Collecting before internet

[megoapesnut]

Another place I almost forgot about, not pre-internet but pre-ebay was AOL Classified ads. I did a lot of buying and selling through those before ebay. I remember one day logging on and seeing that the pages were no longer there. In place of those was a message "Due to the popularity of the recent auction site ebay, we have closed the classified section and encourage you to use ebay services". I grumbled and swore NEVER to use ebay! HA!

Another place before even AOL was Compuserve. I used a Commodore 64 computer with a 300 baud modem in the mid 80's to log onto Compuserve and they had collecting and hobby sections. Text only, no images. That would have taken a day or so to view an image. Never ran across any Mego pages there.

Think about that for a second. 300 baud. The last dial up modems to be made were 52k, which were 52,000 baud. And even they are considered SLOW today with broadband. Think about logging on with a 300 baud modem!

[starsky]

for me , it was toyshop news magazine and toy shows all over. i would plan vacations around toy shows that were happening in that area. amazingly never got scammed on toyshop. in over 20 years of collecting toys, only been scammed once and it was on the old levy list, lost about $300.

[VintageMike]

I would buy from a local Comic Shop and an occasional Toy Show. I was in my early twenties though so there would always be a reason to sell. The only pre-internet purchase (excluding childhood) I still have is a loose Fonzie purchased at an eary 90's Toy Show. Some things stick out. I bought a carded Batman once only to sell him a short time later to fund a hotel party with friends. Going to sell my carded Superman to another shop only to have the jerk toy buyer INSIST Superman came with gloves and the gloves not being in there drove the price down. I drooled over Toy Shop frequently but never bought anything from it at the time.

[Lynn TXP 0369]

I started collecting in 1990 when I discovered issue # 2 of Tomarts Action Figure digest.
I also discovered Toy Shop at the time as well.

I used the phone to make the deals for most of my purchases.

I got most of my Mego stuff and vintage Star Wars figures through Mark Huckabone. I used to drool over his ads in the magazines. I made many phone calls to him over three years or so collect the SW figures. I also did some trading from a guy in CA for a Boxed Mego Robin.
I also made many phone calls to Germany for the last of my SW POTA figures, I got some good deals from that guy even with shipping included.
The good days, it is a lot different then the instant gratification we are used to now.
Lynn

[captact]

A Newspaper/magazine named Collectors United!!,.Back in the 90's it was a great sorce for finding boxed and carded megos at a fraction of the price,..in 1999 i bought there a MOC Wondergirl for 20.00, a Kenner boxed ALIEN for 55.00, a boxed Ideal Bewitched for only 25.00, loose Super Queens ranging from 20.00 - 75.00, etc....

[Marvelmania]

The Toyshop paper mag was it for me. I'd wait to get that in the mail and rush to the ads. Toy shows around here were few and far between.

[starsky]

i remember staying up late and putting in bids by phone for those toy shop auctions!

[Gorn Captain]

I bought my first items through ads in Starlog (Intergalactic Trading Company) and Toyshop.
Can you imagine?
Sending letters, faxing. It took weeks sometimes.
Then I bought the item (sending an international payment), and waited for three months for the stuff to get here by boat.
That was back in the 80s!
Sometimes it was a true miracle that the item was still available when my letter arrived in the US, but it happened.
When you got something like that, after all that trouble, and something that wasn't available in my country, man, the excitement!
A SW Stormtrooper helmet, a Dewback, and my Shuttle Tyderium!

[Mikey]

I bought my first items through ads in Starlog (Intergalactic Trading Company) !

I used to love Intergalactic back in the day.

It wasn't until the mid 80's until I found out how badly everything of there's was overpriced.

[TEXASFETT]

For me it was my neighbor that had all 4 walls covered with marvel heroes,star wars,and starting lineups.From there would hunt all flea markets,toy shows,and some local collectable shops.I think that was very fun at times then got on line and became a different animal. My mailman knows be by heart because all the **** I buy!!!

[vulcan2074]

My mailman knows be by heart because all the **** I buy!!!

Ha Ha Ha, same here.
Sammy

[cjefferys]

For me, when I started seriously collecting back in 1988-89, it was finding stuff at a vintage toy store in Buffalo, run by an old guy who had tons of Megos, and I also started hitting the clearance aisles at toy stores and department store toy sections, where I could still find stuff like Kenner Star Wars and the occasional Mego for really cheap. Then I started hitting flea markets and toyshows in Buffalo. A year later I discovered Toy Shop magazine and that really opened my eyes to what kind of toy collecting market existed at that point. In 1991 I moved to Florida for awhile and found a big comic/toy store and traded a bunch of stuff I had for most of the Megos they had in stock. Sometimes I miss those simpler days, everything was so new and exciting, there was always tons of new discoveries and great deals to be found.

[Brue]

After they dissappeared from the shelves I packed mine away until 1995.
When I got them out again in 1995, there was a vintage toy shop nearby. I bought some there. I also ordered 1 from an ad in a magazine. I also drove up to a toy shop near Akron for a couple but I didn't like the guy who ran the shop (Len knows who I'm talkin about)

I started using eBay by early 99.

[nvmbrsdoom5]

Toy Shop and local toy shows was pretty much the main source of collecting for me in the early days. One of the first people I ordered from was Huckabone as I recall I enjoy having the convenience of the internet for collecting but I miss the excitement of getting the newest issue of Toy Shop and spending a day or two scouring the pages for good deals. And now the toy shows I attend rarely have any Mego or other vintage toys, it's all 1990s lines and on.

[B-Lister]

before the internet, I had a book I routinely checked out from the library.

it was Greenberg's guide to Super Hero Toys.

it introduced me to Mego, as well as Captain Action, both are toys that were way before my time (I was born in 1980, so Mego existed, but not for long).

I love both lines, now that I'm an adult, and am thankful that both have been reissued in one form or another.

Recently, I went into the library to find that book had been borrowed and never returned, so I tracked down a copy on Amazon, for a penny.

useless nowadays as a price guide (it was published in the 80s, had it been released just a few years later, it would've been able to cover the early Toy Biz superhero Boom), it still has great photos, and decent writing (a lot of things were unknown at the time), and covered a LOT of lines from the 60s-80s, even obscure ones like Defenders of the Earth, and Mighty Crusaders!