How long have you collected SW?

[Depmode]

I've had star wars toys my entire life. I have an older  brother, so when I was growing up, he had already amassed a large amount of vintage, and we would play with them together.

It's kinda weird, as I write this, remembering my childhood and trying to come up with a complete story to tell. It's amazing how star wars has just always been one of those "things" that was there, and that I liked. It's kinda like you know wendys and the jr. bacon cheeseburger will always be there. Star Wars was the same to me, cause it was always just "there."

My sisters used to be in gymnastics once a week. Every week while they were in their hour session, my mom and I would go shopping. I was like 3 or 4 mind ya! I remember she would always let me pick out one Star Wars fig, which was cool. I remember her getting mad at me even cause for like 3 times in a row I picked wicket- my favorite character at the time. She didn't realize I was doing this until my older brother was like "Mom why are you letting James get the same figure!" My wicket days were over at that point (but I still have those three little guys lol).

Being a kid, I didn't realize I could actually own the star wars movies to watch at home. I actually sat in front of a tv one time and taped ROTJ- stopping the VCR between commericials and starting it back up when the movie would come back on. I still have that tape, though it's beyond annoying to watch

Then in the late 80's early 90's I went to Costco and saw the Star Wars Trilogy in a box set. I was like "this is the greatest day of my life." I got my parents to get the set  for me. By 1992, while still a "kid," I was back into collecting big time. I wanted all the vintage figures. At the time, we lived in Seattle, so there were lots of comic shops and antique stores. I would get my mom to take me to all of them all the time, and I would get loose vintage figures all the time. Star Wars was kinda dead back then, so I could get a loose vintage fig for 2 to 5 dollars in really good shape. Unfurtunately, I missed the Star Wars garage sales, as they prolly happend in the 80's. But I sure did get TONS of G.I. Joes that way (but that's another story!!!).

To tell everyone the truth, I really do owe the expanded universe credit for getting me die hard back into star wars. I mean I watched the movies, I got the NES and SNES games, I collected the vintage figures for the fun of it (my prized possesion at the time was an boxed Ewok Handglider)..... But it really got fun when the Star Wars books started coming out. No longer was I contained to 3 movies. Suddenly, a huge universe was becoming even BIGGER. I read each book as it came out, my mouth dripping with drool in anticipation for more more more! The Dark Horse Comics were great. I know I am not alone when I screamed in joy when I read Boba Fett was BACK! I was also into CCG from day one (which I've since quit, back in ohhh 98?), so that was a neat form to get into Star Wars also. Plus there was the micro machines. I remember i was on vacation in New Port, Oregon, and I went into a wal-mart and saw star wars micro machines. Didn't even know they were coming out so I got all of them. They were cool.

So then in July 1995, the new figures came out. All was good. I was a happy little man.  My sister worked at Target at the time, and she was able to score me a Obi-Wan and someone else... I forget now. I remember I would call TRU everyday and ask them if they had the new star wars figures in. So I collected them with joy, and all was good. I remember my TRU would hold figures for me, and then I'd get my mom to take me up there to get them. Then the fateful day happened when an employee told me he was NOT going to hold a figure for me. TRU was a 20 minute drive, and I didn't drive at the time, so calling was the only way to get my mom to take me. Oh the horror when the employee told me that... UGH. It was the first release of the Jawas too. I was so mad. I ended up NOT getting it then, but I did get it later.

Well I moved in the end of 97 to south carolina... I was starting to loose interest in SW. It had been pretty much my main focus from 1990 and on. All my friends I talked to Star Wars about were no longer around cause I moved. I was in 10th grade, at a new school, so I didn't bring star wars up to anyone there lol. Believe it or not, one day I walked by one of my teachers computer and he had a star wars themed background, so he became my first new "friend" in my new location that I could talk to about star wars. I would let him borrow my Insider when I was done reading them. He was a cool guy, and gave me an A+ in the class lol (but I really did earn the grade too!). So anyway, this is getting long... At this point in my life, I was just getting my first real job, and my parents were getting really strict with money. I suddenly realized that spending all my earned money on figures was not worth it, as I wanted to go to movies, eat food, get a car, and so on. So suddenly my collecting got put on the backburner big time. I didn't get any of the FF, Flashbacks, or Commtech green cards. I skipped on the TPM figs (and at the time I Was really pissed at the movie, but now I love it???), and I skipped on POTJ cause I thought they were WAY too much (6.99 for JUST the figure, and I had payed 4.99 a couple years ago).

