Oh yeah, they came in many colors. And you better believe I wore mine all the time back then! 
I would still wear it today if I find it and it works, lol!

 

Bay certainly thrust them back into the limelight, but the truth is Transformers were doing very well before Bay. Armada / Energon vastly exceeded sales expectations and helped put Aaron Archer into a room with Speilberg and Bay to make the movie. The Dreamwave comic became the first ever independent (non Marvel, DC or Image comic) to be the top selling monthly comic and hit sales numbers not seen since the early 90s. Transformers had great coverage in 90s and 2000 era toy magazines. Heck, G1 Fortress Maximus was already a $1,000 toy circa 1998.

And speaking for the UK, Transformers never went away. G1.5 Euros, G2, Beast Wars, they ALWAYS had a presence and a lively community and several conventions. Same with US groups, forums and Botcon.

The truth is the Bay movies found an extra gear, but if the interest hasn't been there and building in the public conscious for 23 years and making money for HasTak, there wouldn't have ever been a Bay movie.

After all, how many Battleships forums or conventions do you see around?

 

Three generations of Mirage.

 

My Scourgeseses

3 x 86s + an 87 (TM) with varying degrees of condition/stickers/yellowing

 

Scene from G1 cartoon




Galvatron firing at Starscream during Starscream's coronation

 

My latest addition for the man cave.

 

Apologies if I already posted these. These are some highlights from a style guide obtained from a former Hasbro employee

 

That's an amazing set. I have a style guide from the first year of Generation 2, they're always interesting to see.

 

I love seeing stuff like this. Would you mind posting a pic showing the full text on that specifications sheet?

 

Feelin’ in the Groove today.


Groove is my favorite Protectobot and one of my favorite motorcycle-formers. He was one of my absolute favorite Transformers as a kid even. He’s one of the figures I remember playing with the most. I would even sneak him into my book bag to take to school with me all the time. He’s just such an awesome little figure. I was mildly heartbroken when I lost him with all my other G1 toys. So happy to have reacquired him along with his teammates.


Groove has one of the most simplest yet most satisfying transformations I’ve ever encountered with a Transformer. It’s an incredibly efficient design for a cyclebot. He’s got a very sleek and straight-cut look from the front. I love the “no-nonsense” attitude of his look, and yet Groove himself is not that serious of a bot.

He’d rather be cruising down the road than fighting in it. Not to say that he wouldn’t leap to assist his fellow Protectobots at a moment’s notice, but he is named Groove for a reason. But I love how such a functional design conveys that. His actions and his look convey how serious he can be when necessary without sacrificing his true nature and cool personality. Groove is an excellent fusion of form and function and fun all at the same time.


I absolutely love this motorcycle mode. It looks like it came straight outta “CHiPs.” The chrome engine detail is still really beautiful and I always thought the windscreen looked really cool on this model. So much detail and design in this little figure, it’s just so nice to look at.

He’s able to use all of his accessories in bot mode. Maybe a bit overkill for Groove’s character, but it’s still an option. He does look great with the chrome and gold accents contrasting each other in this mode. And I always loved his headsculpt, also with beautiful gold paint on it.

I’m just gonna go ahead and say it, Groove is one of my most favorite Transformers of all time. Easily in my top 5. Loved him then, still love him now.

 

Mint In Sealed Box Hun-Gurrr. Extremely hard to find in this condition.

 

Very nice! I’ve noticed that the other leaders (Silverbolt, Motormaster and Scattershot) are also hard to find sealed.

 

07 botcon Pepsi convoy

 

*sniff*
It’s so beautiful...

 

I just had a really funny experience. I went to a local mall to this specialty / vintage store store I never knew existed. They had a lot of carded / boxed figures over the last 20 years, ranging from a couple Commemorative Series to Transformers 2007 Movies to Universe 2.0 to CW/TR/POTP, all the way to ER Skylynx and Legends Dia Atlas. But in a case they had a bunch of loose G1 Transformers that I hadn't seen before. Now "my G1", being born in 83, was late G1. That meant pretty much the 1989 /1990/1991 Transformers, with whatever 1988 Tranfsormers were still on the shelves. So my first Optimus was Powermaster. My Starscream and Bumlbebee were pretenders. My childhod combiner was the Seacons. And a lot of Micromasters and some Action Masters. The original 1984/1985 G1 figures I picked up were actually in their G2 reissues (Optimus Prime, Gray Grimlock, Green Slag, Bumblebee) or I got in the early 2000s when I decided to start collecting in Ebay lots (like a dirty but otherwise good Fortress Maximus) or reissues (Hot Rod, "Silverstreak", Ultra Magnus).

Resultingly I've never seen a *lot* of the 1984/1985 and even many 1986 and 1987 figures in person.

Which brings me to what happened today. In the case they had a lot of figures from those years. In it they had Reflector and his is TINY. I don't know what I ever expected with him. Maybe the size of an actual camera from the time? The size of the siege or various 3p Legends-scale reflectors? No this guy is a shrimp. like the size of half a candy bar or something. I couldn't believe it.

Then there was Mindwipe. And he was BIG. I had Weirdwolf growing up but Mindwipe seemed far bigger. And lastly there was Menasor. Now I had KOs of Devastator and Defensor, and RID Ruination, and the Seacons, so I was familiar with the size of the G1 Combiners. But how small Menasor was took my off guard He;'s shorter than Devastator.

It really dawned on me how little I know about G1. I have a huge CHUG collection, all of RID, a lot of Siege and Prime stuff. Big Transformers collection. But after probably 19 years of REALLY collecting the heck out of this franchise, I've only ever interacted with very little of the first few years of it.

Thinking hard now about growing a G1 collection now that it feels like we're reaching the end of an era of sorts after WFC Kingdom.

 

I had a similar experience when I started seriously collecting vintage G1 around 5 years ago. I didn't have a lot of 1984 figures when I was a kid; I think I only had Optimus, Soundwave, Starscream, and Bumblebee. I had a better selection from 1985, but only some of the larger ones like Blaster (talk about scale issues there). And I had none of the 84/85 Autobot Cars. So I was surprised not only by how small the Cars were in comparison to late-G1 figures, but the range in sizes between them. Of course it made sense that Inferno and Grapple were bigger, but I was surprised how big Sunstreaker was and how small Hound was.

 

NGB Wheeljack