This Man's a Collector

As I am blogging every day in February, I thought I would blog today about something that bugs Jess to no end. I have a problem with collecting. Rather, once I get one or two things, I feel like I have to get more and more of that same thing and if applicable, all of them. My collections just happen to be all childish in nature because, well, that is how I roll. So, I am going to try, as best as I can, think of everything I have collected over the years. Note: none of the accompanying pictures are mine:

My collection obsession probably has to start with the first toy I ever really got into: He-Man. I went crazy with these when they came out. Rather, my mom went crazy as she was the one actually buying them. In fact, she was one of those really crazy moms: going to the store right when it opened and going through the boxes looking for new figures before they were even on the shelves. For a couple of years, or what seemed like years, I got ALL the He-Man figures that came out. Not one figure hit the shelves that I did not have. I loved these things and I am sad I sold them long ago.

Not long after He-Man (probably while I was collecting He-Man), I started collecting Transformers. Although Transformers were definitely cooler and I loved them, I didn't go quite as crazy with them as I did with He-Man. I had a lot, but I didn't have all of them - I know that because I can think of plenty I didn't own. I sold these about the same time I did the He-Man toys and again, I regret it to this day.

A couple of years later, but still in my toys days, I started collecting two toys that I bought a ton of, and because they were cheaper, might have had even more of than Transformers. M.U.S.C.L.E were these cheap figures that looked like they could come out of the 25 cent vending machines as they were not posable, a single color, and about 2 inches tall. But, because of that, you could collect tons of them. And that I did. I had so many of these and well, because they were so small and cheap looking, I bet I sold over a hundred of these for like a buck. Stupid. I still find myself looking on Ebay for cheap collections of these.

I also collected BattleBeasts at this time. Although they were about the same size as the above, they were more in depth. They had articulation. Basically, they were animals, but animals that walked upright and had weapons. Like a shark with legs with a spear. The cool thing about these was that all of them had a sticker on their chest that you had to rub to reveal. All of them had either a fire, water, or earth (I believe) symbol and that was supposed to help you decide who would win when you had them fight each other. I loved these things.

Believe it or not, I really didn't start collecting comics until I was getting out of my action figure/toy phase. I had a couple of comics here and there as a kid, but didn't really start collecting comics until I was 10 or maybe older. Not much to say about them that hasn't been said before. I collected until I was around 13 or 14 and then started up again a few years ago. I am so glad I did.

The next collection is because of Jessica. When Jessica and I started dating she mentioned she had a little PEZ dispenser collection. It was small, maybe 10 or less, but a collection nonetheless. In my infinite wisdom, I told her that if you are going to have a collection, then you need to have a COLLECTION and go all out. I didn't know what kind of can of worms I was about to open. What followed in the next 5 years or more was collecting every PEZ we could get our hands on. We searched pawn shops, the internet, anywhere we could think of, and when we finally stopped collecting a couple of years ago, we had probably over 400 different PEZ. We had a bride and groom PEZ dispenser as our cake topper at our wedding. All the guests got PEZ heart PEZ with our name and the date of our wedding on it. We had so many and really, we stopped collecting because of Disney. What? Well, Disney got really involved with PEZ in the last few years and started releasing a line of new dispensers with every movie they released. That led to other movie studios releasing PEZ dispensers for their movies as well. It just became overwhelming and too much at one time. We still have them boxed up in the garage, but THAT was a collection.

In college, after a particular medical scare which turned out to be nothing, I ventured to a comic store (wasn't collecting comics at this time) to just spend money to make me feel better. I ended up buying a couple of figures called Movie Maniacs, figures of horror characters. I ended up loving them so much for how great they looked, I decided this would be my next collection. Up until pretty much the very end of this line, I collected every single one these figures. Characters I never thought I would get became figures in my living room and eventually office. I ended up selling these figures a couple of years ago and am actually ok with it. The collection started because I was scared/sad and I enjoyed collecting them, but I eventually moved on.

Also, around the same time, Episode 1, the Phanton Menace hit the movies. Right around the time the movie came out, figures came out for the movie. I was at Target one day and I saw all the figures on the shelf. I was in collection heaven. There in front of me was a Samuel L. Jackson action figure. I bought him right there and then spread the word that for my 21st birthday which would be in a few weeks, I wanted, well, all of them. And yeah, for my birthday, I got them all. They would release a few more waves of figures and I went out and got all those too, probably my first venture into searching the internet for rare figures. I would end up selling these a couple of years later. This is probably my greatest example of getting overcome with the collection bug. Maybe it was the hype of the new movie, but my decision to collect these happened faster than anything I had ever done.

So, this takes me to present day. I still collect comics and my other two current collections also have to do with comics. First, as I have talked about recently, I collect Mighty Muggs. Now, they make different kinds of Muggs, but I only collect the Marvel Superheroes ones. They even have Transformers and Star Wars, but I have to draw a line somewhere. I LOVE these things!

My final collection is my statues. These babies are basically works of art as they are simply beautiful. As the price is up there (over $20o for some of them), I don't have a TON of them. I would love to have a bunch because there are tons I want, but I have a good number, around 10 or so.

I wonder what I'll collect next...