why did you start collecting gi joe?

[kingmoredred]

all this 25th ann. got me thinking about why i started collecting gi joe and why so many others do.

when i was in like 2nd grade when my mom would bring me to the denist after i got thru she would pull a gi joe out of her purse thats how i got started i got a lot of my early collection that way but the only two figs. that stick in my mind are muskrat and a heat viper. what keeped me collecting them was the price i only got 3 $ every two weeks for allowence and my parents would give me the diff. for a fig

 

thats my story so what is all of yours

[MUNDO]

I started with the straight-arm figures; my first being Flash. At the time, GI Joes were pretty fresh and exiting because of all the accessories that had and their individuality (even though they pretty much all shared the same body). As a boy, it was pretty exciting to be able to mail off some Flag points, and some time later, receive a cool figure like Hooded Cobra Commander, which was my definitive Cobra Commander for the longest time. That's why I was so stoked to see Hooded Cobra Commander in the 25th line.

[midnight doctor]

The animated comic ads for GIJOE #1 was what exposed me to the whole thing.My brother bought me Stalker for my first figure.Flash was my second figure and after him I was hooked.

A funny note I might add is My Flash was on the 11 back card which showed Cobra Officer and Cobra for the first time.I remember thinking because of their blue color sceme and funky helmets that they looked like evil versions of Big Mac the chief of police of Mcdonaldsland.

[Blackmada]

I guess my stepfather got me hooked.

 

He collected the 12 inchers as a kid and he was really into the military. He had a bunch of model tanks and stuff so he got into the 3 3/4 Joes a little before me and exposed me to them.

 

This one day we went to a store called 3-D, kinda like Wal-Mart. They had a buttload of the originals. They just looked so cool. Up to that point I just had little green armymen so this was way cooler. I could only get one figure so I picked Zap. It took me awhile to pick him because I wanted the best and coolest guy. Stalker and Scarlet ony had one weapon, Breaker did not even have a gun and so on. But Zap had a removable helmet, a backpack and one of the biggest weapons, so I picked him.

 

A few months later I got the VAMP with Clutch for my birthday and had Clutch and Zap driving all over the place. I had so much fun with just those two guys and the VAMP. After that I got alot more for Christmas and just kept going from there.

 

It's no wonder I like the RAH stuff more than any other Joe line since it all started there for me and I have those great childhood memories.

[ARROW]

As a child, in 1967, I was about 5 years old and received a Action Sailor with Shore Patrol and Scuba gear outfits.

 

As an adult, about 18 years later, my first purchase was Sci-Fi. I didn't even LIKE the 3 3/4" Joes then.

I bought the figure with the intention of converting it to a Robocop custom. Never got around to that and he stayed as is for the rest of his days with me. Bought a Viper figure later and never stopped, really. They won me over pretty soon after that.

[cobrasaboteur]

I started with about 20 gi joes from my older brother....i started going to flea markets and picking up loose figs and vehicles. The rest is history haha. I actually never bought any original RAH joes in the store. The first joe i got at retail was one of the space figures from the early nineties.

 

-saboteur

[Romadon]

It was 1984, my cousin and I were with our parents at Jewel/Osco buying groceries when we slipped into the toy department. Back then I remember Osco having a great selection of the hottest figures when it came to He-man, G I Joe, and Star Wars. I remember we went nuts when we saw all the Joes, they had so many accessories. I begged my dad, but he was real cheap and said I had to wait until x-mas!!! Luckily my cousin who was spoiled by his mother, managed to talk his mother into buying him one, so my cheap father gave in and allowed me to pick one. My cousin knew exactly what he wanted, Mutt and Junkyard dog, only because we had a dog that looked just like Junkyard at the time. I had a hard time choosing, but I finally ended up with Rip Cord!! I don't know what I was thinking, maybe it was all the accessories that he came with.

 

Then later that year when x-mas came, we hit the jack pot, Yes my cheap father came through, him and my aunt bought us around 20 joes and five vehicles.

 

After that I took it upon myself to buy my own joes. I started collecting cans and soda bottles and taking them over to the recycling plant down the block.

 

Collecting G. I. Joe back then was so much fun.

[majik40]

As a kid, my mother baught me my first two at a yard sale. My collection quickly grew from there. As an adult, I started back collecting after seeng the S6 Snake Eyes and have since gathered a decent sized collection of 3 3/4" and 8" Joes.

[Inggasson]

i had some as a kid, and loved 'em... i think my favourites were buzzer and the iron grenadier even though i never really followed the cartoon. even then, i had an eye for what looked cool rather than what was merchandised to a franchise i liked.

 

started back up again a couple of years ago when i realised i enjoyed customising my other toys and wanted to see what cool joes i could come up with. they're the most easily customisable toys on the market thanks to the screw-fittings and upper-arm pegs, or atleast the newer-types are (gvc, spytroops, vvv, dtc). never looked back, really.

