What happened to you childhood collection?

[NotFastEnuff]

I got to thinking after reading the Christmas memories thread. What happened to your childhood collection?

Mine: I had a LOT of Joes. I got into them heavy in 86. When I was 13 or 14, forget exactly which, my Mom (divorced parents, whose weren't) got hurt at work. She was on workers comp and off of work for months. She even had to have surgery on her arm. Money got really tight, and she had the idea to have a yard sale to make a bit of money. No, this isn't going where you think it is. She never asked for any of my collections, but, I volunteered them. I still loved my toys, but we needed the money more. I watched my Joe, Transformer, and TMNT collections get divied up and sold off. It helped, but it hurt. I think this might be why I have such a weakness for collecting toys with my kids. I still love to go to toy shows with my Mom and tease her, but there's no ill will. She actually supports my habit now, along with my wife.

What happened to yours?

[smokehouse]

Sadly...as much as it embarrasses me to say it, most of my vehicles were destroyed by me. My MANY figs were donated to a poor kid at out church. That's probably a good thing as I would have either chucked them out or ruined them in my foolish teenage years.

[SHIPWRECK"N"POLLY]

I still have many of the figures, however most are in heavily played with condition. I keep them for sentimental value. I have a Major bludd, laser viper, Tomax, Countdown and Deep six v2 left from my childhood.

[Shogi]

Over the years everything either got sold, traded or destroyed/thrown out. The only items from my childhood collection is a micro Cobra Commander and a Steel Brigade patch (Now if I had only held on to that darn filecard!)

[apacolypse]

I still own all of mine, luckily.

My brothers often comment on how they don't have their toys...but I didn't destroy mine as a child, so my Mom was more willing to buy me more as it wasn't wasted money. One day...I will hand them down to my son...for now though, sadly...he has inherited his uncle's trait for destroying things. lol

[shadowbat69]

sigh. I get sad everytime I think about this. I wanted to concentrate on my Batman collecting so I sold off my Joes, Transformers, and Star Wars collections. I got a very good price for them, but I LAWAYS regretted selling my Joes. Now, Im back with the 25th line and also picking up my favorite old 80's Joes off ebay and trades.

[Blueman]

I have every one I ever had given to me or bought myself, with the exception of one. In sixth grade I traded my perfect and complete Zartan with skiier for a very played with TF jet missing half it's accessories. Because of the regrets of that trade, I never traded or got rid of another Joe again. I even kept an '83 Scarlett with broken crotch piece. Had a funeral for her and everything.

[badbrad]

A few years after I moved out of my Mom's house she called me up and said she was having a yard sale. I said "whatever." She sold off all my stuff. I had a lot of stuff. Now 15 years later I'm trying to buy it all back.

[TTT]

I had a LARGE collection including Sears exc. sold it ALL for $100.00, had to buy a (pet)python when I was growing out of my toys.....sucks cause I had just bought the Cobra BUGG, it was no more than a month old and I never even played with it.

[arch2b]

not even sure what happened to the few thing i had. like most, had a divorced family and little money. after moving around some, i guess i just lost track of it. i don't recall ever breaking them or selling them. they were there, a couple years later, they aren't.
i did however keep every single baseball card and comic which i hope to give to my kids once they show me they've leared to appreaciate them and not hawk them all of on ebay.
i managed to find most of my voltron figure and a few transformers a couple years back when moving my parent to yet another house. none were in good shape by this point but i still have them and just can't seem to let them go either.

i really enjoy sharing my general love of toys with my kids. my youngest collects and plays with the 1/64 disney cars characters which he has almost all of them. my oldest son was into thomas the tank engine, unfortunately for us as that stuff is insanely expensive. now that he's in elementary school, he's all about his wii, etc. atleast he's up and moving around.

i was unpacking my joes for pictures and my youngest fell in love with my mobat and a cobra trooper, i was soo proud at that moment to know the joe fascination was going to continue for another generation atleast. he's got a cobra trooper and mobat under the x-mas tree waiting for tuesday;) i took mine back for storage naturally.

[chickenbroth]

Luckily for me, I went through my destructive phase with my hotwheels and matchbox cars. I cherished my Joes and kept hold of them all. Only a few items where ever played with outside so everything is still in great shape.

I have about 200ish figs. and about 60ish vehicles and playsets all boxed up in my spare room. When my wife and I move into our next house, I'm gonna have a Joe room to display them all and my ever increasing 25th collection.

[DaViper]

How funny this thread came up; I just recently found out what happened to my joe collection. Ok let me start from the begining, It was about 12 yrs ago when I just graduated from high school and was in my 1st year of college. I had gotten out of collecting joes for about 5 years before then, but I had them displayed in my room still. Feeling a bit too old to have toys laying around, I decided to sell them. A good friend of mine knew a guy who was big into collecting joes. So I asked him to sell them for me, he agreed and took my garbage bag of joes(nice way to store them huh? HA) with him. Well I never heard back from him and I forgot all about them since I was busy with school at that time.

