Do you remember when MOCs were just "toys"?

[edd_jedi]

I was just moving my figures, handling them delicately as usual, and I thought how strange it was that I'm handling these things that were meant to be disposable, cheap, child's play things as if they were gold dust :lol:

I have plenty of memories of playing with SW toys, but I don't think I can remember buying or opening any. I have been collecting for a long time, since I was a teenager in the nearly 90s, but even then they were collectables that had to be handled carefully.

Anybody else find it strange that we are so overly careful with what is essentially a piece of cardboard and a bit of plastic, not unlike any other you'd find in a shop today? If you think about it they have no material value at all, it's all in our minds :idea:

 

[Nick_IoW]

I do that too - and imagine most do!

The whole point I have a MIB collection and not a MISB one is so that I can break them out from time to time and set them all up as the force intended.

 

[itfciain]

I suppose you could say the same about most collector hobbies

For example -

Stamps - meant to be licked and the binned once the letter arrives
Cars/bikes - meant to be driven from A-B

I suppose the point is that these are 'rare' and 'collectable' because they are still in their original packaging

 

[.Q.]

As a loose collector, I love playing with them (with great care), as display pieces, tweaking my set-up. (oo-er matron :wink: )
I only own one MOC, my prized ERG courtesy of the mighty Tundra (most kind thanks again Jorn! ), and I do indeed treat this with a rarefied reverence - I've only taken it out of the starcase it came in twice!

I imagine quite a number of us recall tearing open packaging of Xmas / birthday goodies back in vintage times.
In a way, to me they were never 'just toys', they were always my favourite things. Sure I played with them all the time, but mostly with a bit of care so they'd live to fight another epic battle.

 

[Michael Sith]

It's all about perception, or Jedi mind tricks, which all of us SW collectors have fallen victim to :wink:

I was sorting my stuff and had some mocs and loosies, neatly laid out on spare room floor upstairs, nipped downstairs to make the obligatory brew, when to my horror heard the mrs switch on the vacuum upstairs :shock:

So I went ashen faced and flew upstairs in a mass panic

If that had been my kids toys back in the day, I wouldn't have batted an eyelid

So yes I'm the same they are treated with reverence, but I have some old books ...antiques, again which I treat in the same way.

In our disposable society, I think it's a good thing though.

 

[Grant]

I was just moving my figures, handling them delicately as usual, and I thought how strange it was that I'm handling these things that were meant to be disposable, cheap, child's play things as if they were gold dust :lol:

I have plenty of memories of playing with SW toys, but I don't think I can remember buying or opening any. I have been collecting for a long time, since I was a teenager in the nearly 90s, but even then they were collectables that had to be handled carefully.

Anybody else find it strange that we are so overly careful with what is essentially a piece of cardboard and a bit of plastic, not unlike any other you'd find in a shop today? If you think about it they have no material value at all, it's all in our minds :idea:

Yep, I remembering both tearing MOC's apart as a kid in the 80's and also recently (within the last few years) handing MOC's very delicately incase I even put a finger print on them LOL. Plastic and Cardboard = Gold Dust. :mrgreen:

 

[x-pack]

The only one i'm careful with is my Blue Snag, and that's because I don't want to wear the paint off. not that arsed about handling the rest of 'em. Of course i'm careful with the boxed stuff but that goes without saying.

 

[Stormtrooper37]

The MOC was never important to any kid at the time. All I was ever after was the figure, stuff the annoying bubble and card back - straight in the bin.

Funny how things change, like you say Edd it's all in our minds and has no material value really at all

 

[PGowdy]