So anyway, fast forward to this past summer... AOTC comes out, and I'm in love. I see it 5 times in the theater, once in IMAX. I love it. I keep looking at the figures, but keep telling myself "no, you don't need to get into that habit again." And then my girlfriend tells me i should buy them if I want. And my MOM KEEPS SHOWING ME new figures when they are out. She even called my at my place on a sunday morning at 8 am to tell me that walmart had new SW figs in. I wasn't even collecting them, but I guess the habit still hadn't died in her after all these years lol. Needless to say, I broke down I bought the Yoda when my girlfriend found him. He was just so cool, and I foudn and bought dooku at the same time. the rest is history. I'm hardcore back into CARDED collecting now ( up until this past summer, everything was opened)  because it's easier to display, and I really have no reason to open them, as I enjoy them more packaged. I've now started collecting the figures I missed. I have all the of the ep1 line excecpt 5 figs. Now I am trying to aquire the Flashbacks, FF, and POTJ figs. I don't collect the vehicles anymore, and I just get a 12" here and there when I like them. I don't collect action fllet anymore... Basically I collect the stanadard figures and the lego line...

That's all. Congrats if you made it through all that lol.

[DSJ™]

For the new figures, I started in 1995. I was amazed that this figure line was being released & started to buying them. Still going to this day.
As for the vintage line, when I got my new computer, I was in awe with what I could find on the net.
Guess it all came down to one word, Ebay. Then the hunt began. Figure by figure, playset by vehicle, piece by piece etc...  
I registered on ebay in 1999, but started buying in Feb of 2000. In 14 months I completed my loose collection.
The last figure I needed was a Sensorscope R2.
The first one was Yak Face. I got all the hard ones out of the way first. What the heck, go for the gusto first.  

I am slowly picking up carded figures. Not really a focus but just to have them. Not much else to get now. I do keep an eye out for a bargin here & there whether loose or carded & soon I will have a new Trophy. But that will be in another post.  

[Depmode]

did ya know if ya stare at ur buddy icon for more than 2 minutes, the outside world no longer exists? It just happened to me. lol

[Rod]

hey man, I am definitevely interested in your Teela.......got a few things of your needs, please e-mail me at rx-78-2@juno.com

[JediMAC]

...So I guess since I got my first SW T-shirts and lunch box back in 1977, with the exception of a 5 year hiatus from 1985-89, I've been collecting SW non-stop.  So around 21 years of really solid collecting for me!     ...

Just updating to 22ish now.  

Anyone else wanna chime in?!  

[Ben]

My first figures were R2-D2 and C-3PO. My mother will attest to buying these two many times, as I managed to lose 3PO's removable limbs quite often, and my R2 figures had a knack for losing their legs as well.

I got a few more here and there, never more than twenty total. By then, (1985) the line had waned, and I was big into GI Joe, Transformers, and especially He-Man, like every other kid my age.

Around 1993, I saw an ad for the Micro machines. I picked them up and the Bend-Ems too. I was collecting Toy Biz's X-Men line half-assedly at the time, and I was reading a copy of Lee's when I read about the new Star Wars line. I got a set of the first nine for Christmas 1995, as well as the Landspeeder and Classic 4-pack.

Silly me thought that was all there would be.  

[jkno]

I was a SW fan since I saw the ANH in my childhood. I started collecting in 2001 when my little cousin Roby (6 at that time) had a bad car accident. He was hit by a car when riding the bycicle. Then I tried to help him forget about the pain and found for him some toys. He was a SW fan like me and tried to find SW toys. It was hard to find them because in Romania there were no SW toys at all.

Some old thejawa friends helped me to find for Roby great SW toys and especially Action Fleet toys. I bought for my cousin some great items and then I started collecting for myself. Now both have almost identical AF collections. And don't forget please I'm coming from Romania, and my salary as university assistant is about $200/month

[Rob L]

Only since I bought Qui-Gon Jedi Duel on Euro card in April or May 1999.

I had a lot of toys around the time of ROTJ (when I was 7), but I didn't really consider it to be"collecting" at that point.  It was all just toys to me back then  

[Rob]

I had the toys as a little kid - but destroyed them all playing with them...

I started collecting, like many late bloomers, in 1995 at the age of 15.  9 years...wow.

[Nicklab]

My first stint:  1977 or 78 until 1983/4
The current stint:  1998 to present

[Nathan]

I've been accumulating (it wasn't "collecting" at first) SW toys pretty much continuously since 10 or 11 -- 1995ish, orange card POTF2 timeframe. Roughly the same time I became a fan of the movies -- really I became an EU and toy fan very shortly after the movies. I had 3.75" scale stuff and a bunch of MicroMachines and Action Fleet. My first action figure was Boba Fett; my dad was buying me one figure and letting me pick. I recall my two finalists were Hoth Han and Boba.

