I'm 24 and I used to sell all the TF & BW eps during H.S. That was from 1996-about early 2000. Here's my quick rundown. Earliest memory of growing up w/ TF's was watching the late G1 episodes around '88 w/ the Optimus puppet so I was familiar with both pre/post movie charactors even though I didn't know the exact timeline. Poor as a kid, but I do know for a fact I owned a Thrust fig and for some reason I think Megs. Fast forward to early 90's>>>>

Woke up early during Middle School years to watch G2 before school. Got a webtv my first year of H.S.('96), discovered eBay, bought all 98 episodes & movie on VHS, bought Dinobot, got hooked on BW, Sold my brand new N64 for $250 to some rich kid in school so that I could go to Plastic Dreams(collector toy store for those who know) to buy a MISB Soundwave for $200. TF collector bug bit.

Decided to re-live a childhood that I never had so I hoooked up all 3 VCR's in my house & started selling the eps. & movie on eBay = goldmine for a 15 year old. (piracy is bad, but I didn't know better). Bought every G1 charactor I liked, every combiner except Monstructor, dicovered Jap TF's, bought & sold copies of those eps. too, collected all main charactors from those series', stopped in Feb. of 2000 b/c EVERYBODY was selling VHS copies on eBay & it wasn't worth the effort anymore, plus I turned 18 so I figured using the whole "I'm underage & Innocent" plea wouldn't help much. Liquidated my WHOLE collection on eBay:-( Stupid girls,lol

stopped for awhile b/c BM didn't interest me much (that's changed since the boxed set came out), couldn't find time to keep up with RiD or Armada, Energon kinda re-kindled the flame, Masterpiece Prime brought all the magic back, could not find the time for Cybertron, trying to find those eps, Very excited about the Movie & my newly acquired MPC & Classic Starscream, REALLY REALY pumped up for MPC Megatron, and I'm here now  Thanks for ur time....

 

I'm sure it would. I would count me too. I'm 25, but started back in them about the tail end of the transmetals part of BW so I'd say I was about 16 or 17 when I got back into them.(dropped out during G2)

 

I'm 24, and have been collecting since G1. My grandfather suprised me one day with Optimus Prime and it's been going every since. I've collected all throughout my years and no one has ever "razzed" me about it. My step father thinks it's not right, being I have a daughter and the money should be spent on her, but she get's a toy everytime I do....which is often. Heh.

He also thought my alternators were model cars...

Everyone I know thinks it's pretty cool. And my 3 year old loves seeing all of Daddy's toys and she even has the bottom shelf for her transformers.  

 

Im 15, and a closet-fan!

For fear of being branded as the biggest social reject in school, I decided to try and keep it quiet, as much as possible, but some of my friends dont care, In fact I've bought TF's many times when I've been out shopping with friends, and frequently buy them from one of my friends. My close friends dont care, but its the ones that are just friends that find me weird.

Then theres the other kid in class who likes TF's, who always tries to direct the conversation at me whenever someone brings up that he spent £100 on CYB Starscream (big one) about a month before they hit retail. Generally, he makes up something like 'Yeah well, He spent £200 on one' which leaves me feeling kind of WTF?

*sigh* It's hard being a teenage Transfan...

 

Don't worry about it....atleast you don't have to try to justify to your wife why one transformer (MP-01) is more expensive than the other (energon basics).

Thankfully neither do I anymore...haha!

 

I'm 32 and I collect for nostalgic reasons and a overall love of action figures.

 

No, I got the mother instead, my dad doesnt care, infact he likes fiddling with them, its just mum that hates me buying them. So I'm thinking, after Classics, if I dont like the look of Heroes, I'll sell off all my Armada + Energon stuff, and start collecting G1, starting with the Terrorcons.

(<-- had this all planned out from a boring monday morning math lesson)

 

I'm 17 years old, and ive been collecting since Beast wars first hit the shelves. My brother also collects with me and is a more avid byer than me.

My mate also collects but only collects the Altenators and probably the classics when they come out. no one is really bothered in what we do, probably because we are quite the opposite of the fanboy sterotype at college.

and would we care, i dont think so we are happy they way we are and no one else seems to bother about it... we love being fanboys!

 

i am 18 and had been introduced to transformers at about 4 when my cousin gave me his g1 optimus prime and hotspot. for my 6th bithday i remember getting my first own transformer rotorstorm (known as storm) who i have not been too kind too unfortunately. rented g1 videos when i was that age and started watching bw. that's when collecting started to kick in as i have alot from that era. got two rid toys and a few from armada then i discovered the internet. and carboot market stalls. most of my tfs now come second hand which has allowed me to get some figures people would love to have (including a g1 scorponok who i am slowly getting round to reconstructing.

most of my collection are preowned but the gem of my collection has to be my complete g1 weirdwolf with monzo.

i kept my collection to myself through most of highschool (got bullied anyway so no reason to give them something else to poke at.) last two years when all the nobheads left i have been fully open about my collection and unafriad to discuss it. still get jibes from friends every now and again but it keeps me on an even keel and getting extremely depressed. collecting is a good coping device.