[Straight Edge]

It's crazy that you guys remember that far back! Awesome, but crazy!

 

I guess I'm a few years younger than y'all, as G.I.joe was always just... "there". Some of my earliest memories involve *playing* with GIJoes... but damn if I can tell you when I went to a store and asked my parents for them.

As a kid, that is. I was only three when the line debuted, but somehow I had a straight-arm Steeler in my collection, and a broken FLAK among my toybox.

 

But I don't really consider getting toys as a kid, playing with them, and eventually putting them in a box and forgetting them "Collecting". That's just being a kid. My birth as a collector started with Larry's Comics, on Foster Ave in Midwood Brooklyn, back in the summer of 1991. My cousins and I had been collecting Marvel Trading Cards, and busting our asses to be the first with a full set. Then, as that fad was passing, Impel put out a set of GIJoe trading cards and... well, that was it for me. I was buying packs of cards non-stop, hitting Larry's two or three times a day... just obssessed! All the trivia and bio stuff on the backs, the idea of the "Original Team" (which I was shocked did not include Duke), and the new recruits for 1991 (which in hindsight made a lot of weird looking toys seem really *really* cool!).

 

That was it for me. A few days later, I bought Marvel's GIJoe #116, and came to find that Larry pretty much had a full run of backissues that I spent the next year buying off him and two and three bucks a pop. But what sold me was the day my mom took me to Toys R Us to get a birthday gift for my infant cousin. I never had much luck asking my parents to buy me toys on the spot. Christmas and Birthdays I was literally *flooded* with toys... but on September 23rd... it was like a famine!

 

But with a 1.98 price tag, I had a good feeling I could get one basic figure from the 1991 range. And of course, I decided on Snake-Eyes, the blue and pink clad ninja bad-ass. I took him home to confront my 1988 Storm Shadow and 1985 Snakes (which I had tried painting with a silver paint-pen, making him and evil cyborg)...

 

I've never gone a year without buying copious amounts of GIJoe since that day. Even after 1994, I stayed on, fanboying for Sgt Savage, and giving Extreme it's fair shot. I still have a complete collection of TRU repaint figures (plus 5X Cobra troopers and vehicles) that were bought at the time (not later on E-bay), the whole run of RAHC repaints from 2000-2001, and a fair amount of the GvC/VvV era.

 

But for all their flaws, the 25th Anniversary figures are the embodiement of everything I've wanted from GIJoe since 1991: Better representations of the core characters I loved, the way I remembered them as a kid. Back, before I was a collector.

[Kill Solo]

The cartoons told me to. I always listen to the cartoons.

[eleavitt2000]

We were at my grandma's house like my family did every Saturday. I was getting out of Star Wars and more into Lego. There was a pharmacy down the street. My mom picked me a copy of Giant sized G.I.Joe #1, thinking it was a coloring book. I read the book from cover to cover and marveled at the pictures of the original team. My brother got the HAL with Grand Slam for his birthday. My first G.I.Joe figure of my own came later - it was Scrap-Iron. I think I was too busy with our family moving and school to notice G.I.Joe. We moved the summer before 6th grade. I made friends with a kid who loved G.I.Joe. I got the Skystriker for Christmas, my brother the Rattler. I was hooked from then on. My mom found me a comic book shop where I re-discovered the Marvel comic and my collecting began in earnest on my own with wave 5 in 1986.

 

I know have almost every vehicle and comic. Weird.

[Pit Viper]

I got into G.I. Joe on my 7th birthday. My uncle had got me a generic army truck but I didn't have any figures to go with it. To remedy this my father too my brother and I to a toy store and we told to choose 2 each. I got Sneak Peak and Falcon. Until then I was only vaugely familiar with G.I. Joe. I had seen the cartoon a time or 2 and I for whatever reason I had a G.I. Joe sleeping bag, Colorform set, and Halloween costume. Anyhow a few days I got my first Joes an older kid came over to the house (my mom watched kids over the summer as their parents worked). This kid just so happened to bring over an official G.I. Joe collector case filled with a bunch of great figures. The fact that he had so many and as an older kid my brother and I thought he was cool we became huge G.I. Joe fans.

 

I think one of the reasons G.I. Joe was such a great toy (besides the 3 3/4" scale) is the fact that most of the figures from the 80s were unique. For example: With Ninja Tutrles you could not get a crap load of figures out without there being 15 different Leonardos. With G.I. Joe there were only about half a dozen characters that had more than one figure. As such the play factor was better than other action figure lines.

