Black Ruru Prototype Mask found in West -Europe

[CefasVan]

More than a week ago, on the Dutch "knock-off" version of E-bay, a Black version of the Prototype Ruru popped up.

The Netherlands is a bit known for rare masks to pop-up sometimes, but in my 4 years of constant activity on it, I have never seen a rare or prototype being sold.

I was well aware of the existence of the Yellow and Green Ruru(2 Yellow prototypes are known to exist to my knownledge), but never would expect a Black one to be in someones lot.

The seller got it through buying a lot and contacted some people from the Bionicle Community to see if it was a real Prototype and now that I recieved it yesterday, I can also confirm with the 2020 post of the Sand Tarakava and other the pictures of the Green Ruru that mine is indeed a real prototype.

 

The seller was afraid it would get lost in the mail if he would ship it to another country, that is why it was being sold in the Netherlands.

Heck, over the last year I got big and small packages that just disappeared never to be seen again and even though I(as a buyer) or the buyers(that I send to) got their money back, we didn't want that to happen to an item like this so we had to insure the shipping and get it check to see if it is a real Prototype lego part.(Shipping companies are afraid of insurgence fraud, blah blah blah you get the point  ) 

 

And here are some other pictures of it:

 

To easily compare mine with other known Ruru Prototypes:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For compairing purposes 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Welcome to the collection

 

But now a few big question remain: why a Black Ruru Prototype? 

Why is there are Black Ruru European Misprint and now also a Prototype Version of it?

I know a Red Ruru came with the Clock but what was Lego plainning with these masks anyway?

I heard rumours that the Matatu was originally suppose to be a Toa mask but those are just rumours anyway....

 

And of course I have seen the picture with all the Mask Pack masks were you see the Kaukau misprints, ruru and matatu misprints.

 

Edited February 3 by CefasVan

[Xboxtravis]

Hafu had a black Ruru, so the mask did appear in a wide-release set in 2001. However it also seems that LEGO didn't always correspond the prototype masks to final set designs, like we saw in that Bionicle pitch video Faber posted recently that had every character wearing a Hau and sometimes of the wrong color to their respective elements.

[CefasVan]

Yeah that is true. It was a nice behind the scene video that showed a lot of really nice early development and parts but making a Prototype just for that Hafu seems a bit much to me but oh well.

 

Another thing to note: you can see from the Yellow Ruru pictures from 2020 post(if you look really close) that it seems to be made out of the plastic used like the Hau for example(more shiny) and it is the same for my mask.

I like the quality plastic of the Prototype Ruru's more than what we got.

[CefasVan]