I must say i loved the cardbacks and the bubbles back then too. It was all part of the excitment. Am i the only one who wouldn't buy a toy with a damaged card in the store?? :?
I remember standing in the toy shop for ages perusing the "moc" (obviously didn't call it that back then) shelf of whatever toy i was into back then (SW, Action Force, GoBots, RGB etc). The card and image made up half the decision, which was NEVER an easy one. I recall one time being told i wasn't allowed to get a figure because i had taken to long to chose... i started to cry and my dad said "right, chose one this second or you go without!"... i stared at the wall of figures again... "ummm...".... kept straring... "NOW PETER!" .... "ummmm..." "Right, that's it" Dragged out of the store crying with no toy. :lol: :lol:
On the occasions i could make up my mind I would sit in the car on the drive back home with the still unopened "moc" in my hands looking at the picture and reading the card back. Comparing it to the one my brother had chosen. See, we were told we couldn't open the toys until we were home. Can't remember the reasoning but it never bothered me. I always enjoyed the wait.
Once home i would run up to my room and set about carefully removing the bubble, furious any time (most times) the removal of said bubble tore any of the picture. The i would get out the rest of my figures and group everything and save the card with my other saved cards of whatever line it was i was into.
My brother, conversly, would tear his bubble off ripping most of the picture off with it. It always bothered me and even more so because i knew that was half the reason he did it. I always wanted to keep his card back but he would take great pleasure in ruining it and then chucking it in the bin saying... "you can't have it" :lol:
Pretty much as soon as the thing was out of the bubble the main buzz was over and i longed to be back at the store in front of that wall choosing, or indeed, not choosing my next toy/moc. It was always the whole lead up to actually getting the toy open that i enjoyed most even from a very young age. I remember when i sent away for Nien Nunb after collecting the name plates from my saved card-backs (it hurt to destroy them) and i was more than a little pissed off when it arrived not packaged in cardback and bubble but in a ****ing baggie! :shock:
:lol:

 

[Stormtrooper37]

I must say i loved the cardbacks and the bubbles back then too. It was all part of the excitment. Am i the only one who wouldn't buy a toy with a damaged card in the store?? :?
I remember standing in the toy shop for ages perusing the "moc" (obviously didn't call it that back then) shelf of whatever toy i was into back then (SW, Action Force, GoBots, RGB etc). The card and image made up half the decision, which was NEVER an easy one. I recall one time being told i wasn't allowed to get a figure because i had taken to long to chose... i started to cry and my dad said "right, chose one this second or you go without!"... i stared at the wall of figures again... "ummm...".... kept straring... "NOW PETER!" .... "ummmm..." "Right, that's it" Dragged out of the store crying with no toy. :lol: :lol:
On the occasions i could make up my mind I would sit in the car on the drive back home with the still unopened "moc" in my hands looking at the picture and reading the card back. Comparing it to the one my brother had chosen. See, we were told we couldn't open the toys until we were home. Can't remember the reasoning but it never bothered me. I always enjoyed the wait.
Once home i would run up to my room and set about carefully removing the bubble, furious any time (most times) the removal of said bubble tore any of the picture. The i would get out the rest of my figures and group everything and save the card with my other saved cards of whatever line it was i was into.
My brother, conversly, would tear his bubble off ripping most of the picture off with it. It always bothered me and even more so because i knew that was half the reason he did it. I always wanted to keep his card back but he would take great pleasure in ruining it and then chucking it in the bin saying... "you can't have it" :lol:
Pretty much as soon as the thing was out of the bubble the main buzz was over and i longed to be back at the store in front of that wall choosing, or indeed, not choosing my next toy/moc. It was always the whole lead up to actually getting the toy open that i enjoyed most even from a very young age. I remember when i sent away for Nien Nunb after collecting the name plates from my saved card-backs (it hurt to destroy them) and i was more than a little pissed off when it arrived not packaged in cardback and bubble but in a ****ing baggie! :shock:
:lol:

I was more like your brother Pete :lol:

I usually only kept one card back at a time and that was to look at the other figures available that I still had not managed to track down. It was usually a card back with more figures on the reverse rather than an early one with less

 

[Mrleemur]

This is my yoda...

I got him in nineteen eighty something, but after i bought him, i remember walking through town with my mum and nan (maybe my brother too, i forget) and dropping him on the zebra crossing between the job centre and the priors oven bakery in spalding and being mortified as i watched cars run over him!!

I think i was glad it was just the bubble took a bit of a bashing!!

 

[sith-smith]

It's true they have no intrinsic material value. All the value comes from what collectors give them.

