The one that really opened the floodgates of my collecting was Optimal Optimus, purchased with my first internship paycheck early in the summer of '99. After spending the seemingly massive sum of $30 on a figure it became easy to justify the $10 deluxes.

Oh, what a simpler time it was!  

 

Well most recently it was DOTM Shockwave only a few weeks ago, after I had pretty much drifted away for over a year. He was really awesome, and then with all the coupons, I was totally hooked again  

 

RID X-brawn and Prowl at the same time. First transformer I'd aquired since 1991. Despite watching a few episodes of BW (didn't really make an impression on me) Getting back into the fiction with BM (I LOVED it) It was seeing those 2 on the shelves really made me feel that transformers were back! Kept me here ever since...

 

i think it was universe 2.0 prime and megatron after the break from beast wars.

 

Black Convoy/Scourge

I hadn't even seen the show but my bud picked one up and I flipped. Grabbed Fire Convoy a few days after, then Magnus a few days after that.

 

I started collecting again in late '06 and my first purchases were:

MP-03 Starscream (Dec '06)
MP-04 Convoy (Dec '06)

And then my 3rd Transformers purchased was:

MP-05 Megatron (April '07)

Go big or go home!

 

Animated Blitzwing.

 

Optimal Optimus (Beast Wars for us older fans)

 

TRU exclusive Soundwave.
25th Prime was shortly thereafter. Made me want to buy all of the Season 1 and 2 G1's!

 

Generations WFC Prime and BB. I was actually on the verge of selling my transformers collection when these two guys hit the shelves. Definitely changed my mind.

 

Alternity convoy (silver)

 

Animated Grimlock.

 

WFC Optimus

 

Alternators Silverstreak.

I'd been a major Transformers fan during my 80's childhood, but had drifted away for many years, still carrying my nostalgic memories of G1 in my 27 years old brain. So when I bumped into Silverstreak in a hobby shop, it was a nostalgic surge of "Oh wow, Transformers look like detailed replica cars now? I'll pick him up for novelty desktop display purposes."

He was only ever intended to be a one-off TF purchase.

I got him home, transformed him, was jaw dropped at how far Transformers had come since my G1 childhood, and was back at the store half an hour later obsessively hunting for more Alternators.

So much for a one off purchase..

 

I've never left.

I went G1-G2-Beastwars-Beast machines-Robots in disguise-battle for the spark-armada-commerative series-alternators-energon-cybertron-classics-movie-universe-generations/rts

 

To the people who say they never left ; that might have been easier to say for them than others.

In EU, at some point....the only thing you'd find in retail were Action Masters..yeah... that's right, NON-transforming shitty TF merchandise ...then, after that... a hiatus... not even a single TF item... and at that time... there was NO internet TF store yet.

So, not all people only left because of their own choosing.

 

commemorative series rodimus prime

 

MP-01. When I saw that thing, it was game over.

Once I grabbed a couple of Autobot Alternators shortly afterward, specifically Hound & Silverstreak, and saw the announcement of Classics, there was officially no turning back.

 

After over 10 years away, Classics Prime brought me back.

 

we got lucky in the uk. we got the turbomasters and predators, then we got G2 then beastwars soon afterwards(unfortunately we didn't get machine wars) the thing was beast wars/beast machines stayed in circulation all the way into the armada era for us