So anyone feel like sharing GI JOE disaster stories? mighty hard to relive I am sure- maybe it's the ugly weather we are having here in Pa that has me down and talking about depressing things.

So, lets go back to the spring of 1990. I am a senior in HS and already getting busted bad by all my buddies for even displaying my Joe collection in my room. We were getting ready to move in the summer cause Dad was getting Stationed at Ft. Ord (heck, I was leaving to Basic in July myself).

I was dating a wonderful woman at the time (and she still is as she is now my wife ;) ). Dad came up with the idea of having a yard sale. Wanting to impress said female, I decide to sell my JOE vehicle collection at the yard sale :eek: . So the afternoon came and went and all of my childhood treasures go the way of the four winds.

All in all, I made like $60 which bought her a dozen roses and a movie and pizza that night. But forever gone were my treasured Skystriker, HISS, Terror Drome, Killer Whale, MOBAT, Mauler and every vehicle from 82-87 (except the FLAGG- could never afford it).

Well, at least we are married now. But long gone are those treasured vehicles. If any of you chuckleheads here on the forum have them, I'm coming for you :)

Feel free to share your (bad) memories- we can cry in remorse together. The good thing out of all this is that now I get to go back and buy everything all over again. Of course everything is more expensive but I am also making more than my $5/ week allowance and my $2/ hour bait job.

Stands Alone,
CC

as a child in the 80's i had just about every joe you could think of, i have no idea what happened to them all i just cant remember what my mom did with them all, i think they were simply all given away

but what i do remember i loved setting all my figures up along the fence and shoot them with the beebee gun, to this day at the old house i bet you can find busted joe parts,

but man if i had every peice that i had back then today, holy cow id have a ton of stuff, but to tell you the truth i played with my toys and im sure each and every one showed signs of abuse, and i think im happier that i have all new stuff in great condition

The first dumb thing I did with Joes, was when I was a kid, which was burying the "dead" in a wash when they were "shot" and "killed" during play. Of course I could never could find 90% of them after burying…:rolleyes:

Later on when I was getting out of Joes in my early teens, I actually did in a few of them with the whole firecrackers in the o-ring thing. Got to say that was kind of cool but I feel real bad abotu it now... I also set up a few Joes for target practice - mostly with real guns like my old trusty 10/22, AK, or my .357 mag, so they were pretty much blown to bits when I was done…

But I still had hundreds of figures and dozens of vehicles in great condition when I hit my mid teens. So when I eventually decided to get rid of them, to clear space (heavily prompted by my parents who want them gone) I hooked up with some guy over the old CompuServe bulletin boards & worked out a sale. So I sold everything for like $150 + shipping, which was a heck of a lot of money to me then. But I got robbed :o. I would guess we're conservatively talking $4500 dollars worth of stuff in today’s market…maybe much more…it was a LOT of stuff. that's my bigest screwup :rolleyes:

In 1992 or 1993, I went to a dollar store in some small town. I just happened to walk down the toy aisle, and what did I see but six or seven of the 1982 straight arm figures hanging on a peg (!). I don't remember exactly which ones, but I clearly remember Scarlett, Rock N Roll, and Short Fuze.

I was a poor college student, so I passed on them (!!) because I didn't want to spend the $1.99 each that they cost (!!!).

I figure that if I had spent the $15 or so that day, I would have about $1,500 worth of carded figures in my collection right now :( - maybe more with AFA grading :( :( .

I remember trying to blow up Battle Armor Cobra Commander with a firecraker (I lived in Florida where real fireworks are illegal) after shoving 3 black cats into CC's torso and setting them off and nothing happening to him, I finally just set the lighter to him so he'd die.....(I hated, well still hate that version :) ) Later in life I remember seeing the 97 figures in TRU and passing on all of them (Vipers included) I thought that if they had the troubble bubble I'd buy that but they didn't have it. I also remeber thinking that if they hadn't remade that god awful V3 CC and if Destro's colors were right I'd buy that set.

The very first time I used my cobra attack glider, I threw it too hard and lost the included figure somehow, probably spent an hour looking for it with no luck at all.

I lost a few figures playing in the garden behing my grandparent's house too, there's an 82 snake eyes buried in a shallow grave somewhere in Long Island.

i had about 10 straight arm cobra commanders and took them all out back and shot them with my BB gun cause i didnt like them as much as the swivel arm version

this was of course about 1984 and they were all mint unplayed with (i had 10 of them for some reason, they were like 5 flag points and $2 or whatever so i got a bunch.

sigh

Worst move I ever made was no locking my bedroom door. When I was a kid...15, my house was invaded and I lost a ton of my GI Joe. Gone was the entire 1-3 series of joes and Cobras. Gone were several of my transformers. Mostly it was the joes that had been stolen that really did this kid in. I have slowly been rebuilding my collection back to what it used to be. Luckily I have all of my army builder cards so I know how many of what I had to replace thos elost pieces. I wish my worse move had been more of my doing, ie sold them, gave them away, traded, etc. unfortunately that was not the case. I now need something like 30 more figures and 10 more vehicles/playsets.

Worst move I ever made was no locking my bedroom door. When I was a kid...15, my house was invaded and I lost a ton of my GI Joe. Gone was the entire 1-3 series of joes and Cobras. Gone were several of my transformers. Mostly it was the joes that had been stolen that really did this kid in. I have slowly been rebuilding my collection back to what it used to be. Luckily I have all of my army builder cards so I know how many of what I had to replace thos elost pieces. I wish my worse move had been more of my doing, ie sold them, gave them away, traded, etc. unfortunately that was not the case. I now need something like 30 more figures and 10 more vehicles/playsets.

