Blood for the Baron!

tshot, don't worry, i don't let it get me down, i was just saying...

i stopped caring what people thought of me long ago.

Thundershot wrote:Is it jst me? I find all the new star wars figures "too" realistic..they just seem to be aimed @ adults now with fiddly little bits that I can't imagine lasting 5 min's with kids. I suppose it must be hard for a toy company nowadays kids seem to grow up faster & adult collectors seem to be more & more the target audience..& I guess toys have always seemed expensive to parants I remember my AT-At costing £25 which was a lot of money back then,dad said we could of had a weeks food shopping for that (God.. how old do I sound) & now seems like a bargain price for such a large playset..Bill how do you parents cope with £100+ toys?

Kids dont seem to be interested in real toys nowday's, when they get to school they wiil jump straight onto ps3 etc. With my kids im trying to postpone that but i think i will have to give in because if their friends have them they will be seen as weird if they dont have one. Im not giving in to them having tv's in the bedroom though, i think thats asking for trouble.

Thundershot wrote:Bill how do you parents cope with £100+ toys?

grandparents, lol
we dont do big toys in my house. what i've found is that my kids actually have far too much and hardly play with anything.
we try and encourage them to donate toys they dont play with to charity shops then i feel guilty and buy them more.
i bought my son loads of justice league toys not because he wanted them but because i wanted him to play with them. now we only buy them things they show a genuine interest in. with my wee lad its been ben 10 toys for the last couple of years. they are pretty cheap at about £4 each and the cartoon is pretty good too so i can enjoy it as well.
Bill

I've got to own up to watching ( & enjoying) Ben 10 as well as Spongebob whats 'is name..& I don't even have any kids
Do kids still have "5 minute crazes"?
We had things like yo-yo's & the garbage pile kids stickers..as well as the "E shaped off-cut bits of metal/throwing stars" one that was swiftly banned by the headmaster!

no one over here expects me to be into anything dorky, i own a tattoo shop & sing in a punk band so im expected to be this scary guy, everyone is suprised by my toys & love of old country & blues music! even worse, my love of eastern european folk, especially stuff sung in yiddish!!!!!

Hi Bill, that's a nice way of treating the kids old toys..some good comes out of them, I've been giving some of my unwanted toy finds to a Alison @ work for when her grandkids come to stay with her.
They seem to enjoy them, her Grand daughter loves dressing up Actionman,& Alison says they play for hours with them.
Maybe some of the older & less detailed toy figures are better for young kids imaginations,& as both of Alison's grandkids are still not very old & don't have any back-stories to the toys,I'd like to think they can happily play with a blank canvas with charactors that older Kids( or us collector) just wouldn't mix together..

Ross SC wrote:no one over here expects me to be into anything dorky, i own a tattoo shop & sing in a punk band so im expected to be this scary guy, everyone is suprised by my toys & love of old country & blues music! even worse, my love of eastern european folk, especially stuff sung in yiddish!!!!!

Ditto ross, i played rugby for years, i used to work on the doors of many a club in bristol, i've broken my nose so many times that i had to have the bone removed, i'm quite literally a walking book of scars, you do get judged by the cover though, i'm often suprised that people think i'm joking when i've mentioned the toys,

Thundershot wrote:I've got to own up to watching ( & enjoying) Ben 10 as well as Spongebob whats 'is name..& I don't even have any kids
Do kids still have "5 minute crazes"?
We had things like yo-yo's & the garbage pile kids stickers..as well as the "E shaped off-cut bits of metal/throwing stars" one that was swiftly banned by the headmaster!

ben 10 is a quality show although the new alien force where he's 15 has lost some of its charm for me.
the toys are really well made although the larger playsets are really bad quality and quite expensive compared to the figs.
gormitti eggs seem to be the latest craze at the mo
Bill

Thundershot wrote: Untill I started to use the internet I didn't think many people shared my interest in action figures & toys..now I know lots do & I don't feel so isolated about it.

I was exactly the same T'Shot! I put together the core of my collection with very little knowledge about them, and kind of oblivious to the fact that others were collecting. In a vacuum almost (and no, it wasn't a Dyson). Certainly my AF stuff. I just thought it was people selling off stuff on Ebay from their lofts (which in them days it kind of was), and I tended to snap up bulk lots and use the card backs for reference.

Then I discovered BFTB, lurked for a good few years as PC access at work was closely monitored and I didn't have one at home, and when I did register, the madness began, and the loose collection got very carried away!

I love it though - I used to get so frustrated that nobody else shared my joy when I got a rare item, or completed a set. That's why every now and then I still bore you guys senseless when I complete a non-AF set by posting a picture or two. Even if it's not AF I know that as collectors folks will at least be remotely interested.

Oh, and the current Inheritance Tax threshold, £325k. Anything over that you pay 40%. So not really a problem in the SteveD residence, and doubt it ever will be!

If ever you feel like you are a bit of a sad b@stard being a toy collector, go to the Memorabilia Fair at the NEC in Birmingham. I've been there about six times looking for Action Force, Star Wars etc. It is the land of the Uber-Geek. And I should know, we can smell our own.
As soon as you arrive you are confronted with large numbers of people dressed as Storm troopers and some Jedi all wearing Specsavers glasses.
I once saw a man dressed head to toe in a stretched lycra Spiderman suit. He was strolling along happy as could be seemingly unaware that you could see his penis.
In my experience it splits non collectors right down the middle. Some will appreciate a collection, others will rip the piss out of you. I keep all my stuff behind closed doors. It's there for me and anyone else who will appreciate it. You either get it or you don't.