Cheers!

I’m halfway there - I’ve got Miles, Peter and Noir in MU form already. Spider Gwen is the tricky one, might have to be a custom.

 

Oi! Leave 'snooker loopy' alone!

Pot the reds and,
Screw back.
For the yellow, green, brown, blue, pink and black

Cheese of the highest order, thank you very much  

 

It's payday. I've just ordered MOTU Origins He-Man, Skeletor, & a cheap Teela. I have nowhere to put these things. They were required though. I will resist the others for now.

(Is that a Battle Cat in my pocket? No, I'm just pleased to see you all...)

Now to go and eye up robots. Much like destiny, Ultra Magnus is calling me...

 

Double #deskbot due to bank holiday Monday! Earth rise Wheeljack and Siege Ratchet. Siege Ratchet was gotten very cheap due to having no accessories so he's got a few from other bots that look vaguely medical. Wheeljack has RID2001 Bludgeon's gun cos it looks vaguely blowtorchy.

 

1) Yes I have/had all those Minicons, both when they released in a multipack AND when they were blindpacked with sweets. I still have all the multipack ones but might have sold/gave away the blind pack ones... Whatcha want to know?

2) Give Transformerland a go, they've been pretty good when I need to identify parts.

Identify Transformers Toys and Parts from G1 through today

Only once did they fail me, and through process of elimination I realised the missiles were for the Stealth Force Starscream, a line they didn't cover.

Edit
Ha, @Vertex beat me to it.

 

Having never really been 'about the display' of a collection - I have always just enjoyed buying and curating my collection and knowing that I own it was enough for me - my gf managed to source two display cabinets for me. (She is, as they say, a keeper!)



Ex store displays, so very solid, integrated lights, dark back board, lockable, storage underneath, and even a strip of led 'running lights' along the bottom. Very happy. But now I need to actually make the effort to display some toys. Have planned out my shelves broadly by theme and will work through them one at a time.

First up, my 'pick n mix Dinobots'.....



When the original Dino-wars was happening and pretty much every 3P was releasing a set (there were 9 sets, all being shown off and released at the same time) I couldnt find a single set that I liked all the team from. So, I decided to just buy the best of each character to me, and this is what I ended up with.

Of course, now I have Gigapower Dinos on preorder, but these are still special to me. In fact, their Slag is likely to be released next month, and so will FT Quietus. Thank God I prepaid the Giga Grassor fully up front, as both landing at the same time would be a huge dent in the finances.

I have enjoyed messing with both these guys and the Generation Toy Gravity Builder Constructicons. Got to say, Gravity Builder may be the highlight of my collecting. Just the few months of opening those up and every time being blown away by the presence and figures in hand, was an incredible time for me in collecting. I dont think I have been as impressed with any set before or since. I wish I could find a release set that would impress me as much as they did, now.

 

You hit the jackpot with those shelves mate, I’d love to be able to display my collection in something like that. Show us all how it goes!

 

Is it bad that I'm focusing on the amp? Before I got back into collecting toys, I was spending all my disposable income on old valve amps and pedals. I always fancied getting an old '70's Orange valve head.

I love The Fog and agree with you on Blake on his crew being sympathetic. I remember watching that at my Gran's sometime in the early 80's. I think my folks had left me there so they could have a night out in Glasgow. I remember hearing them come back while I was in bed and imagining them being the ghosts from the film. And, of course, it's got a great fucking soundtrack.

It's an interesting topic. Nostalgia definitely plays a massive part in this hobby for me, but it's definitely not because my childhood was idyllic. Far from it, in fact. Sometimes, getting some artifact from that childhood, be it a toy, a comic, or just a photo, get's me back there and helps me understand some of the weirder bits a bit better. All that said, there is often a feeling of going back to less stressy and hectic times. Carefree probably isn't the word, but I can flip through an old copy of 2000AD and remember what it was like not to have to worry about money and managing fraught working relationships. And I definitely think the best times are ahead of me. Even with all the current pressures and limitations, I'm in a far better place than i was in even 2016.

"Kup's back!"
From TF:UK#133 'Kup's story'

 

Have just gone through the process for continuing to sell on eBay.

Well, I don’t think the blood sample is going to get there on time, and they haven’t got anyone available to do my inside leg measurement until next week......

(It’s done, but bloody hell.)

 

Cybertronia Vivaria! Looks amazing! Are you still in Singapore? I saw some cabinets like that in the hobby shops I visited.

