Favorite Toys of All Time (Any Time, Any Line)

[Brian]

Since I didn't want to limit it to just Star Wars (but feel free to include if you want to), I thought this might be a good place to put this.  I was just curious what some of your all time favorite individual figures are, no matter what the line...past or present.  Maybe they weren't the best liknesses, or were just fun...or maybe they are practically statues and just look great.  I was just curious to see some of your favorites, from childhood to now.  Here's a few of mine:

Vintage Star Wars: Han Solo w/Trenchcoat, Jedi Luke Skywalker, Sensorscope R2, Yoda, Boba Fett, Skiff Lando, Chewie, Vader

Modern Star Wars: POTJ Bespin Han, 300th Boba Fett, Dagobah Vader, Commtech R2, Commtech Stormie, Saga Bespin Luke, Yoda w/Chian, Coleman Trebor (and although I don't have them...Jabba's Palace Luke, Hoth Luke (Saga), SA Clonetrooper.  This list could get longer, but we've covered Star Wars plenty I figure.

Vintage GI Joe: 1985 version Snake Eyes (this was probably my favorite action figure as a kid, outside of a few Star Wars figures)....also Barbeque, Duke, Destro.

Vintage MOTU: Roboto, Sy-Klone, He-Man, Stinkor, Skeletor, Tri-Klops

Modern MOTU: Only have He-Man and Sy-Klone, but the whole line looks great.  I only want a Roboto now, if he ever does show up in stores.

Vintage Transformers:  Sideswipe, Bumblebee, and an orange truck I believe was called Huffer.  Always liked Optimus Prime and Hound too, but unfortunately I didn't have them.

Go-Bots (vintage): Turbo? (red car), Leader 1 (I had the blue version)

Secret Wars: Spidey and Wolverine, they were a team on a lot of missions in my mind...took on Doc Ock quite a bit .

Marvel Legends: Beast, Colossus, Gambit (all the X-Men are great)...also have the Spiderman 2 SA Spidey.

Super Powers: Batman, Robin, Flash, Green Lantern, Aquaman (this was a great line I thought, I never could find a Superman though when I was a kid.  Bats was always my fave)

LOTR: Legolas (Rohan Armor)

Other Misc:  Unleashed Han Solo and Jedi Luke, all the OT Playskool sets (I really hope they bring this line back).

That's what I can think of off hand, I was more curious to see some of your favorites.

[Scott]

All Time...



I'll do a line by line breakdown later, cool topic Brian

[Ben]

I really don't think I have a favorite Star Wars figure, as I have so many. But for the other lines, I have a few.

Vintage MOTU- Skeletor, Battle Armor He-Man, Orko, Beast Man, Stinkor, Roboto, and the Slime Pit.

Modern MOTU- Beast Man,Two Bad, Whiplash, Skeletor, Fire Armor Skeletor, Ice Armor He-Man, Orko, Trapjaw, and my custom jobbies of Trapjaw, Orko, and He-Man.

GI Joe: A Real American Hero- Storm Shadow v2, Destro v1 and 2, Snake Eyes v3(never had 2), Wet Suit v1, Serpentor v1, Night Viper, Zartan, Sgt. Slaughter (he's cool when you're 5 years old in 1986 ), Hit and Run, Bazooka, Alpine, Lady Jaye, and if I owned then, I'd say Duke and Hawk.

GI Joe ARAH Vehicle: Moray Hydrofoil. My friend had it, and all I had was the stupid little Devilfish. But I did get the Sp3 Night Raven, so nyah.

GI Joe Modern incarnations- The second version of Snake Eyes in the JvC line. The closest Hasbro has come to their RAH glory.

Transformers G1- Optimus Prime, Megatron, Soundwave, Starscream, and Seaspray. G1 always needed more boats, IMO.

Marvel Legends- Wolverine. It has to be the finest Wolvie figure ever made, and it's one of the few ML I own that doesn't have any loose joints.

Lord of the Rings- King Aragorn, Eomer in Coronation armor, Eowyn in armor, Crossbow Uruk-Hai, Frodo and Sam w/ Elven boat, FOTR Legolas, Sauron, and Treebeard, the single biggest figure I own.

Muppets- The Great Gonzo, hands down. Great, great stuph.

[Mainland05]

The figures i realy favor and love are the follows:

Star Wars :
POTF 2 - Commtech Leia, Ewoks 2-Pack.

EP1 - Queen Amidala all 3 versions, Qui-Gon Jinn (Naboo), Pit Droids, Jar Jar (Naboo Swamp), Ki-Adi Mundi.

