What Toy Would YOU Like To See Brought Back?

[Wich2]

'rather have a collection room with five really nice pieces, than a room full of new crap'.

Dear Bob-

I'll see that, and trump it:

"It's also better to have a collection room with five pieces THAT MEAN A LOT TO YOU, than even a room full of OLD crap."

The value is in their worth to you; without that, everything mentioned in the thread so far in just yellowing paper pulp, petroleum byproduct, and various cheap composition materials.
A collection based on just bragging rights: "I have 4 of every variation of this aging doo-dad!" is barren, w/o that personal connection.

For a very few years back in the '70's, I tried to be a "standard-type" comic collector: buy, bag, & keep "key issues," soley because some jamook, some where, said they were for some reason "key."

Didn't take long for me to wake up - "hey - half of these books SUCKED!" That was the end of that bit of wasting of a too-short life.

Great weekend,
-Craig W.

[raycastile]

I know the reissues look different from the originals.  That is another reason I like them.  I look at them as just another line of Don Post masks, the latest in a series of DP Uni Monster masks that launched in the 60s.  They are part of a continuing tradition.

I'm pretty certain that Don Post was not owned by Paper Magic when those Calendar reissues were done, and Paper Magic owns the Universal mask license, so it may not be quite so complicated today.  That said, the molds were mostly reworked or recreated from scratch on those reissue masks, so in a way they are reproductions too.  Some of them are more accurate than others, but NONE of them look like production masks from the 60's and 70's.  Personally, I look at them the same way I look at Sideshow stuff.  I've been buying masks of B Movie Monsters, and so instead of the Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster figure, I have a mask and hands.  Instead of a Teenage Frankenstein figure, I have a Teenage Frankenstein mask.  I like the masks better than the figures, but that's just personal preference.  I don't have the same connection to the Don Post reissues I have as I do with the original Don Post masks though.  If I didn't have a built up Big Frankie, I would probably buy one and build him.  I might do that anyway, just for the fun of building a Big Frankie, but for me it's not the same as the vintage Big Frankie. 

[Toy Ranch]

You know Craig...  having a room full, or a shelf full, or whatever of items that make you happy is important to many people.  "4 of every variation of this aging doo-dad" isn't barren...  people collect things for all kinds of different reasons.  You've made many posts which seem to struggle with the ....  for lack of coming up with a better term...  morality of collecting.  For better or for worse, we live in a consumer society.  You don't see this kind of thing so much in 3rd world nations where many are struggling just to put food on the table.  A very good friend and former business partner of mine sold his collections, his house, and most everything he owned and moved to Nicaragua a year ago.  As he said, "Here I'm kinda poor, there I'm kinda rich"  and he was disillusioned with things in this country.  Now he eats well while people all around him are starving.  Instead of collecting toys, he makes trips in to Managua to "collect" safe toiletry items and healthy food products.  When the day is done, you go home you, and I go home me.  If "having 4 of every variation of this aging doo-dad!" is "barren" to you, then don't collect them.  If it means enough to me that I want to...  and I have the "personal conviction" to make the effort to do it, then it's not "barren" to me.

[hhwolfman]

To me, it is about the Nostalgia part of it. I Just can't get excited about a Big Frankie that was just made vs A Big Frankie that actually came out in the sixties and has history to it. I do have some post 1970s items in my collection. The reason being they look cool and they didn't make a Fiend with out a face in the 50s, sixties, just to give an example. I have been collection since the late 60s and dealing in collectibles since the early 80s. I can respect all views of collecting. I am glad they are making the Big Frankie and it will start history for some. Example. I remember ordering the Big Frankie, the day I saw Iron Man. I respect that, but for me, It is remembering the first time, I saw the Glow Boxes at Kiddie City. Repros just don't bring back that nostalgic  feal. HHW

[Roback]

Well said Bobby. Lots of sacrifices had to be made in order to put my collection together of all original items. Like you said, people collect for many different reasons. You and I were just discussing this privately regarding what does and doesn't give us that " warm fuzzy feeling". To each his own my dad always said. Smart man my father.

