toy collectors prior to 1990

[goldenryan]

when i first started back in the late 80's some of my friends were laughing at me. now i see them collecting too!! lol

i have notice that toy collecting has become more acceptable in peoples eye i think. at lease i think with superhero toys.

[starsky]

when i first started back in the late 80's some of my friends were laughing at me. now i see them collecting too!! lol

[jemboy2004]

I started collecting in the 90s. It all started when I found a mego like figure. I found a karate guy in a black suit and painted on sandals. I still have that figure. It reminded me of megos and I went out looking for them.

Funny I found other stuff that same day at that same flea market. I found a vintage Barbie for 12.00, I found the string puppets that were megoish of Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman all boxed for 35.00 each. This got me collecting but I went out and started buying all sorts of stuff not just mego stuff. I later had to figure out what I should stick with. I still have not figured out what to give up. Guess that's why I have a room full of toys and all the space in my condo is used and a huge storage area that's all filled up! lol

[spotter]

my bro and I started in late eighties for vintage toys but had kept a lot of our toys over the years got hardcore with secret wars and super powers figs from Heroes World ( Damn I miss that Store) then started the toy show and mail order route even hooke dup with Gerard Stezelberger for cool Joestuff

[rche]

... prices of common stuff plummeted since you could now go somewhere else. of course rare stuff got pricier since there was much bigger pool of people going after the same stuff...

Well now; that sums it up quite tidily. In the digital age of ebay and chats such as this, you can find just about anything you are looking for in minutes. But when it gets high end.... there are 1000 eyes (and 500 wallets) looking.

rche

[Gorn Captain]

I started collecting around 1975.
My first purchase was Captain Peg Leg from Fighting Furies.
My Dad felt buying dolls wasn't for boys, and threatened to cut off my allowance completely. I proceeded to buy The Lone Ranger, and he more or less caved in.

Hey,these were fighting men, not Barbie!

I collected Action Man, of course. They rocked!
Then, it happened. 1977. Star Wars. My best friend and I passed a store, and saw a display with all 11 first run figures, the Jawa wasn't out yet. We just freaked, and bought an R2 and C3PO each.
My folks still didn't get it, but I kept my allowance.

There were just two 12 inches from SW, Luke and Leia. Yeah! We could now...brush her hair....

When we went on vacation to England, my Dad said I could but whatever I wanted. I found all large SW figures, and then...my Dad cut me off again. I had just enough money for Darth. I wanted Chewie, too, but it would take 15 years before I eventually got him.

Later on, my Dad did embrace my love for figures. In Rayader, Wales, he bought me a Dr.Who and Tardis, stuffed behind some Barbies in a old grocery store.
My Mom bought up all Action Men she could find, and I now have over 100.

I bought my ST Mego crew in a small newspaper store at the end of the street.
My ST Mego Aliens I bought, one at a time, at each trip to the beach, in a little toy store called Bazar Teddy!
Another friend found POTA in Spain, which he brought home to Belgium. Later he turned to drugs, and sold all his apes to me.
I found Six Million Dollar Man in Holland, again on holiday.

So most of my stuff came from trips. These were the days before internet, even faxes.
I got my info from Famous Monsters magazine, Star Log, etc.

I still have all my figures from my youth, I'd never part with my Mego Kirk, who survived a header off a three storey building, into the turtle tank in the garden.

Golden memories.....

[kingdom warrior]

I started in 1984 with the first SuperPowers line up...It was the first time I had bought two sets of figures one in the card the other to pull out. In 1985 I was starting to get nostalgic about my old toys and went looking for Megos i came across a complete set of The FF for $200 but passed I was a broke college student who only had money for books and my girlfriend.

It wasn't until 1989 when my then girlfriend gave me Robin as a Birthday gift. After that I got the Mego bug to get all my megos from my childhood back.....

[jds1911a1]

I started to activley collect in 80 w doctor who stuff, and when superpowers came out I had to have all of them but even then there were cherry pickers CYBORG I didn't get till 86 at a toy show for 300 (stil hve him MOC) and a loose one for $85. I bought mostly foreign Joes from Dealers who put ads in comics, lee's afn etc, I recal vividly when Cotswold sold old joes not just the stuff they made for themselves. I recall phone in auctions in the late 80's (man the phone bills). When the internet got hugh and ebay came in the whole enviroment changed. the small toy seller coulnd't exist without it and prices of common stuff plummeted since you could now go somewhere else. of course rare stuff got pricier since there was much bigger pool of people going after the same stuff.

I do miss toy shows that actually had stuff other than the cherry pick resells when you found dealers with really old stuff now you only get that in a JOECON or mego meet and still most of the dealers are just scalpers

[HardyGirl]

I started about '87 I think. I didn't know boo about toy shows and all that, but I would find things at flea markets, garage sales and stuff like that. I remember I got a working Tippy Tumbles doll, and an Alphie Robot, which went over big w/ my preschoolers at that time. When I moved to WI in 1990, I discovered Rummage-O-Rama (no longer there), and toy shows. I remember it being winter, and I was bored and broke, and I went to a toy show, (torture!), but I did leave w/ something. I was eye-ing a Baby That-a-way doll from my youth, well gushing was more like it, since I hadn't seen one since I was little. The woman who was selling her told me just to take her, since I loved her so much and she knew I'd give her a good home, free of charge! At that same show I was wishing I had money to buy the GIJoe Adventure Team book and record sets, and a Mr. T doll. When the next toy show came around (and I had money!), the seller w/ the records and Mr. T says to me "Guess what I was saving for you?" She pulls out the GIJoe book and records and Mr. T, and she let me have them for half price! A lot of the sellers were often at Rummage-O-Rama, and recognized me, since I went all the time, and often had little deals like that for me.

