How Many G1 Toys Do You Think Are Left In the World?

[Zobovor]

So I'm working on a project that's going to require some G1 Omega Supreme parts (the funny thing is that it's not even a Transformers-related project). I imagine that assembling a complete and functional Omega Supreme is difficult and expensive (especially the all-important tank component with its fragile drum assembly) but when you're just looking for one or two parts, they're pretty easy to come by.

It kind of makes you wonder how many complete Omega Supremes are actually left in existence, or whether the vast majority of them are broken and incomplete, and the thousands of auctions for parts are really from only a few hundred toys. Omega is kind of a special case, of course, because he's not so much a Transformer as he is a Take-Apart-And-Put-Back-Together-Former, so I imagine it's much more likely that most of the Omegas of the world ended up in pieces as opposed to, say, the Sixshots in the world.

I am not personally opposed to customizing G1 toys, or pieces of toys, when a project calls for it. (In this case, the MacGiant and RedGiant monsters from Final Fantasy IV each have a gun-arm and a claw-arm, and Omega Supreme's rocket pieces will be absolutely perfect for them.) Then I got to thinking about how the number of existing G1 units on the planet may be slowly, gradually dwindling. Probably not at the rate that they were in the 1980's (I imagine the most Omega Supremes that ever got thrown away were during the 1986-87 period, after he was no longer new and parts eventually got lost) but there is probably a very slow and steady decline.

They way I look at it, there are collectors with sealed specimens who have no intention of opening or selling them. That number isn't likely to change significantly right now (but of course their lifetimes are finite, and their next of kin may not place the same value on their collection that they do). There's also a subset of that group who HAD no intention of selling, but may have had medical expenses or a life epiphany and decided to just get rid of it all.

Then there are collectors who never had the means as a kid but who may only now be acquiring sealed G1 units for the first time. I'd say there's probably a very small number of fans who will spend the hundreds or thousands of dollars on these toys with the intention of opening them and transforming them and displaying them and pretending that it's the 1980's again. It's not a very good investment from a financial perspective, but I can understand the appeal. There probably aren't a lot of people who can afford to do this, but I know they exist, so they're reducing the number of sealed G1 units in existence.

On the other end of the spectrum in terms of what's affordable, there are, or rather there were, toys with a value of next to nothing that a small subset of people gobbled up because they could afford to. There was a time when you could get Action Masters figures for pennies on the dollar, but there are so many people customizing them that the hundreds or thousands of unwanted Action Masters have been effectively removed from circulation. An artificial scarcity has been created. It's the same with the Decoys.

So to bring this all back around full circle, I feel guilty about gobbling up vintage Omega Supreme parts because I have this sense that I'm contributing to their scarcity. At the same time, though, it's not like I'm buying hundreds of them. Also, I think your intentions should be a consideration, too. You could argue that I'm giving these otherwise unwanted Omega Supreme parts a new lease on life. At least I'm giving them a home and a purpose. If I was to gobble up every single one of them that I saw, though, with the goal of pulling a Sara Gruen and depleting the entire secondary market supply, that might be a different story. I would hope.

It's also really hard to gauge how much G1 wheeling and dealing is really going on these days. I once posited a theory that all the Bumblejumpers you see on eBay are really just the same dozen or so toys that are constantly changing hands between collectors. You'd think that all the hardcore G1 fans who had to have these toys would already own all the ones they wanted. However, everybody's disposable income is limited, so even if you decided you were only going to get one MISB G1 toy a month, you'd be collecting for years before you acquired a complete set. Also, people's financial profiles can change. I'm in a better place, monetarily speaking, than I've ever been before, so I can afford to dabble in silly projects like trying to build and paint all 200+ monsters from Final Fantasy IV. (I tend to think the reason nobody's ever done this before is because nobody's been willing to throw this much money at such a project before. Goodness knows I couldn't have done this two decades ago.)

So, here are the unanswered questions. Is it irresponsible to take perfectly good G1 toys, or even parts, and customize the hell out of them? Will there ever come a point when there are simply no more G1 toys and pieces left to buy? Of the ones currently being hoarded as part of somebody's collection, what's going to become of them when the current generation of collectors passes away? Is the next generation even going to place value on this stuff at all?


Zob (also, where can I find more Mallow Magic popcorn?)

[banzait...@gmail.com]

These are great questions! My thoughts below:

> Is it irresponsible to take perfectly good G1 toys, or even parts, and customize the hell out of them?

First off, it depends on the toy. As an analogy, nobody would have a problem with someone tearing apart a 1988 Hyundae excel (remember when those where EVERYWHERE?), but the minute you took a blowtorch to a gullwing SL Mercedes... I would put an original G1 Omega Supreme toy on par with the SL Mercedes. As a transformers collector, I do think you have a moral obligation not to tamper or destroy the parts/figure. To continue the analogy, if you had a one step changer from 2013, go for it. That is a Hyundae excel, it was built to be disposable and no one will miss it.
There are a few wrinkles here, as it is a spectrum. As an example, the toy you are talking about has been reissued. Could I tell the difference between a 1986 upper leg yellow clamp (u know, the small one) and a reissue? I would like to think I could, but probably not. Alternatively, take wheeljack, who has never been reissued, and likely never will. So, this toy is an absolute DO NOT TOUCH. Same goes for accessories that due to legal reasons, can never be reproduced, like some of the small G1 missiles, which are now deemed choking hazards.
Lastly, if the toy is just not in any salvageable condition, as if nothing can be reused. Then it is ok to destroy. I have a sideswipe somewhere like this, but just can't bring myself to throw it away.

> Will there ever come a point when there are simply no more G1 toys and pieces left to buy?

On the contrary, I think the trend will be the other way. In the past few years, we have seen even some of the most die hard ATT fans here sell off their entire collection. While I have no data to back it up, I think there will be more people selling toys than buying them. We used to think that the movies would bring droves of new fans, which it did. But as the franchise slogs on, I feel it is turning new fans away. The movies are just that bad.

>Of the ones currently being hoarded as part of somebody's collection, what's going to become of them when the current generation of collectors passes away?

This is a question I have given much thought to, as I have kids. Let me phrase my concern in a hypothetical. Suppose your dad left you his collection of old toys, say some kind of metal vehicle toys from the 1950s. If he gave you one or two, that would be one thing, but supposed he left you 20 boxes of them. Now lets say you find out that they are worth decent money. You'd almost certainly dump them, make a bunch of cash, and keep a couple for posterity. You wouldn't want to carry around 20 boxes of toys. This is what I see happening to these collections.

> Is the next generation even going to place value on this stuff at all?

No. They don't value work or responsibility. Unless the government sets up a free transformer handout program, they won't care.

There is an implicit question that follows most of this discussion, and that is exactly how many of these things are out there. I posted years ago about some a-hole I noticed that was buying every darkwing (or was it dreadwind) that came up on ebay. EVERY one. He was paying hundreds of dollars for some of them. He was clearly trying to corner the market on the toy, which he picked because if you have one, you kinda NEED the other. I'm certain his scheme failed. I am not sure how much these toys go for today, but I doubt this moron made back HALF his total "investment".
So, until Hasbro releases production numbers, which will never occur, we can only guess. Somewhere, it the bowels of Hasbro, in a surplus cabinet or squirreled away in Iron Mountain - I bet there are files on this. Also in a thread years ago, I attempted to back into this number based on the number of targets and walmarts, etc... I am sure it was wildly inaccurate.

-Banzaitron (who is never selling his bumblejumper)

[banzait...@gmail.com]

> I posted years ago about some a-hole I noticed that was buying every darkwing (or was it dreadwind) that came up on ebay. EVERY one. He was paying hundreds of dollars for some of them. He was clearly trying to corner the market on the toy, which he picked because if you have one, you kinda NEED the other. I'm certain his scheme failed. I am not sure how much these toys go for today, but I doubt this moron made back HALF his total "investment".

I found the thread, from way back in 2005. IT WAS THE YEAR 2005!!!!

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/alt.toys.transformers/oatxTX4og2M

-Banzaitron

[New and Improved Zobovor]

On Monday, August 14, 2017 at 9:19:50 PM UTC-6, banzait...@gmail.com wrote:

> I found the thread, from way back in 2005. IT WAS THE YEAR 2005!!!!

I have no memory of that. I remember taking a long break from ATT around that time, though.

You guys are sort of dancing around the identity of the toy in question, but it sounds like you were alluding to BotCon Dreadwind from the "Games of Deception" set, right? The one that was a redeco of Classics Jetfire? That's maybe the one BotCon toy that I wanted more than any other in existence.

But now that I know that a Power of the Primes version is coming, I'm really glad I didn't scrimp and save and spend hundreds of dollars on him. Because there were a few years there when I really, really wanted to.

The problem with BotCon toys, in particular, is that there are so damn many of them now. It's hard to keep track of them all. There's a very high demand for the newest and latest models, but after a few years, interest in them fades significantly... ESPECIALLY if there's been a better version of that character in the interim. I've seen some older BotCon toys sell on eBay for as little as ten or twenty bucks a pop.


