It always makes me curious seeing people in their twenties or even younger speaking of their collections etc.

I'm currently 46 and grew up during G1 Season One and onwards. I watched the cartoon, bought the VHS tapes, had the duvet cover, completed the sticker album and collected A LOT of the figures.
This is why I crave nostalgia now and why I decided to start collecting G1 Masterpiece figures. Just seeing them and holding them makes me happy and feel excited like when a kid.

So my question for the younger collectors is how old are you, how did you get into (specifically) G1 Transformers from the 80s and what made you decide to start collecting the figures?

I wonder how much is Parent influence and up-bringing.

 

I'm also curious how other people who grew up after G1 developed affinity for that era and those characters. I was a kid when Beast Wars was on TV, so is where my nostalgia lies. I had some exposure to a bit of G1 stuff found at garage sales, but I have no real attachment to any of those characters. I still buy figures of G1 characters in the WfC line, but its pretty much only based on the appeal of their design in a vacuum.

It helps that most of those character designs are really strong and stand the test of time, e.g. Prime, Starscream, Sideswipe, etc. Some of them really leave my head scratching though, like Galvatron. Seriously, did no one in 80s mind that he turned into a vaguely sci-fi styled ... shape? The robot mode is pretty tempting though, I must admit.

 

Well, not so young anymore but I didn't grow up during the G1 days. But as a kid I'd get old G1 bots at flea markets and the like. That's where it all started for me.

 

I was around 10 when ROTF came out. For most of my childhood I was a Star Wars kid, but my grandpa brought home the ‘07 movie for my brother and I to watch, and I loved it. When I got hooked on the movie, I went and asked for the PSP game for my upcoming birthday, and I got it. The missions had hidden collectibles that unlocked old G1 episodes to watch. That was my first introduction to the old show, and for Christmas that year I got a box set of season 1 on DVD.

Truth be told I never much cared for the original cartoon. I did however, grow fond of the toys, particularly the masterpiece. So if I were to say, it was the toys (Universe and Masterpiece) that helped me grow an appreciation for the original G1 media.

 

Also not young anymore, but an old VHS tape of Desertion of the Dinobots was what got me interested in Transformers before Beast Wars got me hooked.
I’ve always admired the G1 toys for their distinct appearance and would pick them up whenever I’d find them at a nearby retro-tat shop. Over the years I’ve ended up with a decent number of G1 toys and really grew to love the more interesting stuff that came about once the brand was no longer weighed down by Earth’s gravity and they could start having fun with alt modes.

 

I'm 17, my dad showed me g1 as a very small child and was my first proper "introduction" to the franchise. I had seen bits and pieces of the unicron trilogy leading up to that point, but it didn't really leave an impression on me like g1 did. I started collecting the figures because In many cases, the g1 incarnation is still the definitive version of the characters imo.

 

I'm 26 and I was introduced to TF with Armada, but my main exposure were constant watching and rewatching of the '86 movie and The Rebirth. In addition to UT stuff, my mom would get me some of the TRU G1 reissues every now and then, too. I wasn't entirely impressed with the toys themselves, it wasn't until Classics happened that I realized what was missing for me. My kid self just felt a stronger draw to the old G1 designs and stories, and that draw carries over to today.

 

I'm not that young, but I didn't grow up with G1. Grew up with the Unicron Trilogy and the live action movies.

I got into CHUG because the movies made me more aware of the "classic" versions of some characters (i.e., I had no idea who G1 Ratchet and Ironhide were, I only knew the Energon Ironhide), and because around the time of Universe 2.0 / Generations, I thought that a lot of the figures that were coming out were really cool updates and modernizations of the G1 designs. Guys like Hound, Cyclonus, Sergeant Kup... really liked those figures. Plus at $10-12 they were easy impulse buys. I decided I wanted to have a cast of the Season 1/2 / 86 Movie to stack up against my movie and UT casts.

I'm less enthused with the "straight G1" of more recent CHUG but I'll buy a few here and there depending on the aesthetic, and if it fits / scales well with my display (helps if it outclasses a prior version).

 

26. My first introduction to Transformers was watching Beast Wars and Beast Machines, but I was so young I didn't know they were a TF series. Beast Machines Mirage was my first ever Transformer, still have him

I got into Transformers heavily with the Unicron Trilogy shows, Armada toys, the PS2 game etc. But I never collected the toys after Armada besides Energon Optimus Prime.

Watched the 07 movie, Animated etc. But the toys were either too obtuse (07') or too simple and hollow. Watched TFP (which remains my favorite aesthetic after cell shaded animation) and G1 reruns on The Hub and picked up Wheeljack. Both series' scoring is incredibly nostalgic for me.

Fast forward to 2017 when I curiously wondered if they made solid, well-engineered, fun versions of Transformers.
3P, MP, and MPM.

I try to limit the lines I collect to a few (3-10) characters from G1, each Bayverse/Travisverse films, IDW, and stylized pieces.

It just has to look good in both modes.
I have a vague goal, but I'm not a completionist.

