What is this clear E4 MAX Shinkansen?

ThomasTrainzfan98

So recently on a Japanese website I bought a clear E4 MAX Shinkansen and If someone could tell me the context of this Shinkansen? The listing said it was never on the shelves…
Here’s the listing photos(it hasn’t arrived):

chrisjo

Plarail Museum Exhibit.

"E4 Series Shinkansen Max (Articulated, Clear) (2007)
This was a prize at the “Shinkansen Festival” held at electronics retailers and other outlets in 2007.
You could enter the lottery once for every train or set you purchased. It seems like a grand prize, but for some reason it was the B prize.."

The lower of the two boxes contains a clear blue version, which is rarer.

ThomasTrainzfan98

chrisjo So is the normal clear version still rare or is it common on the market?(curious from me a person who’s new to these items that were never on shelves and plarail stuff in general).

Super

chrisjo Thank you Dr Chris 😀

chrisjo

ThomasTrainzfan98 So is the normal clear version still rare?

I should think it’s medium-rare 🙂

I don’t know how many lottery second-prize winners there were, but it won’t have been a lot. I’d like to know what the first-prize was though.

ThomasTrainzfan98

chrisjo same i wonder what it was…? It’s probably out there somewhere in like a plarail pamphlet or something… Hope one day it’s found!

chrisjo

Here it is:

The first prize was a standard retail train-case, seems crazy, but there we are. I’m not sure I understand the description entirely, but the lottery was over in a week and the odds against winning appear to have been high!

https://www2u.biglobe.ne.jp/~akeda/DOLL/b-orepura12.htm

It looks to me that in each store, the first hundred customers that bought a qualifying item got a lottery ticket. Of those one hundred tickets just one won a train case and three won the E4 Max. If we knew how many participating stores there were…….but we don’t. Yodobashi and Bic Camera are both mentioned, and they both have quite a lot of branches, but even so I think this must be a pretty rare item, and a very good buy on your part. ¥6,500 plus fees etc.

ThomasTrainzfan98

chrisjo that’s so interesting how the case is rarer than the clear E4s…Also how could you win the blue version? I’m curious to why two were made and if we know how they were distributed?

chrisjo

The train case is not rare at all, since you could buy it off-the-shelf from 2000 onwards as well as winning it in late 2007. This clip is from page 5 of the 2000-2001 catalog:

The clear blue version remains a mystery. The Plarail Museum just says “ As for the clear blue one, it could be said to be one of those not for sale items that exist but we don’t really know why.”

ThomasTrainzfan98

chrisjo Do we know tha date it was given out?Was if so we could look back on the catalogs or info from that year… I do hope one day I find one of the clear blue ones they look super neat and I hope one day to display it in my collection!

chrisjo

We don’t even know for certain whether the clear blue one was related to the 2007 Shinkansen Festival, though it seems likely. If the folks in Japan who run the Plarail Museum haven’t yet uncovered its origins definitively, we probably aren’t going to find out anything new by trawling through catalogs, or searching the net for ‘プラレール新幹線まつり2007’. Don’t let me put you off though, researching is great fun!

You will find a few other interesting pages such as this:
https://purarail.livedoor.biz/archives/64708768.html
from which we learn that the campaign started on July 21st 2007 (this date is given by the Plarail Museum too) , and that Toys ’R Us were also involved:

chrisjo

In post #9 in this thread I originally said that the train case was available from 2008. I was way wrong there. I’ve checked back and found that it was actually ‘New 2000’ in the 2000-2001 catalog. So it had already been available for a number of years before it was offered as the A prize in the 2007 Shinkansen Festival lottery, which makes it an even stranger choice, even though it did cost more (2604 yen) than a regular E4 Max (1680 yen) at the time. I’ve edited the text and changed the image in post #9 accordingly.

Super

I always learn something new with Chrisjo’s fabulous research…Thank you Dr Chris 👍