You Always Remember Your First Love... of Collecting!

[Goblin19]

Megos, 1980 Topps baseball cards, Star Wars figures, bottle caps, Smurfs and stickers all come to mind.

[Wee67]

I'm surprised by how many started collecting figures while still of the age of playing with them. I wanted them all when it came to WGSH, but not just to have them all. I wanted to extend the potential of the adventures my guys would go on. While I collected soda cans, bottle caps and other stuff, I didn't truly "collect" figures until after I finished playing with them.

[tay666]

I can't remember which came first. Star Wars cards, or beer cans.
I think the first thing I tried to collect were the bicentennial 7-up cans, with the 50 states on them.
But that was more of a wish, than an active collection.
Star Wars cards were serious. I didn't discover them until the red series, so I had to track down what stores in the area still had the blue series on the shelves and try to direct all my card money there first.

And the beer can collection was free. So that was just doing the leg work. Literally. Walking around and finding cans all around town.

[rykerw1701]

The first thing I remember collecting was football cards. Had to have the whole set, and why wasn't there a damn Joe Namath card? Then I moved on to posters from a company called Pro Arts. They were $2.50 each. My room was covered in these things. Here are three of the usual suspects I think many of us had at that age: Farrah, Cheryl and Lynda. Of course, I still have about 20 of these things rolled up in tubes, like I'm ever going to display them again.

PA Posters.jpg

[Makernaut]

^ Three of the all-time "make my heart skip a beat" beauties, right there.

I don't think I even realized what "collecting" was until I got into sports cards around 3rd Grade. I think my initial collecting was Kansas City Royals Baseball cards and Dallas Cowboy Football cards, rather than complete sets.

[TrekStar]

The first thing I remember collecting was football cards. Had to have the whole set, and why wasn't there a damn Joe Namath card? Then I moved on to posters from a company called Pro Arts. They were $2.50 each. My room was covered in these things. Here are three of the usual suspects I think many of us had at that age: Farrah, Cheryl and Lynda. Of course, I still have about 20 of these things rolled up in tubes, like I'm ever going to display them again.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]28887[/ATTACH]

I was like 12 years old and had the hots for Cheryl Ladd, seeing that picture just brought it all back.

[Brown Bear]

Oh Gawd, the FIRST thing I collected?? Ummm, maybe panini hockey stickerbooks? Superman comics? Empire Strikes back bubblegum cards? FP Adventure People from Valu-fair?

I was a born collector, so no idea what the 1st would've been.

[Myoldtoys]

The first thing I collected was baseball cards. I was not into full sets, but more expensive star cards.

I had items from a bunch of different toy lines, but didn’t collect toys until GI Joe ARAH. 1982 and 1983 I basically decided I needed to collect everything Hasbro made. Came pretty close. Funny thing is that I still have them and never completed that collection.

[scott metzger]

Major Matt Mason was my first toy passion. Didn't get every vehicle or accessory, but got all the figures, the space station, and several of the vehicles, sets. Still love this line to this day, and the originals I played with are fixed up and out in my display. But everything else, past or present, Matt and 12" GI Joe included, paled when the Megos came out...

[Ninersphan1]

Comic Books. I still have the first one I ever read, Fantastic Four #166 a Roy Thomas, George Perez classic FF vs Hulk, the ends with the Thing busting up a machine that "cured" Hulk and changed him into Banner. Of course, Thunderbolt Ross went back on his word to Reed and promptly arrest Banner, which ****ed of ol' Benjy and he smashed the machine which left us with a classic ending splash page of Thing and Hulk side by side.

fantastic-four-166 final page.jpg

I WAS HOOKED. some 300+ issues of the FF later...

As for toy collecting, as a kid, sure I WANTED to collect 'em all, GI Joe, Mego, Star Wars, Micronauts, but I didn't start collecting toys until I was an adult. It started with Mego ( of Course, but I since collected, Toy Biz Marvel 5" DC Direct, Playmates The Simpsons, Lego Star Wars, Toy Biz/Hasbro Marvel Legends, Various Sideshow and Hot Toys 1/6 scale lines and lately Adventure team GI Joe.