[Wich2]

"If it means enough to me that I want to...  and I have the "personal conviction" to make the effort to do it, then it's not "barren" to me."

Dear Bobby-

Please read my post again: that is exactly what I said: the "personal connection" (of whatever flavor...) is precisely where the worth lies.

And yes, there is a "morality" issue. I have known collectors in every field, who simply locked their great heapin' piles o' stuff away, never to be enjoyed by anyone.

Sure, that's Legal; but IMHO, it is also Waste. It's "The Isle of Misfit Toys" rule: if these things don't give joy, they are of no more value than so much mud. And if that "joy" is the joy of Scrooge McDuck swimming in his vaults of useless gold...

Best,
-Craig W.

[Toy Ranch]

"If it means enough to me that I want to...  and I have the "personal conviction" to make the effort to do it, then it's not "barren" to me."

Dear Bobby-

Please read my post again: that is exactly what I said: the "personal connection" (of whatever flavor...) is precisely where the worth lies.

And yes, there is a "morality" issue. I have known collectors in every field, who simply locked their great heapin' piles o' stuff away, never to be enjoyed by anyone.

Sure, that's Legal; but IMHO, it is also Waste. It's "The Isle of Misfit Toys" rule: if these things don't give joy, they are of no more value than so much mud. And if that "joy" is the joy of Scrooge McDuck swimming in his vaults of useless gold...

Best,
-Craig W.

Anyone who collects something has a personal conviction to collect it.  Perhaps we are thinking of the term in different ways, perhaps not.

People might have any number of reasons for not sharing their collections publicly.  Someone's likely to call it "bragging" if they do, and someone else will call it "waste" if they don't.  Maybe they fear being robbed.  Maybe they don't want people bugging them about selling their stuff.  Maybe they are just shy... There's nothing immoral about collecting toys.  There's nothing wrong with keeping a collection private either.  We're not talking about masterpiece artwork or historical documents of great significance...  they're just toys.

[Wich2]

"We're not talking about masterpiece artwork or historical documents of great significance...  they're just toys."

(Funny, but we've all seen many folks treat the latter like they were the former...)

Bobby, again, you EXACTLY restate my point; we just come at it from different angles. (This is the kind of interesting-but-difficult conversation that is not well-served by cyberspace; over beers or coffee, it would work much better...)

"They're Just Toys." Or as my old Midwestern Mom would say, "they're just Things." And People trump Things, seven times a week and twice on Sundays.

Hell, I've been a "collector" since almost before I could talk! I still have battered Little Golden Books, and most of my Marx Flintstone Village, from that time. And our cramped NYC apartment today contains books, records, cds, dvds, comics, toys...

BUT -

and this ties in with a great thread that has been running over at CHFB about the excesses of Fandom: http://monsterkidclassichorrorforum.yuku.com/topic/16203

- like everything else in life, this Good thing can sour into something Bad:

INTEREST can sicken into AVARICE

COLLECTING can bloat into HOARDING

THE JOY OF THE CHASE can rot into THE OBSESSION THAT LEADS TO SLEEPLESS NIGHTS & MOUNTING DEBT

THE FUN SHARED WITH FELLOW COLLECTORS may blacken into THE DESIRE TO CHEAT MY "ENEMIES" OUT OF PIECES

Please don't deny this, because we've all seen it - or been the brunt of it. And to use a phrase I've heard recently, this kind of stuff may be Lawful - but it's also Awful.

If the fun is taken out of these tchatkes, there's nothing left.
Because as a wise man once said,

"They're Just Toys."

Best,
-Craig W.

[raycastile]

THE JOY OF THE CHASE can rot into THE OBSESSION THAT LEADS TO SLEEPLESS NIGHTS & MOUNTING DEBT

You've been spying on me!