[CrocMaster23]

First I was a collector of He-Man figures cause of the cartoon then I saw the GI JOE cartoon and my mother one day bought me my first GI JOE figure Law & Order (87) cause I pass to another grade in school!!! Then I received for Christmas 2 figures, Falcon and Crazy Legs........

So in 1989 I went on vacation to Margarita (An island with cheaper prices in everything here in Venezuela since it is a touristic place) and with the money I collected as a kid in one year I bought 4 or 5 figures!!!! from then on I started collecting money and buying GI Joe figures...

 

I also have the Sgt.Savage figures and by the way I loved the episode in the VHS cassette that came with Sgt.Savage, I also bought the GI JOE Extreme figures, the 1997 anniversary figures, then I bought the new repaints in 2000, 2001 and some Spy Troops, then I stopped when Valor vs Venom Arrived since I dislike the new molds, since I was a more RAH fan.

Then in 2005 I get back to collecting figures buying them on ebay and I bought all the figures I just wanted from the 80´s (like 250 figures)!!!! Then stopped in 2006, I still miss some figures from the 80´s, but when I collect some money I´m going to get back to hunt those figures that I still miss!!!!

 

Looking at the new 25 anniversary figures makes me think in getting back and buy it!!!! I think I´m going to start buying again before the year is finished.

[Romadon]

It's crazy that you guys remember that far back! Awesome, but crazy!

 

 

If you think that's crazy get this...

 

I remember my last great year of collecting the originals, it was x-mas 1986...

Again my dad was making me wait till x-mas to buy me more G I. Joes.

 

The wave that included Beachhead and the Cobra B.A.T. was already out.

 

Well my dad waited till x-mas eve and then said, "come on, lets go to Toys'R'Us".

When we got there he said to us (my cousin and I) either get the Cobra Terror Dome for

$99.00 or pick out $100.00 dollars worth of G. I. Joe stuff.

I almost fainted, I couldn't believe the old man was serious. I looked at the shelves

and almost all the figures were gone, it was x-mas eve what else could we expect.

But they still had a bunch of vehicles, we grabed a cart and filled it up with

2 Cobra Stunts, Thunder Machine, Tomahawk, Havoc, Battle Platform, Dial Tone,

Low Light, a weapons pack, the Brazil 5 pack that included Cpt. Claymore and

that was pretty much it, when we got to the counter to pay I kept

thinking he was going to change his mind or something. Man that Tomahawk rocked.

[kingmoredred]

i remember getting bunch of joe stuff one year some figs.,and the hammerhead well i got joes for christmas most every year but that hammerhead was the bigest veh. i ever had while growing up

i just bought another one cause my first one was pretty trashed but its not as big as it was when i was a kid

[blaster_e11]

i had joes in the 80's when i was a kid but i was more a SW collector. I've started colelcting joes again in 2005 after seeing the amazing collections of soundwave and violentfix

[evopete]

Well had hand me down toys forever.. I think a cobra Viper was my first Hand me down....my first new Joe was the one with a black beard and had a Rocket Launcer has a backpack @ missiles and he was a Cobra....and after that...I lost many of them or they were trajic deaths via M-80 or somehitng similar...... .( shaking head) ...but I just restarted collecting Joes as of a last Sunday....I now have 3 single packs in order, I orderd both 5 packs and 3 Viper Pit sets.....I cant stop its so addicting and since I never had the OG GI joes back in the day (my parents were cheap)...I can now have what I could never had as a kid..... LOVE THIS STUFF...

[jhester]

1982 I saw the commercial for the comic and my sister took me to Target where I got issue 1 of the comic and Short Fuse. That started it all.

[obiprime]

I traded of my sw figs to get them in 83. I thought the swivel arms made them better.

[xhairs]

well the comics and cartoon got me in to them and i started in 84 with Mutt & Junkyard then i was hooked till i got in the 10 grade of high school . then i was out for a while .

I started colecting them agin when i met my wife you saw me looking at the 2001 figs and then the GvC figs . she siad just buy them . so i was hooked agin.

Then i started customizing them. i bet my wife wishes she could take back that day she said to go a head and buy them LOL

[Rollo Tomassi]

1986. I was more into Transformers than G.I.Joe but my best friend and his little brother were into GIJoe. So when I would sleepover we'd play TF and Joe all weekend. PLus, the other kids in their neighborhood had tons of Joe stuff including this one kid who's dad was divorced and doted on him. He had EVERYTHING. Terror Drome, the Space Shuttle, the Flagg ( although it was all busted to #$@#) and every figure. So I started getting hand me down figures from them. I want to say my first figure from them was Airborne without any of his accessories.

 

The first Joe I bought outright was Lt. Falcon. I eventually accumulated about 60-70 figures, but I only ever got one hand me down vehicle and one I bought. I think they left The Slugger at my house, and I bought the Battleforce 2000 Snow vehicle, because it turned into a make shift base when you split it apart.