So fast forward 12 yrs now and still wondering what ever happened to my joes. I recently found my friend on myspace and we got in touch again. It turns out he lives in Seattle now with his wife and 2 kids. Well we get to chatting and he brings up the topic that he has my GI joes still. You wouldn't believe how happy I was to find out my collection was still intact. I wanted to ask for them back, but it turns out his kids play with them religously. He said his 3 year old boys plays with them but his 4 year old daughter LOVES to plays with them! She would do all the sound effects and march them into battle like how boys would. I laughed but inside of me was crying "I want my joes back".

But I know at least they went to a good home and they are seeing action again instead of being displayed on some mantle like a trophy. What really makes me laugh is knowing that a little girl is playing with them and not some grown ass man! HA It just brings a smile to my face..

[Autobot_Goldbug]

I only lost 82 Rock N Roll who was one of my 1st Joes. The other... Snow Job I still have. I think Snow Job took him out because of jealousy like in the Toy Story movie. :D

[C.I.A.D.]

Being young & dumb, and at a stage where "I was a man now, and didn't need toys", I sold my entire collection.

At around 23 - 24, I went on the hunt, piece by piece, and re bought everything I sold and then some.

Sold those too, lol. I've been through collections like you wouldn't believe. As a matter of fact, the stuff I have now has been the longest I've owned items in my "adult collecting" years.

I still get that itch to list it all on eBay. :|

[Irid70]

My entire collection...many figs (couldn't guess how many) lots of vehicles, Defiant, Terror Drome, various tanks, jeeps, planes...is all in boxes in my mom's attic.

Except for the USS Flagg, which is in sections under some beds in the house. I'm sure many small pieces are missing but I'm reasonably sure I could reassemble a decent Flagg if I got it all out. I was careful with my toys; played with 'em, never tried to break 'em.

I remember when my parents made me put all my toys away; I was probably 13, maybe 14, freshman year of high school, maybe the summer after. Anybody remember "electric football?" The little sheets of number stickers you'd stick on the players? I created an inventory system with leftover sheets of number stickers, put them on the bottom of feet and typed up a list of all the names so I could remember them later.

Of course, YoJoe.com does that job nicely now, but in 1994, who knew from the Internet?

Anyway, when the wife and I have space, I plan to get it all out, see what is there, what isn't, dust it off, piece it back together. Hopefully for our future children to play with.

Incidentally there are tons of transformers in that house, too (including Fortress Maximus, in a closet) but those I'm pretty much planning to sell. I loved TF as a kid, but they do not wake the strong nostalgiac attachment in me that Joes do.

[ceraurus]

I collected joes as a kid from '82 until '85. Shortly after that, I decided I was too old for toys. My parents asked if they could give all the toys (mostly joes, SW, MOTU, and Mego superheroes and Star Trek) to a friend's kid (to clear some room in the house). I OK'ed the deal and there went all of my toys. The only things to make it were my Rattler, Skystriker, and a few odds and ends. I still have the Rattler, but I don't know what happened to my Skystriker over the years (I think it was tossed during a move). It always makes me depressed thinking about losing all those toys. I've only been collecting 25th joes, but if I had extra funds I'd be all over reacquiring those figures.

Well, skip ahead a couple of decades, when I'm looking through my parent's attic this Thanksgiving. I came across a deeply buried box with a bunch of vehicles - HISS, FANG, Stinger, and others. I almost cried finding those. So at least I've been able to hang on to some of my old collection after all.

[Justanoldfan]

in my parents attic. I've told my wife that when we buy our first house - I don't care about anything else, I want a basement...I want to make my own Fortress of Solitude with a GI Joe section, a Star Wars section, and place for me to display all of my sports memoribilia...

[Driftbot]

Da Viper, that was an awesome story man. very big heart of yours to see the real deal that happened there.

my story is pretty average, though similar to the OP.
had TONS of figures. a few vehicles. mostly mid-sized stuff. most of it got sold at garage sales to help pay bills (parents divorced in 85 i think) so most of my joes and star wars collection helped keep the lights on. some survived until my mom got a good job. then what i had left was sold in a big rubbermaid tub for a measly $20 to a friend in high school.
the only thing i ever destroyed was my tigerfly. broke off the end of the tail section and shoved an M-80 in there. yellow shrapnel EVERYWHERE.

i might have a few things left, boxed up either at my moms or in my storage cage downstairs.

and yes, when i move back stateside again, i'll need at least a 3 bedroom house with a 3 car garage. :D
this tiny two bedroom apartment with one parking space just aint cutting the mustard!!!

[WildWeasel]

So many like stories here.

Like a lot of you guys, I had a TON of stuff. My dad had found these perfect boxes for my brother's and mine's collection. They were like 3' x 3' and 5" or 6" tall. We had like 3 or 4 or them and they fit under our beds perfectly. These held tons of figures and the smaller vehicles. We had larger vehicles too.

As for where it went? I'm still searching for mine. All I've managed to find so far is Storm Shadow v2's bow and claw. I've searched my parent's attic a couple of times and that was it. I'm still holding out some faith that maybe it's buried somewhere in the basement. I do have doubt though, because for some reason I'm thinking I might have sold it to a friend of mine that had a comic shop in the late 90's.

So I've been slowly building a new collection. Mainly consists of the 25th line and stuff from 2002 to current. Along with vintage to current vehicles. Eventually (hopefully next year) I'll start working on getting back some of those vintage figures I had.

