What's the age range of vintage collectors?

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I'm just about 39. I started collecting at 3 1/2 because my older cousins were all into Star Wars and I thought it was cool too.
 
36 years old here.

My nans friends son has the Millennium Falcon and I was mesmerised so I'm told. So on my 5th Birthday I got a Falcon of my very own. I also remember my first figures that day: Chewbacca, Stormtrooper, R2D2, Vader, Farmboy Luke and Hoth Rebel Soldier.
The Hoth Rebel soldier: I thought he was Han Solo! Or maybe I was using him subconsciously as Han? What the hell, I was 5!
I am very fortunate in that I still have my childhood collection. If you were to put any of my figures in amongst 100s of other figures - I could still tell you which were mine.

I first saw Star Wars on Betamax - my dad recorded it from the TV and he was clever in that he paused the movie during the adverts so the movie kept playing.
Whenever I watch Star Wars now, I still know where the commercial break would be - it's be ingrained in to my brain.

I went to see ROTJ in the cinema, I vaguely remember it, I do remember Jabba.

I used to think that Empire Strikes Back was the third movie when I was really young! For the reason that it was the movie I had not yet seen. Although I had the 'Rainbow read-a-long book and (audio) cassette' for all three movies - my child's brain could not piece the story of the trilogy together.infirst saw Empire when my mum brought it back out of the blue as a video shop rental.

Aside from Star Wars toys - my only other real love was Masters of the Universe.

Car boots and jumbles were great as I was "always into Star Wars" and still am. Plenty and readily available back in the day.

My memories of Star Wars for sale was in Truro toy shop, I remember my great grandfather buying me a Han Carbonite.

Curiously the figure that always evaded me was Snaggletooth but I got him eventually.

Waffling over!
 
I'm 44 and first saw Star Wars when it was on with ESB as a double bill in 1980/81. My first figure was a ESB Palitoy 45a Tie Pilot that I got for Christmas 1981. I guess I was relatively late to playing with Star Wars action figures so only had them for a couple of years up to first wave of Jedi figures in 1983. By then I was 12 and sadly stopped playing with toys around that time before moving onto my ZX81, ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64.
I think my collection was sold early 1984. I remember seeing a lot of ESB cards on sale when the Jedi cards came out. I also had some of the blue and red Topps cards, the ESB Topps Letter sticker cards and I remember having the Letraset Stormtrooper manual notepad.

I also had quite a few Black Hole figures which they were selling cheap at the newly opened Poundstretchers. I also remember claiming a Monster Munch offer carded Perseus Action figure from my local cinema after collecting the pictures off the back of the crisp packets, then going to see Clash of the Titans.

Great posts guys.
 
I'm 36. played with all my star wars toys in the 80s and started to collect in 2001 with my good old childhood collection :D
 
x-pack said:
39 and my first figures were Empire. I don't remember ANH cards at all and as such don't really identify with them.

It was actually my brother who started collecting first and he's 7 years younger than me. His collection was really just my old toys, donated around 1988. Things grew from there. He later lost the zeal for it and I became curator :wink:

Opposite for me. Although I'm 37 and missed the SW stuff, I do feel much more of an affinity to the STAR WARS cards.
 
elcroz said:
36 years old here.

My nans friends son has the Millennium Falcon and I was mesmerised so I'm told. So on my 5th Birthday I got a Falcon of my very own. I also remember my first figures that day: Chewbacca, Stormtrooper, R2D2, Vader, Farmboy Luke and Hoth Rebel Soldier.
The Hoth Rebel soldier: I thought he was Han Solo! Or maybe I was using him subconsciously as Han? What the hell, I was 5!
I am very fortunate in that I still have my childhood collection. If you were to put any of my figures in amongst 100s of other figures - I could still tell you which were mine.

I first saw Star Wars on Betamax - my dad recorded it from the TV and he was clever in that he paused the movie during the adverts so the movie kept playing.
Whenever I watch Star Wars now, I still know where the commercial break would be - it's be ingrained in to my brain.

I went to see ROTJ in the cinema, I vaguely remember it, I do remember Jabba.

I used to think that Empire Strikes Back was the third movie when I was really young! For the reason that it was the movie I had not yet seen. Although I had the 'Rainbow read-a-long book and (audio) cassette' for all three movies - my child's brain could not piece the story of the trilogy together.infirst saw Empire when my mum brought it back out of the blue as a video shop rental.

Aside from Star Wars toys - my only other real love was Masters of the Universe.

Car boots and jumbles were great as I was "always into Star Wars" and still am. Plenty and readily available back in the day.

My memories of Star Wars for sale was in Truro toy shop, I remember my great grandfather buying me a Han Carbonite.

Curiously the figure that always evaded me was Snaggletooth but I got him eventually.

Waffling over!

Cool story. I remember an early memory of space ships shaped like clouds. When I got to see Return of the Jedi again late in the 80s on VHS, there they were - the Calamari Cruisers :D
 
jasdev999 said:
41 and still remember getting upset because C3P0 lost his arm and Jawa were dead and burning.

Collector only since 2012. Loving it.