My parents and grandparents bought me stuff, and I would spend some of my birthday/Xmas/etc. gift money on the toys and Expanded Universe. At first they were just TOYS, but somewhere along the line it became "collecting".

Until relatively recently, I accumulated small quantities of stuff intermittently, but it was a distant second to my EU fandom (books, comics).

I was 13 when TPM came out, somewhere around when I stopped seriously playing with the SW toys. To be sure, I still open them and mess with the action features and have lightsaber battles, but it just ain't the same anymore.

Starting maybe a year or so ago, my emphasis has shifted more towards collecting and less on EU because I no longer have time to keep up with all the books and comics. Starting college last fall hasn't helped, obviously. Hoarding plastic effigies involves much less time commitment than scads of books. I still read the EU, but not as much as before.

I still have all the old childhood toys, and I don't think I've gotten rid of any of my collection.

I'm a loose non-completist collector, with a caveat. Recently I got the idea into my head that I'd like one representative carded figure from each line, and specifically that I should get an Obi-Wan from each line to provide some continuity. I'm still working on that one. But it's started me toward an extremely slippery slope where I'm seriously considering reacquiring carded versions of a few of my most prized (not valuable, just sentimentally significant) figures, for posterity's sake. Must ... resist ... slippery ... slope.....

[Vator]

I never really got into "collecting" persay until about 1999. Up until that time I got SW and CORPS! stuff just to play with. Since then I've been pretty hardcore, been through all of Modern Line and have no intentions of stoping.

So, about 6 years of collecting...8 years of buying.

[Darth_Anton]

Since the beging. I guess you can call me a lifer as well. Never got the Earliy bird set, nor early varients like the VC Jawa or DT figs, but I had good 3 3/4" collection until the POTF line when I was pretty much forced to quit due to age.

Once POTF2 hit, there was no one to stop me, so I've been full steam ahead on the 3 3/4" ever since.

[Diddly]

I've been buying figs since early 1997 (got my first POTF2 figs in late 96), and collecting since AOTC came out in 2002. I went on a hiatus after TPM came out, as no stores had any SW figures. Plus, I finally found the HTF Darth Maul, so I felt "complete." I started getting an interest again in early 2002, but didn't start buying figs again until AOTC came out.

So we're going on 6 1/2 years buying figs (excluding my hiatus in 00-02) and 3 years collecting.

[DoctorPadawan]

I started collecting (even though to me it was called "getting toys to play with") in 1979.  The parents took me to a Hills department store and got me a Luke, Vader, and Chewbacca.  I ended up getting into SW pretty heavily when TESB came out, and from then on, it was all downhill.

I never really had a lot of the figures or vehicles, but I remember getting the Millennium Falcon for my birthday in 1980 and being absolutely thrilled.  There is a photo of me in a family album taking off the wrapping paper; strangely enough (and kind of appropriate), there is also a picture of me in the family album from 1999 opening the Naboo Royal Starship, which was my Christmas present that year.  Kind of a "bookend" type of thing, or in SW terms, the circle was complete.

But, like a lot of kids and their baseball card/comic book collections, my mother decided that since I didn't play with the figures anymore (it was 1986), she could sell them without me getting upset.  Imagine how you would have felt to know that about 35 figures, Jabba the Hutt, an X-Wing, and the Dagobah playset were sold in a yard sale for 30 bucks total.  Yeah, I didn't feel so good about it either.  There are a few things that inexplicably didn't make it into the yard sale and that make up my vintage collection today (Leia Boussh, Wicket, Yoda, Vader, the AT-ST, and the Falcon), but still, it depresses me to know that all of that cool stuff is gone now. 

I guess it was around 1991 when I realized that I just didn't give a **** what people thought of me and what I did anymore that I started to wonder about getting SW stuff again.  Sadly, there wasn't any around, so when Galoob put out the Micro Machines in 1993 or 1994, I was all over them.  When POTF2 came out, it was the greatest thing since sliced bread to me.  Even though now I can see that the figures pretty much sucked, at the time, they were great to me, and I still look at them fondly (even Monkey Leia).

So, here I am, some 26 years later since that trip to Hills and I'm still buying SW action figures.  And while I am considered a collector, and no longer "play" with the figures or vehicles in the traditional sense of the word, to me, it's still getting new toys more than it is anything else.