That would be Fortress Maximus. Years ago they were fetching a fortune on ebay. They still have some on there-some as much as $2000.00-but I guess the economic shitfest we're in has curbed the spending habits of collectors, as they don't seem to be selling like they did.
Did anyone else have the STARBLAZER Space Command Belt? <a class="postlink" href="http://www.golobthehumanoid.com/starblazer.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.golobthehumanoid.com/starblazer.html</a> I'm the only person I know of who ever had one. It was fucking awesome.
God, I did. We loved them. I still have a few floating around. Fun fact: One of the Garbage Pail Kids creators was Art Spiegelman, everyone's favorite Holocaust-related comic book artist.
That was before my time, but I remember my brother showing me his collection. I think he had all of them, I don't remember. I was probably 6 or 7 at the time.
Not those, but around the same time many I knew collected Wacky Packages cards. Why, I don't know because they were only moderatley funny.
Man, fuck that shit I got my ass beat over that. I had a stepbrother that was 6 years older than me who, one day dropped the bomb on me that Santa wasn't real. I called bullshit and he took me to my parents closet and showed me Mr. Shiny Castle Grayskull sitting in the closet. Santa was bringing that shit, so why was it in my parents closet? Why was all that other shit that I asked Santa for, in person, sitting there too? I was told to keep my mouth shut and act really fucking suprised when I opened all of it. I opened 2 gifts, and then while putting the batteries in my handheld Pacman arcade I couldn't handle it anymore and I started crying... sobbing "Sannta isn't reeeeaaallll... Sniff!" Boy, did my step brother get an asswhoopin'... and you know what they say: "the shit always rolls downhill"
I just remembered another one that was all the rage to collect in primary school. STICKERS: The furry ones, the shiny ones, the raised edge ones, the scratch and sniff ones. The list went on forever and kids would have massive books filled with the shit, mostly he girls did that but some of the guys were too for a little while.
Oh, stickers were great. Me and my brother had bunk beds and both of our headboards were absolutely covered in stickers. We didn't have any formal collection in books or anything, but whenever we got a sticker from the dentist or any other random place it went straight on our beds. I remember when we were giving the beds away and I had to scrape all of them off. That was horrible. I did learn a valuable life lesson though; lighter fluid is great for removing sticky stuff.
Oh man, I had so many sticker albums, it was a so ridiculous. I always bought stickers with my allowance money before I discovered the world of comic books and cheap candy. I fucking loved Lisa Frank's stickers, folders, notebook covers, etc.
Also Art "Maus" Spiegelman. Focus: "Jetfire", which was really just a Robotech/Macross Valkyrie with Autobot stickers on it. The stickers came right off and I wish that it came with the skull and crossbones tail logos, but I loved it anyway. Today its sitting on my DVD player. The only rival for my childhood affections was the 6" die cast Star Destroyer.
This, followed by my suction cup bow & arrow set. I filled my supersoaker up with all kinds of different liquids and hosed down the neighbourhood kids. Great times.
I've collected comic books since I was 8. I have managed to collect a disgusting amount, over 14 000. My friends know this, as it is kind of hard to hide. It isn't something I ever really bring up in conversation though, and never on a first date. That stereotype from the Simpsons Comic Book Buy? Over-weight, unwashed, bad facial hair and a loser? That's still pretty true of a lot comic book guys, and I don't like being associated with them. I get made fun of way less since comic book movies became hugely successful though, and regular people started reading comics. I find this a little amusing though, since most of the comics people are reading have been around 10-20 years.
My parents never bought anything extravagant, so we were shocked when they bought the Tyco Empire 1000 Nite Glow slot car set for me and my brother. (Our birthdays are 8 days apart.) I think it was the largest set Tyco ever made with 57 feet of track. The layout is the same as the first pic, but it had the Nite Glow guard rails and lighted cars, so it was really cool at night like the second pic. The most challenging part was trying to find a car that had run off the track in the dark without resorting to turning on the lights and ruining the experience. I ended up with the set for my kids, but whenever we set it up now my wife and I pretty much monopolize it and send the kids to watch TV. It's still a cool toy and the fact that everything still works after 25+ years is amazing.
My favorite toys cant be called toys because they are plastic car models. I would spend hours on weekends assembling 1/24 scale model cars. I would paint them, apply my own custom vinyl stickering, buy accessories such as rims and interiors and even modify them to suit my tastes. They are all at my dad's house now and some are still unassembled in the original boxes. About a year ago I bought a model MotoGP motorcycle to assemble so I could get back in touch with my youth, I got about half way through and haven't touched it since. The patience I had for the models has now morphed in to the patience to work on the real thing.
I am a huge Star Wars fan. One of the jobs I worked for about 6 years was at an antique center. I got to know the owner's wife and after a few years of working there I made a reference to Star Wars. She laughed and said how she had been to Skywalker Ranch. I think she is kidding but she says her Dad is Tom Jung. He has done a ton of movie artwork which includes some of the best known Star Wars Posters. I have some quick drawings he did for me and he autographed a section of a book about him(Book about Star Wars, section on him). This is one of the posters he did:
Here is something kinda cool that I got. He had his assistant fax it over (He lives in California) from his files. It is an early version of one of his works.