15th Year of Collecting
So just 2 days short of my 40th birthday I decided to create a new blog about my collecting over the past 15 years.
Although I was had Transformers as a kid I didn't start collecting figures until just shy of my 20th birthday. I loved Transformers as a kid and had figures all the way into the end of G1. My last figure being Action Master Jazz. I then thought I'd grown up......
We skip ahead to the summer of 2002. I had been ill over the summer and my parents were at work (yes I lived with my parents at the time). I was sat at home and bored out of my skull so I was channel hopping on Sky. I skipped to the kids channels (as all teenagers do obviously) and stumbled across a listing for Transformers on Jetix. I decided I needed a bit of nostalgia and thinking it was the old cartoon I knew I sat down to watch. I was surprised to see it was something new and I sat there and watched a few episodes and I was hooked. The memories of my childhood were flooding back and I was loving the new interpretations of characters I knew from back then. Thus my return to Transformers by the Robots in Disguise cartoon started.
I wasn't a massive fan of the anime look of the show but I loved the idea of toys based on the characters. I proceeded to watch pretty much every episode over the course of the summer and I started looking around to get myself one of the toys. Unfortunately by this time most of the RID toys had gone from store shelves. I started looking around online and discovered that there were lots of Transformers websites. This was something new... people talking about Transformers online. I started looking at website like Tformers, TFW2005, Transformers @ the moon and Seibertron. This was a revelation I wasn't alone and there were others out there who were doing this.....they were my age as well.
It was rapidly coming towards my 25th birthday as the summer drew to a close and I was getting asked the usual question, 'what do you want for your birthday?' For the first time ever I knew what I wanted.....Transformers. After seeing him in the show I wanted a toy of Sky-byte. It was a metal shark that transformed into a comedy knockabout character in the show and I loved him. So since the toy was no longer in stores I started looking around and discovered Epic Heroes online store. They sold Transformers and they had Sky-byte on their site. I was sorted..... or so I thought. Sadly he was sold out.
My sister, who was buying him for me, decided she would look through the site and order me some new figures from the new Armada line and would buy them for me instead. I didn't get a choice but I knew I would be happy with whatever came out.
At this time I also discovered a new website..... eBay!!!!! I was still looking for my elusive Sky-byte but no luck. I did manage to discover something else though, which I bid on and eventually won....
I was thrilled I had my first Transformer toy in years. However, since I had already asked for a Transformer for my birthday I decided to keep him unopened until after my birthday.
My birthday arrived and I opened my presents to my surprise I received not one, not two but effectively 7 toys....
Yes Ironhide (nee Demolisher) and Sandstorm (nee Cyclonus) with Mini-con destruction team were my first Transformers (yes I am counting the Mini-cons as seperate figures)
At this point there wasn't any cartoon for Armada over here and the toys hadn't hit shelves (this would happen a few months later). I was in heaven with them. I spent hours fiddling with them and changing them back and forth. I was then able to add RiD Megatron to my fledgling collection too. For a long time, until a few years ago, I kept all of the boxes for my figures too (until they started to take up more room than my collection at which point they had to be gone....that's a story for another time).
My collection had now started and I had a total of 8 figures. Who knew where this would lead......... well okay since its 15 years later and I now have god knows how many figures its easy to tell.
Thanks for reading my first blog on collecting. Hopefully this will lead me into writing more about my collection, some of my favourite figures and memories.
So here's to me turning 40 and hoping I'll never grow out of this crazy hobby and my wife will never get so fed up with them (or me!!!) that she forces me to do something about it.
Although I was had Transformers as a kid I didn't start collecting figures until just shy of my 20th birthday. I loved Transformers as a kid and had figures all the way into the end of G1. My last figure being Action Master Jazz. I then thought I'd grown up......
We skip ahead to the summer of 2002. I had been ill over the summer and my parents were at work (yes I lived with my parents at the time). I was sat at home and bored out of my skull so I was channel hopping on Sky. I skipped to the kids channels (as all teenagers do obviously) and stumbled across a listing for Transformers on Jetix. I decided I needed a bit of nostalgia and thinking it was the old cartoon I knew I sat down to watch. I was surprised to see it was something new and I sat there and watched a few episodes and I was hooked. The memories of my childhood were flooding back and I was loving the new interpretations of characters I knew from back then. Thus my return to Transformers by the Robots in Disguise cartoon started.
I wasn't a massive fan of the anime look of the show but I loved the idea of toys based on the characters. I proceeded to watch pretty much every episode over the course of the summer and I started looking around to get myself one of the toys. Unfortunately by this time most of the RID toys had gone from store shelves. I started looking around online and discovered that there were lots of Transformers websites. This was something new... people talking about Transformers online. I started looking at website like Tformers, TFW2005, Transformers @ the moon and Seibertron. This was a revelation I wasn't alone and there were others out there who were doing this.....they were my age as well.
It was rapidly coming towards my 25th birthday as the summer drew to a close and I was getting asked the usual question, 'what do you want for your birthday?' For the first time ever I knew what I wanted.....Transformers. After seeing him in the show I wanted a toy of Sky-byte. It was a metal shark that transformed into a comedy knockabout character in the show and I loved him. So since the toy was no longer in stores I started looking around and discovered Epic Heroes online store. They sold Transformers and they had Sky-byte on their site. I was sorted..... or so I thought. Sadly he was sold out.
My sister, who was buying him for me, decided she would look through the site and order me some new figures from the new Armada line and would buy them for me instead. I didn't get a choice but I knew I would be happy with whatever came out.
At this time I also discovered a new website..... eBay!!!!! I was still looking for my elusive Sky-byte but no luck. I did manage to discover something else though, which I bid on and eventually won....
My birthday arrived and I opened my presents to my surprise I received not one, not two but effectively 7 toys....
At this point there wasn't any cartoon for Armada over here and the toys hadn't hit shelves (this would happen a few months later). I was in heaven with them. I spent hours fiddling with them and changing them back and forth. I was then able to add RiD Megatron to my fledgling collection too. For a long time, until a few years ago, I kept all of the boxes for my figures too (until they started to take up more room than my collection at which point they had to be gone....that's a story for another time).
My collection had now started and I had a total of 8 figures. Who knew where this would lead......... well okay since its 15 years later and I now have god knows how many figures its easy to tell.
Thanks for reading my first blog on collecting. Hopefully this will lead me into writing more about my collection, some of my favourite figures and memories.
So here's to me turning 40 and hoping I'll never grow out of this crazy hobby and my wife will never get so fed up with them (or me!!!) that she forces me to do something about it.
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