wow there are some great stories on here that i have just read
some of you guys should be writing the new Star Wars films as fantasy seems to be your strong point
well let me tell you a little about myself as there are so many stories out there and only half of them are true.
but first my i just ask for a little be of forgiveness , i am dyslexic and this post will take me 10 times longer for me to write that it would for the rest of you and i will still have lots of spelling mistakes in it, so if i get some spelling wrong then please do attack me for that, as thats way to easy a target
now the old republic before it was fashionable to be a star wars fan , at that time there was very few collectors in the world and even fewer that traveled the galaxy looking for toys , myself and my best friend Mark Woollard did just this , before ebay before the dark times
we are talkign from 1983 to 2005 but the best years was the 90s
well back then Steve Sansweet mostly collected Robots , there was one big collector in OZ called Brion ? i think ? there was a big collector in florida called Dug i think ? but there was not many of us , but i traveled and that meant i could find things i did not know was out there and it was fun, i did have a bit of a head start on a lot of the other collectors that came after me, and some times that did upset them and because of this some people have held a grudge for many years which is sad and that is some of what i have read today on here and in other places over the years.
now i think that when we all start out collecting it starts out as a selfish thing , something that drives us all to gather and keep and be possessive, its the i want that thing inside us all . some of you may not want to agree with me but when we all see something amazing do you not feel deep down " i want that to take home " ? i think thats the collector in us,
collectors crave things and get possessive and NEED things for there collection , and as this hobby back in the 80s attracted many young collectors
i think this drive and the testosterone created a very intense environment for collectors to get along, i have to say back in the day the few of us that collected seriously really did go for it , we was younger than we are today and went for everything we could find , it was not that pleasant at times which was a sad thing as i do bereave collecting should be fun.
because some times collecting was not that fun and the rivalry was unpleasant i took a back step from the collection community in the last 90s and just kept on collecting but not making a big thing about it and just kept on gathering and keeping my self to my self and my closest friends.
some of the people i did not see eye to eye also also kept on collection and reading some of the stories here and on other sites some i can see there legacy of little digs and storeys keeps on coming up some stories have been created to help them hinder me a little and help them a bit ? others is jsut the facts are lost or misunderstood in time, it has never been that important to me as i sleep at night knowing i have not wronged anyone knowingly or been underhand , now i am not a saint don't get me wrong , if someone has a 12 back Han on a mint Palitoy card for £200 on a stand i will buy it and not tell them its worth a lot more, i am not that good but i do think i am a decent person and try to only have decent people around me, now this impotant thing is some of these stories are crupting the truth that is being lost due to these little lies and i think this is impotent to say something about and make it clear, so thats what this is about.
please remember history is written by the victor and when it comes to writing i will loss every time as writing is not my strong point but i feel facts should be above everyone point of view and should be above personal politic between collectors.
i have stayed away from forums mostly and thrown myself into gathering up historic items not just Star Wars and film history i also collect military and nasa history , i am lucky to own a engine from a V2 rocket that lives in my mum of 73s garage
and in my living room i have a complete apollo space suit , i come from a collecting family and will collect till my last days as that makes me happy.
now to some fun points
1 the Jawa that set this all off soem time ago , yes it is sealed on its card and i think it was the first one to be shown to the collects out there i think? sins collating got heavy, i took it to the star wars day so show the fans and the people that were children in the 70s , to remind them of there childhood i knew some of you would enjoy it, i can see that some of the naysayers from my past are still saying such things , well its real its right and i have owned it for over 10 year now , i have never shown it till that day at Elstree as i knew there would people out there that would trash it and have a pop at me rather than enjoy it for what it is an amazing item relic from the 70s
next
Yak in a Bag story " sounds tasty
Hi Jordon
i am please you are doing well on the TV its nice to see people from the past doing so well , your facts are a little wrong about the Yak faces my friend , they were in bags , little ziplock bags not Kenner bags , as back in them days shipping cost a lot as you may remember and i would pack every thing into two large trunks and things used to get damaged travailing around the world , so i would pack everything as tightly as i could and as there was baggage waght restrictions in them day it was all good
, so to clear this up no they were not kenner baggies, i do own 1 yak in a baggie and i had 4 others in my life they came from a guy that worked at Palitoy and he sold me 4 compliant sets of figures , i bought all 4 sets and sold the 3 sets off and got my one for free
, back in the 80s i was a toy collector and trader so thats what i did , an its how i get what i did back then , i remember the guy saying that these sets were put together to display the collect range at the UK toy show in the 80s , they were all mint and some came in baggies that i have never seen before in a baggy , most were in the open clear back that were taped down , at the time i never really looked at them and to say the truth i have never looked at that set again, maybe i should ? , there maybe some odd ones in there ? that stuff is packed away with the other 500,000 items i gathered in my misspent youth, but i will get around to looking at them one day again .
now to the Grey Hoth trooper story
The Hoth troopers with the grey arms and legs are 100% real, many car boot traders in Colville Lester in the UK used to find them on there buy travels the best place for me to buy them was at Alan gill's sic-fi fair that used to run in Lester in the 80s and 90s , there would be one or two to buy there each time and traders would keep them back for me as i would pay good money back then for them, if you need someone to calibrate my story ask Jim Stevenson he was there at the time also or if you want to track down Alan i think he is still around or even David Oliver also he dose not like me at all but i think he will vouch that there are real and was found at that time. the interesting thing about the troopers are the longer we had them the darker they became , i do not know for shore, but this soft limb plastic must have been a seconds plastic and the sun affected the colour, so the more they were exposed the darker they became and if you damaged the surfers of the plastic the wight colour was underneath but again over time the new exposed white plastic gos grey , so its int he plastic not something pained onto it. i think they may have been rejected by Palitoy and just ether given to the staff or just dumped when the factory closed ? anyway in the late 1980 there were there for the picking and i used to buy them up from £8 to £12 and then take them to the US and get £30 , as you can see big money
well worth faking them :-D , so if you ever wanted to know the real troth about the grey armed and legged Hoth trooper now you have the facts as i know them , someone only needed to ask
anyway i hope that this was of interest to someone out there , and i hope that i get to know some of you a little more , i plan to put on another star wars day like the one at Elstree in the near future but not at the studio as they have said that this was a one off, for the few that went that day i am so glad i could make that happen for you and myself as i doubt it will ever happen again and it really was something very special and i felt quite prod of that day, and that real fans could go and be with other fans to just have some fun and enjoy what we all love these amazing films.
good to talk, enjoy collecting and have fun
yours
Jason Joiner
Director Showmasters Ltd
Archivist kurtz/Joiner Archive
[email protected]
01908671138
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