At what point does toy collecting have nothing to do with your childhood ?

[msv]

at what point does toy collecting have nothing to do with your childhood ?

[hotdog]

this is a very good question. it seems easy to just answer, but then the answer depends on what you are trying to get at? are you trying to determine if you are a hardcore nerd, or just a guy trying to rekindle the halcyon days of his youth? the simple answer i guess is- when collecting becomes an unenjoyable burden, or it begins to isolate you from others.
I love gi joe (and half a dozen other toy lines- but gijoe is number 1), but I'm not as Into it as i once was. there are a number of reasons, but the biggest one was that it is no longer fun for me to collect.
Oh i still pick up some cool figure here or there (like pythona, or some cool custom from black major) but i'm way less impulsive about it. and consequently i have more room in my house and more money for other things lol.

[Alchemist]

I’d have to say collecting from any property that didn’t exist during my childhood. I don’t collect from many that didn’t.

[thorn]

? are you trying to determine if you are a hardcore nerd, or just a guy trying to rekindle the halcyon days of his youth? is what i get from this, and for me it is sort of both. Many of the old Joes remind me of being a young collector setting them up all over my bedroom// but on the other hand i never really stopped collecting, and having my own money to buy figures with made adult collecting an entirely different world. Now that Ive pretty much had the collection i want for some years, comedy, it is still both.... when i look at my 80s figures, there is always some of that recollection of youth. At the same time my Cobra Army- just looks awesome, and makes me feel great that i was able to use my own income plus all the technological awesomeness of Ebay and YoJoe to get it.... i could never have had all of this as a kid even if i had the money i would never locate the figures.... which means i also agree with Alchemist to a degree, all the Joes i buy New since 2000 are my adult collection.. not totally unrelated to my childhood collection, but definitely not the same as holding a V1 from the 80s

[PPforsale]

I think a lot of the male children of baby boomers (whether gen x or millennials) go through a bout of nostalgia. 1980s toys and video games were really popular for a period of time. The internet gave us the ability to find our old toys and our first taste of disposable income gave us the ability to buy it.

At some point when we realized we were able to not only rebuy our old childhood toys but also buy what we never had, we transitioned to become collectors. We were buying the Joes from before we had them as kids and we were buying Joes that were released after we stopped playing with toys. At that point we were collecting a toyline, not just reliving memories. That's the breaking point for me between nostalgia and collecting.

Now that we're probably 10 years past the prime of the hobby, those who are still around are the collectors. Most of the forum members from yojoe are inactive. I would guess 90% no longer post even monthly. That's because those gen x and millennials now have other things in their lives taking up their time and because they are over their bout of 1980s/90s nostalgia. We have homes and families and other responsibilities. But we also satisfactorily scratched that nostalgia itch long ago. We were never really collectors. The people who are left still today as a 40 or 50-year-old 1980s toy buyer are the collectors.

Personally, I am not a collector. I just cannot justify being an adult buying toys or video games that I never even had as a child. What memory does a version 75 of Snake Eyes or Storm Shadow have for me? What memory does a Mario and Sonic at the Olympics have for me? Look, I rebought that 1985 Snake Eyes and I rebought that NES with Mario Bros/Duck Hunt. I had a few good years reliving those fun times, but now I just don't care.

[Spc. 51]

What memory does a version 75 of Snake Eyes or Storm Shadow have for me?... Look, I rebought that 1985 Snake Eyes and I rebought that NES with Mario Bros/Duck Hunt. I had a few good years reliving those fun times, but now I just don't care.

I like having a more poseable version of Snake Eyes that I can fiddle with while I watch TV and not be concerned about breaking it. I can recommend Version 58, he has a nice pair of machine pistols.

[CobraEmperor]

I would have to say like some others mentioned when it has nothing to do with the toys that you grew up with. For me the 80-90's line is what i grew up with and stand above the rest. (I'm still trying to finish that line off and probably will be for sometime. But I'm not spending all of my time looking for it. Just casually picking things up here and there which makes it still fun to collect). That's not to say that I haven't picked up any new stuff. I have most of the normal release 25th anniversary figures which are a nice update/shout out to the original line. I picked up some of the rise of cobra stuff just because it was gi joe and the first gi joe movie. Lately I've been thinking of clearing out some of the newer stuff as mib stuff takes up a lot of space compared to loose vintage figures.