Calling any toy collector Tilderinos!
I've been looking for a community to interact in about toy collecting!
I used to frequent the collector circles on Twitter but bailed on that shortly after Skum bought it. And then I tried to get back into Reddit, and, well, that started circling the bowl, too.
I collect many things, but the big three are:
Star Wars
My first love. I still collect Star Wars action figures in the 3¾" scale when I find new and interesting characters or cool vehicles.I was annoyed at the introduction of the 6" Black series because I had spent my whole life amassing hundreds of characters to populate a 3¾" Galaxy, I wasn't going to buy all of those characters again at a higher price point.
Transformers
You know the music you listen to when you're a young teen is the music that ends up dominating your lifelong listening habits? That was Transformers for me. I didn't care much for it in my younger days, it was Beast Wars that drew me into the fiction in the 90s with it's wild 3D Animated cartoon - one of the first!The toys are great because you're pretty much getting two toys in one, sometimes more! The way that the toyline was a product of multiple toy companies coming together around the world fascinates me.
Sidenote; I am not a fan of the Michael Bay movies. Dude's lack of passion for the fiction combined with his raging hard-on for the US military ruined the first 5 films. (2007 is watchable but Bumblebee 2018 is a way better introductory movie)
Masters of the Universe
I only got into MOTU over the past few years, since the introduction of the Masters of the Universe: Origins line, which takes the design and aesthetic of the classic '80s toys and updates them to the modern standards of action figure articulation. Not to mention the figures are easily disassembled and reassembled if you like to make customs (which I do!)There's something simplistic about the fiction that I admire, and it satisfies my desires for more "Sword and Sorcery" content over sci-fi when I'm in the mood.
These just barely scratch the surface of what I'm into, but they're the biggest things I hunt for.
So, Is anyone here a fellow collector? What do you collect? How long have you been collecting? What do you look for in a toy? Do you open the package and appreciate the tactile experience, or are you purely MISB?
Is there per chance enough of a crowd for a toy collecting subsection of ~hobbies?
Been collecting Beyblades forever, never plan to stop. Super informal, I open most of them, I battle them. Takara Tomy makes the (way) better quality product but my biggest nostalgia factor is going hunting in stores which means buying the Hasbro versions in stores. Most of my collection was obtained this way, hunting in real life, though things have started to shift post-covid. I wonder if this happened to other toy collectors? If you used to be all about in-person hunting, did the pause in being able to do that cause you to change your stance?
Also, Hasbro has just been dropping the ball as a company, trying to kill D&D, ripping off the Magic players, making just awfully painted, gimmick-less versions of Beyblades and trying to pass them off to us... ugh.
I mainly collect old video games. As things have moved toward digital, my appreciation for physical copies has grown. There’s also the nostalgia factor, which is probably my main motivation. I gravitate toward NES, SNES and PS1, since those dominated my formative years. I’ve tried to keep a somewhat curated collection by sticking to games that I personally owned and played in the past, with maybe a handful of exceptions. Most of the games in my collections are complete in box. My shelves are a bit of a gaming museum.
As far as toys, I have a small collection of loose action figures from the early 90s mainly comprised of TMNT, X-men, Crash Test Dummy, Robocop (including a glow in the dark figure!!) and various happy meal toys (I particularly like the food-dinosaur “transformers”. I tried to follow the same principles as video game collection, and try to stick to things that have some sentimental value. I did buy same replacements that still had the packaging, but boy it’s difficult to tear them open! The loose toys have lots of wear and are missing accessories, still they are enjoyed by me and my kids!
Hot Wheels, not very big collection, something like near two hundreds I suppose. Repeating the previous comment - super informal, I always open it, because, honestly they very neat to (how to say it) to hold in a hand? I love collecting this small metal cars, some cars are variants of the same car in different colors. Not interested in realistic cars, mostly I collect cars that looks cool or unique, or just interesting. And yes, of course, I already have a space problem. I started from this car: https://www.ebay.com/itm/363599436177
(sorry for ebay link) and honestly still love it.