I was recently asked just how many Transformers Mini-Spies there are.  All I could say was that it depends on how you count them…

Mini-Spies in 'bot mode

Well these un-named little suckers were sold as a limited bonus prepacked on the cards of the Mini-Cars/Mini-Vehicles/Mini-Bots (Bumblebee, Huffer, Cliffjumper, Brawn, Windcharger, Gears, Seaspray, Powerglide, Warpath, Beachcomber & Cosmos).  Despite their fairly simple Transformations, these tiny TFs were the first to be released with pull-back spring motors and the first to have rubsigns indicating their allegiance (later the Powerdashers, Jumpstarters, Battlechargers, Throttlebots and Power Masters also utilised the motors and rub-signs became the standard up intil the Micromasters were released in 1989).  Like the majority of the early 1984-5 Transformers, the Mini-Spies were reuses of moulds from other Toylines like Takaras Microman or Diaclone.

Mini-Spies in car mode

So how many are there?

• 4: There are four unique moulds of Mini-Spy – Porsche, Mazda FX1, Dunebuggy or Jeep
• 16: The Motor Casings and Wheel Hubs for each Mini-Spy came in one of two moulds with four different combinations – Squared Motor Casing & Many-Spoked Wheel Hubs, Rounded Motor Casing & Few-Spoked Wheel Hubs, Rounded Motor Casing & Many-Spoked Wheel Hubs or Squared Motor Casing & Few-Spoked Wheel Hubs.
• 48: Each came in one of three different Colours – Yellow & Black, White & Black or Blue & Black (There are also Red & Black ones out there, but they were never officially released as Transformers, so I don’t count them, if you do then its 64.)
• 96: Each also came with an allegiance rub-sign on them giving a further two options – Autobot or Decepticon (if you count the Reds then its 128).

I had no intention of collecting 96 (or 128) of essentially the same Transformer so I went for: one of each original mould: three with Many-Spoked Hubs, one with Few: Three with Rounded Motor Cassings, one with Squared: Two in White & Black, One in Yellow & Black and One in Blue & Black; Three as Decepticons, One as an Autobot.  This essentially means that if I wanted, I could reassemble them to get any of the mould variations, and at least had an example of what colour plastic each of the colour variation was released with – I’m still looking for the other 8 colour variations…

Ideally I’d recommend getting the four original moulds in each of their three colours giving you 12 total, if you also find that you have both of the wheel/motor/rub-sign variations among your batch, then you could reassemble them all into any of their 96 Transformers variations.

Happy hunting

Thanks to Seibertron.com for the images – I’ll upload my own soon…

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