Man, that is a real bummer. Very sorry to hear that one. I for one hope you can get your collection back to where it once was.

All in all, I made like $60 which bought her a dozen roses and a movie and pizza that night.

Sad. I think these days the $60 will get you JUST the dozen roses.....

The very first figure I ever got was Downtown, I was never fond of the figure 'til it was gone. I was playing Joes one day and my mom kept bothering me. I had a bad temper and Downtown just happen to be in my hand. And we had cement floors where I was playing...
:(

My mother worked at a catalog store called La Belles/Best (think Sears or Service Merchandise). I literally had first dibs on all the choice toys of the 80s and as an only child, I was sorta spoiled, within reason of course.

Anyway, fast forward to H.S. Since he was a yard sale auteur and seasoned peddler of "junk", I let my grandfather take my Hot Wheels, M.A.S.K. stuff, GI Joe figs and vehicles, Transformers, my Atari 2600 and games and everything else "80s" I had to the flea market in 88 or 89...

I got $12, maybe $15.

I'm still mad...

Traded off a small but functional army of Joes and Cobras for like 50 issues of Nintendo Power

when I was 7 in 1989 / 1990 my mum and stepdad took me to america on holiday, we stayed on i dirve in florida, and one day we went to a toys r us and there was a terror drome on the shelves I wanted this more then anything as I had never seen one before not alone in the UK, but my parents said it would be to big to take back on the plain, so I wasnt allowed to buy it, but I did get a darklon and evader and a Mamba, plus loads of other figures I remember Voltar and the cobra la set, my friends where so jealous when I got home and had all these figures what hadn't come out yet in the UK, well its got a happy ending 14 years later in 2004 I got my first terror drome yay!

Letting any of my friends to play with my Joes. Lost many a Joe that way. :(

Hey Chris, I live near Hershey. I have a similar yard sale horror story. I had about 25-30 Joes as a kid and decided to sell them at our family's yard sale when I was about 14. Some dude around 20 years old came over and was picking through them. They were marked at $1 a piece. I told him he could have the whole shoebox for $5. He gave me a five dollar bill, grabbed the box and took off. I was pretty proud of myself at the time - $5 was a lot of money for me. The figures were not in great shape anyway, but I would like to have them for sentimental reasons.

Hey Chris, I live near Hershey. I have a similar yard sale horror story. I had about 25-30 Joes as a kid and decided to sell them at our family's yard sale when I was about 14. Some dude around 20 years old came over and was picking through them. They were marked at $1 a piece. I told him he could have the whole shoebox for $5. He gave me a five dollar bill, grabbed the box and took off. I was pretty proud of myself at the time - $5 was a lot of money for me. The figures were not in great shape anyway, but I would like to have them for sentimental reasons.

Oh no, not another Pa disaster. :( That was how I felt about my vehicles. They were played with definately but like you said, the sentimentality just cannot be replaced. Many of those vehicles were gifts from my grandparents who are no longer alive.

ahh... i remember... playing with my VAMP and RAM in the yard... right beside the driveway...

I went inside to get something to drink... when my dad was backing out of the garage....

i seem to remember the sickening CRUNCH... poor clutch was without a ride, and still is :P

Back in the early ninites my brother and me use to play with the our joes figures in the back yard, when we use to live in South Carolina. We had a garden like area were we would play I beleive we buried at lease one wetsuit and a version two eel but that wasn't the bad thing before we ever moved to the Show Me State We had some family friends watching our house while on vacation they end up taking almost every joe and any other except for most of my hotwheels collection and our video game collectiion. Thats my sad story.

Back in the early ninites my brother and me use to play with the our joes figures in the back yard, when we use to live in South Carolina. We had a garden like area were we would play I beleive we buried at lease one wetsuit and a version two eel but that wasn't the bad thing before we ever moved to the Show Me State We had some family friends watching our house while on vacation they end up taking almost every joe and any other except for most of my hotwheels collection and our video game collectiion. Thats my sad story.

God, that is terrible. You're the second post where someone just outright stole your stuff. What a terrible thing to do!!

Sad. I think these days the $60 will get you JUST the dozen roses.....

Where you shopping? :p

Just recently (think last week), I bumped into a shelf that had the Sear's Dreanok Ground Assault Ram motorcycle sitting on it

~CRASH~

It hits the floor and the front wheel at the base of th Ram body snapped off-all it needed was the kickstand :mad:

Just recently (think last week), I bumped into a shelf that had the Sear's Dreanok Ground Assault Ram motorcycle sitting on it

~CRASH~

It hits the floor and the front wheel at the base of th Ram body snapped off-all it needed was the kickstand :mad:
thats sad to here:(

1) Selling 98% of my childhood joes for $1 a piece to a toy dealer when I was 15 and needed cash.

2) Trading my childhood mamba here. It was my favorite vehicle as a kid. Don't get me wrong, I got a great deal, but I only traded it because, at the time, I was living in a dorm. Now I have ample space, and there's a Mamba-shaped hole in my collection. Sure, I could purchase a new Mamba, but it wouldn't be *my* Mamba.

I had gotten joes from a very early age and then when I got older I bought a bunch on my own. I had just about everything from 85-89, some older ones, some newer ones. At 20 I got in a pickle and sold everything for $250 to a comic shop. And everything I had was played with gentle and 100% complete with filecards, everything. If I had that stuff today there's no telling how much it would be worth. Even the complete sky patrol set I had is worth about 250 now a days. But there's always a reason for everything right?