I was recently looking at my Toa Metru Canisters, and I remembered that some Toa Metru canister lids had glitter and some did not have glitter. Does anyone know why this is?
Here is a picture comparing my Vakama’s glitter lid to my Whenua’s non-glitter lid.
I would move this into ask.
I don’t remember mine having glitter so it might just be a factory error
Interesting… all three of my Metru lids are glitter-less. Perhaps it was a regional thing? Did you buy them online?
changed category to ask~meep
The earlier production runs didn’t have the glitter, and the later ones did (at least in the US). I got a full set of Metru around the time they came out and none of their lids had the glitter, but I got a Matau a few months later and its lid did have the glitter (all were bought at standard retail stores).
No idea why the change was made, though.
Huh. That’s interesting. I wonder if the change was made to make the canisters more eye-catching the longer they stayed on shelves?
Maybe? The only reason I got that extra Matau was actually because of the glitter: when I was a kid, the only way my mom could keep up with which Bionicle sets I had was by the canister lids (for some reason she could always keep track of those, but the figures themselves all looked indistinguishable to her). So when she saw that Matau on the shelf while she was out shopping that had a slightly different canister lid, she picked it up, thinking it was something I didn’t already have.
The idea that the change was to make the packaging (and thus the set) look more eye-catching and new seems reasonable.
I can’t see any difference on those two canisters. Can anyone help me? They look exactly the same
The red one has sparkles and the black one doesn’t.
Still can’t see any diffrence 
It’s kinda hard to see.
The reason for the different lid coresponds to which batch of metru sets they are from.
The glittery lid came with the following versions of the Toa Metru sets:
All normal Toa Metru canister prints(Both Amercian and European/Asian canisters)
All Mexico-excluisive Mol promo canister prints:
SDCC Vakama:
T-■■■■■ Metru canisters:
The non-glittery lid came with:
All Gold Kanoka lottery canister prints:
All CD-ROM canister prints:
Edit 1: Also upon further research here is some random off shots (However there is not enough evidence to support production error or variation of variations) (all are sealed):
Glittery lid Gold kanoka lottery canister print
Non-glittery lid original canister print:
Edit 2: Will fix better pictures for Mol variant and CD-rom variant in 30 mins or so
Edit 3: Moved SDCC Vakama canister print after checking the picture again. Added better pictures of Mol and CD-ROM canister.
Wow, thank you for doing all this research! 
This is fascinating.
No problemo, its just in a 04 collectors work😀
Might be a daft question, but do we know for sure that all the Metru had glitter variants? I only recall seeing Vakama, Whenua, and Matau.
My brother and I have glitter lids for Vakama, Matau, Onewa, and Nuju. Whenua has a regular lid, and Nokama doesn’t have a canister, but I’m pretty sure I remember seeing glitter lids for her in the store.
Yee all of them have glitter variants
Okay, so this is fascinating!! I never knew there were so many variations - now I need them all haha 
I have a glittery Matau canister, which I believe is from the golden disc contests. I will take some photos of it soon & post it up here.
Also, this came with a Tshirt inside, correct?
Yup, I still own one. It’s just a photo-paper slip inside a plain canister with a giltter Whenua lid.
yee that came with the Tshirt