Zob (still wants an eHobby anime Astrotrain, though)

[New and Improved Zobovor]

On Tuesday, August 15, 2017 at 11:38:36 AM UTC-6, New and Improved Zobovor wrote:

> you were alluding to BotCon Dreadwind from the "Games of Deception" set,
> right? The one that was a redeco of Classics Jetfire?

Wait, no. That can't be right, because that was a BotCon 2007 exclusive set. Are you talking about the actual, original G1 Darkwing and Dreadwind? Wow. Yeah, that's a jerk move.


Zob (reading comprehension is hard)

[New and Improved Zobovor]

On Monday, August 14, 2017 at 9:08:02 PM UTC-6, banzait...@gmail.com wrote:

> As a transformers collector, I do think you have a moral obligation not to
> tamper or destroy the parts/figure. To continue the analogy, if you had a
> one step changer from 2013, go for it. That is a Hyundae excel, it was built
> to be disposable and no one will miss it.

Just to play devil's advocate for a moment, no Transformers toys were ever made to last for decades. In a sense, all of them were intended to be disposable. The fact that any authentic G1 merchandise has survived for 30+ years is pretty extraordinary. And, really, in 30 more years, the surviving One Step Changers could be considered rare and valuable.

Customizing G1 toys does present its own set of unique challenges (the plastic is ancient and brittle, for one) but it's scary to think that the supply may be steadily dwindling. We just don't know how many surviving G1 units are left in the world. I think I would feel different about those Omega Supreme parts if I knew that there were only, say, 25 left in the world instead of 250 or 2500. (The fact that you can get them for ten bucks shipped suggests they're not that rare, of course, but moving on...)

> There are a few wrinkles here, as it is a spectrum. As an example, the toy
> you are talking about has been reissued. Could I tell the difference between
> a 1986 upper leg yellow clamp (u know, the small one) and a reissue? I would
> like to think I could, but probably not. Alternatively, take wheeljack, who
> has never been reissued, and likely never will. So, this toy is an absolute
> DO NOT TOUCH.

Interesting. So, the Wheeljack I rebuilt to give him flashing ears... am I going to get in trouble for that? (It was in pretty bad shape...)

> Lastly, if the toy is just not in any salvageable condition, as if
> nothing can be reused. Then it is ok to destroy.

I tend to agree with this. Most of the G1 toys that I've painted into cartoon colors were ones from my own collection that were already broken or damaged. I'm working on collecting enough parts to make a Reflector in cartoon colors, but I only go after heavily-damaged 'bots. Mostly because they're cheap.

> On the contrary, I think the trend will be the other way. In the past few
> years, we have seen even some of the most die hard ATT fans here sell off
> their entire collection. While I have no data to back it up, I think there
> will be more people selling toys than buying them.

You could be right. It's weird to think about, though. Me, I can't stand the idea of selling off my collection. I guess I would do it if I had a medical emergency or something and needed to raise tens of thousands of dollars, but I don't ever see myself just getting bored or sick of it and wanting to throw in the towel.

The fact that there is a steady supply of G1 toys and parts on eBay does suggest that either a) there are people constantly selling off their collections, or b) people are remarkably good at scavenging flea markets and garage sales. Some of it is probably the same stuff year after year (the eBay seller wheeljackslab, for example, seems to have a large storehouse that he keeps in constant auction rotation) but some of it must be fresh meat.

Also, the supply on some items does seem to be quite limited and finite. Just for example, you used to see those knockoff see-through G1 Mirage toys in clear plastic all the time, but now they're impossible to come by.

> We used to think that the movies would bring droves of new fans, which it
> did. But as the franchise slogs on, I feel it is turning new fans away. The
> movies are just that bad.

I almost tend to think the movie fans and the G1 fans are two totally separate animals. The movies might have brought some new fans in, who only collect movie toys, but I don't really think the existence of the movies has affected G1 collecting in the long run. Maybe back in 2007, when a bunch of people went, "Oh, Transformers? Yeah, I remember those... I have a box of them in my basement..." and capitalized on the resurgence in popularity in order to resell. But not so much now.

> Suppose your dad left you his collection of old toys, say some kind of metal

> vehicle toys from the 1950s. You wouldn't want to carry around 20 boxes of

> toys. This is what I see happening to these collections.

Okay, but that raises the question... who are these collections going to get sold to? Kids who have a vague sense that "Transformers are worth money" and buy them as an investment? Fans of whatever the then-current incarnation of Transformers will be, who are interested in them for their historical significance?

> So, until Hasbro releases production numbers, which will never occur, we
> can only guess. Somewhere, it the bowels of Hasbro, in a surplus cabinet or
> squirreled away in Iron Mountain - I bet there are files on this.

I would love to know why they're so secretive about their production numbers. I mean, we find out the production numbers on limited-run items, and it hasn't caused an industry-wide collapse yet.

> Also in a thread years ago, I attempted to back into this number based on the
> number of targets and walmarts, etc... I am sure it was wildly inaccurate.

Something like that would be really hard to quantify. In 1984, for example, Transformers was an unknown, so Hasbro might not have produced very many and might not have offered them to as many retailers as they did in subsequent years. (The fact that the entire 1984 toy line was reissued in 1985 suggests the numbers may have been comparatively small.) There was a time when you could find Transformers EVERYWHERE. Not just toy stores (Kiddie City, KB Toys, Toys "R" Us) but also department stores (Ames, Kmart, Sears) and even weird places you wouldn't expect to see them (People's Drug).

Thanks for your thoughts on this!


Zob (not about to sell my Bumblejumper either)

[banzait...@gmail.com]

On Tuesday, August 15, 2017 at 5:54:35 PM UTC-5, New and Improved Zobovor wrote:
> On Monday, August 14, 2017 at 9:08:02 PM UTC-6, banzait...@gmail.com wrote:
>
> > As a transformers collector, I do think you have a moral obligation not to
> > tamper or destroy the parts/figure. To continue the analogy, if you had a
> > one step changer from 2013, go for it. That is a Hyundae excel, it was built
> > to be disposable and no one will miss it.
>
> Just to play devil's advocate for a moment, no Transformers toys were ever made to last for decades. In a sense, all of them were intended to be disposable. The fact that any authentic G1 merchandise has survived for 30+ years is pretty extraordinary. And, really, in 30 more years, the surviving One Step Changers could be considered rare and valuable.

This is true. None were made to last 30 plus years. But I don't think rareness, such as your one step example imparts value alone. There are probably only a handful of mint condition 1988 Hyundae excels in existence in the world. But since no one wants this car, cuz it is crap, it's value would still be very low. Same would apply to the one step changer, IMHO.

>
> Customizing G1 toys does present its own set of unique challenges (the plastic is ancient and brittle, for one) but it's scary to think that the supply may be steadily dwindling. We just don't know how many surviving G1 units are left in the world. I think I would feel different about those Omega Supreme parts if I knew that there were only, say, 25 left in the world instead of 250 or 2500. (The fact that you can get them for ten bucks shipped suggests they're not that rare, of course, but moving on...)
>
> > There are a few wrinkles here, as it is a spectrum. As an example, the toy
> > you are talking about has been reissued. Could I tell the difference between
> > a 1986 upper leg yellow clamp (u know, the small one) and a reissue? I would
> > like to think I could, but probably not. Alternatively, take wheeljack, who
> > has never been reissued, and likely never will. So, this toy is an absolute
> > DO NOT TOUCH.
>
> Interesting. So, the Wheeljack I rebuilt to give him flashing ears... am I going to get in trouble for that? (It was in pretty bad shape...)

This is debatable. but I think you will likely avoid going to hell for this, but I certainly can't promise anything.

>
> > Lastly, if the toy is just not in any salvageable condition, as if
> > nothing can be reused. Then it is ok to destroy.
>
> I tend to agree with this. Most of the G1 toys that I've painted into cartoon colors were ones from my own collection that were already broken or damaged. I'm working on collecting enough parts to make a Reflector in cartoon colors, but I only go after heavily-damaged 'bots. Mostly because they're cheap.
>
> > On the contrary, I think the trend will be the other way. In the past few
> > years, we have seen even some of the most die hard ATT fans here sell off
> > their entire collection. While I have no data to back it up, I think there
> > will be more people selling toys than buying them.
>
> You could be right. It's weird to think about, though. Me, I can't stand the idea of selling off my collection. I guess I would do it if I had a medical emergency or something and needed to raise tens of thousands of dollars, but I don't ever see myself just getting bored or sick of it and wanting to throw in the towel.

Me either. I would probably just do like the rest of America does, and rack up monster bills and just simply not pay them. Then file for bankruptcy, wait a couple years for the credit card offers to start rolling in again and start all over. This is why Americans can't have nice things.

>
> The fact that there is a steady supply of G1 toys and parts on eBay does suggest that either a) there are people constantly selling off their collections, or b) people are remarkably good at scavenging flea markets and garage sales. Some of it is probably the same stuff year after year (the eBay seller wheeljackslab, for example, seems to have a large storehouse that he keeps in constant auction rotation) but some of it must be fresh meat.

Good point. I can't really think of any G1 toy that you never see on ebay. Sure, it might cost an arm and a leg, but its there. Often MIB!

