Flashback: Last year it's Trivia, this year it's Transformers

[Paulbot]

Somewhat related, saw this on the Herald Sun website: Barbie, Elmo, Pokemon: fad toys from Christmases past

1985 — Transformers

If you were a child of the 1980s then you had a Transformer. The Optimus Prime was the ultimate Transformer and the must-have item. Prime was the leader of the Autobots and transformed into a truck. Santa’s 1985 list had millions of requests for Optimus Prime.

And they have undergone a revival — they are back on the wish lists of kids in 2014.

[Megatran]

They certainly are. Rescue bots for nephew & niece.

As an aside, I'm curious to know what the price was for Optimus Prime back in the day.

[Paulbot]

As an aside, I'm curious to know what the price was for Optimus Prime back in the day.

I have a 1985 Toyworld catalogue: Optimus Prime was $26.88. So was Megatron. Dinobots were $16.96

[Megatran]

^ Cheers Paulbot. That's pretty expensive back in the day. My parents could never afford to spend that much on a toy. If I recall correctly, a Four'n'Twenty meat pie at primary school was around 40 cents.

[GoktimusPrime]

Boxed toys were usually received on special occasions like birthdays, Xmas etc., but the carded toys were cheap enough, e.g. $1.99 for an Autobot Mini-Car. I remember Constructicons being on the more expensive end for carded toys at $9 each, but they were still cheap enough that I was able to complete the entire set after a couple of months. I remember forming Devastator for the first time... such an awesome feeling! The other gestalts took longer to complete because the central components were dearer boxed figures, and indeed, it was the Classic reissues in 1990-91 that allowed me to finally complete some of those sets (e.g. my G1 Dead End and Wildrider are Classics). But for a long time during the 80s, I would form "hybrid" gestalts comprised of members from different teams. At the time, I'd never heard of Scramble City, but that's basically what it was. I never owned any of the Predacons as a kid. I did know a few kids who owned some Predacons, but I didn't know anyone who owned Predaking in the 1980s.

Here's a photo of me (blue collared shirt) taken in January 1988:

I'm holding a typical example of the 'hybrid gestalts' that I used to make in the 80s; that particular one is comprised of Hot Spot, Afterburner, First Aid, Slingshot and Lightspeed!

[Bidoofdude]

Boxed toys were usually received on special occasions like birthdays, Xmas etc., but the carded toys were cheap enough, e.g. $1.99 for an Autobot Mini-Car. I remember Constructicons being on the more expensive end for carded toys at $9 each, but they were still cheap enough that I was able to complete the entire set after a couple of months.

$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.

[VERT]

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