:lol: I'm still amazed it got a U with all the violence and horrific images - burning skeletons, dead Jawas being thrown onto a bonfire, alien arms being chopped off in cantinas, Tauntaun guts spewing, Vader's head chopped off in a dream, Luke's hand cut off, the Rancor biting into a Gam Guard, Luke being electrocuted for an extended time.
 
I'm 38.

My first figures were Han Hoth and Luke X-Wing, which I remember getting as I was dropped off at my Granddads for the afternoon in (probably 1982). I saw ROTJ at the cinema in Peterborough and remember getting a picture book afterwards.

From then on it was SW, SW, SW. I remember going to see the 3 films at the cinema one summer holiday when I was at infants school, although we didn't make it to the end!

There was a Toymaster shop in Queensgate in Peterborough where I think I got most of my figures - I remember my mum getting quite into it, and being keen for me to buy the aliens she recognised from Jabba's Palace.

Good times
 
Mr-shifter said:
36 here. Born in 79 so I got to see the films on the television at Christmas. I remember Jedi and particularly trilogos. I remember wire baskets full of trilogos on special offer.

^Ditto for me.
 
I'm 35.

I remember my Mum taking me to see Jedi at the cinema (my Dad and Sister went to see Ghostbusters in the other screen).

I spent many a childhood hour sat under the dining table with my speeder bike, pretending the chair and table legs were trees on Endor :mrgreen:
 
iDrew said:
I'm 35.

I remember my Mum taking me to see Jedi at the cinema (my Dad and Sister went to see Ghostbusters in the other screen).

I spent many a childhood hour sat under the dining table with my speeder bike, pretending the chair and table legs were trees on Endor :mrgreen:



That's a great Star Wars memory, playing with your speeder bike under the table :) I wouldn't say this of all kids but it seems like imagination has been lost somewhat.
 
iDrew said:
I spent many a childhood hour sat under the dining table with my speeder bike, pretending the chair and table legs were trees on Endor :mrgreen:

You can thank the Palitoy TV advert for that, it had the same effect on me.
 
44.... and remember the whole fookin lot .....stopped collecting during ROTJ . Remember havin biker scout and gam guard and few other ROTJ and then collecting faded away......
 
I'm 37 so caught the tail end of it, I remember my mate getting a rebel transport for Xmas it was huge, was so jealous, needless to say he became my best mate:p
 
40 so collected big time as a kid. Well as big as i could on my pocket money. I look back with fond memories.
Even though i didn't have any of the big classic ships or blasters i knew plenty of kids who did, so play time was always fun.
Began collecting again in 2009.
 
36, born '79 but my mum and dad loved SW so was exposed from an early age.

I have fond memories of xmas '83 and the blow out of ROTJ toys I recieved. Around the same time my dad got a bootleg of ROTJ on video to watch on our hitachi top loader. We could only keep it one weekend, watched it at least 5 in 48 hours. Was up at 5am on the Sunday morning and put it straight on again. Good times.
 
I'm 35, born in 79. Was a little late to the party so am a child of VHS recordings. The advantage of being this late was that the toys were all in the bargain bucket by the time I was playing with them, so I had quite a collection.

My favourite memory is playing on the stairs - Jabba's palace at the top and the Rancor lived at the bottom. If anybody crossed Jabba, down the stairs they went!
 
I must be the young gun here :D I'm only 29, born in 86. I have no connections to the movies being in the cinema
(Unless you count the 1997 re-releases) My reasoning for collecting the vintage toys is because in the early 90's I went to a jumble sale with my folks and ended up buying about 10 ROTJ MOC's for £5 and an AT-AT Walker for £2 - I was hooked since then :P I was always buying old Star Wars toys at car boot sales for pennies.
 
maxf said:
I'm 38.

My first figures were Han Hoth and Luke X-Wing, which I remember getting as I was dropped off at my Granddads for the afternoon in (probably 1982). I saw ROTJ at the cinema in Peterborough and remember getting a picture book afterwards.

From then on it was SW, SW, SW. I remember going to see the 3 films at the cinema one summer holiday when I was at infants school, although we didn't make it to the end!

There was a Toymaster shop in Queensgate in Peterborough where I think I got most of my figures - I remember my mum getting quite into it, and being keen for me to buy the aliens she recognised from Jabba's Palace.

Good times

Also 38 and also saw Jedi in Peterborough, at the Odeon.

Saw SW and Empire in Spalding on a double bill i think.

I remember the Queensgate Toymaster having the Dagobah playset, and being fascinated with it. That place really did seem to have Star Wars piled to the ceiling, and then there were the model kits upstairs.
 
I was 10 when SW (ANH) came out and didn't really get into it until a friend and I went to see ESB. Then I was hooked! BUT, although I had a few figures and played with them all the time (my dad had a small farm and I'm pretty sure there's still a couple of Snowtroopers buried in the yard) I didn't really start collecting until Episode 1 came out.

Fairly usual story - it started with modern stuff as I considered that vintage stuff was just out of my league, but that all ended when I bought a C9+ ROTJ Emperor for $20 (that's 20 Australian Dollars). Now look at me........

I had almost every figure carded, including all but two of the POTF figures (Yoda and Nikto) and almost every ship boxed. I have sold off just about all of my vintage collection to fund my Vader obsession, but I still have that Emperor :)

Cheers,
Pat
 

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