How did YOU start?

[dalisprime]

Had a look through the boards and noticed this has never been asked so here goes. It's pretty much a granted that we all loved TF as kids, but I'm curious what got you hooked on collecting them (again?) as an adult? Did a TV series of the time cause you to buy one and then others followed, or was it an intricate figure/alt mode that triggered your curiosity?

For me it's two fold. I've always watched TFs in one rendition or another, although not religiously. At some point I wanted to get myself armada Starscream as he looked like a really neat figure, but never got round to it. Instead I edned up with MP Prime (that I ended up getting foolishly rid of when moving house ). Fast forward a few years, ROTF toys started appearing (1st movie figures I didn't really like), and towards November that year I saw Mixmaster sitting on a shelf looking all intriguing and whatnot. After a few backs and forths with myself I ended up getting him, and the stubborn git that I am, decided to transform him without the manual. Boy, did he kick my arse that day. Needless to say, I was hooked. A fair deal of rotf figures soon followed (HA Sideswipe was my 2nd I believe, due to how darn sexy his alt mode looked in a box!). The rest is history as they say. So on to you lads - how did you begin?

[Sunstreaker]

Gooooood thread DP!


I was working as a key-timer at Games Workshop - my Old man had recently passed away, and I'd quit my job managing a London based ART shop (like Athena... but not as iconic!) come back to Essex and was trying to work out what I was going to do next with my life. Games Workshop Lakeside at that time was stuffed with 'Grizzled Vets', people that had either been managers, or had been effectively managing other stores, had left the company and come back as 'grunts'. Meant that we were making money with our eyes closed, and we didn't have any sort of area management breathing down our necks. It was like the good ol' days where we could just mess about and enjoy the hobby.

We'd been sent an FNG from Bluewater to 'Learn from the Masters' and basically do all the cleaning stuff that we couldn't be bothered to do, named Richard, and Richard and I were sat by the till painting Space Marines and generally being quite chilled...

... at which point Starscreams Ghost walked in, flanked by henchmen (two chaps called Russell and Ben).

Richard did the FNG thing of leaping over the counter and trying to sell them a 40K box and a paint set, which I seem to recall Ghosty elegantly cutting dead.

At some point in the conversation, it became apparent that SSG had just come from the entertainer, and had just purchased a RID Prowl.

Richard had an Orgasm right then and there in the shop (He also looked a little like Choda-Boy, which is why I think Ghosty started referring to him as 'Orgazmo' from that point on...).

I took a lunch break and went to the Entertainer. Picked me up a Prowl, X-Brawn and a Sideburn...

It was around that sort of time that I was forming 'John's Club', and Ghosty, Russ and Ben became key members. SSG would bring toys every week, and I would blow the profits from the club on Gen1 toys, RID imports and pizza. The rest is history!

[Phill]

I've been here from the start.

Read the comics, watched the original G1 cartoons, and bought any toys I could with Christmas, Birthday or saved up money.

Nothing glamarous, just the start of a good hobby.

I did drop out during most of the Beast Wars/Machine era, only touching things occasionall, but then in 2000 I found a text version of the history of Transformers, including the Beast Era. That caught me right up to date.

At some point I found the Moonies original forum and started lurking.

I went to Transforce 2002 on my own, not knowing anyone. Spoke to Jon (T-4-E) for a while, and after seeing how people were interacting with each other like life-long friends decided I wanted to be part of it. I signed up for the boards, as soon as I could and have been here in it's various form since.

I managed to go to BotCon 2006, which I'd originally decided was the only one I'd go to. But despite the queues I enjoyed it that much, we went again in 2007 and 2008.

Most of the RotF line didn't appeal to me so I started getting pretty picky, and the same seems to be happening with the DotM toyline, but it's mostly the size reductions and increased prices that have got to me this time. I still go out of my way to pick up the figures I like the look of, and collect almost all of the comics released.

[thelastallosaur]

When I was a bit younger my grandmother frequently helped run jumble sale type events for the RNLI, and the most exciting bit for me as a child was the selection of toys on offer. One particularly good haul yeilded a very nice toy truck that due to having a soundbox and his name written on his trailer was easy to identify as Optimus Prime (it was the G2 version, though I wouldn't know that for quite a while). Because of how awesome this toy was, I go rather excited when I heard an advert on TV a few years later, featuring the RID versions of him and Ultra Magnus. But the time wasn't quite ripe, so the only RID figure I got at the time was the spychanger Magnus. It seemed I was doomed to never be a transfomers guy, until the media blitz that was Armada. With a cartoon showing on terestrial television and many many commercials to fill my young mind, it seemed like this was the big push to what I am today, when my brother got Armada Blurr, I had to go one better, and of course I remembered the tinny voice from a little back box and knew that for that christmas I would ask for Optimus Prime. But as much as I loved Prime, and later Overload and Jetfire, I was leaving primary school and was under more pressure to leave toys behind, Energon to me was just a bunch of rehashes and repaints, transformers was no longer worth my time, and after one last hurrah a year after getting Prime in a surprise Armada Unicron, I was done.

