1987 saw the beginning of a change in the way toy robots were advertised in newspapers. The overall volume of Transformers ads decreased slightly from 1986, partly due to the waning popularity of toy robots in general but also because the number of stores that advertised them decreased sharply. No longer would a wide range of retailers from grocery stores to mall department stores advertise their selections of Transformers. Sears, Mervyns, JC Penny, Montgomery Ward and Dillards stopped advertising Transformers as the days of the big mall department store toy section faded away due to increased competition from discount retailers and specialty toy outlets. The bulk of the advertising came instead from major retail chains like K-Mart, BEST and Target along with the specialized toy discounters Lionel Playworld, Children's Palace, Toys R Us and Circus World. In most markets Playworld pulled their weekly full color circulars from Sunday papers just before Thanksgiving of 1987, leaving a huge vaccuum in the world of toy robots newspaper ads.

Retailers in 1987 started grouping different figures with similar price points together in ads instead of dedicating ad space to individual assortments like they had been doing for the first three years of Transformers. Meanwhile Hasbro began dividing cases that had a mix of both factions in 1986 back into seperate Autobot and Decepticon assortments. Instead of large cases of Special Team mini-vehicles and team leaders with figures from both sides, for 1987 there were seperate Autobot and Decepticon Special Team mini and leader figure assortments. But since these figures still shared a common price point, advertisers would usually lump them together in their ads. Even the Headmaster and Targetmaster assortments which had a slight price difference between Autobots and Decepticons would find the two opposing factions forced to share an ad together. It was also not unusual to find Sixshot the Six Changer and Scorponok the Headmaster Decepticon leader together in the same ad sharing the same price.

The stores' more streamlined approach makes it a little easier to come up with average retail prices of the more heavily advertised 1987 Transformers. Special team mini vehicles most often sold for $3.99 and the team leaders were $9.99. Headmaster Autobots averaged $12.99 and Targetmaster Autobots were usually $9.99. I've found only Toys R Us and Children's Palace advertised Fortress Maximus but they advertised him at $89.99 and $79.99 respectively. Targetmaster Decepticons averaged $12.99 and Headmster Decepticons were around $14.99 while Headmaster Horrocons were around $15.99. Sixshot usually cost $26.99 and Scorponok was most often in the range of $29.99. All other assortments have too few ads to derive averages from and of course all these are my unscientific estimates from a very small sampling of data and shouldn't be considered absolute or manufacturer's suggested retail.

• For more thoughts and musings on old Transformers 1987 toy ads you can read my blog posts:
  • "Transfrormers 1987-1990: The Decline of Roboplastico Civilization Part II: The Metal Ears"
  • "And as he clipped out the ads he thought, 'Well, isn't this nice?'"