So, has any of this outstanding and awesome Combiner Wars news got ya feeling a little nostalgic? It certainly has had that affect on me.
I have fond memories of the early combiners, especially Devastator and Defensor. The recently posted Defensor/Protectobots got me thinking. My first Transformers hunt began shortly after receiving the four Defensor limbs for Christmas. The first thing I would do at stores that sold Transformers would be go look for Hot Spot. After what seemed like forever to a 10 year old; Hot Spot was found. Then began the begging and pleading. He was eventually mine and we lived happily ever after. blah blah blah
Now that I've gotten the boring setup out of the way... But what exactly got me thinking you may ask? Well, how did my parents end up with just the limbs? Was it just dumb luck? Was Hot Spot out of stock? Did the limbs come in a four pack (not that I can tell)? Then I remembered that stores like Sears basically made their own bundles (probably weren't called that back then). When I was just a wee one, my sister and I would spend the weeks/months/eternity build up before Christmas just pouring over the Sears Wish Book.
After "researching" how the combiners were sold back then, and flipping through a few Wish Books here and there; I found that my "nostalgia feels" were really tingling. So I figured, why not share this information with some like minded individuals.
Ok, now on to the good stuff.
WishBook.web The good news is that they have quite a few catalogs available. They even have a Sears Canadian catalog for my Canadian friends. The bad news is the TF page isn't loading for the 1986 catalog, at least for me anyway. Their selection also stops at 1988.
Flickr Wish BookThey have a ton of content and the the Wish Books I check out has all the "good" pages we would be interested in. The pages do load slow as all get out, but then again YMMV.
Flickriver Wish BookReally about the same as the flickr link and I think it's by the same folks.
BotRiotFound this site while digging around. They seemed to have cherry pick the more interesting pages.
Well that's all I could find. I hope you enjoy, make yourself comfortable and please share any links you have.