 

I'm 23, I didn't grow up with G1 but I just love the aesthetic of it. It's vintage Japanese robot aesthetics like Mazinger Z or Raideen, which I got into thanks to my adjacent love of kaiju films. I love the entire history of the G1 brand back in the 1980s and I love the near endless stream of characters to it. It's the most expansive collection of characters in Transformers history so collecting it means I'll almost always have a representation of somebody in some way.

 

Hahaha, I bet he's a proud Dad.

 

Hes a pretty big fan of the franchise himself, so hes always been supportive of the hobby. We went to see all the movies in the theater, we played the cybertron games on Xbox, watched animated and prime as they were coming out, etc.

 

It's also nice to see a positive thread.

 

I’m 21. Born July 11 2000

I became aware of transformers in 2007 after seeing a trailer for the first movie and have been an addict ever since. I watched the g1 movie completely legally online the following year. I had a couple classics figures like warpath, red alert, dirge, and tracks but was more so into the movies up until age of extinction. The toys were feeling cheaper, the movies were getting worse, and I didn’t really enjoy it. So, I took a break and stopped collecting for about 1-2 years.

After that I started slowly getting into the new g1 style toys. I completely skipped Combiner Wars but bought titans return Galvatron (which was a pretty bad idea for re entering a franchise.) I collected here and there in potp and really dug deep when siege started. I’ve built most of my collection up in the last 3 years.

I’m glad I got back in when I did, otherwise I wouldn’t have gotten into the takara releases for the combiners or titans return.

I should really make a collection post.

 

I was born in '89, but my brother was born in '84. He had some of the toys and watched G1 reruns, while I watched it via tapes. I only have real attachment to the first season because of this, and we constantly had the VHS tapes associated with the Dinobots in particular always rented from Blockbuster. BW blew my mind as a kid when it got to the second season and went deeper into the mythos, and I've never forgotten how great it was. Didn't watch BM till years later, enjoyed Armada, and tuned out again until the Bayverse. Even then, it wasn't until the High Moon games that I started collecting the toys.

 

Armada was my first TF show as a kid (I'm 30 now). Had a friend introduce me to TF:TM since his dad had introduced it to him. Don't know why but I just always preferred the G1 designs.

 

I was born during Beast Wars, so I got into Transformers with Armada, and kept going through Energon and Cybertron. But this also meant that I was around 10 when the first live action movie came out, and I loved it too. I had just about deluxe, voyager, and leader from 2007-2011, from the movie lines to those in between.


As for G1 though, my step-dad at the time in 2006 saw how much I loved Cybertron, so he let me watch his old VHS copy of the 1986 movie, and despite me never have seen any of G1 prior, it resonated with me. The death of Optimus brought me to tears. I still remember that moment 15 years later. He also bought many Classics figures when they came out too. I had Hot Rod and Optimus.



I think the catalyst for my love for G1 started in 2009, though, because while I only around 11-12 at the time, I was on the internet, which lead me to discover things like Tfwiki, Transformers.com(which at the time had uploads of Beast Wars and Beast Machines), and…. This very site.


Thats right. I discovered TFW when I was 11, and would come back here every day looking to see what news was up. It was from this very site, that I learned about things like waves, assortments, upcoming product reveals, prototypes, leaks, and of course collectors. So really, I’d say this site has had more influence on my life then anything(which is a bit scary to type…)



I like to think of myself as never having grown up with that one “true” generation as a lot of the old farts here to picture it as. From just 2002-2009, I had Armada, Universe, Energon, Alternators, Cybertron, Classics, Movie, Universe 2.0, Animated, and ROTF. I grew up with half the fucking franchise.

 

I was born in 1991 so I grew up watching beast wars and RID2001.
I love G1 because it was where all started, I remember that they used to show the 1986 movie in the TV from time to time and I was astonished to see the ancestors of my beloved beast wars characters. I watched the 1984 show until I was an adult, but even with the 80s cartoon cheesiness, it's epic to me.

 

I’m 18. My first show was Transformers Cybertron which my father introduced me in 2005 and soon got my first TF toy form that line: Leader class Optimus Prime. I’m not sure when I saw the original cartoon exactly, but I have DVD’s of the first 2 seasons and the 1986 movie that I got for Christmas one year. The DVD’s were for the 25th anniversary of the brand. Also during my childhood, I watched Transformers Animated and Prime. I didn’t know that a third season existed until about 4 years ago which I soon watched off Netflix and soon binged all of Beast Wars with my brother which might be my favorite Transformers show. The reason for this was that I kinda grew out of Transformers after AOE because of how bad the toys were. Great idea to have the line mostly being one step changers. I never saw any of Combiner wars on shelf but did see the latter half of Titans Return at my local Walmart when I was getting back into the franchise because I was excited for The Last Knight (in retrospect, I can’t believe I was excited for that horrible movie) I also (unfortunately) have DVD’s of Transformers Energon which I watched a lot as a kid and may have seen the actual show on tv. I maybe a Unicron Trilogy kid, but I have a lot of nostalgia for it and the other shows mentioned. I have since collected a lot of the War For Cybertron toys (especially Kingdom) and have read the most popular comics among fans like Last stand of the Wreckers and More than meets the eye.