$9?! Compared to what minibots were, that's pretty high. I never had access to G1 toys, being a child of the 2000s who watched the G1 cartoon. There were only a handful of characters who had G1-esque toys in the UT.
I never saw a minibot that cheap. $3.99 even $4.99 never $1.99. That price was toyword and K Mart. The big two G1 buying shops for me in the 80s