[Justanoldfan]

Wild Weasel-
I hope you find some of your stuff in the basement...

[Gung.Heaux]

gave my joes way back around '87 to my cousin...a cousin whose mom and dad let me and my family live with for 11 months after katrina while we went through much bulls**t buying a new house.

star wars, i sold to a friend for a very low amount of money. that was around '96...after the "modern" round of SW had come out. i didnt need the money, but my wife and i had just moved into our first house and there wasnt much storage space...so i got rid of it all.

transformers...when i decided i was "too old" for toys waaaay back in '87 and before i realized i wasnt old enough to stop buying toys...i took a small screwdriver to them. for days i interchanged parts and re-arranged others...and then it was garbage time for them.

ah well..........time for a good cry.
thanks NotFastEnuff.

[Xerofall]

We moved a lot when I was a kid. I had one huge dryer sized box of toys I was allowed to take with me each time we moved. Whatever didn't fit, didn't come with me on the move.

In California in 1989, this box was in the back of my dad's camper trailer. He told me it wasn't going with me on this move. I was sad, but already in High School and having toys was a dangerous thing. If it got out that I had them, my social status would've been ruined, lol.

So somewhere in a storage parking lot a small camper trailer sits with a huge box of GI Joe toys... a Mauler, a battle platform, a hydrofoil, tons of figures, tons of weapons, all the Iron Grenadiers toys, the Joe base...

*Sniff*sniff*

Oh well.

[WildWeasel]

Wild Weasel-
I hope you find some of your stuff in the basement...

Thanks, so do I...so do I.

[Cobra Commander]

I remember blowing all my Joes apart with firecrackers, then crushing their heads with a hammer on my front stairs. It seemed like a good idea at the time, now I wish I still had them.

[Sy-Rein]

All my vehicles are in my storage unit at the moment. I have all the figures here at my apartment. One day when we get a house, I'll bring em all out again.

[A.V.A.C.]

man, some of your stories make my soul weep. how many forties can i poor out for you all. i have everything from back then, i was just lucky to have stored them in a stable condition, moms attic. leave no man behind. firecrackers? a hiss nation weeps.

[flash70]

The great thing about this hobby is that it never really goes away...It was 1982 and I picked the first batch of joes at my local toys r us...it was spectacular to say the least I was hooked all the way until 1992....I was done with...a sad day in may. I kept everything in storage and then decided to sell my collection for college money in 1997. I managed to pay my first two years of college with all the money I made selling off my collection...after graduation around 2002 and a good paying gig, I was back in it and started buying big g.i*joe lots on ebay. Now, I am only short a few vehicles from 1992 - 1994. It has been a roller coaster ride but i can't never quit.

Well see what the future brings.:cool:

[Gulfster]

I took AWESOME care of all my Joes.I was spoiled so I had every single figure.I also had every single vehicle and base with the exception of the FLAGG and the battle platform.Well my parents got divorced and I lived with my dad.I started going to a public school and that's when things took a turn.I started partying,skipping school,you get the picture.So anyways I needed some cash.I took all my joe stuff down to a place called Emarld city Cards and Comics.A place where I always bought Joe, Punisher ,and other comics.He gave me a whopping $100 for all my vehicles and figures.Mind you they where all in close to good or excellent condtion withh all parts for every figure and vehicle.I also sold him all my Star Wars stuff too.I kick myself in the A$$ all the time.Back then I got really out of control.I sold all my comics too.Eventually I ended up getting in some pretty serious trouble and changed my life around since.I did however find a box in my mom's attic and it had all the battle force vehicles,Havoc, and version 2 snake eyes with a few other Joes.That made me really happy.So on occasion I resort to Evilbay to find some vintage Joes.I haven;t bought any in a while so I'm going to look here to buy some every now and then.That's what happened to my Joes.If any of my Joes are out there.I AM SORRY for selling you so cheap in a bad time of my life.I hope you are making someone else happy.Thanks for all the memories!!!!By the way everyone have a HAPPY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!I enjoy this site and reading and talking to my fellow collectors on here.Have a safe holiday as well.

[Cksport]

I still have all of my Joes from a kid. Almost all of the figs are in my basement right now (25th's on a shelf in the spare bedroom), and all of my vehicles, comics, mobile command center, general, & terrordrome are in my parents basement. I plan on bringing everything back to my place over the next week.

My dad always regretted that he had to sell his 12" joes as a kid, and I learned through him and decided to never sell mine. Now..with the 25th and some sigmas, I am back into it.

I remember my evil aunt (this woman is a true evil b1tch), tried for years and years in the 90's to get my parents or I to give her my joe collection for my little cousin. I refused and refused..my parents backed me up. I KNOW that she would have taken them just to sell.. she is that evil and she never needed the money. She is just greedy.

[The Fridge]

Many of my Joes were played with until they fell apart. Some were sent to their grave with a B.B. Gun. Many burned up in gas fires (once I lit my yard on fire interrogating a Cobra. He was perched on a tree limb and I would douse him repeatedly with gas threatening to light him up, eventually when I did the melting plastic dropped in a flaming ball. I watched in slow motion as it fell into the puddle of gas on the ground. It was a pretty scary afternoon, but I managed to put it out). I remember making a J.U.M.P. pack out of a Estes rocket set by duct taping the rocket engine to a Joe and launching him into outer space. Some fell prey to firecrackers. I think I was so pissed off and destructive because I was a fat kid, and unfortunately I took out a lot of aggression on my Joes.
I do still have a plastic tub full of about 50 Joes and several vehichles at my folks house, but they all are worn out and mostly in pieces.

