Description:

Before an action figure is produced and shipped to stores, a handful of carded versions are produced for quality control purposes. Once these samples are signed off on, then the toy begins full-scale production.

Pictured above is a carded sample of Eco-Warriors Deep-Six (1992) with the black Killer Whale sidekick. During quality control, these figures were rejected and never released to the public. Production of the figure was redone with the Dolphin sidekick in gray, instead of black.

These carded samples never reached toy stores. However, the approximately 24 carded samples that were produced have slowly made their way into the hands of collectors.

Despite the fact that the toy was never released in toy stores, Deep Six with Killer Whale was picked up on by Action Figure magazines and hyped up. As a result, this prototype has become very well-known among G.I.Joe collectors.

Strangely, when Deep-Six appeared in the Hasbro Toy Fair catalog as pictured below, the face mask was an earlier clouded prototype, yet Finback was the later gray version.

Additional Images:

In a Hasbro product catalog as well as television commercials, Bullet-Proof was pictured with a blue missile launcher and a slightly different camouflage pattern.