>
> Also, the supply on some items does seem to be quite limited and finite. Just for example, you used to see those knockoff see-through G1 Mirage toys in clear plastic all the time, but now they're impossible to come by.

I suppose that could be caused by ebay pulling the KO auctions? Dunno.

> > Suppose your dad left you his collection of old toys, say some kind of metal
> > vehicle toys from the 1950s. You wouldn't want to carry around 20 boxes of
> > toys. This is what I see happening to these collections.
>
> Okay, but that raises the question... who are these collections going to get sold to? Kids who have a vague sense that "Transformers are worth money" and buy them as an investment? Fans of whatever the then-current incarnation of Transformers will be, who are interested in them for their historical significance?

True. I think over time, the toys will just generally get rarer. People will throw them away, lose them, destroyed in catastrophes, etc. Maybe that will help alleviate the reduced demand. OK, I am just making stuff up at this point.

>
> > So, until Hasbro releases production numbers, which will never occur, we
> > can only guess. Somewhere, it the bowels of Hasbro, in a surplus cabinet or
> > squirreled away in Iron Mountain - I bet there are files on this.
>
> I would love to know why they're so secretive about their production numbers. I mean, we find out the production numbers on limited-run items, and it hasn't caused an industry-wide collapse yet.
>
> > Also in a thread years ago, I attempted to back into this number based on the
> > number of targets and walmarts, etc... I am sure it was wildly inaccurate.
>
> Something like that would be really hard to quantify. In 1984, for example, Transformers was an unknown, so Hasbro might not have produced very many and might not have offered them to as many retailers as they did in subsequent years. (The fact that the entire 1984 toy line was reissued in 1985 suggests the numbers may have been comparatively small.) There was a time when you could find Transformers EVERYWHERE. Not just toy stores (Kiddie City, KB Toys, Toys "R" Us) but also department stores (Ames, Kmart, Sears) and even weird places you wouldn't expect to see them (People's Drug).

Agreed. The G1 toys used to me EVERYWHERE (the good old days). I still think if you wanted to spend countless months on this as a project, you could back into a reasonable estimate that could never be confirmed. There are websites out there (and microfiche in libraries) that show old transformer adds. It would be a good place to start. I do think that we could relatively easily come up with reasonable predictions today. The retail supply chain is much more consolidated, and there is so much information out there to pluck.

> Thanks for your thoughts on this!

Of course!

-Banzaitron

[New and Improved Zobovor]

On Saturday, August 19, 2017 at 7:36:54 PM UTC-6, banzait...@gmail.com wrote:

> This is true. None were made to last 30 plus years. But I don't think

> rareness, such as your one step example, imparts value alone.

You sure wouldn't know it from looking at eBay. People charge through the nose for toys only a few years old, just because they're not available at retail any longer. Literally any toy.

Well, except Star Trek action figures. You can still get those for, like, a buck a piece.

> This is debatable. but I think you will likely avoid going to hell for this,
> but I certainly can't promise anything.

Is there a committee I should speak with? Somebody I can petition?

> I would probably just do like the rest of America does, and rack up monster
> bills and just simply not pay them. Then file for bankruptcy, wait a couple
> years for the credit card offers to start rolling in again and start all
> over. This is why Americans can't have nice things.

>> Just for example, you used to see those knockoff see-through G1 Mirage toys
>> in clear plastic all the time, but now they're impossible to come by.
>
> I suppose that could be caused by ebay pulling the KO auctions? Dunno.

That's one factor, possibly, but you can't find them on ioffer.com any longer, either. I haven't seen one for sale for years. I really do think the supply was completely exhausted, and nobody is reselling them.

> I think over time, the toys will just generally get rarer. People will throw
> them away, lose them, destroyed in catastrophes, etc. Maybe that will help
> alleviate the reduced demand. OK, I am just making stuff up at this point.

No, I think you're probably right. And, perhaps, the next generation will still value the toys, but in a different sort of way. I mean, I can appreciate how rare and wonderful a coin from the year 1900 is. I wasn't alive back then and maybe its true significance is lost on me, but I can still appreciate it based purely on its rarity and value.

In 2084, surviving G1 specimens will command top dollar. People may have no idea if the toys are complete and may not even know the character names, but they'll be a recognizable piece of Americana (or Japacana, I guess).

> I still think if you wanted to spend countless months on this as a project,
> you could back into a reasonable estimate that could never be confirmed.
> There are websites out there (and microfiche in libraries) that show old

> transformer ads. It would be a good place to start.

I guess it depends on what your acceptable margin of error would be. If you found out all the retailers who ever stocked Transformers, and calculated that they had x many stores in 198X, then you could arrive at an absolute bare-bones minimum of how many were produced. (That's assuming that stores didn't advertise but then had to offer rainchecks because they didn't get any stock.)

Coming up with a maximum number would be a lot harder, because there's no telling how many times stores had to reorder, which months they were totally out of stock, etc. I would also tend to think that production numbers were much higher in 1985 than they were in 1989 or 1990. Shrug.


Zob (gonna leave that project for somebody else)

[Gustavo Wombat]

New and Improved Zobovor <zobo...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Saturday, August 19, 2017 at 7:36:54 PM UTC-6, banzait...@gmail.com wrote:
>
>> This is true. None were made to last 30 plus years. But I don't think
>> rareness, such as your one step example, imparts value alone.
>
> You sure wouldn't know it from looking at eBay. People charge through
> the nose for toys only a few years old, just because they're not
> available at retail any longer. Literally any toy.

Low supply, low demand items tend to be slightly aggressively priced, and
sit around forever. Left handed banjos, for instance.

> Well, except Star Trek action figures. You can still get those for, like, a buck a piece.

Why doesn't Star Trek get the same action-figurability as Star Wars, or
some of the superhero lines? Do younger kids not watch it? Do younger kids
watch the Transformers movies?

I've seen adults buying Star Wars figures and Transformers for themselves.
Are the Star Trek ones somehow lower quality? Maybe it's the lack of
consistent villains.

>> This is debatable. but I think you will likely avoid going to hell for this,
>> but I certainly can't promise anything.
>
> Is there a committee I should speak with? Somebody I can petition?

Does it really matter *why* you go to hell?

--
I wish I was a mole in the ground.

[New and Improved Zobovor]

On Monday, August 21, 2017 at 12:42:56 AM UTC-6, Gustavo Wombat, of the Seattle Wombats wrote:

> Low supply, low demand items tend to be slightly aggressively priced, and
> sit around forever. Left handed banjos, for instance.

At some point, you'd think that people would realize the product just isn't moving and do some kind of blowout sale. There are some items that have been on eBay year after year after year. There's a Decoy of Jazz, for example, that's got silver paint all over it (sold by "surplusmeisters" on eBay, which in itself kind of funny if you stop and think about it). Literally nobody is ever going to want it, and yet it's always listed for sale, month after month. eBay doesn't penalize you for relisting items if they don't sell, so there's this huge glut of non-moving items.

> Why doesn't Star Trek get the same action-figurability as Star Wars, or
> some of the superhero lines? Do younger kids not watch it? Do younger kids
> watch the Transformers movies?

Star Trek was big in the 1990's when The Next Generation was on the air. It was highly collectible and Playmates was producing lots of action figures. My suspicion (and I've voiced this opinion before) is that the core fandom was already a little older (compared to, say, Transformers or Star Wars) and that most of the people who watched the 1960's show have aged out of collecting.

The Star Trek movie franchise just hasn't revitalized the property the way I think they were hoping it would. And so, there's just no demand for the Playmates action figures. A few years ago I was looking on eBay and goggled up a huge amount of Star Trek figures for, like, a dollar apiece. I even got the original series figures, because at a dollar a pop, why the hell not?

> I've seen adults buying Star Wars figures and Transformers for themselves.
> Are the Star Trek ones somehow lower quality? Maybe it's the lack of
> consistent villains.

Star Trek began as a 1960's property, while Star Wars began in the 1970's and Transformers is 1980's. There's a degree of overlap in the fandoms, of course, but I think for the most part Star Wars and Transformers fans are a little bit younger. Also, the new Star Wars and Transformers movies really have brought in a whole new generation of fans (though if I may say so, the toys from The Force Awakens or Rouge One never seem to sell as well as characters from the original Star Wars trilogy).

> Does it really matter *why* you go to hell?

I think it's a matter of degrees. Besides, there's got to be some sort of caste system. Minimum-security and maximum-security purgatory. Surely they don't put the murderers in the same place they put people who throw candy wrappers on the ground, do they?

Actually, I'm kind of hoping there is no afterlife at all. Eternity would be boring.


Zob (forever sleep... earned it, I have)

[New and Improved Zobovor]

On Sunday, August 13, 2017 at 8:56:05 PM UTC-6, Zobovor wrote:

<snip>

As a mostly-unrelated follow-up question, I wonder if G1 toys are actually *easier* to acquire on the secondary market than newer toys? The reason I ask about this is twofold. For one, modern-age toys with their snap-on ball-and-socket joints means that they come apart much more easily than most G1 toys. You see a lot of Beast Wars parts on eBay, for example. Cheetor's upper leg or Claw Jaw's foot or Transquito's forearm. Sure, there are lots of G1 toys that came with accessories, but earlier toys like Gears or Slag or Quickswitch wouldn't come apart into pieces unless you broke them. I would posit that it's much more difficult to keep a toy from 1995-20XX intact and assembled. In a way, ALL the modern-era toys are Omega Supremes.