[Magick]

I (sad as it is to say) never got rid of mine. I have the complete 82-87 line. Then pretty much the rest of the years lines missing only one or two figures in each. It's mainly the vehicles from the years after 87 where I fall short.

Although somehow, i managed to get my hands on several of the big boys (Terror Drome, Flagg, Rolling Thunder...etc. etc.) and very few of the small things. The one big thing I was unable to attain at a reasonable price was the Defiant. I have the Crusader shuttle though.

Thankfully I had a understandable wife at the time, so since then I have just kept them boxed up till I can get a bigger place to pull them out and set up dios or just display them.

[Autobot_Goldbug]

...
Incidentally there are tons of transformers in that house, too (including Fortress Maximus, in a closet) but those I'm pretty much planning to sell. I loved TF as a kid, but they do not wake the strong nostalgiac attachment in me that Joes do.

I'll take that Ft Max! ;)

[PREACHER007]

i have all of my favorites,but alot of them i gave to my cousin and brother who destroyed them.i did'nt care though because at the time i had discovered girls and what the could do for a you boy.

[tkprime]

I had every U.S. G.I.Joe item from 1982- it's original end, plus Sgt.Savage, Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, the TRU Exclusives, then all the Collector edition-Valor Vs.Venom (I had it all......Then Hurricane Katrina took it all, alond with my Home, my clothes, my car and truck, and every picture I had of my family and all of my furniture,......I had it all, but I will have it all again, I have a new home, a new car, new clothes, new furniture, and I'm hellbent on getting it all over again, one loose complete figure at a time, untill then I'll keep my chin up and my feet firmly planted on the ground, but I swear you this, I'll never live south of the interstate again, I was less than 5 miles from the beach, in Waveland Ms when that Cat 5 storm wiped us off the map, Now I live in Saucier (north of Gulfport) and I'm on High ground.

[seppaku]

I'm brought back to a very painful childhood memory by reading this post.. So here goes my story...I grew up in a very bad neighborhood just my Father and I, money was always scarce but I had (2) paper routes to earn money..Anyway's I began collecting Joes in 1982 until around 1987 when my father kicked me out of the apartment. I went back to the apartment a couple weeks later to get all of my Joes I found yellow Sheriff tape across the door and the locks changed. I knocked on a neighbors door and she told me that my father was evicted for not paying rent the past 4 months and all the belongings locked away in storage. I pleaded with her to get my stuff back and she agreed to take me to the garage in back where my stuff was locked up. Everything of any value was gone including all my G.I. Joe. So I ve spent a good portion of my adult life rebuilding my collection.

[Clutch]

I consider myself lucky now that I never really hit much of a destructive phase. I was a prune and always tried to take good care of my toys (although some always managed to loose a head or something). I kept most of my big transformers in their original boxes, placing them back in the styrofoam exactly as they were packaged. Obviously with joes I couldn't do that, I wanted to keep the boxes but wasn't allowed too lol. I started in 82 and was very into it through 86. After that is when my small collection slowed to a stop. I was fortunat that my father had a decent appreciation for allowing my brother and I to retain our toy collection even after we were too old for toys. My mother would have opted to pitch or sell them all, but my dad stook up for us. I remember in jr high, he gathered large boxes for us to pack everything we wanted to keep in so it could be put up into the attic for storage. He even had this large roll of industrial type plastic/syran wrap that we wrapped the stuffed boxes up with, to help seal them (the attic later proved to be hurtful to my toys, because it would get so hot in the summer. Some rubber bands melted which have yet to be repaired for some joes. My star war characters were stored cliped to a chewbaca utility belt that held the characters with foam. That foam melted onto the toons in the heat of the hot summers).

I've always thought of my joes and other toys, and eagrly looked forward to the day I would be able to pull them out of the attic and bring them to my home. My wife would never approved of my appreciation for my childhood toys, so I always put bringing them home off. After the Transformers movie came out this past summer, I couldn't resist any more and brought all my stuff home. I have those big boxes packed with all kinds of toys here in my basement. I get them out every now and then and flip through them but put them all back in the boxes because I can't leave them out or it will start an argument I don't feel like dealing with.

I'm not really much of a collector of things in the past. I've never bought or sold anything on ebay, and probably never will. My joe collection, while some are borken, missing peices, and obvioulsy well used; is very dear to me. I'm too much of a sentimental person to ever be able to part with them. I don't feel the need to add to them, as it wouldnt seem right to add something I never had. I just like to hang on to them and share them when I can. I always resited the impulse to buy the new stuff on the shelves until I saw my first 25th character. That day I gave in and bought both characters that were on the pegs (SS and SE of course). Took them home and opened them both up, set them up for display at my computer desk. I've ended up buying every 25th since then and even 2 Transformer toys (Bumblebee and Barracade). I keep all my 25th sealed and for some characters I like (or just feel lucky for finding a 2nd copy), I buy them and display them.