Fast forward a few years. On a trip to the cinema my attention was grabbed by a large robotic eye, it was everything I had dreamed of during my Armada phase, they were making a Transformers movie! By now I was fifteen, but the movie excited me so much that I bought myself Leader prime, telling myself it'd be a one off. It almost was, and buying the dissapointingly simple Ratchet all but killed my desire for them, but I gave transformers one last chance, but when that last chance is deluxe movie Bumblebee, it means one thing; transformers was back for me. I always meant it to be another phase, "I'll only buy movie characters (lies)", "no, I'll stop when Animated comes, it looks rubbish (lies)", "I'll not buy any Universe (lies)"... and by the time ROTF rolled around, I realised that the years hiatus I'd planned between collecting the movie lines had gone, Transformers had got me completely, there was no escape...

The boards tell me it was late 2008 when I joined the online fandom proper, though I'd been lurking since the very start of Animated, when I realised there were better ways of finding out where and when things were coming out than hoplessly getting the bus around town every week. Since then I've been to Auto Assembly once in 2009, and I'd love to go again when I have money. And I still have that G2 prime at my grandparents house, though I've never counted him as part of my collection, which is currently at around three hundred figures.

[dalisprime]

thelastallosaur Wrote:When I was a bit younger my grandmother frequently helped run jumble sale type events for the RNLI, and the most exciting bit for me as a child was the selection of toys on offer. One particularly good haul yeilded a very nice toy truck that due to having a soundbox and his name written on his trailer was easy to identify as Optimus Prime (it was the G2 version, though I wouldn't know that for quite a while).

On this note, as a kid I used to own loads of transformers (mix of G1 and G2 although at that time those concepts were alien to me). Some of those I didn't even realise were actual TF's until fairly recently. My last figures before the growing up hiatus were most likely beast wars characters: Cheetor, Dinobot, Tarantulas and Iguanas.

[Starscreams_Ghost]

thelastallosaur Wrote:When I was a bit younger my grandmother frequently helped run jumble sale type events for the RNLI, and the most exciting bit for me as a child was the selection of toys on offer. One particularly good haul yeilded a very nice toy truck that due to having a soundbox and his name written on his trailer was easy to identify as Optimus Prime (it was the G2 version, though I wouldn't know that for quite a while). Because of how awesome this toy was, I go rather excited when I heard an advert on TV a few years later, featuring the RID versions of him and Ultra Magnus. But the time wasn't quite ripe, so the only RID figure I got at the time was the spychanger Magnus. It seemed I was doomed to never be a transfomers guy, until the media blitz that was Armada. With a cartoon showing on terestrial television and many many commercials to fill my young mind, it seemed like this was the big push to what I am today, when my brother got Armada Blurr, I had to go one better, and of course I remembered the tinny voice from a little back box and knew that for that christmas I would ask for Optimus Prime. But as much as I loved Prime, and later Overload and Jetfire, I was leaving primary school and was under more pressure to leave toys behind, Energon to me was just a bunch of rehashes and repaints, transformers was no longer worth my time, and after one last hurrah a year after getting Prime in a surprise Armada Unicron, I was done.

Fast forward a few years. On a trip to the cinema my attention was grabbed by a large robotic eye, it was everything I had dreamed of during my Armada phase, they were making a Transformers movie! By now I was fifteen, but the movie excited me so much that I bought myself Leader prime, telling myself it'd be a one off. It almost was, and buying the dissapointingly simple Ratchet all but killed my desire for them, but I gave transformers one last chance, but when that last chance is deluxe movie Bumblebee, it means one thing; transformers was back for me. I always meant it to be another phase, "I'll only buy movie characters (lies)", "no, I'll stop when Animated comes, it looks rubbish (lies)", "I'll not buy any Universe (lies)"... and by the time ROTF rolled around, I realised that the years hiatus I'd planned between collecting the movie lines had gone, Transformers had got me completely, there was no escape...

The boards tell me it was late 2008 when I joined the online fandom proper, though I'd been lurking since the very start of Animated, when I realised there were better ways of fining out where and when things were coming out than hoplessly getting the bus around town every week. Since then I've been to Auto Assembly once in 2009, and I'd love to go again when I have money. And I still have that G" prime at my grandparents house, though I've never counted him as part of my collection, which is currently at around three hundred figures.

you know, I REALLY thought you were older.........

