This hobby has become very frustrating.

I don't remember it being this way in the G1 era and the 20th century in
general. I remember every toy was available on shelves.

The only hurdles were Christmas buying. I remember not being able to
find Optimus Prime during 1984. But after Christmas, we found him at a
truly bizarre store in Tacoma that housed a live gorilla as an
attraction. Soon he was easily found everywhere.

The other hurdle was the massacre of 1986. Hasbro pumped out so much
product between 1984-85 that I couldn't afford to collect it all fast
enough. I thought I had all the time in the world to collect this stuff,
like the way Kenner kept most of their Star Wars figures on the shelves
for years. Suddenly I was in a literal panic to collect those missing
84-85 characters that became impossible to find.

It's so weird how much has changed. You had a TWO YEAR window to buy
most of the toys. These days, you're basically forced to buy a toy
whenever you see it on the shelf, because it's going to be phased out in
TWO MONTHS.

On Monday, August 1, 2022 at 9:14:00 AM UTC-6, Travoltron wrote:

> I don't remember it being this way in the G1 era and the 20th century in
> general. I remember every toy was available on shelves.

There was also the fact that pretty much the entire 1984 toy range got reissued again in 1985 with rub symbols, so you basically had a whole 'nother year to start collecting. That's unprecedented. You would be hard pressed to name any other time that this has happened with an entire toy range.

> Suddenly I was in a literal panic to collect those missing
> 84-85 characters that became impossible to find.

I got into Transformers about a year too late. I wasn't really aware of it in 1984, but by 1985 I was a fan. So I think the only thing I really ever missed out on at retail was the Mini-Spies. I don't ever remember seeing those in stores.

> It's so weird how much has changed. You had a TWO YEAR window to buy
> most of the toys. These days, you're basically forced to buy a toy
> whenever you see it on the shelf, because it's going to be phased out in
> TWO MONTHS.

I've thought about this often and I find myself largely in agreement with you. I've always heard that it's the fault of retailers, who are constantly asking for fresh product. They don't want the same things lingering on the shelf year after year. So Hasbro is forced to kind of play the game, only they trick the retailers. They're still selling them the exact same toys over and over, but they disguise it as new product with a new color scheme or a package refresh.

I guess maybe it's a better sales model. Back during G1, I wouldn't have bought the same toys over again just because they switched from rubber tires to plastic on Rodimus Prime, or a metal chest to a plastic one on Springer, or got rid of the rubsign indent on the Throttlebots. But I do tend to buy the same toys over and over nowadays, if they sell them in entirely different color schemes and give them new names. It's more effective than doing a production run of the same character in the same colors over and over..

I'm just glad I can usually afford to pounce on the stuff when I see it. I used to play the waiting game as a kid, saving up my allowance or planning to ask for big toys for Christmas or my birthday. It almost always worked out in my favor. I think the only toys I had trouble collecting were the Predacons (I never got Headstrong or Tantrum as a kid... the supply dried up before I could afford to get all five). I had to be really choosy back then. It's not like now where I can just drop a few hundred dollars on the entire Velocitron collection and then sit there with my buyer's remorse while I wait for Hasbro to fulfil the pre-order. I usally only got one toy at a time, or sometimes several small ones. I remember the day I came home from Toys "R" Us with Long Haul and Hook and Rumble/Ravage and Steeljaw/Rewind, all purchased with my allowance money (six bucks a pop!), and that felt like a huge haul.

Zob (deliberately saved the two Constructicons who formed Devastator's body for last, you see)

It was also an amazing era when there were so many other awesome
toylines that I was also trying to collect. So that made it even harder
to focus on one thing like Transformers.

At that time (84-86), I would have also been buying:
Star Wars
GoBots and Rock Lords
MASK
Lego Space sets
Robo Force
Real Ghostbusters

I also bought some Masters of the Universe when the line started to get
heavily discounted around 86-87. MOTU was so overproduced that they were
giving figures away to kids for free at Universal Studios.

On Monday, August 1, 2022 at 8:14:00 AM UTC-7, Travoltron wrote:
> I don't remember it being this way in the G1 era and the 20th century in
> general. I remember every toy was available on shelves.

I don't remember contemplating the Bluestreak from the catalog so I don't know that I ever really wanted one enough to go on a hunt for it. I was also not aware of Bumblejumper so I never actively searched that one out. At the beginning of it I was just a kid and was happy with whatever I saw at the 5 and dime stores and K-Marts my mom always took us to. In '84-'85 I didn't have the presence of mind to match the catalog up with what I was seeing on the shelves and I didn't want what I didn't have.

That changed in '86. I remember wanting an Octane so bad after watching 'Thief in the Night' but then not being able to find one. It was weird and unusual to me for the first time knowing something existed but not seeing it at any store. It was the first time I had to put forth effort to hunt for a toy and recruit adult help. I remember a trip to Los Angeles visiting my grandfather's house and not being able to find Octane in the toy stores at the malls we visited. Then returning to El Paso and not finding Octane at the one Toys R Us and the one Lionel Playworld we had. It was infuriating. The giant toy supermarkets were supposed to have everything. It took months before I found one. Maybe I was just a kid who didn't have the resources to go on all encompassing toy hunts and there were probably Octanes everywhere. I just remember that one sticking out as the one toy I could not find in the same style of casual searching I'd use to find everything else I was looking for. I think that toy turned me into a collector. That was the first one that I decided I was going to keep the packaging and not just cut out the box art and throw everything else away.

> The only hurdles were Christmas buying. I remember not being able to
> find Optimus Prime during 1984.

Yeah my mom would probably be best suited to answer this question because she was the one actively hunting for Transformers in 1984. I was just a kid and I didn't understand what was going on. She probably has stories of ones that were tough that first year. Although her memories are fuzzy because I've talked to her about those days and she remembers there being a fourth seeker jet she never could find.

> But after Christmas, we found him at a truly bizarre store in Tacoma that housed a live gorilla as an
> attraction. Soon he was easily found everywhere.

Fantasy World Toys at B&I Shopping Center! I only know of it because of my newspaper microfilm hobby.

> like the way Kenner kept most of their Star Wars figures on the shelves
> for years.

Mego did that with Micronauts, too. But they kept the original waves in production alongside the subsequent ones with no packaging refresh so the early stuff outnumbered the later stuff and choked up the shelves. Then on the opposite side of the spectrum you have Tomy with Zoids/Starriors/RoboStrux which are all really the same line but they completely reinvent the marketing, chuck the previous year's packaging and call it something else.

> It's so weird how much has changed. You had a TWO YEAR window to buy
> most of the toys. These days, you're basically forced to buy a toy
> whenever you see it on the shelf, because it's going to be phased out in
> TWO MONTHS.

Buzzworthy Bluestreak went through all the stages so fast-rare at first, then shelfwarmer to clearance in the blink of an eye. I wonder how fans these days keep up without catalogs to show them what they may have missed. Like how would anyone nowadays even know what's supposed to be out there and available right now? Then again, maybe it's a blessing to not have the cruel tease of catalogs. Modern technology evens it out a bit and artificially widens the window of opportunity (at a cost of course). Just think of how lucky we are to get price gouged by scalpers unlike the 80s where there was little to no secondary market to speak of.