[Loose Cannon]

Luckily I still have everything. All vehicles are shoved in the attic. I got about twenty shoe boxes full of figures I keep around I just rotate through when I feel like displaying something. I just don't have any room to display.

[arch2b]

for those in warm climates, i do not suggest leaving any plastic toys in the attic. over time the extreme heat will cause damage. i lost several transformers due to this. luckily i did not have any joes in my parents attic.

[Autobot_Goldbug]

for those in warm climates, i do not suggest leaving any plastic toys in the attic. over time the extreme heat will cause damage. i lost several transformers due to this. luckily i did not have any joes in my parents attic.

I believe it doesn't matter if it is in a warm climate or not. Any attic can get hot in summer. Heat rises so that is usually the hottest part of the house.
I hope you guys remembered to take out the batteries too.

[jdizz76]

My grandmother threw them out...and my cousin buried a few in the front yard...sigh...

[chickenbroth]

for those in warm climates, i do not suggest leaving any plastic toys in the attic. over time the extreme heat will cause damage. i lost several transformers due to this. luckily i did not have any joes in my parents attic.

My Joes were in my moms attic for about 8 years in Pennsylvania. Even with their mild summers, I still had damage. My Cobra Stun had the most damage. The red plastic became very brittle. Both flags, engine covers and the rear machine gun just crumbled in my hands when I pulled them out of storage. Stickers on some of my vehicles had "slid" a little and some o-rings became weak.

Live and learn I guess. "temperature controlled" from now on.

[Monkeywrench]

I sold my entire collection at a yard sale when I was around 16. Man I regret it. I had over 200 figs and many many vehicles. My figs were heavily played but in well condition. A few broken rings and missing limbs but I saved all of the file cards and 95% of the weapons. The only figure I remember losing was Shipwreck. I don't know what happened to him but I lost him a few years before that.

[kingofpain26]

My entire childhood collection, save my collection of Snake eyes figures, and a custom Jedi I made from a naboo accessories set, wat thorwn away by my ex fiancee, when we broke up and I didnt get my stuff moved "fast enough for her"

[xFlintx]

One day my Mom gave away my Joes. All 200+ figures, and all of the Tigereforce Vehicles. My Brother held onto the Mobile Base (the peach one) and Rolling thunder which one day just disappeared.

I held onto a few Joes like Tiger Force Flint, V1 Scarlett , V1 Duke (Modded with R&R v2's arms) Dusty and the Locust Heleicopter. Sadly the O rings snapped in all of them. I also have the 20th Duke w/Silver Mirage Motorcycle MIB.

This is why I love the 25th figures, it's like reliving the glory with super improved versions of my favorites.

[Derek2783]

My mom made me sell mine at a flea market to pay for a jacket I lost...

[ranoobu]

Mom threw them away.. all my favorite toys.. Transformers, Voltron, Thundercats, G.I. Joes, He-Man, TMNTs ... were gifts from parent's friends and some from dad

I remember her making up some excuse and throwing away all my toys.. purposely left the garbage bag they were in so the neighborkids got to them. Remember watching out my window as they kids noticed the toys and snatched them all up.

Probably why I'm the way I am now. I was only in 1st grade I believe..

I think my mom was trying to force me to grow up at her pace.. oh well..

[xFlintx]

Mom threw them away.. all my favorite toys.. Transformers, Voltron, Thundercats, G.I. Joes, He-Man, TMNTs ... were gifts from parent's friends and some from dad

I remember her making up some excuse and throwing away all my toys.. purposely left the garbage bag they were in so the neighborkids got to them. Remember watching out my window as they kids noticed the toys and snatched them all up.

Probably why I'm the way I am now. I was only in 1st grade I believe..

I think my mom was trying to force me to grow up at her pace.. oh well..

Dude that's harsh... Sorry to hear this one

[gijoe071681]

i honestly still have mine. i never really stopped collecting and thankfully like some of you here i have a loving wife who supports me in collecting what i love and even made a "gijoe" room a priority in selecting a new house.

[genoneguy]

These mega G.I.Joe fans who said they were a couple of the finest Joe collectors in the country and were highly respected in the Joe collecting community decided to play a funny joke on me. I'm not sure what was funny about the joke, but my collection just up and walked away. Quality human beings.

[ranoobu]

These mega G.I.Joe fans who said they were a couple of the finest Joe collectors in the country and were highly respected in the Joe collecting community decided to play a funny joke on me. I'm not sure what was funny about the joke, but my collection just up and walked away. Quality human beings.

Sounds more like a scam than a joke.. usually jokes don't leave permanent "damage" intentionally..

care to elaborate? kinda vague as to how everything happened

[Stygian]

I started collecting near the beginning of the 3 3/4 line (right around '83 or so) and loved my Joes like Sunday dinner! Just like that freakin' My Buddy doll, wherever I went they went. I even took those damned things on trips to Grandma's house!

But alas, the pressure to "grow up" and get into girls (okay, that one I didn't mind) or whatever slowly turned me away from them. It really hurt to, because I don't think I was really ready to get rid of them (boy, I sound like such a punk, come to think of it), but I did.

