During G1 my parents bought me TFs all the time. They even bought me G2 stuff back in the day too. Once Beast Wars rolled around I was buying toys myself.
I'm impossible to buy for. Which means that when i name something i do want, there is a sigh of relief from those who are buying it. In other words, yes.
I usually buy my own TFs, but sometimes around the holiday season when I'm really strapped for cash, I'll ask my folks. I'm not ashamed. They know I'm a collector, so they understand.
Very rarely, but every once in awhile they'll help me out with a more expensive one if I can't afford it. But I'd say about 95% of the Transformers I own were bought by me.
Yes!! I am turning 40 this year and I still get Transformers ( and other toys)from my Parents ( if they dont keep them for themselves the whole fam. is in to collecting). My dad just sent me a Big Daddy and My Mom bought me a DinoKing for Christmas this year I remember getting the Whole set of Predacons, Ultra Mags, and Cyclonus for my High School Graduation Present. It was the best thing I got even over the Watches, Video games and Money ( Which I think I spent on getting Dinobots and other Combiners) I still remember the looks on the rest of the Family faces.. They were like "Did He really want toys at his Age???"
When I turned 18, My job is to buy things for my parents. The reason they pop us out and raise us is so we can support them and they can live a full life, not for them work themselves to death to build up an inheritance that they hand off to ungrateful mooching children when they die. Every dime they make should be spent on them and their quality of life. So no, My parents don't buy me TFs.
My parents (and moreso my aunt) used to buy me my Transformers (my mom told me back over this Christmas that I was always that particular aunt's favorite nephew anyway... that explains a lot of the toy buying!)... they'd rarely let me spend the checks I got for Christmas when I was little, and put them in my savings account, which was better in the long run, though I DO remember buying myself an Ultra Magnus (which ended up getting stolen ) with my own money. Between G1 and G2, they obviously stopped buying em for me... since G2, I've bought my own - though I was still like 13 or 14 when G2 came out (I don't remember the year, could have been older or younger), but I was going from allowance and lawnmowing money, so I never got many. Parents haven't bought me one since, but I also haven't asked. Oh! That's not true, after they noticed I had started picking up Alternators, they bought me an Energon Barricade for Easter... which is actually what broadened my horizons to mainline toys. This last Christmas, I asked for a Concept Camaro Bumblebee... but no one could find one, otherwise I would have gotten it. But as a consolation prize, they got me one of those movie Bumblebee keychains. Since then, though, my parents haven't been able to keep track of what I have and what I don't, so any additions to the collection come from me, or every so often my girlfriend. First one she bought me was my Classics Jetfire when I couldn't find it anywhere. I probably could have gotten one or two for my birthday this past year, but I was moving out, and there were more important things I needed. Maybe I'll make a list this Christmas...
I think my parents would rather gnaw their own arms off than buy me anything even VAGUELY related to TFs. Because they never have, even when asked, and even when they supposedly 'tried' to buy me one in Japan but kept getting told they were 'Gobots' (which I now realize they were being told they were called 'Car Robots'...which would have been fine!) --Moony
Ages ago, the Transformers I got were birthday and christmas gifts. That's how I got my Beast Wars and Beast Machines guys. Mind you, nowadays I buy all my own.
just quoting this to remind something most of our generation tend to forget, even myself. as a kid my fam was upper middle glass and was lucky to get sweet toys. id make my other 2 brothers asked for TFs for their birthdays and conveniently...appropriate them, me being the oldest, mwahaha. that said, we'd only get toys on special occassions, like birthdays and trips. you dont go to your mom and just go CAN WE GO THE SHOP TO GET THIS TOY NAAAAOOOOO there were quite a few toys then i wanted but could find, like the original seekers, the fairlady mold and actually completing a combiner, but i did get some essential ones like prime and soundwave. had abt 3 dozen TF between my bros and me, good time, good times.
I remember the Christmas when TFs first came out. I received Optimus Prime, Megatron, Starscream, Soundwave/Ravage & Buzzsaw. My dad told me the main reason they bought those for me was because he thought they were the coolest toys he had ever seen. Later on I got Metroplex, Astrotrain, Blitzwing, Ultra Magnus, Rodimus Prime, Blaster, and others which I still have. My parents still buy me TF on occasion. But I don't make it a habit of calling them and ask for money just to buy TF. If they offer then yes. By the way, just so you all know, I got all those TFs that Christmas because I am the only child and I am spoiled rotten.
Well, for whatever reason my parents didn't know I was going to be a Transformers fan, so in 1984 (Before I was born) they didn't have the insight to buy me Transformers so that I could enjoy them now. Haha that was a joke of course, but it WOULD'VE been cool if they DID somehow know that they'd need those toys in the future. Anyway during the Beast Wars era when I was little they bought them for me, obviously, since I didn't have any way to make my own money. Of course they couldn't get me EVERYTHING I wanted but I made sure to let them know which ones I did want (and thanks to the wonder known as eBay + me having a job now I've gotten some of the ones I never had). I buy my own Transformers now, but that hasn't been much of a big deal since I wasn't really interested in A/E/C-related stuff.
My mother buys me figures now and then. It's thanks to her I have my '07 Movie prototypes. Just the other day she won a complete Getaway & Slapdash of eBay for like $70 shipped. It helps that mom collects too (she <3 Bumblebee), so she knows what figures are worth. My grandmother (God rest her soul) bought my Black Zarak, Metrotitan, and Scorponok figures for me last year. If it weren't for my family being interested in my hobby I doubt I'd have as many cool figures as I do. ~Z