Also, we're fast approaching the dawn of the 2020's. I operate under the assumption that most young adults who begin rediscovering their childhood do so at around the age of 20, but I challenge people to counter my assumptions. In any event, none of us who grew up in the 1980's is going to only just now start to take interest in our childhood playthings. If we were going to do so, we would have done so already. What I'm saying is that in this era, it's people who grew up on Beast Wars and Robots in Disguise that are going to be hunting for toys now. The G1 era is as irrelevant to them as early 1970's action figures would be to me. I'm vaguely aware that they exist, but I have zero interest in collecting them or owning them.


Zob (does not own anything produced by Mego)

[Steve L.K. Macrocranios]

banzaitron wrote:
> > I still think if you wanted to spend countless months on this
> > as a project, you could back into a reasonable estimate that
> > could never be confirmed.

New and Improved Zobovor wrote:

> I guess it depends on what your acceptable margin of error would be.

I love this topic! I think trying to estimate and add up orders from multiple individual retail chain stores back in the 80s would prove too hard because of the sheer number of outlets there were ordering significant quantities of units. But there is one other way of making a decent guess at the minimums and it comes from newspaper articles of the time.

Back in the early 80s if a given toy phenomenon was big enough, newspapers would report in great detail about what was going on in terms of wholesale orders and how many millions of dollars of a given toyline were sold at that level. Since it was the dawn of the mega toy brands I guess people were fascinated that He-Man and Cabbage Patch and the like were generating so much money and the companies behind them were very willing to share numbers.

So I searched through a digital archive I made when I was in college of newspaper articles that mention Transformers from the first few years of the line. Below I've attached snippets from stories pertaining to units sold and stuff I thought was relevant, presented chronologically and beginning with the article source:

---------
TOYS WITH DOUBLE THE FUN

Washington Post, The (DC) - Sunday, September 2, 1984
Author: Sari Horwitz, Washington Post Staff Writer

Hasbro, of Pawtucket, R.I., is known best for its G.I. Joe. Advance orders for the company's Transformer toys already exceed those of any other nonelectric toy in the industry's history, said Stephen D. Hassenfeld , Hasbro's chairman. Transformers reached toy stores in May, and by the end of July Hasbro already had shipped 3 million of them.

[The earliest Transformer ad I've ever seen was run on April 29, 1984 so a May start for the line is in the ballpark. What I am unsure of is whether Optimus and Megatron were in those first couple of months of initial shipments because I've seen ads run in July from some stores announcing Optimus and Megatron had just arrived.]


---------
THIS YEAR, HOT TOY APPEARS TO BE FOLDING ROBOTS

Wichita Eagle, The (KS) - Sunday, October 14, 1984
Author: ASSOCIATED PRESS

TONKA TOYS and Hasbro Industries of the United States have both put in orders of $100 million to Bandai and Takara, Japan's No. 1 and No. 3 toymakers, respectively, to import legions of the little mechanical men in time for Christmas.

''We will ship 75, 80 million dollars wholesale this year," said Dan Owens, Hasbro 's vice president for marketing. "That's more than 10 million units and over three times the number of units shipped last year in Cabbage Patch dolls."

[Here we have the only solid guesstimate of actual units that would ship in 84. Eventually the total wholesale orders would land at 115 million as we'll see in a later article. Extrapolating the 80 million dollars/10 million units ratio, my guess is in '84 the total number of units was in the neighborhood of 14 million. I assume 1 unit = 1 UPC. I could theoretically break that down even further into estimates of how many were shipped of individual case assortments but that is a whole 'nother topic]
---------
ROBOTS GRIP THE IMAGINATION

Philadelphia Inquirer, The (PA) - Friday, November 23, 1984
Author: Kathy Hacker, Inquirer Staff Writer

By Christmas, Tonka expects to move 15 million GoBots, which translates into slightly more than $100 million in retail sales. Hasbro Bradley, which imports Transformers from another Japanese toy colossus, Takara, took $100 million worth of wholesale orders in February - three times as much as the company had anticipated.

Although 8,000 workers in two dozen Tokyo factories are frantically churning out Transformers , Hasbro probably will be able to ship only about $80 million worth, or 10 million units, to America's toy stores. "We're allocating the product as best we can," said spokeswoman Michele Litsky.

[The takeaway here was that they got the initial 100 million of wholesale orders in February, and knowing what we know I then assume the remaining 15 million happened sometime after that. Also, Hasbro had to allocate orders which meant they decided which retailers got how much regardless of who ordered what. In other articles I read that retailers hated this.]

---------
TOY TRANSFORMATIONS | SEASON'S RAGE TWO-IN-ONE ROBOT TOYS MEETS THE NEEDS OF BOYS WHO ARE GOING THROUGH AN AGGRESSIVE STAGE, PSYCHOLOGIST SAYS; [1,2,3 Edition]
Joan Levine. The Tribune. San Diego, Calif.: Dec 19, 1984. pg. C.1

Bob Prupis, associate vice president of marketing for Hasbro Industries, Inc., is pleasantly surprised and slightly amazed at the enthusiastic response to the line of Transformer products, which include tennis shoes, ride-on vehicles and a line of 28 different robot toys that convert into cars, airplanes and trucks.

Transformation is a key to the success of robot toys -- they are two toys in one. Prices range from $2.50 to $89.95.

Says Prupis: "We have shipped $100 million worth of Transformer products to the marketplace. What happens is as soon as it hits the counter, it disappears. Last year at this time, we had commitments for a $25-million to $30-million line, which is pretty good for a first-year line. And by fall 1984, it looked like a $50-million line."

He says: "When the toys hit the counter last May, they had generated such excitement that Hasbro had to go to Japan and increase the productivity."

[Prupis' comments here outline the chronology of sales for the line. According to him they had 25-30 million in commitments for the line by December of 1983. Then Toyfair hits in February 84 and they take 100 million dollars in orders right out the gate. Then he has to go to Japan to see if they can squeeze out anything else.

I wonder if this trip was when he decided to recruit Bandai and Toybox to do Jetfire and Shockwave. I don't know if they were part of the plan from inception or last minute additions since they're missing from the initial '84 Hasbro price list, yet retailers started selling them in late '84.]

---------
Hasbro Bradley Inc. Expects to Report Net Tripled in 1st Quarter
Wall Street Journal. (Eastern edition). New York, N.Y.: Apr 24, 1985. pg. 1

Mr. Hassenfeld said sales and orders of the company's best-selling toys, GI Joe toy soldiers and Transformer robots, are ahead of last year. In 1984, Hasbro Bradley sold $135 million of GI Joes and $115 million of Transformers.

[Here's the '84 wrap up sales figure of 115 million dollars wholesale straight from the horse's mouth.]

-----------
Cabbage Patch Kids Topple From Perch As No. 1 U.S. Toy --- Transformer Robots Seize Position the Cuddly Dolls Had Held for 16 Months
By Bob Davis. Wall Street Journal. (Eastern edition). New York, N.Y.: May 29, 1985. pg. 1

Still, Hasbro Bradley was exultant. "Transformers is climbing and Cabbage Patch is peaking," said Stephen Schwartz, Hasbro Bradley's senior vice president for marketing. Mr. Schwartz estimated that Pawtucket, R.I.-based Hasbro Bradley this year would sell about 30 million Transformer toys, valued at $200 million, about double the volume and revenue of last year.

[Jumping ahead to May of '85, the projection is 30 million toys at 200 million wholesale. Eventually they'd do 335 million in wholesale orders so by my calculations at least 50 million Transformers were sold that year.]

---------

Hasbro Inc. Estimates 8.5% Rise in Revenue In the Fourth Quarter
Wall Street Journal. (Eastern edition). New York, N.Y.: Dec 12, 1986. pg. 1

Mr. Hassenfeld said the company's Transformers action toys group would be the largest category contributing to 1986 results. Hasbro reiterated that it expects sales of the line to fall; Mr. Hassenfeld estimated the sales would fall to $195 million this year from $335 million last year.

[And here's where the 335 million dollars at wholesale for '85 comes from. I vaguely remember reading the wholesale numbers for '86 being terrible comparatively-like somewhere around 85 million. But don't quote me on that as I don't remember the source.]

To wrap up, my guess is that the total number of units sold from 1984 through 1985 is somewhere in the range of 64 million. That's at least 64 million Transformers from the first two years, not counting multiple robots in the same package.

[Steve L.K. Macrocranios]

New and Improved Zobovor:

> As a mostly-unrelated follow-up question, I wonder if G1 toys are
> actually *easier* to acquire on the secondary market than newer toys?

Do you mean sealed or loose? Actually I don't think it matters either way, the answer is no. G1 had a vastly larger percentage of kids ending up as the final consumer. Nowadays there are enough adults, speculators, and scaplers buying up toys that way more pristine examples survive in the long term. I'd say look up the ebay availability of any given G1 toy still sealed or even complete and there won't be any brand new toys from a comparable size class from the past 20 years that are as affordable as the G1.

