If You Were Choosing One: Vintage or Modern?

[Brian]

I'm not sure if this is the right place for this or not, so if it needs to be moved, that is perfectly fine.  Since its both vintage and modern, I wasn't sure.  Anyways, the other night I was talking with my wife and running the idea past her that I might start browsing ebay again to work on my vintage loose figure collection.  I have taken a longer break than I wanted to, just due to moving, finances, and finding a fair amount of new stuff over the summer (Star Wars, LOTR, Spidey, etc.).  Anyways, I've always wanted to work towards a complete, loose figure collection, and was about to get back to it.  We were just talking about it, and she jokingly said to me, "you have to pick one or the other, vintage or modern...old or new".  At least I hope she was joking .  Jk.  Anyways, it just got me to thinking, if you ever had to choose one or the other...which would you choose, or could you?  Thinking that you were starting with nothing, and just jumping into the wonderful world of Star Wars collecting, which route would you take?

It is a tough call for me.  I really enjoy the vintage figures, and obviously that is where the nostalgia comes from for me.  Plus, I doubt I'd be into the modern figures if I hadn't had the vintage ones when I was a kid.  Then, on the other side of things, I would hate to miss out on things like the current VOTC offerings, as well as some great figures from the POTJ, Saga (2004), and OTC lines.  Plus, that doesn't even take into account prequel trilogy figures (which take a backseat normally to OT anyways, but that is besides the point).  I don't know if I could choose totally.  I could do without the POTF2 figures if I had to I guess, but others (the VOTC in particular) would be tough to pass by.  Could you choose?  If so, which route would you go?  This isn't saying any of us would do this, or hopefully won't ever have to, it was just something I was thinking about and was curious to your opinions.  I mean, for the most part, the newer figures are obviously "better", but I guess sometimes that doesn't matter either when dealing with vintage figures.  Its all about what brings you the most joy in collecting I guess.

[Rob]

This is a quantity vs. quality type of question.

I'd rather have a very impressive vintage collection.

But the modern gives you the chance to get a lot of figures that were never made...

[Rob L]

For me it’s compounded by whether I’m in a loose or carded phase.  Sometime last year I got all nostalgic and in a 6 week period had amassed 24 loose and complete vintage figures.  At the same time I still had plenty of loose modern figures, and whenever I would glance back and forth between the two sets, my heart would sink.  The old stuff was looking pretty silly.

More recently the Saga line and its associated dusting and “keeping it all together” issues has got me switched to carded.  When I picked up a couple of carded figures from the old ROTJ line and put them on my wall, I was shocked by how these 20+ year old photo-cards kicked the ass of the sea of red, blue and green on my wall. 

So at the moment my ideal would be a select few pristine vintage Palitoys. 

Yup, vintage.

Thankfully I won't ever really have to dump one or the other, and for a while I’ve been thinking that a vintage carded / modern OT-only carded collection could be the way to go.

Or, if and when I go back to loose, it would have to be modern.

Oh man, I DON'T KNOW! You choose for me 

[Morgbug]

Modern.

In spite of being older than most on here, I never collected the toys during my youth/childhood.  The nostalgia simply isn't there. 

I'm two figures (four if you count small head Han, brown hair Luke farmboy) away from a complete vintage collection with major, recognized variations.  The vintage figures are great, no doubt about it, some of them exceeding their modern counterparts.  But they don't bring me any grand memories, I don't recall hunting for them or the joy of finding them.  Modern figures bring all that to me as well as a ton of frustration. 

I also like the sculpts of the modern stuff better, for the most part.  No, they aren't perfect, but put an OTC Luke X-wing, sans buck teeth, beside a vintage Luke X-wing and I don't see a contest at all.  The contrary occurs, as I already noted, but for the most part, Hasbro is doing ok.  Yes, I know what I said, but nostalgia for me is the orange carded he-man figures.  Re-releases, aside from cruddy accessories have exceeded the originals IMO. 

From a space standpoint or value?  Vintage hands down.  100 plus figures display very well in a neat, tidy, small space.  I could dump all my modern stuff but wouldn't get much $$ for it, would I?

From a cost standpoint?  Heh, the two collections are probably about even in terms of dollars, if figures are the only factor for comparison. 

Being done (almost) means I don't have to choose.

[SilverZ]

This is tough! I look at the two lines completely separate, with different reasons for collecting each. I don't think I could choose just one because I don't look at them as being related much, as weird as that sounds. I'd be in a terrible place if my significant other proposed a choice like that... I hope she was indeed joking. 

Keep in mind that as a kid Star Wars was an important element of several years, but didn't rule my imagination exclusively. I began obsessing over it later, in my teens. So there's a different goal relating to these toys from my current perspective on SW and my childish recollection of it.

I love collecting modern for its movie-accuracy. Well, when Hasbro chooses to do that and not include action features or gimmicks. I like accumulating a small-scale representation of all the movie's characters and vehicles in their most realistic form. As frustrated as I get at times, I really do love the modern line at its core for how well they depict the SW universe in a very playable and collectible scale. The line pretty well matches my adult obsessive nature toward SW.

Vintage, for me, is mostly about nostalgia. I'm after specific things in the line that evoke that sense in carded and loose figures. I have distinct memories of being very young and seeing certain figures in the store, the aisle at the TRU in Santa Ana, CA stacked high with toys around the ESB realease, things like that. I haven't focused too much on vintage lately but my goal is to get a nice set of carded figures that keep those memories kicking. For loose stuff, I want to start by getting back my favorite figures in a good of condition as possible. I'm sure this mentality will change when I focus more on completing my goals, but that's what I think right now. It's a very different hobby than my thought process on the modern line.

So again, picking one or the other for me is impossible. It's like being asked to give up a certain food. You can give up meat or vegetables. But just because they're both food, it doesn't mean you can really give up one because you're eating the other.  Lame analogy, but hey.