[Wich2]

Ray, I have been reading your mind by laser beam for quite some time - good stuuf, too!

-Craig W.

[Toy Ranch]

- like everything else in life, this Good thing can sour into something Bad:

Yes, everything in life can sour into something bad.  Not sure I follow what that has to do with this thread or any of the posts in it...   

[Wich2]

Bobby, I read the posts in this interesting thread as touching on, "what is collecting to you?", and responded as others did.

Best,
-Craig W.

[Illoman]

Man, what a great thread! I have been dealing with this issue myself of late. My collecting is limited by how much "fun money" I have at any given time. Perfect example: I am a Frank Frazetta fanatic. I have enjoyed his art since I was ten years old, and that means almost forty years I have enjoyed the man's work. Dark Horse comics has been releasing a series of comics at $4 a pop, featuring his Conan covers, with reprints of their comics on the inside. I have all his Conan paintings several times over in various formats. I bought issue one of the new series, got it home, and thought, "Why?" The interior comic meant little or nothing to me, and I already have the cover artwork. So I decided to not buy further issues, but rather save that money and buy a new book on Frazetta that will be released later this summer.

The same thing applies to autographs I collect. I only collect them from people whose art/music have some personal meaning to me. I went to a comic book convention and Marv Wolfman the writer was there. I thought about getting his signature because he wrote one of my favorite comic book series Tomb of Dracula in the 70's. The artwork has always meant more to me than the story, so I passed on getting his autograph.

Mike

[LonMadnight]

Well, to return to the topic of what we'd like to see return, The teen in me who was just discovering his love for monsters in the early seventies would love to see some AHI repros done.

The older fan I am today would love the return of the Jakks Pacific figures, and to see the line continue on to the Mummy, Creature and Invisible Man figures that were announced.

[Toy Ranch]

Craig~


I don't think that collecting turns people into crooks, and the person who is a cheat as a collector is just a cheat.  Someone who gets into crippling debt as a collector would get into crippling debt over something else.  My son has a good friend whose father was always taking the family on exotic vacations.  They went to Europe and Asia and South America....  they went to Australia and the Galapagos Islands.   One day he told me their travel had come to an end, because he had $40,000 in debt to credit cards from their travel.  Now he collects DVD's and has as many as I've ever seen a person with...  still working like crazy to manage the debt he has...   

A neighbor of mine in Seattle is a woodworker.  He showed me his router bit collection one day.  I've never seen so many router bits, he had over 1000 of them. After he came back from Vietnam, he developed a cocaine habit.  Apparently it got pretty bad.  He decided that in order to kick the drug, he would buy a router bit every time he wanted to buy cocaine.  1000 router bits later, he was cocaine-free and had more tools for his woodworking business.

I have an obsessive compulsive disorder.  It has taken me down some dark paths in my younger years, and I channeled it into something relatively healthy in my collecting.  But I can say that I've never cheated someone out of something.  I'm debt-free.  Actually my wife wants me to get a new truck, because mine has 110,000 miles on it, but it runs well and it's paid off so I'm going to keep it a while longer because I don't want to take on debt, and the money that I'm not spending on a car payment I can spend on my collection.  My son is in a private school.  My wife quit her job to go back to school and change professions...  and after taking care of all of their needs and most of their wants, I collect monster stuff.  I'm passionate about it.  I'm sometimes aggressive in getting what I want...  but I don't worry about what I miss out on because there is always something else down the road. 

And by far and away, I've seen more good than bad in collectors.  Much of that, right here at the UMA.  It is because I like and respect you Craig, that I often find your words about the collecting hobby hurtful.  As children, and as adults, we are drawn to things that we "need" for our development as people and general well-being.  From your comments, in this thread and in others, I think you see others and their motivations far too often through your own eyes and experience instead of understanding that what might be wrong for you could be very right for them.  Yes, collecting, like anything in life, can turn into something bad.  But that bad could be something much worse...  and collecting doesn't make people into something other than who they are to begin with...