Thankfully in my early 20's I came to my senses and started to collect them over again. I'm now 35 and have had nearly the entire 80's collection several times over- bought/sold. Currently I'm digging on the 25th style figures. They've completely rekindled my love for this line, and have reminded me why nostalgia isn't a dirty word.

[VIPER 48]

I still have my joes from when i was younger. I keep them in a giant bucket and the weapons are in a large plastic container. I still have all of my file cards and battle points too. I kept everything but my vehicles which were sold by my mother at garage sales...

[daremo]

G.I. Joe is the only toy that survived my childhood. I either sold or gave away all my other toys but I couldn't betray my Joes. Too many good memories collected there. Grunt was my first figure back in 82 and I only stopped collecting in the late 90's.

Of course, now that the 25th is here, I'm back collecting Joes again. I still have just about every Joe toy now that I had when I was little. Some figures and vehicles have battle damage from excessive play, but I've kept them til this day.

[Razerwire]

I gave it all away to my then best friend when I moved overseas in 1991.

Now I don't even know where the hell my then best friend is. :(

I had all the Vipers too.

[satanshollow]

I have some of the figures from the early days of 82, 83 and 84. I don't know what happened to the vehicles, it still may be at my parents or they gave them away. I remember having more figures than I have now. Its possible my parents still have them. I don't know where all the files cards went either.

I was really rough on my joes, most are damaged in one form or another. The best one I have is a 84' Storm Shadow which I think was given to me years later as my mom had a double. Of course I opened it up.

Funny this thread just came up. I was in my garage tossing out some of my old model aircraft I built when I was young. I didn't really want to do it but I have to get over it sometime. They are just taking up space in a box. Most were faded, parts usually a landing wheel broken off etc. Its sad but I can't hold onto it forever.

I'm also going to get rid of my Commodore 64 stuff. I loved that too, but it doesn't even work anymore, except the monitor which I'll keep.

[MotorViper]

I was 5 years old when the first group of figures came out in '82, so I pretty much grew up with the line. Unfortunately, my collection of early stuff was limited to whatever I received as presents, but by '85/'86 I was asking for specific figures and vehicles for my birthday and the holidays.

I kept all of my figures in relatively decent shape, especially the '86 and newer figures. I have them all in a shoe box with their accessories in smaller boxes; they made the move with me up to Michigan in 2000 after I graduated college. I left all of my vehicles and playsets (original Joe HQ, Terror Drome, Defiant and the MCC) at my parents' house and they are now all boxed up and stored in the attic above their garage.

I keep meaning to unbox them to learn if they've survived (some have been boxed up since the early 90s). The next time I'm down there I plan on actually doing it. I don't have any need for the vehicles or playsets, so if any of them are in good shape, I'll let everyone know... I am glad that I have my original figures (and uncut file cards and brochures) here with me though!

[xluiscarlosx]

STill have some, not all of course with some time I might get it all back from EBAY, is so dumb to buy stuff twice in your life because at the first time u didnt take care of them or lose them but well....

[Croc Master]

Amazingly, I still have what's left of my collection. It's down in my parents basement. I plan to sort through it all the next time I visit them now that I've taken up collecting the 25th line and getting back into G.I. Joes. Most of the figures are heavily used, and many ended up getting broken or "customized" over the course of my childhood, as well as my younger brother's. I think a fair amount of them are still intact, though. I think the most common injury among the remaining figures is probably the loss of the thumbs from frequent weapon use.

I always tried to save the cardbacks and packaging for everything I ever purchased, and still do (not just toys, either). Not sure why or where that came from. Unfortunately my mom hated this and was always trying to get me to throw things away. I think at one point before we moved I actually took intact G.I. Joe cardbacks that I had saved over the years and cut the filecards off the bottom and threw the tops away as a compromise. :(

I used to have a lot of vehicles, but unfortunately I think I eventually was forced to sell them all at a garage sale. The coolest one was probably the Phantom X-19.

It sucks to think about the stuff I could have saved, but really I'm lucky that I still have a lot of the figures and toys I grew up with, as other people aren't so fortunate.

[Wylde Weezle]

I'm glad the 25th Anniv. figures are here so I can buy back newer versions of toys I sold off.
About half my collection ended up on Ebay seven years ago so that I could get the cash together to get music equipment.
There were only about three dozen figures that I was clear-headed enough to want to hold onto; mostly pre1985 ones.
Now every time I look at my guitar, I think: for that one, I sold about 25 figures including Payload and Hardtop, Ace, Cutter and Deep Six...
I've got a cymbal funded by selling off a lot made up of just broken thumb/broken crotch Joes.
I put together some Cobra army-builder sets and sold enough to get recording equipment.
I still have all the vehicles from my childhood collection sitting in my mom and dad's basement.

[lookinglasself]

Sold by my parents at yard sales in the late 80's/early 90's, or handed down to my brother(s) and trashed.

I wish I would have kept everything I had as a kid. It would have saved me alot of money.

[Viper_486]

I grew up dirt poor, and only ever had a small handfull of the original Joes. (Lifeline V1 was my first fig)
Something like a dozen or so, and a couple of the smaller vehicles, like the Radar Rat, and Swampmasher.
Towards the middle of my teens, I picked up a handfull of the 90's series but was pretty dissapointed with Day-glo Joe.

