Everything.
Minus the shit I don't like.
If the Michael Bay movies have done one thing for me, they've made me break the insane spell of somehow wanting to be a completest, that is, to own every Transformers toy ever.
This is stupid, this is very expensive, it is also impossible. Most importantly, it is not fun.
I met a guy at Botcon 2010 (yeah, I travel thousands of miles to buy little plastic toys, but I get a vacation in Florida out of it!) who was selling his entire collection because he realised he was never going to have them all.
Craziness! This isn't Pokemon, where only the first 151 count and the rest are shite.
What he could have done is, oh, I don't know? Kept the ones he liked? Or the ones that meant something to him?
The worst thing you can do with a hobby is try and be a completest. The best thing you can do in a hobby is draw boundaries. This is also the second worse thing you can do in a hobby as you can end up buying figures arbitrarily. I'll explain.
To me, the original Transformers started it all. I love the original toys, from 1984 until 1985 they were excellent toys. In 1986 the downhill slide began, but I still have them all. Does that mean I should move on to the eight remaining Transformers from 1987 that I don't own, despite the fact that I don't really like them? If I do that do I eventually move on to 1988 and all the shitty Pretenders? Then what? 1987-1994 was a real mixture of toys, including rare Japanese exclusives, the non-Transforming Action Masters and the divisive Generation 2. So what do I collect? Everything? All of G1? Toys that featured in the show?
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| My first ever TF comic. |
I grew up on the Simon Furman comics, and I was lucky enough to meet the chap and now consider him a friend. Because I grew up reading his comics I have a disproportionate affection for Magnus, Galvatron, Thunderwing and this
I also like Beast Wars. Different reasons altogether, I can't say I grew up with them, but for what they meant at the time and the friendships that came from them they will always mean a lot to me. Do I just collect the characters from the show? What about the ones in the comic series? And some of the Japanese characters are pretty cool, like the rabbit, penguin and tuberculosis carrying alarm clock Racoon.
I also like Beast Machines, but I hate the toys. Should I buy them to show my love for the media? I don't know what to do! What the fuck?!? Argh!
Pause and reflect.
So, it's easy: collect the ones you like, and don't get other ones.
When I was a kid, I made a vow to myself that I would buy all the Transformers that I wanted and couldn't have as a kid. We weren't poor during my childhood, but we weren't spoiled, and due to my Mums refusal to buy odd toys from various toy franchises it meant we actually had a pretty good collection of TF's, so rather than having bits of everything - a Mumm Ra, a Cobra guy, He-Mans elephant mate, a red truck called Rhino, an out of scale Spider-man - we had Star Wars from 1979-1984, and then we had Transformers. And remember, we kept the boxes!
This meant we actually had a decent chunk of toys and whilst my want list as a kid contained all the characters from the 1986 movie and all the cool stuff that never came out in the UK (for US readers, you might like to know we never officially saw releases of Blaster, Trypticon, Fort Max, Deluxe Insecticons, Swoop, Predacons, Sky Lynx and many more. Soundwave and Megatron were very scarce after the first year) it meant I wasn't far off completing '84-'86 when I started collecting seriously. Especially with my wily tactic of a) not selling off my childhood toys (other than a random Bebop from TMNT I somehow acquired) and b) buying my school friends childhood toys when they got bored with them.
Since then I have expanded my collection substantially, for the most part I blame Paul Hitchens of Space-Bridge fame/infamy, if he hadn't shown me all the Japanese releases, Diaclones, Micromans etc... more than half my life ago I would never have gotten as much detritus as I have now. So, thanks...I think? For the record my first purchases from Paul (I have a scary memory for crap like this) were Trypticon and Omega Supreme complete for about £100 quid, this was in the mid to late nineties, just after I got over the Star Wars thing most people went through (and made a fortune!£!).
So, to summarise:
I collect the toys I like. Originals or reissue? I don't care. I want to have the toy, and generally I don't want to spend a fortune. For the most part my toys are originals, but in the case of Mirage and Sunstreaker I have replaced my display versions of the toys with KnockOff reissues. Why? They look better. I have no interest in spending $200 on a piece of shit when I could have an official or KO reissue for $30. I see people do this at Botcon and I want to beat them to death with a Metroplex torso. I swear at Botcon people get so god-damn hard for "originals" I could open a reissue for $20, throw a missile away, fold the instructions wrong, chew a few accessories, rip a few stickers and throw the toy up and down the street for ten minutes and then sell it on a stall as an original for five times the money. THIS IS RETARDED! The flipside of my KO habit though, is I have no problem buying rare toys for obscene money if I can afford it and the condition makes it a worthwhile investment as Megamus will attest to.
So I'm not a completest. What you see is what you get. If I could be bothered I'd sell my originals and replace them with reissues or KOs. Elitism and Transformers = people I don't bother talking to at Botcon or Auto Assembly.
I collect most toylines to some degree, even the movie line which is an aesthetic I really don't like, but for £25 Leader Starscream is an excellent Raptor F22.
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| How much? More than I earn in a week. |
I love third-party toys! I would rather support Hasbro and Takara with toys at a reasonable price, but what can I say? Fans Project, TF Club, I-Gear and Mastermind Creations all maketoys (that's a pun not a typo) I like so I will support them too. I'm not a lawyer, and I just don't care enough to debate the ethics. I like add-on kits - Venksta's Renderform have made my Skyfall and Darkwings come alive - but I won't touch G1 ad-ons, you can only polish a turd so much and my Ratchet / Ironhide will remain headless as Yoke-San intended. I also enjoy customs, although you don't know what you're going to get if you buy from other people (*Rotorstorm, cough*) so I prefer to make my own, though who has the time? My customs have been spotted at Botcon for the last couple of years, and some very nice people have even bought them in exchange for real money and everything! Although I still haven't made the Animated Beast Wars Megatron Custom for Derrick Wyatt I promised him /namedrop
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| I've sold two of these, and neglected to keep one for myself. |
So yeah, take it with a pinch of salt. This isn't the biggest Transformers collection in the world, or even in the UK, but it is the biggest TF collection I own, so enjoy. I'm not sure whether I will stick to showing the toys in order, or get excited when I get the I-Gear
Can't believe I have a blog again, what is this, 2006?
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