in the photos above), for the extra competition entries, but to see if there were other lollipop heads included.
Both of the ones bought on Saturday had Bumblebee & Shockwave, so had me thinking that they were a set pair in all.
And today opening up the first of two Giant Eggs, finding Bee and Shockers inside, I expected to find the same in the fifth Egg... but no. Imagine my surprise at seeing a different pair of heads - Optimus and Sentinel.
So now I'm wondering if there were any other pairs, and I was just unlucky to get 4 out of 5 with the same pair in it.

I also found out today that this Easter item was actually made in Greece... of all places. The rest of the things were made locally, but these Giant Eggs were made in Greece and then import them as is... to sell here. Weird.

Well, I hope you had a good Transformery Easter, and if you are in Australia, I hope you got one or more of these items (to support the licensee to keep doing more in the future). If you didn't get any before Easter, check the stores from Monday to see if anything is left on the clearance shelves.