After I got to that age where playing with them wasnt 'cool' anymore, they were boxed up and put in storage in the back of my closet, with the handfull of Transformers I had, for the next few years.

I guess you could say they were gone but not forgotten, because years later, I was fighting a crippling condition, and things looked pretty bleak, well really bleak.

Things are never good when your doc tells you to put your affairs in order.

I was going crazy, there was little I could do, and I spent huge chunks of time abed, and unable to do much more than lay there, so one of the few good days I had, I went home and dug my collection out of mothballs.
Figured I was gonna lay there and rot if I didnt have something to occupy my mind.
Well that worked (a little too well, if you ask my ex wife)
Because looking at those figs, and reliving those cherished memories of me as a kid, playing Joe in the dirt embankment near my school with all my friends, or us running around out in the yard playing Transformers was exactly what I needed to get my mind up and out of the maelstrom of despair it was slipping into, and back on the track to recovery.

After that I suddenly found that I couldnt get enough of either Joe or Transformers, LOL.
SO, back on the collecting bandwagon I jumped.

Since then, well, a lot has changed.
I no longer am anywhere as sick, I got rid of the wife (seems like my health got better *right* after she wasnt around anymore...*scratches head*) and my collections (both Joe and TF) are growing like weeds.

Several hundred Joes (and 1 Flagg, and 3 Terrordromes later), my GF (who is VERY suportive of my hobbies, and also very longsuffering, LOL) and I are rennovating a large room in my house as a TF/GI Joe room (shrine).

I owe Joe a lot.

Holding those figs, and clinging onto those warm childhood memoried were all that go me thru one of the darkest times of my life.

I still got my original figs, tho thru the last few years, I have bought less played with duplicates of most, as my original Joes, while well taken care of, were played with *very* heavily.
And now that the 25th figures are here, well, its like being a kid all over again. :)

[Deefuzz]

My stuff is long gone bro, and it is a damned shame.

I had quite a bit of stuff, and loved the hell out of all of it. I had alot of figures. Hasbro hooked me on the repaints as a kid because I LOVED the repaint series figures like: Python Patrol, Tiger Force, Slaughters Marauders, and Night Force. A couple of highlights of stuff I remember loving alot were my Night Raven, HISS Tank, Arctic Fox, Warthog, and Buzz Boar.

I loved my Serpentor with his Air Chariot, and my IG Destro. I absolutely loved the Cobra stuff (I was a big fan of the bad guy stuff) and had just about every different Viper there was.

Unfortunately, being a military brat, we moved around alot and as I grew older my folks thought it was less and less convenient for them to continue to move around boxes of toys that I no longer played with but wanted to keep. Hence, they were given away (along with all of my Transformers, He-Man, etc) to Airman's Attic. At least they went to someone else who may have needed them more, but it is a damned shame that my massive amount of awesome toys are long gone.

[MSU44]

Well after reading these it has brought back so many memories.

I still have my collection and that was due to the fact of star wars figures. Let me explain.

When I was a kid my brothers collected the Star Wars stuff; they are both older and I collected the G. I Joe. Mom and Dad said we had to pick one collection each because we couldn't dabble in multiple ones. Now hot wheels were cheap so they didn't count and we had a lot of those. We had some lego as well.

Of course I had like three MASK toys a couple of He-Man figures, Optimus Prime, Bumble Bee, and Jazz from Transformers, Leader-1 from Go-Bots and the tank and Chinook helicopter from Go-Bots,Lion-O from Thundercats, and Raphael form TMNT and that was it. A couple of other misc toys and just a few Star Wars.

My brothers were huge into Star Wars and had a lot.....I would play with the as well and incorporate them into my Joe World. Well I was still young and into the toys and my brothers got older they were going to be put in my room to be played with or so we thought.

One day when my brothers were in school and I was in kindergarten my mom brought ALL of their hot wheels and Star Wars to Goodwill. My brothers were so mad and sadden by this and so was I because my Star wars stuff was given away too, that my mom and dad swore they wouldn't give my stuff away because of how hurt my brothers were. They were older but would still play with them but they no longer had that chance.

Well the last time I was given any Joe toys was at Christmas of 89 when I was in the sixth grade. Once school got out for the summer, the following day my parents said, "you're getting too big to play with toys, you need to box them up and put them away."

So the day I got out of school I was shocked to say the least.....I had to box up my stuff and put them in the spare closet in my room. Well both closets were full of my Joes, comics, a various legos and other stuff. I even had to put some stuff in the attic above my room...there was an attic access in my brothers room next to mine.

Occasionally I would sneak out a couple of Joes and play but didn't dare try and sneak out a vehicle. Well once I got out of college I retrieved all of my Joes and vehicles except for my tomahawk and a good portion of my comics and moved them to Houston, TX.

I grew up in Bay St. Louis, MS...right where the eye of Hurricane Katrina went over. The house is still there but there was 25 ft of water in the house. Three weeks before the storm my wife and I were at my parents house and I wanted to take the rest of my comic collection (probably worth at least 10k) and my tomahawk back to Houston. Well we had to bring a bunch of other stuff back and my wife said we didn't have the room but were planning on coming back to MS in a few weeks and I could get the rest.