[Sunstreaker]

That's a testament to Tally's maturity and demeanour!

Got time for Tally.

[thelastallosaur]

Starscreams_Ghost Wrote:you know, I REALLY thought you were older.........

LOL OMG LULZ I FOOLED U!!1!!

[Sunstreaker]

thelastallosaur Wrote:

Starscreams_Ghost Wrote:you know, I REALLY thought you were older.........

LOL OMG LULZ I FOOLED U!!1!!

...where's the like button...?

[dalisprime]

Sunstreaker Wrote:

thelastallosaur Wrote:

Starscreams_Ghost Wrote:you know, I REALLY thought you were older.........

LOL OMG LULZ I FOOLED U!!1!!

...where's the like button...?

Grimlock munched it

[KingGrimlock]

dalisprime Wrote:

Sunstreaker Wrote:

thelastallosaur Wrote:

Starscreams_Ghost Wrote:you know, I REALLY thought you were older.........

LOL OMG LULZ I FOOLED U!!1!!

...where's the like button...?

Grimlock munched it

Did not.

[dalisprime]

KingGrimlock Wrote:

dalisprime Wrote:

Sunstreaker Wrote:

thelastallosaur Wrote:

Starscreams_Ghost Wrote:you know, I REALLY thought you were older.........

LOL OMG LULZ I FOOLED U!!1!!

...where's the like button...?

Grimlock munched it

Did not.

'Me Grimlock not nice dino. Me munch metal like buttons'.

Did too

[Gruff]

I was about 3 or 4yrs old when my dad came home from being at sea and gave me a present, I put out my hands and recieved Astrotrain!! A few more followed and on trips to visit my family in England (we lived in Scotland, waaaay way out in Scotland) I discovered the comics and the cartoons!! I was hooked and more and more followed. Every shopping into town got me a minibot, birthdays and xmas got me the bigger ones.

I sort of dropped out a little at G2, the franchise seemed to be on life support and then along came Beast Wars and I was sucked back into it. When I was 18 I had started working and discovered the internet, Yahoo auctions and then later Ebay helped me get the older TF's I'd always wanted and get the newer ones that i couldnt get in Plymouth (where we moved to in 1986). Beast Wars became Beast Machines became RiD etc etc and the internet allowed me to get everything as it came out.

I used to frequent a chat site and met a fellow TransFan who brought me in here and I will always be grateful for Brett introducing me to all you wonderful and helpful folks here at the moon.

[Hoist]

I started back in 84 watching the cartoons every Saturday morning on Wac-A-Day, which led to the Comics and ultimately the toys. Being a 1-parent family (Divorce), I mostly had Minibots though, apart from when I got Hoist (Eased some of the resentment for my Dad I had at the time, and Twintwist. one Xmas.) I since brought a re-issue Hoist as an adult and an original Twintwist.

As I went to secondary school I kinda passed on the TF comics, switching to cult UK comic 2000AD instead. Ultimately during this time I kinda left Transformers behind. When in college I saw the G2 comics, the only issue I saw however was a UK one, and was put off by the crappy artwork and childishness of the comic. (As an adult where the US G2 is concerned, it remains my favourite period comic wise, I adore the US G2 comic.) I saw an odd episode of Beast Wars on the UK's third terrestrial channel, ITV - and, I sort of realised it was Transformers but was put off by the animal aspect. (Came to love the series as an adult). After this I more or less left Transformers fandom struggling to deal with my own personal family issues - a death of a parent. In 2002 however, I was in Woolworths one day and I just thought to myself - "I wonder if Transformers are still going?." So I went to the toy section and found they were very much still alive! This was during the RID era, the first ones I saw were the two packs of the Spychangers. I brought two double packs on the spot containing R.E.V, WARS, Crosswise and Hot Shot. My first larger figure after all those years being RID Megatron.

It was bitter sweet with RID because I got my first credit card not really expecting to be accepted and not knowing how it worked. Although it got me RID toys (Especially Ruination), It as well as my first owned computer put me in money trouble for many years. As a result I only brought the ones I really wanted, missing out on some over the years I wanted. Now things are good, it's only in the last year and a half I've had the freedom to get what I want, even past G1 toys, Beast Wars II toys and some of the stuff I missed out on. So my collection is only very small at 149 figures, but since RID I haven't looked back, or stopped.

[Smellyferret]

Watched G1 as a kid, never did get the toys I wanted then!!

Then stuff turned up in carboots in the 90s and got my interest!

Then in about 2002ish I started to buy tfs from ebay... Now I have too many and know more than is 'fashionable'!