Wow! Thanks for the heads up. These definitely seem legit. This is a great discovery and addition to Bionicle collection of rarities. I knew some of the predicted ones would pop up one day!
And yes, the Hunas are a typo - I fixed it in the updated table. I also made few minor corrections recently and even found one more addition to the table. Here is the updted one:
The errors have been fixed and the new Kanohi have been updated. I should put into everyone’s attention that the yellow Ruru is a new mask as well - the previous pictures were of a prototype yellow Ruru, but this one has the final retail mold. Such masks were claimed to be in possesion of several people, but I never saw any pictures to proove it. Now we know it does indeed exist!
It also looks like all of the masks from this batch have final molds, so it might be the case for all of the predicted items from the list.
The updated table also contains three extra things: 1) I fixed the reddish gold Avohkii to the prototype mold (because it is) and 2) I added a prototype flat silver Avohkii, which did exist at some point, but belongs to the “survival unknown” category. 3) Prototype sand blue Akaku was added.
PS: I never believed that particular orange Hau - it really seems just red. That said, orange Hau is predicted to exist and now that the Kanohi table continues to proove its validity, we can say that it, as well as the rest of the predicted items, are almost definitely out there somewhere!
Another thing we learned is that the predicted masks allegedly produced in non-Bionicle colors are real! This means the sand violet Kakama, medium orange Komau, trans-purple Kaukau and medium lime Miru are real.
That’s what I was thinking; I could maybe see it being a bit off-red, but it certainly doesn’t look like the same orange used on Turaga Vakama.
If it really is an orange Hau, the picture should be easy to replicate: just ask whatever collector has it for a better picture. Without that, though, this looks to me like it could just as easily be a picture of a red Hau that was later misidentified as orange.
If you look at the “mouth” on the Hau, it appears to have some Mata red mixed with the orange. This could be due to camera flash, although I would expect the mask to have higher contrast if it was taken with a flash. I think it may be made from a mixture of red and orange, with the colors not having been mixed as well as LEGO usually does, leaving us with the odd color.
That’s what I always thought. I used to watch a lot of Bionicle reviews where the set up had this kind of light and every red piece (such as those of Tahu Mata) looked like this. Orange pieces looked almost yellow under these conditions, so that is what I would expect.
Let me bring your attention to a new topic analysing and discussing data from the same sheet as I did. KDNX and co. did an amazing job and discussion is ongoing! The implications put forward there solve many curiosities detected here such as the reason behind Matatu and Ruru being more common in Toa colors then the other Noble Kanohi, chronology of the production process and the insight into thought process behind designing these masks, as well s the rest of the Bionicle pieces…
I think I saw a BrickLink listing for the white Huna for an alright price (as in not expensive for a rarer color, like maybe $40 or so) a month or two ago from either “Set You Up” or one of the other primarily Bionicle US sellers but I very well could be mistaken.
I don’t know much about these kinds of things but would it be possible to ‘fake’ a misprint or rare color by bleaching another color? I have some (I think) formerly white Bohrok limbs that are now closer to a standard Lego tan, so I guess my point is while we do know that there are some rarer never released colors out there, how do we know which ones are real or faked?
[EDIT: What I mean is that if someone is selling a tan Kanohi then would we be able to know if it’s legit? Because if not then how do we know that the rare colors really exist/are being sold?]
You made a really important point. Fake, bleached, dyed etc. masks were always a part of the whole collectibes community. How to spot them? Well the best way is to be well-versed in what is available or possible for a mask and what do these things look like when they are indeed real.
That is partially what this topic (and the other ones linked) are for.
When you know your stuff, you can almost always tell if a piece is genuine, provided you have quality pictures of the product.
The opaque Kaukau is interesting. That almost seems like a prototype-prototype, as opposed to the “test runs” of the other finalized masks in weird colours.
This is pretty huge! There looks to be an overlap between the prototype forms and “all 12 color era”. Prototypes of some of the other color/shape combinations are here.
And perhaps most importantly of all, this is the first Voodoo Heads prototype EVER that I am aware of!!!
Someone pointed out that the Voodoo Head looks to be attached with a “voodoo ball”- not only does this explain the part’s name, but since the Voodoo Heads had a play feature for knocking off the heads, it seems likely that the part’s infamously poor clutch power was actually intentional so that it could be separated in play. I guess they didn’t have time to remold it properly after switching from Voodoo Heads to Bionicle.
Very nice point, I agree it seems likely!
Hopefully someone like Faber will release more Voodoo heads materials, so that we can reverse engineer how the function was supposed to work exactly.
EDIT: Hmm, a serious question - is that a prototype violet (110) Mahiki we see there? It seems too vibrant to be blue (23)… It is not in the parts sheet, but that’s ok, because that sheet only documents parts produced in final mold, not the 3d printed prototype molds. All of the parts on this picture are prototype parts, not final ones, so that checks out.
Hmm… after so many recent revelations, maybe we should revisit the “peach” Ruru?
I was trying to figure out which color could best fit it and the closest thing might be nougat (18).
It is still possible it is bleached somehow, but the evenness of the colorattion is astounding. The indentation might actually play into the authenticity of the mask because we can see that the color goes all the way into the depth of the plastic.
It would have to be; I’m pretty sure it’s the only similar colour that existed at the time.
Looking at that topic, the owner seems to have dismissed the possibility that it’s a misprint because it doesn’t match a Lego colour, but I’m pretty sure the wrong colour was used for the comparison.
Seems that way. The strongest argument against it being authentic is that this Ruru has the final mold, but is not present in the parts spreadsheet in this color, or any similar to it. Of course it is always possible that the spreadsheet itself had some parts missing, or Aanchir made a mistake and omitted some of the items while transcribing it. Neither of these possibilities is testable unfortunatelly.
If someone found another example of this mask, that would greatly improve the likelihood of it being genuine.
When it comes to bleaching/dyeing, I have zero experience with it, so what I mentioned about the indentations and color penetration is just my assumption. Maybe bleach is able to go all the way through the plastic (even though I find it very uniklely). And maybe, the indentations were already there before the bleaching process took place, in which case they would not serve as any evidence.
There are quite many angles to this and without new information, I’m afraid we can’t draw any conclusions.
If the owner of the mask @JJAG3 could make more color comparisons, ideally with the nougat (18) color pieces, that might at least narrow down the possibilities.
That is huge! This is the most we have ever got of voodoo heads! Thanks you
Was the slizer/toa hand piece suppose to sit in that axel hole? Because that seems not possible from the picture.