> The reason I ask about this is twofold. For one, modern-age toys with
> their snap-on ball-and-socket joints means that they come apart much more
> easily than most G1 toys.

As you say, modern era toys are at least designed to come apart so the chances that the parts exist to replace them are very good. G1 Prowl windshields or Mirage waists or Megatron waists and right arms are broken forever and require entire replacement robots to fix, so it's almost apples and oranges. To 'fix' a G1 I need to buy it again and that's expensive. To fix a Beast Wars I could theoretically buy a used one that could even be missing parts which is going to be relatively cheaper. Just so long as the part I lost on a new toy is not missing from the replacement, I'm good and I can get away with buying lower cost junkers.

The problem I am running into lately especially with modern Star Wars is that very few parts dealers (for the stuff I need fixed like the POTF A-Wing) exist because all the units on the market are sealed! It doesn't help me if I broke my A-Wing's landing gear and everyone has one but nobody opened theirs.

> Sure, there are lots of G1 toys that came with accessories, but earlier
> toys like Gears or Slag or Quickswitch wouldn't come apart into pieces
> unless you broke them.

My problem is that G1s tended to come with lots of accessories and chrome ones are the worst to replace. Nowadays I don't know if they chrome stuff as much. G1 is again at a disadvantage because you can have the gun but if it's not all shiny then it's not as good. Modern toys the gun is the gun and as long as it's not scratched it's good to go.

> I would posit that it's much more difficult to keep a toy from 1995-20XX
> intact and assembled. In a way, ALL the modern-era toys are Omega
> Supremes.

Even if that's the case, enough adults are collecting that the chances of units being intact with all their original parts down the road are really good. Collecting loose complete G1 was largely a painful game of mix and match for me back when I was doing it in the late 90s/early 2000s.

> Also, we're fast approaching the dawn of the 2020's. I operate under
> the assumption that most young adults who begin rediscovering their
> childhood do so at around the age of 20, but I challenge people to
> counter my assumptions.

I'd say anyone born after 2000 has no need to revisit their old toys because new versions of those same characters are constantly made available with updated technology. That's one of the advantages of being born into this homogenized corporate pop culture media age. Young adults' childhoods nowadays never end. They never got to latch on to anything new from the ground floor because nothing new has come out-it's all just the latest merry-go-round iterations of the same half dozen mega franchises recycled fresh for the latest generation of consumers.

> In any event, none of us who grew up in the 1980's is going to only just
> now start to take interest in our childhood playthings.

But if that's the case then who is it bidding up those Transformer collections on ebay? I really wonder who doesn't have an Optimus Prime by now but still they sell to someone. It's gotta be new fans somehow. The old stuff is still selling strong and at what I feel are unreasonably high prices for loose complete, boxed, and better grades.

> What I'm saying is that in this era, it's people who grew up on Beast Wars
> and Robots in Disguise that are going to be hunting for toys now.

I really hope that's true as I have a couple extra sealed BW Silverbolts and Ruinations I'm wanting to offload for G1-ish secondary market prices.

> The G1 era is as irrelevant to them as early 1970's action figures
> would be to me. I'm vaguely aware that they exist, but I have zero
> interest in collecting them or owning them.

I think you're a bit more hardcore than the average vintage Transformer fan nowadays. I am amazed at how dedicated to this one brand you are above all other robot brands. And that's where I think you differ. I may be wrong but the impression I get from going to toy shows and being on Facebook is that the current 80s robot fan is a broader range kind of guy that's into robots in general and not just G1 Transformers. More often than not, the 40 something robot collector is into Micronauts and Shogun Warriors and those lines' Japanese ancestors, which go back to the early 70s.

So the more of a wide range of robot interests one has, the further back in time to other lines a collector may go even though their core love was brands of the 80s. Basically I've bought Zeroids from the late 60s because I like Robo Force and they're sort of generationally connected to each other. So people will collect things from eras outside of their chronological childhood and I think it's more the case when it comes to old robot guys. Usually the younger a robot fan is the more Transformers focused they will be, but you are that exception that proves the rule I guess.

[Steve L.K. Macrocranios]

I wrote:
> I'd say look up the ebay availability of any given G1 toy still sealed
> or even complete and there won't be any brand new toys from a comparable
> size class from the past 20 years that are as affordable as the G1.

Whoops I meant unaffordable. As in, the G1 is going to end up more expensive.

[New and Improved Zobovor]

On Wednesday, August 30, 2017 at 12:07:41 PM UTC-6, Steve L.K. Macrocranios wrote:

> As you say, modern era toys are at least designed to come apart so the
> chances that the parts exist to replace them are very good.

Doesn't that make hunting for them much more difficult, though? If I want, like, a G1 Powerglide then I go on eBay and find one. If I want, say, Beast Wars Cheetor, I have to look for his body, then his right upper arm, then his right lower arm, then his right upper leg, then his right lower leg, then his...

I realize this is a slightly unfair comparison because there are, of course, huge numbers of G1 toys that come with a multitude of accessories. You can buy a used Doublecross and enjoy it even if it's missing the gun, though. With so many modern toys built with ball-and-socket joints, though, I can't imagine too many of the loose specimens owned by kids surviving to this day.

> The problem I am running into lately especially with modern Star Wars is that
> very few parts dealers (for the stuff I need fixed like the POTF A-Wing)
> exist because all the units on the market are sealed!

It's actually weird to me how many people appear to be disassembling their toys and selling off parts. Like, the light bulb to the original AT-AT or the original screws that held toys together. Are there seriously people out there whose toys are missing screws?

> I'd say anyone born after 2000 has no need to revisit their old toys because
> new versions of those same characters are constantly made available with
> updated technology.

Not when it comes to Transformers, though. I see people on the message boards complaining every time a Combiner Wars or a Titans Return toy line comes out, because to them it's just another G1 snorefest. There are so many fans now who were introduced to Transformers through Beast Wars or Robots in Disguise or even Armada. (I have no idea why they'd even be fans if they were first exposed to Armada, but that's neither here nor there.)

Occasionally Hasbro coughs up an updated version of Cheetor or Sky-Byte, but by and large, there's a huge era of Transformers that's just not being homaged in any form. I'm not really upset about this by any means (to me, there's no reason to update, say, Robots in Disguise Rail Racer; just get on eBay and buy the original Rail Racer) but apparently there are a lot of people bothered by this.

>> In any event, none of us who grew up in the 1980's is going to only just
>> now start to take interest in our childhood playthings.
>
> But if that's the case then who is it bidding up those Transformer
> collections on ebay? I really wonder who doesn't have an Optimus Prime by now
> but still they sell to someone. It's gotta be new fans somehow.

I'm really not sure. People who have a loose collection but are looking to upgrade to toys in better condition? People who are rebuilding a collection after selling it off and regretting it, or after a fire or flood? People who have kids and want to introduce them to oldskool Transformers? Then there are the folks who are trying to build an army of Gnaws and Scourges and Wreck-Gars and Seekers, though obviously not every toy lends itself to this sort of collecting.

I'm sure there are younger fans who have discovered G1 and are buying up the toys released before they were even born, but I can't imagine that happening very often... not when we're quickly reaching a point when nearly every character is made available in a more recent, less brittle, and more articulated toy. I love the G1 toys because they were part of my childhood, so they get huge nostalgia points. I can't imagine too many millennials going out of their way to pay more money for the bricks of the G1 toy line, when there have been much better representations of most of the characters in recent years.

> I think you're a bit more hardcore than the average vintage Transformer fan
> nowadays. I am amazed at how dedicated to this one brand you are above all
> other robot brands. And that's where I think you differ.

That may be true. I buy up Tonka GoBots on eBay when there are no new Transformers to buy, and I think Challenge of the GoBots may be my fourth favorite cartoon series, but it's the only other robot line I really dabble in. There are robot characters that I'm a huge fan of (Robot B-9 from Lost in Space, V.I.N.CENT. and Old Bob from The Black Hole) but there's so little merchandise to actually collect.


Zob (and then there are characters for whom no merchandise even exists, like GlaDOS from Portal)

[New and Improved Zobovor]

On Wednesday, August 30, 2017 at 11:07:21 AM UTC-6, Steve L.K. Macrocranios wrote:

> To wrap up, my guess is that the total number of units sold from 1984 through
> 1985 is somewhere in the range of 64 million. That's at least 64 million
> Transformers from the first two years, not counting multiple robots in the
> same package.

Damn, that's some amazing sleuthing. We don't really know which price points these figures include (it would take a lot more Mini Autobots to hit those sales figures than, say, Omega Supremes) but it's still a fair estimate.

No wonder toys from 1984-85 are still so plentiful on eBay after all this time. There are probably still millions of them out there!

Was Hasbro shipping internationally back then? I wonder if their sales figures are for the USA only, or if they're worldwide. The article snippets don't seem to specify.

Regarding what you said about Jetfire and Shockwave, they likely weren't part of the original plans for the toy line, as you speculated. Their inclusion in the media seems strange, though. Shockwave was alluded to in the first issue of Marvel comic book (Megatron mentions that "one of our mightiest is missing") and appears at the end of issue #4. He was also in the pilot episode of the cartoon show. Jetfire shows up much later in both the comics and the cartoon. Weird that Shockwave would be part of the earliest stories but Jetfire was not.