POTJ - Queen Amidala (Theed Invasion), Scout Trooper (Clean), Aurra Sing, Teebo.

SAGA - Aayla Secura, Padme (Lars'), Shaak Ti, Luminara Unduli, Yoda (Jedi Master).

CLONE WARS - Asajj Ventress, ARC Trooper, SA Clonetrooper, Durge, Kit Fisto.


Lord of the Rings :Fellowship of the Ring - Gandalf the Grey, Elrond, Legolas, Arwen.

Two Towers - Galadriel, Ringwraith, PEW, Easterling, Boromir, Gandalf the Grey, Twilight Frodo.

Return of the King - Eowyn (Edoras), Eowyn (armored), Harad Archer, King Aragorn, Treebeard.

I also like - Marvel Legends -
Elektra, Wolverine, Colossus, Sabertooth, Silver Surfer, Blade, Captain America.

That is all i collect!!!

[Padawan]

Some of my favorites.  

Star Wars Unleashed: Han Solo (Likeness is unreal)

Movie Maniacs: Alien vs. Predator boxed set, and Freddy vs. Jason fishtank.

McFarlane Matrix series 1 Neo: Was it a pegwarmer?  Yes, but it's still a great figure.

McFarlane Matrix: Sentinel

Spawn: Series 24 Wall Spawn, and Santa Spawn.  CC Lotus Angel, series 21 WOR Spawn, and Spawn VII boxed set.

McFarlane Terminator 3: 12" Arnold, the voice chip sucks, but the figure is excellent.  

18" Figures: Jason and Pinhead from NECA

Kubrick's: The entire Star Wars line, plus many other lines, but Star Wars is my favorite.

McFarlane Sportspicks: Derrick Brooks.  I don't really care for these figures, but he is my favorite athlete so I had to buy it.  

Mez-Itz: Any except Dick Tracy

Tim Burton's Tragic Toys for Girls and Boys:  All of them.  

[Brian]

Just thought I'd bump up this topic again...I see my original lists were quite lengthy, so I'll try to condense it down this time to one or two memorable ones from childhood to today:

Star Wars (Vintage) - Han Solo (Trenchcoat), Luke Skywalker (Jedi), Chewbacca, Boba Fett, Millennium Falcon, Snowspeeder

Star Wars (Modern) - VOTC Han Solo, VOTC or EB Chewbacca, and too many other figures to mention, BMF Falcon

G.I. Joe
-Vintage: Snake Eyes (v2), Dusty, BBQ, Blowtorch, Airtight, Duke, Killer WHALE
-Modern: 25th Ann. Snake Eyes (v2), 25th Ann. Storm Shadow, 25th Ann. Duke, and many more

He-Man/Masters of the Universe
-Vintage: He-Man, Roboto, Man-E-Faces, Battle Cat
-Modern: He-Man, Moss Man, Skeletor, Battle Cat

Marvel and DC
-Vintage: Secret Wars Spider-Man and Wolverine, Super Powers Batman and Robin
-Modern: SMC Spider-Man, SM2 Movie Spider-Man, ML Face Off Cap, Iron Man Movie Mark III, ML Astonishing Wolverine, DCUC Batman, Robin, Nightwing, Green Lantern and Flash

Transformers
-Vintage: Bumblebee, Sideswipe, Slag
-Modern: TF Classics Bumblebee, Optimus Prime

Other
-Modern: Indiana Jones (any, just to get an Indy figure, but ToD is probably the best one)

There are lots more I could mention, but have to go for now.  My vintage choices are pretty much all based on what I had personally as a kid, and in many cases their modern incarnations are my favorites now.  Plus, there are a lot of action figures that are maybe better done - but I'm just listing my favorites, usually relating to my favorites as characters as well.  Lots of good stuff out there, I could list tons of Star Wars and virtually all of the 25th Joes or MOTU Classics (all well done).  Plus, it is hard to limit the Marvel/DC stuff, since there was/is a lot of good stuff between Legends and Classics.

If I had to list five figures that I can remember coveting, searching for, and finding/receiving from my childhood, it would look like this:

1. Snake Eyes (v2)
2. Secret Wars Spider-Man
3. Super Powers Batman
4. Han Solo (Trenchcoat)
5. Luke Skywalker (Jedi)

[efranks]

Star Wars Vintage:
 - Bespin Luke
 - AT-AT Driver
 - Millennium Falcon
 - Death Star

Star Wars Modern: I couldn't pick one action figure, there are a lot of nice figures in the modern line.  For vehicles;
 - Republic Gunship
 - BMF

GI Joe Vintage ARAH:
 - Gung Ho
 - Snake Eyes V2
 - Storm Shadow
 - VAMP
 - Rattler

GI Joe Modern ARAH:
 - ROC Ice-Viper
 - Helix
 - City Strike Snake Eyes
 - Snow Job
 - Low-Light (last two not yet released)
 - Jungle/Desert HUMMVEE.