I miss those days.

[4NDR01D]

So far, I'd say I'm the newest collector to post on this thread yet. Just started a couple of years ago when I discovered eBay, and then it was purely by accident in a way. Before toys I collected records and music related merch (tour t-shirts, old magazines). I soon became one of those "ebay addicts" and was spending an insane amount of time looking at auctions. I would scour thrift shops to find things to sell, anything really, but had quite a bit of success with neat items I'd find in their toy departments. In my research to find out if the stuff I picked up was worth anything I'd come across old toys I had as a kid, and subsuqetly started to bid on those items. Mostly smallish,cheap and loose items. Then a few years ago my GF bought me a Stretch Armstrong for xmas, an item I wanted so bad but could not bring myself to pay that kind of money for. From there it was on, I sold many of my rare rockabilly and psych records and spent the cash accumulating a small but cherished load of figures and stuff. I'm not yet at the point where I want to buy/display shipping boxes, but have really changed my attitude about mib/moc stuff since joining this forum. All it takes is a quick look at some of these members collections to realize how impossibly great they look.

[nvmbrsdoom5]

My story is similar to Cjefferys', I wasn't what I considered to be a "collector" in the 1980's but I never stopped buying toys completely, even once in my teens. But starting around 1986/1987, I clearly recall going into TRU and Kay-bees and picking up figures like General Lando and Imperial Dignitary from SW-POTF when they were on clearance, even though I'd long since stopped playing with toys. I also would pick up a few things here and there, like some Super Powers figures, just because they looked cool and they were favorite characters (like Red Tornado and Hawkman), and would open and display them on shelves in my room. When the Toy Biz DC and Marvel figures hit shelves around '89/'90, I liked them enough to start buying all of them and keeping the packaging. In 1990, my discovery of Toy Shop magazine and the ability to re-purchase some of my favorite childhood memories from other collectors and dealers solidified my path as a collector.

When I was buying those occasional toys during the mid to late 1980s, I wish that I had more sense to at least hang onto the packaging (even if I opened them to display) and to take better advantage of the deals I found. I can remember seeing many Star Wars, He-Man, G.I.Joe and Super Powers/Secret Wars figures on clearance for years, and only took advantage of the cheap prices on a few occasions *sigh*

[cjefferys]

I started serious collecting (as opposed to buying toys to play with) around 1987, when I started buying Super Powers. I first bought them to open and display on my bookshelf and later started buying some and not even opening them. Shortly after, I found a vintage toy store in Buffalo (next door to a comic shop that I already knew about), and the old guy who ran the place had a bunch of boxed Megos. I started buying those up (I never really lost my interest in Megos and still had a bunch of my childhood ones, so finding boxed ones like this were a real treat for me), and also started hitting toy shows, toy clearance sales at department stores where I picked up a bunch of Star Wars stuff on closeout, etc. And around 1990 discovered Toy Shop magazine, and then my eyes were really opened in regards to how the hobby of collecting 70's and 80's toys was really starting to build up steam.

[megoat]

I started buying/selling and collecting toys in the early 90's. Mainly 70's but also a bunch of 50's and 60's toys too. It was a different scene back then for sure. I remember going to country estate auctions and often being the only bidder on the plastic toys. The older dudes would bid sky high on tin wind ups and other metal toys, but plastic was considered junk to a lot of folks. I used to clean house, my car would be filled with mego/vintage joe/johnny west/old marx playsets/ etc etc.

Also, I remember the yard sale scene in the early 90's--every other sale seemed to have TONS of He Man or 80's GI Joe---I passed on ALL of it. Wouldn't even give it another look!

[rche]

In the pre-digital world - analog toy collecting as it were - I recall using the newsprint mags a lot. I collected toys and 16mm film and had subscriptions to Toy Shop and the Big Reel. For BR I forked over the extra $$ for expedited shipping. Thus, in theory, I would get the rag in its first few days of livelyhood and could get in on the good deals before they were picked over.

I would then pour over the TEXT ONLY ads with a sharpie marking things that looked interesting or like a good flip. Then I would start the phone calls. Many answering machines and missed messages later, you might send a money order out and in another couple of weeks have a box show up at your door.

In between scouring the rags, I would pile up whatever I had for trade fodder or sale and hit a local show. Mostly junking and antique shows in my neck of the woods where you had to know where the folks who dealt with toys (or film) were and then see what was new in their stock.

It was an awful lot of fun looking for the deals in the newsprints, sort of like hunting online for bargains and buy it nows that nobody else has seen yet. Except you had to wait for the print to come out every month.

The picture ads that some of the folks ran were great as well. I still have a stack of those newsprints some where. It would be a kick to dig them up and see what the going rate was then for some of the things I've picked up lately.

rche

[Mikey]

I started collecting around 1982 ...

At that time I mostly just collected Star Trek, Beatles and Doctor Who.

By 1984, I was already buying Mego's and more.