Hi all
I'm Bob. Born in '70 and have fond memories of hunting figures and mega Christmas and birthday bonanzas full of Palitoy fun.I even recall the guilty pleasures by the time Jedi came out and I was meant to be a hard man skinhead_Rude boy popping down the toy shop to spend a quid. I never let my original figures go and they were always to hand, getting them out every so often, more than I'd admit then. Let's face it, Simon Pegg, Kevin Smith and co have made being a nerd cool now, but back then it was a very different story.
In 87 I was staying for a weekend with my then girlfriend, now wife, in Hastings and found a thrift shop selling all sorts, he had quite a few bits of Star Wars toys, including loose and carded figures and boxed ships. I broke my cherry buying a carded ESB Han Bespin for £15. I went back a few times that weekend and bought more.
Over the next few years I went on the hunt, initially at toy fairs, which at that time had just the odd Star Wars bit and were mostly trains and toy soldier kind of places. I met an old guy at one who was a train dealer that had a 12 back Palitoy Vader on his stall, he let me have it for £10. Turned out he had more so I followed him to every fair he did and pestered him, getting quite a few Palitoy first 20's from him for a tenner a pop.
Around 88-89 the scene blew up and science fiction specific toy fairs started to appear, I remember one having a complete set of carded figures for sale for £1800 and thinking you have no chance mate.
One fair had a bin full of Tri-logo Luke Endor and Anakins' for a fiver each.
I paid £90 for a mint cardboard Death Star and that was my biggest buy.
Sometime in the early 90's I drifted away having found Acid House and not long after I sold the majority of what I'd collected, half to a dealer but kept the good stuff and sold that later to a collector, it was great to see his eyes light up when he turned up. All i kept was my original stuff.
A few years later I woke up to my mistake and It has taken this long to start collecting again.
Gutted doesn't quite cut it. It was a nagging demon that wouldn't go away for many years.
But, I started again with Lego when my son got into it and gave me the bug. Then I started buying the Vintage collection stuff and got hooked on the Black Series figures, which are , let's face it, excellent.
Now I know it's frowned upon but I've since started to recard what is left of my original collection, figures display best on a card I think and these figures went through me and my son both and I'm enjoying cleaning them up and putting them back on the wall.
I'm still trying to work out how to post pictures, forums was always photobucket but that doesn't work any more. I'll try and get some pictures of what I had and what I have up soon, Watch this space.