Zob (or Skyfire, whatever)

[Steve L.K. Macrocranios]

New and Improved Zobovor wrote:

> If I want, like, a G1 Powerglide then I go on eBay and find one.
> If I want, say, Beast Wars Cheetor, I have to look for his body,
> then his right upper arm, then his right lower arm, then his right
> upper leg, then his right lower leg, then his...

Okay that made me laugh. What I should have written to best communicate my point is that with these G1 figures it's always my experience that every single parts bot available is always broken in exactly the same way mine is. My biggest frustration is that no parts of the part I am looking for are available unbroken on junkers. If my Sunstreakers just needed windshields I'd have tons of choices, but all those junkers are always missing the spoilers. P/B/S guys are all broken at the windshield, etc. etc. There's at least a variety of possible parts missing on newer toys but those missing bits have a high probability of being in good shape once found. The old toys have parts that seem to me to be much more fatally breakable than the new ones, which are just more fall apartable.

> With so many modern toys built with ball-and-socket joints, though,
> I can't imagine too many of the loose specimens owned by kids
> surviving to this day.

When I used to go to flea markets I would always find stuff from Alternators to Movie toys to the Prime line and what they all had in common was they were missing their heads. So I do understand your point of view. That annoyed the hell out of me.

All of my modern TF flea market finds annoy me. I thought I was getting a deal because I never paid more than 5 bucks for them but they all have problems as you describe. I got a movie leader Jetfire that is missing every single part that is removable. I got a movie leader Starscream with lots of tattoos so I'm not sure which one it is, but it looks really neat. However, it's missing two ball socketed pieces that go on the rear stabilizers and I have no idea what they are except that they are missing and it annoys me. I will never get to replace them because it's not a high priority but also because every one of this toy on ebay is stil in its box and I am not paying 90 bucks to replace tail fins. But I have hope that in time these parts will become available and they will be intact and ready to be popped back on.

> Are there seriously people out there whose toys are missing screws?

Yeah, that's me and my unfinished painting projects. I have a completely disassembled Galvatron and an equally screwless Omega Supreme that I took apart over ten years ago and I'll be danged if I know where those screws are!

> I see people on the message boards complaining every time a Combiner
> Wars or a Titans Return toy line comes out, because to them it's just
> another G1 snorefest.

I've seen those guys, too! It trips me out, but it reminds me of the days when all the internet seemed to hate Beast Wars, then little by little these pro-Beast guys started popping up and defending it. So these anti-Gewunners are sort of an oddity to me because I can't imagine who are opposed to getting updates of new characters who haven't been updated since the 80s. For all intents and purposes these are brand new toys but since they bear the horrible legacy of G1 these new fans whine and moan and get mad at Hasbro.

> There are so many fans now who were introduced to Transformers
> through Beast Wars or Robots in Disguise or even Armada.
> (I have no idea why they'd even be fans if they were first exposed to
> Armada, but that's neither here nor there.)

I really think the nostalgic 20 something with the buying power to resurrect long dead toylines is an urban legend. Show me a company that seems to be catering to nostalgic fans and I'll show you a marketing machine that is merely recycling old ideas into new toys for the real intended audience-kids. Certain concepts just have broad, multigenerational appeal. When they get introduced the first time and find a large audience, that's lightning in a bottle. And when these intellectual properties belong to companies large enough and long lived enough to capitalize on them through multiple generations, that's catching that 1.2 jigawatts and really running with it.

> Occasionally Hasbro coughs up an updated version of Cheetor or Sky-Byte,

This is why I don't believe in the power of the nostalgic fan. Beast Wars was the high holy miracle that supposedly saved the line, yet what crumbs do those guys really get in toy form? Nothing to the scale of what has happened with G1. I think G1 is just more flexible than other concepts because new car models are made everyday or can be imagined but leopards and mice still look the same and have to conform to a strict set of visual cues. Bumblebee as a yellow robot is apparently a good enough concept that it can be applied to all sorts of cars, but Cheetor can't be different cats. And the first RiD, or Armada or whatever other G1ish line is stuck because it was that generation's reiteration of G1.

I wish we didn't even call it G1 because the character and associated visual deco concepts themselves are timeless. G1 as we know it was just the first time the idea of these transforming talking robots was successfully marketed broadly and connected with a generation of kids.

> but by and large, there's a huge era of Transformers that's just not
> being homaged in any form.

I don't think homages are as dependent on waves of nostalgic fans to cry out for them as they are on bored marketers with no new ideas who are willing to try recycling the old concepts.

> I can't imagine too many millennials going out of their way to pay more
> money for the bricks of the G1 toy line, when there have been much better
> representations of most of the characters in recent years.

I think that whatever surviving G1 is still out there is probably in great shape by virtue being cared for by the most discriminating, hardcore, super careful old fans collecting it. I am certain you are right that the majority of generations born after about 1991 really won't care about all this stuff no matter what shape it's in. One day there will be a flood of unwanted by millenials, high grade toys out there after a couple million of these meticulous curators of high grade G1 all die. It will be kind of sad but I hope I am around to enjoy seeing all the old robots cycle through the antique stores of 2049 in a sort of ghostly resurrection of the toy store aisles of the 80s.

[Steve L.K. Macrocranios]

New and Improved Zobovor wrote:

> We don't really know which price points these figures include
> (it would take a lot more Mini Autobots to hit those sales
> figures than, say, Omega Supremes) but it's still a fair estimate.

That's exactly right about the minibots skewing the numbers. I came to that conclusion after trying to figure out how many of each assortment were ordered in 1984. They had move much greater amounts of the cases with dozens of toys relative to the cases with only 6 (like Optimus and Megatron) in order to get in the 10 million units range.

I know it's crazy and probably wrong but I came up with very rough estimates of how many of each robot were made. This is what I did.

First I took the numbers from a 1984 Hasbro worksheet that I believe tells me the wholesale costs and units per case for each assortment available that year (at least initially-Jetfire and Shockwave are of course missing). Then I multiplied unit price by case quantity to see how much one case of each assortment cost. Those numbers look like this:

5700 Autobot Minicar Assortment
24 per case * $1.99 per unit = $47.76 for 1 case of minicars

5730 Decepticon Cassette Two-Pack Asst.
24 per case * $3.99 per unit = $95.76 for 1 case of cassettes

5750 Autobot Car Assortment
12 per case * $6.99 per unit = $83.88 for 1 case of deluxe cars

5780 Decepticon Plane Assortment
12 per case * $8.49 per unit = $101.88 for 1 case of planes

5790 Decepticon Communicator
6 per case * $10.99 per unit = $65.94 for 1 case of Soundwaves

5793 Decepticon Leader (Gun)
6 per case * $15.99 per unit = $65.94 for 1 case of Megatrons

5796 Autobot Commander (Tractor Trailer)
6 per case * $15.99 per unit = $65.94 for 1 case of Optimus Primes

Next what I do is add all these up to get an idea of what an order for one case of each assortment would cost. Just imagine a store decided they wanted one case of everything. ASSUMING this is what every store did, this gives me an imaginary median order where the distribution of all cases is equal. So in my scenario, for every minicar case ordered there's a case of Optimus Primes and a case of Soundwaves, etc, etc. Every assortment is ordered in equal numbers. (This is definitely not what happened in real life as some smaller stores may not have ordered anything more expensive than the Autobot cars while others ordered tons of Megatrons.) I'm trying to get an average distribution here and this is the first step.

(24 minicars * $1.99) + (24 cassettes * $3.99) + (12 Autobot deluxes * $6.99) + (12 Decepticon planes * $8.49) + (6 Soundwaves * $10.99) + (6 Megatrons * $15.99) + (6 Optimus Primes * $15.99) = $587.1

So say it costs $587 to order one case of every assortment. Lets call this arrangement of one case of everything a 'cube' just for the sake of identification.

Now remember that Hasbro took 100 million in orders right out the gate at Toyfair 1984. This list minus Jetfire and Shockwave is what I believe to be the initial sheet retailers had to order from. Then a supplemental order sheet came down the line sometime after Hasbro got the non-Takara companies on board. I'll address this later. So ASSUMING the first hundred million in orders were from this sheet, if I take 100 million and divide it by the price of a cube, I get a number that tells me how many instances there were of each case getting ordered when the first 100 million dollars of orders were placed at wholesale:

100,000,000 / 587 = 170357.751278

So in my even distribution of case assortments scenario, each case got ordered about 170,358 times at Toyfair 1984. What I can then do for the first 100 million dollars is figure out how many units were sold by multiplying the number of cubes by the number of figures in each case:

5700 Autobot Minicar Assortment
170,358 * 24 per case = 2,576,592 minicars

5730 Decepticon Cassette Two-Pack Asst.
170,358 * 24 per case = 2,576,592 cassette 2 packs

5750 Autobot Car Assortment
170,358 * 12 per case = 1,288,296 cars

5780 Decepticon Plane Assortment
170,358 * 12 per case = 1,288,296 jets

5790 Decepticon Communicator
170,358 * 6 per case = 644,148 Soundwave & Buzzsaws

5793 Decepticon Leader (Gun)
170,358 * 6 per case = 644,148 Megatrons

5796 Autobot Commander (Tractor Trailer)
170,358 * 6 per case = 644,148 Optimus Primes

Adding up all of these, the total units in my even distribution of assortments scenario for 100 million dollars is 9,662,220. So I get about nine and a half million units from 100 million dollars in wholesale orders. To check this, remember the Hasbro exec in that one article said 75 to 80 million in wholesale orders equaled 10 million units. So I am admittedly off here to the tune of 20 million dollars. I could probably trade ten thousand Primes and Megatrons and get a couple hundred thousand minicars to balance it out. Smoothing out this function and playing with its curve to do such balancing would be a neat project but that's beyond what I'm trying to tackle here.