Fisher Price Adventure People: There was a safari set with jeep, trailer, family and animals.  Had a load of fun with that as a kid.

Lego Space.  I had several sets but I'm just going to count them all together.

There are some other toys that I find to be really cool for different reasons but those vintage toys are the ones I remember fondly when I think about what I played with when I was a kid.  Modern, there are some that I really like for sculpt, articulation and general play features but I don't think I have the same attachment to them that I do the late 70's early 80's toys.

   E...

[Jesse James]

Star Wars aside...

One of my favorites was Starcom.  Hands down it's one of the cooler toy lines I ever had as a kid, and I have a fairly complete collection still.  It's something I'm hard-pressed to part with.  There wasn't much in that line I didn't like.

It's one of those things that still holds some value too, if you've got it in good working condition and/or complete.  Otherwise it's fairly worthless. 

[Morgbug]

All Time...



I'll do a line by line breakdown later, cool topic Brian

For the life of me I'll never understand why you parted with those.  The Simpsons line is probably my crowning glory in collecting with rational thought involved.  There are a few pieces I wish I hadn't bought (McFarlane based line) but other than that I am thrilled with how I managed these. 


Anything Homer in the WOS line I loved plus a few others. 

Vintage star wars would be another favorite line and the Droids figures ended up as my favorites there.

Marvel Legends and Spidey is my fave, but I've begun unloading this line and will only keep a few. 

McFarlane Sportspicks have been great as they've immortalized some of my Jets in plastic. 

My original favorite line as a kid would have been the original 12" GI Joe line.  Those were the action figures I grew up with and my favorite would have to be the Kun Fu grip Joe with life like beard from the Adventurer line (Political correctness had crept in already by 1974 as action figures based on the military were switched to more Indiana Jones-ish stuff).  I got that figure at Christmas when I was 12 so was drifting out of toys by that time but it was just really cool and appealed to the little boy in me at the time. 

[GrandMoffNick]

Not even sort of the right thread, but does anyone watch "Pawn Stars"? Did you see the head, missing the body, that they bought from a Stretch Serpent from the Stretch Armstrong line? He paid $500 for it and the toy expert said it was probably worth $4000 to $5000. I didn't know that Stretch Armstrong was still that popular that a piece of a toy no matter how rare would be worth that much.

[efranks]

I do watch Pawn Stars sometimes but haven't seen that episode yet.  I'm assuming that the body deteriorated over time?  I just did a quick search for this on Google and found a site with an auction archive for a complete one that sold in 2008 for $12,500 BIN.

http://www.stretcharmstrongworld.com/contact_4.html

   E...

[GrandMoffNick]

I know those things broke after time as you stretched them and they had mentioned a full one was worth like $12,000. But would you pay a third to half price for a head of a SW fig? Just seemed crazy to me.

[efranks]

How much would you pay for a vintage Vlix figure that was missing, say, a leg, but in otherwise decent condition?  Not exactly the same, but I'm sure people would pay some good coin for that shot at owning one of the most rare Star Wars figures.

Would it be a lot different than paying a $100+ for a box for a very rare/desirable vintage piece?  The box for a Flagg, for example?

   E...

[McMetal]

I've never even heard of that thing, but it's a fascinating read. The Stretch Armstrong dude I want is the Green villain guy that sort of resembles the Abomination. Those are next to impossible to find on eBay too. I had him as a kid but it was lost over time.

I don't like that Pawn Stars show because I feel like the employees are always just out to screw people. They constantly try to lowball customers and then gloat about it afterwards.

I much prefer STORAGE WARS. I'll never forget the episode where that young gun dude cracked open box after box of super rare 70's and 80's action figures, including a carded Amanaman to drool over. As soon as I saw that I thought, damn that's what I want to do for a living!

[GrandMoffNick]

I feel the opposite on those shows. The storage guys are taking advantage of people's lack of being able to pay for their storage. Now don't get me wrong that isn't their fault, but indirectly they are taking advantage.

And I think the Pawn Star guys are more than fair. They have to make a profit and they don't pretend things aren't worth something. Did you see the episode where the lady brought the Fabrige spider broach and wanted $1000. Rick said, "I couldn't steal this from you. I'll give you $18,000 for it".