If we're talking about displays, mine is no where near as sumptuous as the above, but here is the newly founded annual rolling top ten display. Kup is clinging to the number ten spot, but I'm so confident he'll be usurped soon that I've left him in vehicle mode. He doesn't mind. Chasing accolades is a young bots game.

 

My take, apologies cos we're going on a ramble and I'm not fully awake...

I don't think it's a case of living in the past as remembering the good things from it. We're extremely lucky to have that. I showed up in '82 and basically don't remember a fucking thing except the toys and the feeling of watching their cartoons. As I got older I get into music, movies and video games only to realise most of the best stuff really was in the past. Technology taking inherent talent in new directions, the best of my dad's era merged with mine. The year of our TFs, 1984, was a fucking stonking year for pop culture, we just likely didn’t know it (at the age of 2 I certainly didn't!).

For me anyway, I was left with comic books for new entertainment by the early 2000s. Despite the internet music was ok but nowhere near as good as what I already owned or would catch up with. Video games were just soulless noise. Movies generally were forgettable and heralded a new golden age for TV. So I don't think it's a coincidence that a bunch of toy companies began putting out updated versions of past properties and found a massive market. McFarlane, NECA, Super 7 and so on, to this day making a fortune from decades gone by mixed with contemporary versions of the past. The old toy companies took a fucking long time to realise what they were sitting on tbh.

Hollywood would slowly do the same with the 'capes' (almost to the exclusion of everything else!) while habit is basically the only thing keeping comics and music going these days IMO. It's certainly not quality. Those have gone the other way, generally technology merging with laziness. There's few true modern stars in either.

Video games, after quite a dip since GTA3 heralded a comeback that lasted years but got out of hand, are now updating the past and finding a massive market.

In summary, people are always gonna want the greatest hits updated just so long as it isn't lazy  . I don't know how strictly true that is for anyone born after us though, since they'll have a mixture of our updates and whatever's around!

 

I got me a Huffer yesterday, and almost immediately regretted it, thinking I wasn't going to engage with him for being so very average. Robot mode was good, but it suddenly came alive when I did the thing with his accessories in vehicle mode, and he went from a trailer cab to a pick-up truck. I really like this, and I'm not 100% sure why. It might be the Grapple effect, where some deep buried memory of playing with a Tonka truck like this is being vaguely tickled, but it works. Also he's orange, and that's always good.




I probably should have splurged and gone for Beast Megs instead, but eh, this little guy has earned his keep.

Somehow I've never watched this film, and only know it through clips and memes and the like. Like everything when you actually look for it, it's not on Netflix.

 

Bison (Raul there) is the only good thing in it is the honest truth! It's not even so bad It's good IMO, and I can normally work with that lol.

Netflix hasn't got shit these days (and relatively struggled even a few years ago), most things are on Prime now. There's more OG movies on Sky Now than Netflix  

 

How's everyone doing with the kingdom golden disk cards? I think I'm done with Wave 2 figures, but still missing the Dinobot card. Anyone looking to sell their cards?

 

Netflix's selection is incredible. It has literally every movie or TV programme ever made... until you search for it, and it isn't there. I'm convinced the act of searching actively deletes things from their archive. Soon there will be nothing left.

 

Had the same thing happen with 'Mystery Men', double disappointment when I realised I also hadn't picked up the DVD like I thought I had - BAH!

There's so much stuff they have the lock on elsewhere that I keep wondering about finally investing in a VPN to delve into US or Canada Netflix but Then I think maybe hunting down things I actually really want on physical media is the way to go as streaming provisions can turn out to be rather temporary.
Currently I think my parents are watching more stuff on there than me, plenty of rotating Jackie Chan filmography bits for Mum, and global gritty Crime stuff for Dad, and tons of Anime (besides the pretender stuff like WFC) if one is willing to risk going full Weeb!  

 

Finally got my EarthRise Starscream from the old studio I used to work at. I got him just before Covid locked everything down and he's been on that work desk ever since. Forgot what just a toy toy he was.

Also ditto for Netflixes serch funtion it clearly knows what I'm looking for but even clicking on movies related to actors/directors in it it'll give me some random shit by the third row. Like I was trying to see on a whim if they had Shin Godzilla and by the second row it's giving me "Talking Tom and Friends" some cheapo cgi kids show about a talking cat.

 

I might have a duplicate Dinobot card. I’ll take a look after work for you.

While were on the subject of the Kingdom cards, has anyone else gotten the Ark but the destiny or whatever is meant to be behind the foil has the Ark crashing on Earth but has Decepticon insignias? I haven’t seen it anywhere.

 

I've got a spare Decepticon Ark card, I'll swap it for a dead Optimus card if you've got one?