OC: Obsessive Collecting

OC: Obsessive Collecting

Ever since I was a child, there has always been ONE thing constant about me.  I was always collecting something.  Whether it’s something as meaningless as plastic jumping bugs you get from junk food packs to something that burns holes in wallets like comics, I’ve collected quite a LOT of stuff in my life.  It’s quite an obsession, as once I get started on something, I don’t stop until I’ve completed it or at least spent insane amounts of money on it.  Some would say it’s just a whole lot of money wasted...and while I’ll be the first to admit I have gone overboard on a number of occasions, and there are quite a lot of stuff I can do without, my collections are a big part of who I am and they’ve made me happy, given me something exciting to do in life, call it the “thrill of the hunt”, I’m sure a lot of you know what I mean.  As long as I’m not hurting anyone...I think it’s all good J  I figured it would be a fun exercise to try and remember everything I ever got into....so here we go.

1)      Stuff from junk food:  As a child I was always a sucker for freebies.  The earliest stuff i remember collecting were all the free stuff you would get out of junk food and stuff.  Ones I especially remember where those jumping plastic bugs, I think they were called skippers? I had quite a lot of those.  I also remember this one snack that gave away DC super hero playing cards...as in one card per pack...I actually completed the entire deck...all 56 playing cards. 

2)      Ziggy from Tang:  For a time Tang had some cross promotion with the character Ziggy.  I specifically remember Ziggy buttons.  You could exchange the Tang lids for buttons in Gift Gate.  They also at one point had Ziggy finger puppets which were cool cuz after sticking your finger in them, your finger smelled like Tang ha ha. 

3)      Smurfs: They were small, blue and there were hundreds of unique characters, what was there NOT to love for a young collector?

4)      Figurine Panini sticker books: Ok I’m sure a lot of you remember this one.  I was OBSESSED with completing my sticker books.  My classmates and I would pitch in and buy stickers BY THE BOX.  Eventually National bookstore started selling individual stickers so it got easier to complete each book.  I believe I completed 3 of them.  One about animals (World of Survival), dinosaurs, and Thundercats....oh and I think there was a Care bear one..but I couldn’t get the rest of my classmates to pitch in on that one so I didn’t even start ha ha.

5)      Lego: I had TONS of lego as a child.  My parents would buy my brother and I lots of different sets but after building them, I would just trash them and dump all the pieces into this huge drawer.  So I could build other stuff...great toy to build a child’s imagination, it’s a shame now that  lego is so expensive and that a lot of the pieces are now pre-built.  Case in point, lego, horses, today they come in one piece, in my days you had to BUILD them yourself, of course they looked like crap compared to today’s hordes ha ha.

6)      Star Wars: Ok I remember when my dad went to the States and said he would buy me my first Star Wars figures.  I was SO excited that I would brag to my yaya and my classmates that my dad was gonna get me Luke Skywalker and Han Solo and Darth Vader.  When he came home he gave me some dude called Dengar and some other minor characters I don’t even remember..talk about major disappointment.  Eventually though my dad made up for it and I finally got my Lukes and Hans and so on.  I particularly remember collecting Ewoks.

7)      G.I.Joe:  On my first trip to the States I was still OBSESSED with all things Star Wars.  But my brother convinced me to try out this new toy called G.I.Joe.  I had never heard of it before but I decided to buy one.  I was AMAZED at how much better these dudes were compared to Star Wars figures, I mean the articulation was light years ahead...they could bend their knees and elbows! And they came with so much more cool accessories.  I stopped Star Wars then and there.  I remember getting about 60 plus figures (plus some huge vehicles) in a span of about 4-5 years.  Then I eventually sold half of them off for 300 bucks so I could buy a mini RC.  The rest I ended up mixing and matching and made them into wrestlers.  I had my own imaginary wrestling league ala WWF with statistics and so on.  What I remember was that when I would place some of them in a “camel clutch” hold their crotches would accidentally break off....ouch!

8)      He-Man:  Ok I didn’t really collect a lot of these guys cuz basically there was only so much money a kid could convince his parents to spend on for toys.  But I devised a brilliant plan to help satisfy my collecting appetite for these guys.  I had a classmate who collected He-Man, every time he came to my house to play he would bring his toys and I convinced him that we should “share” our toys.  So he would leave his toys in my house so I got to keep a lot of his He-men ha ha.  Of course later on I realized he was stealing G.I.Joes from me....

9)      Transformers: Ok these guys I loved.  But they were really expensive so I wasn’t able to get so much of these guys.  I also managed to convince another friend to leave HIS collection in my house and he eventually forgot about them...lucky me!  Little did I know that some 20 years later I would end up collecting these guys again....nostalgia can really cost you nowadays!

10)   Comics: Ok....I’ve always loved superheroes and I’ve always loved reading about them.  I remember there was this shop in Goldcrest called Comic Quest where the lady who sold the comics was SO friendly and SO convincing, she really made me spend SO much money on comics.  Too much money in my opinion.  Luckily, I have now discovered the art of downloading comics...so I don’t spend a buck on them anymore (bad I know....but really it just costs TOO much)  Ok well actually if I really enjoy something I buy the compiled version.

11)   Books: I love the fantasy genre, and my first love was Dragonlance.  Ever since the Dragonlance Chronicles, I’ve built up a Dragonlance library of at least around 50 books.  I really find it cool how I am currently reading about the exploits of the grand children of the characters I first read about in the Chronicles....it’s like I ‘m part of the family.

12)   Music: First there were cassette tapes....I had at least 100 plus.  Then there came CDs....I would say about 500 plus CDs.  Then there came the internet.  Since the golden age of Napster and Audio Galaxy, and up until now, I’ve downloaded approximately 280-300 GIGABYTES of music.  But if I DO like something...especially indie artists...I still buy the actual CD.

Well I think that’s currently it.  Hopefully I will not move on to anything else.  I think I’ve found my niche w/ toy collecting.  And when I have kids of my own, it will be my greatest joy to pass on my collections to them....provided they sign a document stating that they will take very good care of them ha ha.