That's why I have a display set and play with set

 

[Grant]

I must say i loved the cardbacks and the bubbles back then too. It was all part of the excitment. Am i the only one who wouldn't buy a toy with a damaged card in the store?? :?
I remember standing in the toy shop for ages perusing the "moc" (obviously didn't call it that back then) shelf of whatever toy i was into back then (SW, Action Force, GoBots, RGB etc). The card and image made up half the decision, which was NEVER an easy one. I recall one time being told i wasn't allowed to get a figure because i had taken to long to chose... i started to cry and my dad said "right, chose one this second or you go without!"... i stared at the wall of figures again... "ummm...".... kept straring... "NOW PETER!" .... "ummmm..." "Right, that's it" Dragged out of the store crying with no toy. :lol: :lol:
On the occasions i could make up my mind I would sit in the car on the drive back home with the still unopened "moc" in my hands looking at the picture and reading the card back. Comparing it to the one my brother had chosen. See, we were told we couldn't open the toys until we were home. Can't remember the reasoning but it never bothered me. I always enjoyed the wait.
Once home i would run up to my room and set about carefully removing the bubble, furious any time (most times) the removal of said bubble tore any of the picture. The i would get out the rest of my figures and group everything and save the card with my other saved cards of whatever line it was i was into.
My brother, conversly, would tear his bubble off ripping most of the picture off with it. It always bothered me and even more so because i knew that was half the reason he did it. I always wanted to keep his card back but he would take great pleasure in ruining it and then chucking it in the bin saying... "you can't have it" :lol:
Pretty much as soon as the thing was out of the bubble the main buzz was over and i longed to be back at the store in front of that wall choosing, or indeed, not choosing my next toy/moc. It was always the whole lead up to actually getting the toy open that i enjoyed most even from a very young age. I remember when i sent away for Nien Nunb after collecting the name plates from my saved card-backs (it hurt to destroy them) and i was more than a little pissed off when it arrived not packaged in cardback and bubble but in a ****ing baggie! :shock:
:lol:

Dude I remember that well... I had high hopes for my cool NN mail away but then mine came back in a crappy white box with the said baggy inside. Well gutted at the time. 8)

 

[db94]

I was only 5 when the figures hit the shops so don't have any cardbacks from SW but thankfully have lots for ESB and ROTJ. Most of my cardbacks are in pretty good shape so I obviously took my time taking the bubbles off.
Kept all my boxes for ships and vehicles though - but at that age I suppose the credit goes to my folks. My palitoy X wing box takes pride of place in my collection after sitting in my folks loft for years.

Even at aged 6 I loved the packaging, I remember we had a day out to Santa Clause land in Aviemore in Scotland, I got to choose a toy from Santa's grotto - they had a great display of SW figures and I remember really wanting the farmboy Luke but didn't like the idea of getting him loose so picked a car instead. My folks asked me why on the way home and when I told them they explained that I would have got a new one on a card not the display one - I begged to go back all the way home!

 

[mumbo]

As a young lad I may not have cared one bit about the packaging but I have instilled a different approach to toy collecting for my 5 year old boy

 

[db94]

Good point - I've done the same with our daughter. She opens everything but with a craft knife and keeps all packaging. Should have seen us in Asda last night - sitting in the aisles as she picked the best paint job on the black series figures, made me proud

 

[mumbo]

Good point - I've done the same with our daughter. She opens everything but with a craft knife and keeps all packaging. Should have seen us in Asda last night - sitting in the aisles as she picked the best paint job on the black series figures, made me proud

Now why couldn't our parents have been so thoughtful :roll:

 

[Pomse2001]

I remember when it was only toys, when I was a kid and was opening my new moc or box to play with this fantastic toy

I collect moc, but not Misb, because I like to take the toy out to display it and hold it in my hands

 

[slim]

i remember after weeks of checking the shop that sold starwars toys and nagging my mum to take me i at last got a luke stormtrooper , when i got home i ripped him from the packet and got all my other figures out on the sofa and then left the room to get a drink when i returned the darn dog had picked out the luke stormtrooper and was chewing him to pieces , i can laugh now as its great memories but at that time i was more than pissed :lol:

 

[theslider]

I don't think I was as anal as Pete (sorry Pete!) but I used to keep all my cards and it used to gut me to cut the name tags out. I even kept some bubbles as well as I used to use them for carbonite chambers for figures.

I loved looking at the cards, just don't know why, they just looked cool (and still do!)