I was thinking that among the many things I'd like to change about my past one of them is the toys I got growing up.

Simply put what I wanted then either wasn't affordable or is not something I care about now and I feel that if I didn't get the things I don't care about now I would of gotten the things I couldn't afford then.

This would result in for G1 toys my dad would be spending just as much money but on different toys and I'd be taking extra caution to make sure I don't loose them and my brother doesn't break them.

Because of the gap between G1 and BW when Transformers didn't exist my dad would of saved allot of money so I'd be able to get more Beast Wars toys. I'd also save money again by not wasting it on the Beast Machines toy line.

And I'd get two of everything with the money saved so I could sell the MIB versions of everything on e-bay. Most of them I'd wait till I turned 18 to sell but some of them I'd sell before their reissued versions came out so I could sell them for more money.

So if you could travel back in time how would you change your toy collection growing up?

I'm not sure if my younger self would like it because I'd ultimately have less to play with. However at the same time it'd be more awesome toys and less crap. Plus I could hide things where my brother won't be able to break them.

So along the same lines how do you think younger you would react to the changes adult you is making in the new time line assuming everything else other than your toy collection is exactly the same.

 

I guess my younger self would be cool with what I would tell him about taking care of toys. From an early age, I was a big fan of time travel stories in books and comics. And, I also took good care of my toys. Many of my toys would have been in near mint condition today if not for other kids who wrecked them. For example, my original Voltes V which my mom gave me, I took good care of it and it was in near mint condition until my dad lent it to my cousin.

 

put my tfs in storage until i grew up instead of selling them to a comic book shop for $50 (less than 20 cents a piece)

 

I'd buy G1 Overlord for my younger self.

 

I would get my younger self a G1 Fort max and warn him to lay off the cheeseburgers.  

 

I think child-me would be mildly suprised that I was re-buying more articulated versions of everything I had as a child.  

I remember as an 8 year old (who read SF) thinking about the future, and having a vague idea that my toys would be 'worth' more in the distant future, but not really understanding why. Fast forward to highschool, and those ponderings paid off during the years between the Beast War figures and the dawn of the Universe/Classics styles coming out: instead of a summer job one year, I sold off all my G1 transformers.  

 

I'd scalp all the Fort Maxs and sell them on eBay this year.

 

I bloody wouldn't have wasted my money on AEC crap!

 

I'd have made more effort so that I wasn't where I am now, now.

As for TFs, I think I'd just take better care of what I had. I collect for the fun of it, not for the profit.

 

Yes!

 

I would have insisted on going to japan and would have bought as many of the japanese dino casettes as possible, figure with the cheap price I'd aim for about 2000-3000 or so and then I would have sold them all on ebay, selling the last one about 6 months ago and become a millionaire.

 

I don't think I'd make too many changes, except:

- Pick up copies of G1 figures that are expensive or difficult to find in complete/undamaged condition now and tell my younger self to hold on to them and be careful with them. Stuff like G1 Shockwave, Fortress Maximus, the three Autobot cars that aren't likely to be reissued (Mirage, Sunstreaker, Wheeljack), etc.

- Instituted my two current collecting rules, "no repaints except Classics characters" and "no multiple molds of the same character", much earlier. From the end of Energon to roughly the middle of RotF, with the highest concentration in the TFTM07 line, I bought a lot of repaints and figures of the same character in a different size class or new body. I shouldn't have wasted my money on them and now face the difficult prospect of unloading them.

- Not purchased Japanese versions of items that got a US general retail release. Not that I ever bought much Takara stuff besides reissues, but I picked up a fair number of things at the tail end of Superlink and the start of Galaxy Force that I should have just waited for the US versions and saved my money.

 

Things to consider...


If I could travel back in time, wouldn't it have already happened, meaning that nothing I did (or will do) would actually change my current situation? This has always been a pet peeve of mine.

Also if this was (or will be) possible, and assuming I survived the transition, how would I go about paying for the toys, and how would I go about delivering them to myself in 2011 without disturbing the timeline? Modern money would be dismissed as counterfeit or stolen, so I'd need to travel back in time with older money, and I'd need to hide to bury them somewhere/have them in a bank box that my past self didn't know about.

Heck, what if I didn't travel back in time using my current body? This is equally impossible, so lets see. Would I remain in the past to relive the majority of my life again, or would I simply trust that I was careful enough not to disturb anything? Again, this is assuming time travel is even possible in these terms... an that I somehow used this purely on toys, rather than for the sake of intentionally changing certain things that actually matter for the foreseeable better.