Anyway this is just part of the story. We still have 15 million more dollars of orders between then and when they stopped taking orders in 1984. The price of a cube changes now ASSUMING that Shockwave and Jetfire were available in that last 15 million dollars worth of orders. So now we rebuild the cube but add two more assortments:

5700 Autobot Minicar Assortment
24 per case * $1.99 per unit = $47.76

5730 Decepticon Cassette Two-Pack Asst.
24 per case * $3.99 per unit = $95.76

5750 Autobot Car Assortment
12 per case * $6.99 per unit = $83.88

5780 Decepticon Plane Assortment
12 per case * $8.49 per unit = $101.88

5790 Decepticon Communicator
6 per case * $10.99 per unit = $65.94

5793 Decepticon Leader (Gun)
6 per case * $15.99 per unit = $65.94

5796 Autobot Commander (Tractor Trailer)
6 per case * $15.99 per unit = $65.94

5797 Autobot Air Guardian (Super Jet)
6 per case * $21.99 per unit = $131.94

5799 Decepticon Laser Gun
6 per case * $17.99 per unit = $107.94

(24 minicars * $1.99) + (24 cassettes * $3.99) + (12 Autobot deluxes * $6.99) + (12 Decepticon planes * $8.49) + (6 Soundwaves * $10.99) + (6 Megatrons * $15.99) + (6 Optimus Primes * $15.99) + (6 Jetfires * 21.99) + (6 Shockwaves * 17.99) = $826.98

Now the cost of the JetWave cube is divided into the last 15 million dollars so we can ultimately estimate how many units were sold in the last orders:

15,000,000 / 827 = 18137.8476421

Roughly 18,138 of each case now gets broken down into figure numbers:

5700 Autobot Minicar Assortment
18,138 * 24 per case = 435,312 more minicars

5730 Decepticon Cassette Two-Pack Asst.
18,138 * 24 per case = 435,312 more cassette 2 packs

5750 Autobot Car Assortment
18,138 * 12 per case = 217,656 more cars

5780 Decepticon Plane Assortment
18,138 * 12 per case = 217,656 more jets

5790 Decepticon Communicator
18,138 * 6 per case = 108,828 more Soundwave & Buzzsaws

5793 Decepticon Leader (Gun)
18,138 * 6 per case = 108,828 more Megatrons

5796 Autobot Commander (Tractor Trailer)
18,138 * 6 per case = 108,828 more Optimus Primes

5797 Autobot Air Guardian (Super Jet)
18,138 * 6 per case = 108,828 Jetfires

5799 Decepticon Laser Gun
18,138 * 6 per case = 108,828 Shockwaves

Adding all that up you get an additional 1,850,076 units to add to the 9,662,220 units from the first 100 million dollars worth of orders.

The bottom line then is my estimate comes out to 11,512,296 total units sold in 1984. [Remember one unit equals one UPC so that impacts the number of Decepticon cassettes.]

Breaking that final total down by assortment, totals for each assortment look like:

5700 Autobot Minicar Assortment
2,576,592 + 435,312 = 3,011,904 total minicars

5730 Decepticon Cassette Two-Pack Asst.
2,576,592 + 435,312 = 3,011,904 total cassette 2 packs

5750 Autobot Car Assortment
1,288,296 + 217,656 = 1,505,952 total cars

5780 Decepticon Plane Assortment
1,288,296 + 217,656 = 1,505,952 total jets

5790 Decepticon Communicator
644,148 + 108,828 = 752,976 total Soundwaves & Buzzsaws

5793 Decepticon Leader (Gun)
644,148 + 108,828 = 752,976 total Megatrons

5796 Autobot Commander (Tractor Trailer)
644,148 + 108,828 = 752,976 total Optimus Primes

5797 Autobot Air Guardian (Super Jet)
108,828 total Jetfires

5799 Decepticon Laser Gun
108,828 total Shockwaves

Knowing that these numbers are somewhat off we can guess the truth is there were more minicars and less large figures than I'm estimating. But to think I'm low on minicars is pretty wild. 3,011,904 sounds absolutely insane.

> No wonder toys from 1984-85 are still so plentiful on eBay after all this
> time. There are probably still millions of them out there!

All these numbers are just too huge to grasp. But check out this excerpt from a Wall Street Journal article I ran across detailing Hasbro's plans for their GI Joe aircraft carrier, It kind of puts these numbers in perspective:

It's Business as Usual at Toy Fair; Familiar Themes and a Harder Sell --- Violence for Boys, Love for Girls
By Steve Weiner and Bob Davis. Wall Street Journal. New York, N.Y.: Feb 7, 1985. pg. 1

..."Hasbro Bradley's GI Joe action toy line includes a cast of heavily armed soldiers, each with a distinct, violent personality sketched on the back of its package. This year the company is launching a 7 1/2-foot GI Joe aircraft carrier -- a toy behemoth, Pentagon -- priced at about $100. The toy can carry up to 100 Joes, at $3 each, and several Skystriker jets, at $19 apiece. A fleet of 100,000 aircraft carriers is planned..."

100,000 Flaggs sounds like a lot, but I maybe ever saw a half dozen on the shelves when I was a kid across all the different stores I ever went to. I saw a lot more Optimus Primes than Flaggs. So I guess there would have to have been upwards of a million Optimuses out there at some point.

It's also fun to figure how many Bumblejumpers may have existed and how foolish it is to even try. I remember estimates from Lee's Action Figure News or maybe Tomart's back in the 90s that said Bumblejumper was packed in a ratio of 1 to every 100 Cliffjumpers. Well if there were 3,011,904 Cliffjumpers then there's at least 3,000 of them out there. That's a huge number to be a packaging error. But my numbers are off from the beginning so it's probably not even safe to journey into those arguments based on my conclusions.

> Was Hasbro shipping internationally back then? I wonder if their
> sales figures are for the USA only, or if they're worldwide.
> The article snippets don't seem to specify.

I'm sure they had presences in other countries but outside of the US there was very little Transformer distribution in 1984. Most everyone else kicked off the line in 1985. Plus other countries had their own toyfairs and their own regional Hasbros they ordered through with factories in their own backyards. By '85 Ceji was making TFs in France, IGA was in Mexico, etc, etc. I think the numbers as presented in these articles really only applied to the US market.

> Jetfire shows up much later in both the comics and the cartoon. Weird
> that Shockwave would be part of the earliest stories but Jetfire was not.

Hasbro probably got wise really fast to how Macross and its derivatives were being licensed out in model kits and cartoons in the US and they knew what they could and couldn't get away with across various media. But it didn't stop them completely. It's kind of fuzzy to me and I wish I knew when exactly all the Jetfire related merchandising hit outside of the comic. Jetfire the straight up Valkyrie made it onto kites, bed tents, the action card, and I'm sure lots of other ancillary stuff. I don't know enough about why the comics and show seemed to have a gag order on the guy.

[Steve L.K. Macrocranios]

I wrote:
> It's also fun to figure how many Bumblejumpers may have existed and how
> foolish it is to even try. I remember estimates from Lee's Action Figure
> News or maybe Tomart's back in the 90s that said Bumblejumper was packed in
> a ratio of 1 to every 100 Cliffjumpers. Well if there were 3,011,904
> Cliffjumpers then there's at least 3,000 of them out there.

Whoops I screwed up majorly here. There would have been 3,011,904 / 6 Cliffjumpers since the 3 million figure is total minibots. So total Cliffjumpers is 501,984 and 1/100 of that would be 5,019.

[New and Improved Zobovor]

On Saturday, September 2, 2017 at 1:14:42 PM UTC-6, Steve L.K. Macrocranios wrote:

> I know it's crazy and probably wrong but I came up with very rough estimates
> of how many of each robot were made. This is what I did.

I think this is the most amazing ATT post in history. Hands down. I'm not even kidding.

I'm not going to argue with your methods or your numbers. Obviously there are going to be variables that would be impossible to account for, but based on what we do know (case assortments, MSRP, etc.) this is the best attempt at crunching the numbers that I've ever seen.

Thanks for taking the time to type it all up. Your hard work is appreciated.

> Knowing that these numbers are somewhat off we can guess the truth is there
> were more minicars and less large figures than I'm estimating. But to think
> I'm low on minicars is pretty wild. 3,011,904 sounds absolutely insane.