 

I went through that phase where you unscrew the backs and mix and match arms, legs, heads, etc and eventually grew disinterested in favor of comic books around 1988. All those body parts were in a paper bag in my closet for the longest time. When I was getting ready to move away for college, I was cleaning out my bedroom and putting stuff in storage, I spent one weekend dismantling all my "custom" figures and putting them back together how they were supposed to be. Some were missing thumbs, or their crotches had busted. For the disintegrated o-rings, I used my little sister's rubberbands for her braces. Then I carefully boxed them all up and put them in the basement. Haven't looked at them since.

 

My only "Joe" Collecting since has been getting S6 Snake Eyes and Stormshadow, and the comics. I did get the DVDs of the original cartoon, which in turn spurred my kids ( especially my daughter) to want some Joe figures. A guy I knew sent me a bunch of loose figures from the Valor/Venom run to give to her, and I bought her TWO MTB Maulers for Christmas a few years ago. She squealed with delight when she ripped off the wrapping paper. SO I have passed on my passion to the next generation. Mission accomplished.

 

The new 25th Anniversary figures look sweet, but I'm hesitant to pick them up and get started all over again.

[ARROW]

It's crazy that you guys remember that far back! Awesome, but crazy!

 

When I started collecting toys as an adult, it rekindled some very early childhood memories.

One of them being an infant, bathed in a stainless steel sink by my grandmother. I have quite clear visual and tactile memories of the sink and the tiled backsplash on the wall, the warm water running over me and my grandmother and mother's hands holding me.

I was told by both women that they only washed me that way a couple of times in my first 6 months as a newborn, and yet I remember it clearly.

[Peter Parker]

I started from the beginning. 1982 and my brother (11 yrs old) and I (7 yrs old) loved GI Joe. I can still picture going into K-Mart and seeing them for the first time. It seemed that every store carried toys and you could always find GI Joe. I started reading the comics, watching the cartoon...I was hooked. My brother gave up GI Joe in 1985, so I got his toys. I remember looking through the Sears Wishbook and the JC Penny catalog at the toys for Christmas, and just praying that Mom & Dad would come through. I had an uncle that was single and tended to spoil my brother and I. If Mom & Dad didn't get it...he would. It was great. There was one kid in the 3rd or 4th grade that seemed to get the newest figures weeks before anybody else would. He had the first Dreadnoks and I was so jealous that I couldn't find them. 1986 or 1987 my Mom worked for Belks department store and it was in the mall which had a KB Toys. I can still remember going to see her at work and running down to KB to see what they had new.

I guess that's why I really like the 25th anniversary figures because the packaging and the design of the figures resemble the originals. Those years of carefree, no worries, and no money are now replaced by marriage, a 19 month old son, mortgage, bills, and adulthood. However, I'll always be Joe fan no matter what.

[Viper Hunter]

As a child, in 1967, I was about 5 years old and received a Action Sailor with Shore Patrol and Scuba gear outfits.

 

As an adult, about 18 years later, my first purchase was Sci-Fi. I didn't even LIKE the 3 3/4" Joes then.

I bought the figure with the intention of converting it to a Robocop custom. Never got around to that and he stayed as is for the rest of his days with me. Bought a Viper figure later and never stopped, really. They won me over pretty soon after that.

 

 

 

Really about the same for me....almost.

 

Had tons of 12" G.I.Joes as a kid and gave most of it away. Something I'd regret later.

 

Just happen to catch a glimpse of the new smaller sized "G.I.JOES" or what I thought was GOING FOR G.I.Joe these days, and about laughed.

 

As hard as they TRIED to give these little Green army men articulation like no other in that small a size, I thought they were a disgrace to the memory of G.I.Joe. I started seeing ads in the Sears/J.C.Penny Christmas catalogs, and a few commercials for them, and checked back to the toy aisle at a nearby Childrens Palace and noticed all the vehicles and accessories that went with them, and thought that was pretty cool and at a much cheaper price.

 

I didn't make a purchase on them until much later, on a whim, and it was at a Woolworths/Gray Drugs pharmacy or something, and it was a straight arm Rock & Roll and Breaker, two figures that looked like an attempt to mimic my AT bearded Land Adventurer and bearded Air Adventurer figures of same hair color.

 

Got the bright idea of replacing my OLD Joes (I gave away) with these new, smaller & cheaper versions, and maybe having that neat old TOY collection to give over to a son one day. I got hooked on'em and had to pretty much buy all I could and DID!

 

Never got the son I was planning on (I either "shot the bullet too DEEP" or "blew the nuts off of'em" as they say? @loll@ ) and ended up with two GIRLS instead (love'em both dearly) but maintained my collection habit throughout, and still today. Obsessive compulsive disorder I guess?