The Energon Pub

Just out of curiosity, same for G2 too?

Not particularly in depth , but have a look at this scan from a "JC Penny" catalog from back in the day, should give you a rough idea

I recently found my Sixshot in his box, of course it was damaged and shredded so i had to throw it away, but it did have a price tag on it from Elder-Beerman and it was reg price $39.00 and discounted down to $34.00. So, this price is around 1987 i believe..

if i remember right the G2 seekers were about $20 a piece, as were the dinobots. the constructicons were $5 tp $6 a piece and i think prime went for $30 to $40

Well, that JCPenny catalogue looks like the prices as I remember them in 1984:

Megatron, Prime: $25
Soundwave: $18
Seekers: $15
Autobot Cars: $11

Which basically means that the equivalent prices (Autobot Cars are about Scout size, and the Seekers are about Deluxe size) haven't really gone up - taking into account the cheaper materials.

Too bad we can't say the same about most other things.

The Kiddie City that used to be in downtown Philly had the first pre-rub waves of mini-cars at $3.59 when they were first released, and Constructicons for not much more. 'Course, it seems like a lot of money when you're 12...

I remember getting Blaster at Kiddie World here in Delaware for i believe 19.99.

G1 Prime was $24 at Lionel Playworld before TRU became a monopoloy.

I bought a used Omega Supreme a few years back, and the price tag was still on the box. It was from K-Mart and said $39.99

I remember seeing a Jetfire box on eBay a few years back and had the same price on it's tag as well.

And that fits, really. They were about Leader Class size, so the price was just about right.

Running that through the inflation calculator, $39.99 in '85 is the equivalent of $70.97 in 2010 (http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl)

Which is about right. With the economy as bad as it was in the '80s, getting a toy of that size and price was, to many kids, myself included, like getting a $100.00 bill. Which was impossible, or next to it. Only birthdays, holidays, and extreme special occasions allowed for such a thing.

Nowadays, we can usually get away with spending $70.00 easily. (Not saying it's easy to get, but that it's easy to spend.)

I'd say that while current pricing has gone up, the cost of buying and maintaining them has gone down. It's much easier to buy a TF today than it ever was in the '80s. Much easier.

Valandar wrote:Well, that JCPenny catalogue looks like the prices as I remember them in 1984:

Megatron, Prime: $25
Soundwave: $18
Seekers: $15
Autobot Cars: $11

Which basically means that the equivalent prices (Autobot Cars are about Scout size, and the Seekers are about Deluxe size) haven't really gone up - taking into account the cheaper materials.

Too bad we can't say the same about most other things.

That sounds about right although I remember (amazingly cause I never actually bought any) Prime and similiar sized robots being around $20 and minibots around $5.

I got my first Targetmaster with my money for $20 when we first got TRU.

I remember Christmas '84 Transformers were hard to find on the shelves. They were very hot toys. My so-called friends would try to steal my TF's and sell'em for bike parts until I beat them up.

Back in 1984, I bought G1 Optimus Prime and G1 Skywarp at the local Toy Chest toy store.....Prime was $11.49 and Skywarp was $7.99...They were my very first Transformers....I worked my arse off for them too! Parents wouldn't buy me such expensive toys (I was 14 yrs old), so I had to work for them....Doing the dreaded and much-maligned chore of minding other peoples' evil children.

Even before I owned any Transformers, I was selling my soul to acquire them....*shivers* Baby-sitting sucks, but I had to do it for the plastic-crack!

I've got an awesome story. Back in 2004 I was at my local KB toys(r.i.p.) and I found an orginal G1 (not reissue) Sideswipe! I paid normal retail $9.99 for it. The box looked like it had been sitting in a warehouse for almost 20 years at that point, someone must have found it one day and said "ship it off". I am so happy that no one in the chain of handlers realized what they had, but hell I'm not complaining.

Skice wrote:I've got an awesome story. Back in 2004 I was at my local KB toys(r.i.p.) and I found an orginal G1 (not reissue) Sideswipe! I paid normal retail $9.99 for it. The box looked like it had been sitting in a warehouse for almost 20 years at that point, someone must have found it one day and said "ship it off". I am so happy that no one in the chain of handlers realized what they had, but hell I'm not complaining.

That is indeed a great find. I still have the fantasy of hitting a garage sale where there is a big box of G1 that some parent whose children grew up and moved away pulled out of the attic and decide to get rid of it with the rest of the junk (my treasure).

Based on Wal-Mart prices from what I can recall, here's some price ranges:

Minicars: $2-3
Combiner limbs, Sparkabots/Firecons: $4-5
Small Targetmasters, Triggerbots: $7-8
Autobot cars/Targetmasters, small Headmasters, Insecticons, Predacons: $10
Decepticon Jets, Dinobots: $18
Leaders: $25
Metroplex, Scorponok, Sixshot: $40
Trypticon: $75

*this list may vary depending on your area--IDW Mini-cassete prices because no one in my area carried them...weird.

Aurax wrote:The Kiddie City that used to be in downtown Philly had the first pre-rub waves of mini-cars at $3.59 when they were first released, and Constructicons for not much more. 'Course, it seems like a lot of money when you're 12...

Kiddie City was the BEST! We had one out here in Langhorne PA when I was little.