Nothing came out of the house but it looked like a tornado with a bad case of diarrhea went through the house. My comics although sealed in rubbermaid containers must have floated till it hit the ceiling the water forced it's way in and ruined them. the Tomahawk survived except for one of the six bombs that went MIA. Joes were built extra tough back in the day. It now resides along the rest of my collection which has been growing ever since I got out of college. I have gotten almost everything since the relaunch and am buying things from 90-94 and other things I didn't get from 82-89 like the Flagg and Defiant and Terrordrome(about the only things I didn't have except a few figures here and there.)

I would buy some things(figures and small vehicles after 90 when I would ride home from school and later when I got my license drive home from school and sneak them in the house via my book bag so mom and dad wouldn't get mad.

My goal is to have a complete collection of the original 82-94 run....one day, one day.

[Sy-Rein]

My Transformers and GIJoe collections also survived because of StarWars.

Back in the '80s, my brother and I were both big into StarWars and had quite a few figures and a number of vehicles. Later as we grew older and werent as much into SW, my parents decided to give all our SW toys to our cousin. We still had our TFs and my Joes, so it wasnt too big of a deal. But my cousin absolutely destroyed everything, we went over to his house less than a year later to find every single SW toy broken, damaged or lost.

A few years later, SW was making a resurgence and we found out how much all those vintage toys were worth at that time and my parents were shocked. After that, my parents didnt dare give away any of our other collections.

[Fast_Draw]

my childhood collection was donated to a child of someone my mom worked with...said child also received all of my Lego blocks.

[WildBill]

I started collecting in '82 with straight arm Stalker. Thankfully I still have all of my toys from when I was a kid. For the most part they were treated very well although a couple of my joes did end up on the business end of my Pellet rifle(poor HISS driver).
They are all in a huge eye sore of a display cabinet that I got from a hobby store.

[evopete]

One of mu cuzins took them from the last bacth of saved toys I collected, (Wthout me knowing) and I never saw them again...the rest that were not in that batch, were most likely blown up by the M-80s we would bye from Mexico....that was fun...but as I think of It, i can still remember blowing up that VIPER....ouch....o well

[Free Fall]

i wasnt old enough to appreciate GIjoe in its glory days so i didnt come into action till 88-89. this left me with batches of figures and vehicles i didnt know about from my older brother. sadly, as the years went by i switched from joes to star wars to legos to playmobils for some reason. the only original figure that survived is my cobra la royal gaurd. the only way he survived is because he was frozen solid in a block of ice for probably 13 years in my freezer drawer in the kitchen.

like the demolition man

[General Scarlett]

Still have it. Still play with it.

http://www.joedios.com/dioramas/search.php?do=searchresults&searchid=25141

[HIVOLTAGE]

well this is a good one!!!!

when the first joes came out in 1982 my dad would buy me something every week on payday and since he was in WWII he loved that i was into army guys so it was very easy to get any g.i.joe that i wanted.

well when i was 17 or 18 i had put all my joe stuff in a huge box in the corner of my room and i was going to start packing them away since i didnt play with them anymore. i still remember the day i was off to school and my mom asked do you have any trash to go out this morning? and me with out hesitation said yes in my room a box................ when i got home OMG i almost died i asked my mom did you take the trash out of my room? i was soooooo hoping she was going to say no but.....she said yes and my heart sank she said whats wrong i said you took the wrong box and she said why do you say that cuz the trash box is still there and the joe box is gone....welllll my poor mom was so sad that she did that to me and i told her it was ok. but really i wanted revenge lol..

well around a year or 2 later i really never thought about it anymore and on my 20th birthday my mom gave me a box a huge huge box and inside was more g.i.joe stuff than i ever remember seeing in one spot.

She said right after it all happen she started gathering anything g.i.joe loose and sealed and it took her 2 years and she finally gave it to me i never knew how much my parents loved me but that showed me how much they did.......thanks mom and dad

[deanhp]

I sold everything when I turned 18. but a few years ago. in 2005 I started collecting again. and now I have more figures then I did a as a kid.lol.

[nacho]

I had about 160 figures as a kid, 82-89. I stored them in a pair of leather briefcases when I wasn't playing with them. When I grew older, they went to the basement. Recently I went to get them out, and I found every one my classic vehicles, but only one of the briefcases of figures. Well, truthfully I found the other briefcase, but it was full of computer manuals from the 90's. My mother swears she'd have never thrown any of my toys out (she's cool like that), but we have yet to locate the MIA half. I went through the yojoe.com archives and made a spreadsheet of all the figs I had, which ones I've found, and I've managed to replace nearly all of the missing ones through ebay and such. I went from having 160 figs as a kid to having over 1000 as an adult. Good thing my wife is laid back about this kind of thing!

[master stoner]

i still have all my joe comics from childhood everything else was trashed or clucked by dope fiends

[master stoner]

I sold everything when I turned 18. but a few years ago. in 2005 I started collecting again. and now I have more figures then I did a as a kid.lol.


i have the same story. i started collecting again in 2005, i have over 1500 figs. 99% of them are mint on card. when i was a kid i had around 100 joes all opened. never thought to collect em moc oh well. people put no value in toys back than ya dig

[master stoner]

Good thing my wife is laid back about this kind of thing![/QUOTE]

same here cause if she wasn't she'd have to go