Contrary to popular belief transformer toys too are catalogued based on their year of manufacture; the earliest being transformers manufactured between 1984 and 1990. In fact if you have a transformer toy that was manufactured between 1984 and 1990, then you will be surprised to know that a lot of the transformers from that time are now collector’s item and can go for upwards of $100. Transformer toys have been popular in countries like Japan, USA and Canada; in fact a majority of transformer toy collectors are in Japan, however the demand for transformer toys in America is also on the rise.
Depending on the condition of the toy and also the year of manufacture a transformer toy can be worth a lot, in fact if you are lucky to be the owner of a limited series transformer Autobot from the 1984 series, an original unopened transformer from the first generation of transformers could be worth close to $1000.
Another popular collectors item in transformer toys are ‘bootleg’ transformers, these toys are actually made for a particular country, since they are not authorized for distribution in countries like the US or Canada, they are very rare to find. Another misconception with ‘bootleg’ transformers is that they are poor quality copies; this is not true sometimes the ‘bootleg’ transformers are superior in quality to authorized transformers products. If you have a transformer toy that was not an authorized transformers product, then you might just be in possession of a rare product and you should hold on to it.
With so many transformers toys produced in the past 3 decades it’s become increasingly difficult to keep up with all the product lines, in fact in Japan alone there are some very interesting transformers available. One of the most controversial lines of transformer toys called the Kiss Players line is considered to be for adults only and some toys are pornographic in nature. Once again since this was a limited series created in Japan alone, this makes for a popular collector’s item.