It does seem completely off the wall. To put that in perspective, though, the population of the USA in 1980 was around 226 million, which means that if we go by your numbers, there were enough Mini Autobots for only 1 in every 75 citizens to get one. Now it seems like a shortage!

> 100,000 Flaggs sounds like a lot, but I maybe ever saw a half dozen on the
> shelves when I was a kid across all the different stores I ever went to.

Maybe they planned a big production run but scaled back after the initial sales became sluggish?

> It's also fun to figure how many Bumblejumpers may have existed and how
> foolish it is to even try. I remember estimates from Lee's Action Figure News
> or maybe Tomart's back in the 90s that said Bumblejumper was packed in a
> ratio of 1 to every 100 Cliffjumpers.

I'll bet anything they were getting their information from Jon and Karl Hartman, since they were the go-to guys for case assortment data back in the day.

> Well if there were 3,011,904 Cliffjumpers then there's at least 3,000 of them
> out there. That's a huge number to be a packaging error.

I really think that Bumblejumper was less a packaging error and more of a planning error. Hasbro knew they had 29 products ready for the initial line-up and they got Marvel to assign 29 names and personalities to the toys. Problem is, three of those products actually included multiple characters, since there was a Soundwave/Buzzsaw pack, a Rumble/Ravage pack, and a Frenzy/Laserbeak pack. So, 32 toys with only 29 names and bios. Given the sheer number of other mistakes that plagued the initial Transformers release (the Rumble/Frenzy mix-up, three distinct Diaclone toys all representing the Bluestreak character in different forms, Sideswipe and Sunstreaker getting swapped) I don't think it's beyond the realm of possibility.

So, when it comes time to package and market the toys, Hasbro suddenly realizes that they've ordered nine toys for the Mini Autobot assortment but they somehow didn't get official names or biographies for the red Volkswagen, the yellow Porsche, or the yellow Madza Familia. The toys are hot off the production line and ready to go. They don't want to delay their release, and the toys do sort of look like the Bumblebee and Cliffjumper characters, so they stuff them into the existing bubbles and call it good. Problem solved.

Now that I actually type all this out, if it was the cassette packs that tripped up Hasbro, you'd think it would be Ravage and Laserbeak and Buzzsaw who never got names, not the three Mini Autobots. My theory is flawed. But I still like it.


Zob (holds onto beliefs most stubbornly)

[New and Improved Zobovor]

On Tuesday, August 15, 2017 at 4:54:35 PM UTC-6, New and Improved Zobovor wrote:

> I think I would feel different about those Omega Supreme parts if I knew that
> there were only, say, 25 left in the world instead of 250 or 2500. (The fact
> that you can get them for ten bucks shipped suggests they're not that rare,
> of course, but moving on...)

Okay, so something really interesting is that the price on Omega Supreme parts seems to have suddenly skyrocketed, if you'll pardon the pun. It's possible that the first set of rocket parts I bought was just uncharacteristically cheap, but now all the eBay auctions seem to have uniformly gone from around $10 to closer to $20.

I have a very suspicious mind and my first inclination is to think that people saw this discussion, observed that there was a renewed interest in Omega Supreme parts, and jacked up their prices as a result. But it strains logic and credibility to presume that dozens of individual eBay sellers would just happen to stumble upon this antiquated newsgroup.

My secondary suspicion is that there's some entirely non-human metric involved, that eBay itself is somehow responsible. Before you call me a conspiracy theorist, remember that we live in a day and age where airline web sites secretly jack up costs when they notice that you're shopping around for ticket prices. I would not be greatly surprised if there were some computer algorithm somewhere that monitors online discussions about merchandise pricing and makes adjustments based on a perceived interest.

I guess, basically, that I'm saying Omega Supreme parts are really expensive now and I'm pretty sure it's my fault.


Zob (still needs one more set of rocket parts)

[New and Improved Zobovor]

On Sunday, September 10, 2017 at 12:37:20 PM UTC-6, New and Improved Zobovor wrote:

> Zob (still needs one more set of rocket parts)

Got 'em! It's wheeljackslab to the rescue once again. And now I'm done slaughtering poor, helpless Omega Supreme toys. At least for now.


Zob (however, Palisades action figures of Dr. Teeth from the Muppets may be on the endangered species list)

[Steve L.K. Macrocranios]

New and Improved Zobovor wrote:
> I have a very suspicious mind and my first inclination is to think
> that people saw this discussion, observed that there was a renewed
> interest in Omega Supreme parts, and jacked up their prices as a result.
> But it strains logic and credibility to presume that dozens of
> individual eBay sellers would just happen to stumble upon this
> antiquated newsgroup.

Yeah, it's probably just confirmation bias on your part. You might be too closely attenuated to slight fluctuations in Omega Supreme price trends right now. But I do believe that you are right about there being a link between sharing information and inviting competition. That's why I don't go online to talk about any current auctions I am interested in unless I have no intention of bidding on them. This newsgroup may be old but lots of people are reading and taking what's being written here off into their other little corners online.

But I could probably be paranoid. There was recently a sealed poster box Astrotrain (one of the rarest packaging variants) on ebay and I kept that to myself. It still ended up going for something like over $400 despite me not reading about it on facebook or the message boards I ghost. All it takes is one person on some board I'm not in to light a fire and start a bidding war. All some bidding wars need is two hellbent bidders independent of everything and everyone else. So maybe ebay will be ebay no matter what happens on A.T.T. Then again, that carded Bumblejumper we all decided was a fake died in the water right after we were discussing it.

> I would not be greatly surprised if there were some computer
> algorithm somewhere that monitors online discussions about
> merchandise pricing and makes adjustments based on a perceived interest.

That may be true for online markets with variable pricing adjustable only by the seller's algorithm. I think Amazon works that way but it adjusts prices based on current selling trends maybe?. Affecting the ebay price on items is a lot harder because a lot of people would all have to be convinced of something's value over multiple auctions. A.T.T. would need a lot of influence for that to happen. It would be funny if we were putting downward pressure on carded Bumblejumper prices, though.

> I guess, basically, that I'm saying Omega Supreme parts are really
> expensive now and I'm pretty sure it's my fault.

Please post about Roadbuster and Whirl boxes being only worth five bucks. I could use your magic market robot mojo right now.

[Steve L.K. Macrocranios]

New and Improved Zobovor wrote:

> I think this is the most amazing ATT post in history. Hands down.

Thanks but I feel like that with just about every post you or DVD or anyone else that writes insanely detailed reviews or theories or fanfics do. Welcome to feeling like me when I go online where I'm one guy in a world of Zobs.

> Thanks for taking the time to type it all up. Your hard work is
> appreciated.

I'm a bit of a one trick pony, though. If it's not old newspaper related I'm not good at talking about it.

> > 100,000 Flaggs sounds like a lot, but I maybe ever saw a half dozen
> > on the shelves when I was a kid across all the different stores I ever
> > went to.
>
> Maybe they planned a big production run but scaled back after the
> initial sales became sluggish?

I think the 100,000 number may have been right after all. Maybe that was how many there had to be for me and everyone else to see as few as we saw at the time. 100,000 may have been what qualified as rare in the 80s. Maybe GI Joe sites have solid numbers on this.

> I'll bet anything they were getting their information from Jon and Karl
> Hartman, since they were the go-to guys for case assortment data back
> in the day.

I love those guys and of course their contributions to the fandom are immeasurable, but that case assortment list they came up with does have some questionable inclusions that undermine their credibility with me. Like they included assortment numbers for a Bruticus giftset. Their introduction to that page stated the information was gleaned from "...Hasbro Toy Fair catalogs and first-hand viewing of just-opened cases. Other information was taken from reports from other sources and best-guess reasoning." I asked Karl about Bruticus and he said that one fell under best guess reasoning and I'm okay with that. But then what else on that list were they guessing at? Like were there really poster box version of Starscream, Ramjet, Thrust, and Dirge?

As for where Lee's Action Figure News got their info, I think Lee's pulled a lot of conjecture from Toy Shop magazine and printed it as fact. I know I have one Toy Shop where a guy put out a want ad for a blue Bluestreak and was willing to pay like 800 dollars for it. Then amazingly blue Bluestreak shows up in Lee's price guide with a going rate of 800 or whatever the guy was asking. So they were just recycling whatever they saw whether it be speculation or rumor and years later I end up believing there's one Bumblejumper for every 100 Cliffjumpers.

> I really think that Bumblejumper was less a packaging error and more of a
> planning error. Hasbro knew they had 29 products ready for the initial
> line-up and they got Marvel to assign 29 names and personalities to the
> toys.

Yeah, I'm just as confused as the next guy about it. I figure Budiansky would have written profiles for the three extra minis if he'd known about them and he'd have had them in his notes, but he doesn't. We know he was going off of the toys Hasbro supplied him and named them as he held them in his hands (hence Bluestreak) and we know he saved everything he wrote. I saw at one convention he had a tech spec chart he wrote in '83 where he outlined all the characters from that first year but the three extra minis aren't there. So I agree with you that it was a planning error and somewhere along the way Hasbro got the three minis in after Budiansky named the initial assortments but before he started on the '85 line. I doubt we'll ever know for sure.