... getting back to the topic's intent however, assuming that nothing else would be disturbed, and assuming that monetary gain wasn't involved, I'd probably just pick up a bunch of Beast Wars figures, and boxed versions of the G1/G2 stuff that didn't make it completely unscaved through my childhood.

 

If you rule out the time travel portion of this to avoid destruction of the timeline (C'mon people...we've ALL seen Beast Wars...none of that time travel stuff ends well), but if I knew what I knew now, I'd have (and I'm going to rule out the idea of hoarding TFs to sell in the future of course):

1) Made sure I kept all the accessories and guns in a dedicated container.
2) Bought all the Godaikin releases. These things are harder to collect now than almost anything in the domestic US line of Transformers. Tetsujin 28, Combattra and Voltes are absurdly expensive now

 

Tell myself not to buy all the crap I did. I just moved & was disgusted with the amount of toys I have. I think I'm pretty much done collecting & am going into super sell mode.

So I'd tell myself: No comics, no toys, no DVDs, no CDs. I really don't do shit with any of it. Other then the initial read, comics just sit in a box. Very few DVDs do I watch more then once. I would have saved $$ just renting from Blockbuster.

 

I'd tell myself to:

- keep the toys you own, don't give them away out of peer pressure. You're sixteen, and you won't automatically get a girlfriend just because you're giving away your toys, trust me. They're perfect, you took good care of them. Don't dispose of them!
- Buy all the vintage stuff you still can find.
- DON'T BUY BEAST MACHINES!
- Don't try to be a completist now. It won't pay off in the future. Get what you want instead. Don't buy stuff just because your friends think it's awesome. If you don't like it, don't buy it.
- Go for loose mint whenever you can. You'll get rid of boxes eventually.
- Don't spend money on nerd fads. Spawn sucks. Mage Knight sucks.
- Oh, and the prettiest girl in your office? DON'T MARRY HER! She seems nice now, and even like your Transformers. Don't fall for that, you'll be divorced later on.

 

I wouldn't bother with any toy BS (other than to tell myself to take care of what I already had), I'd just give myself a list of stocks to invest in.

That way, I'd have more than enough money today to buy anything I want.

 

Am I the only who is confused by this statement? Maybe I'm a little slow today.

Anyways, putting aside all the problems with temporal dynamics, I love thinking about going back in time and getting vintage G1 stuff to bring back to the present day. I sometimes think about what toys I'd get if I were allowed to bring back a total of 10, or 20 toys, or something like that. One can only wish.

I wouldn't actually change much about my collecting as a child. I was very fortunate, and my parents got me a lot. I missed out on some, but I had a lot of favorites, like G1 Prime, Jetfire, Shockwave, etc. I actually DID keep all my boxes, inserts, styrofoam, etc. But my dad threw them all out when I was away at school. Damn that sucked. But again, I couldn't be too angry, because he had funded my entire TF hobby to that point.

 

I've got a few changes I'm willing to make to my past. And since altering history is considered a no-no by time travelers, the space-time continuum can just ram it. My history, my rules, Father Time:

1. In 1999, I tell my past self to keep all my Beast Wars toys, don't sell them, and save them somewhere until 2006, when the 10th Anniversary comes around. Then he/me/us can dig up the Beast Wars toys and reminisce.
1.5. Also go to 1997 and stop myself from getting rid of my Power Rangers toys also. I want to save all the Megazords that I had.
2. Stop myself from buying the Air Defense Mini-Cons that I got at that Target on that July day in 2002. While that was the point in time that I got back into Transformers again, I'd rather have the toy that gets me into Transformers again is the TRU exclusive RID Scourge, as that toy was released the same year the Armada line debuted.
3. NO UNICRON TRILOGY TOYS. I will go to every point between 2002 and 2007 to tell my past self NOT to buy any of the Unicron Trilogy stuff. Save that money for the Alternators, Binaltech, and Masterpiece toys. Speaking of which...
4. Stop myself from selling my Alternators collection last year in 2010 (though I think it was 2009, one of those two years). Those will be VERY valuable in the future when I grow out of the hobby.
5. Stop myself from collecting G1 Commemorative TRU reissues, Robot Masters, Universe 1.0, Classics, Animated, and Movie toys. I will travel to every point in time (roughly between 2003 and now) and stop myself from getting said toys. ONLY buy the 25th Anniversary G1 Optimus Prime reissue. Just that, Alternators, Masterpiece, Binaltech, and Beast Wars.
6. Tell myself to keep the N64 and the games and accessories that I had as a kid. For the love of God, I don't even want to THINK of selling it. I want an N64 to keep me occupied, not sell it twice and regret it both times.
7. KEEP LEGOS.

 

...EVOLUTION OF A HERO...

best bee past to future ever