 

I like this thread! Kind of like a getting to know everyone thread.

I'm 28, I had a fairly impressive bunch of TFs in my toybox along with the usual suspects of Star Wars and He-Man and loved renting the videos of G1 episodes. When I was a little nipper the show was on a couple of Saturday morning programs, but a bit too early for me to remember properly.
'Grew up' about age 13 and sold a massive box with (amongst others) PM Prime, Skorponok, Galvatron, Metroplex, Mindwipe, Quake, Ultra Magnus, Blurr and tons of Micromasters for the grand sum of £10 to a mate of my dad's for his kid.
Aged 18 and at University, made friends with a guy who had a little display of '84 cars on his windowsill and my many drunken and stoned conversations with him about how cool TFS actually were made me a fan again, and picking up the BW vids on clearance really got me into that show as well.
I pretty much started collecting then, picking up G1 from car boots and charity shops, and buying new stuff that I liked, when I could find it. I am over the moon that in the last 10 years, mainly due to the internet, the fandom has grown massive and new TFs keep getting made.
My friends and colleagues all know that I collect toys, I make no secret of it, wearing TF T-shirts virtually all the time, forcing my band to learn the theme tune and having a super-sweet Starscream pic drawn by my friend at my desk at work. No-one gives me any crap about it, except perhaps my Gf when I spent £50 on 20th Prime!

It's good to know 'youngsters' are as rabid as us older types about TFs, hopefully means the franchise has a lot longer to run, and I can keep collecting cool new toys until I'm 100!

 

Man ive been collecting for years offf and on when cash permits. Its more nastalgia, addiction and plain old fun for me. I mean im an adult and peeps till this day come over and freak out over my Transformers or other collectables.

 

I'm 28. Got started in 84 when my dad bought me old Ratchet. The last TF I remember getting was the Spike Pretender that came with Jazz. I continued to collect toys until I was a Sophomore in HS and got into collectable card games and Camaros. I bought some ROTS Star Wars figures on a lark and found how remarkable the new stuff was from the old Kenner figures I used to have. From there I decided to see the newer versions of older toys. Now I collect TF, ML, DCSH, MotU and SW.

It still never ceases to amaze me how much better the TF of today are versus the old G1 stuff. I have a great love of the G1 characters and events so the Unicron trilogy shows don't really appeal to me, but the toys from those line are simply amazing. Classics was a dream come true for me.

 

I'm 33 and have been "collecting" for about 10 years now. I was 10 when G1 started but once I hit my teens, playing with toys was considered "lame" so I was done. Fast forward to 1996(or 97, don't remember for sure), huge problems in my life, always at odds with my wife. While shopping at Wa-mart I happen to go into the toy aisles and stumble upon the BW Transmetals. Remembering how much I loved TFs, I pick up Optimus Primal......and haven't stopped since.

 

I'm 20 so I'm no longer a teenage collector  

I've been pretty much collecting non-stop since I was 4 when I started playing with my older brother's TFs. I think the longest "down period" I had was about 1.5 years from the end of G2 until BW really started up (I was around 10 or 11 at the time).

 

I'm 20...so I guess I count?
(My collection's pretty Beast-heavy, tho'...)

 

20 here, mine mostly Energon/SL and some Cybertron/GF, even though I did watch BW I never own some of them that time, as it was quite expensive according to my parents' POV. Thank goodness for the 10th anniversary, I now have Rhinox and planning to see more reissue of Transmetal in the future, if Hasbro willing to do so.

 

Wow. Now I feel old. I just calculated on some of your ages that my nephew will likely be posting on these boards in 5-7 years!  

 

I'm 32, and have been collecting TFs for about 10 years. I originally left TF's after the '86 movie, having discovered girls right about that time.  

I'm sure there are those among my family & friends who think toy collecting is unusual for a man in his thirties, but I don't get any flack for it. I believe it's because they can see the appropriate place it occupies in my life. I'm very active with my family, church, and athletics. I'm a suit & tie business consultant, and fulfill none of the basement-dwelling/ collector/ comic/ gamer/ trekkie/ rpg stereotypes. As such, I don't get any negative feedback - collecting TFs is a relaxing part of a balanced lifestyle. No, this doesn't make me "better" than anyone else, but I do believe it keeps people from thinking I'm weird for buying toys.

My point is, keep it in perspective and remain attentive to the priorities in your life and you shouldn't have trouble with people looking down on your collecting, regardless of your age.

 

Society always seeks to punish things they consider wrong. I'm sure we've all got the weird looks in the toy isles from time to time. It's OK for a guy in his fifties to blow a wad on a 50s Vette, but we're weird. Vintage sportscars are toys too. Society just finds the Vette to be more acceptable.

 

I'm 30, and was a product of the early 80's merchandising/toy landslide. I was therefore hugely into Star Wars when I was a kid, but after '83 with no movie to support it, my interest started to wane. Fast forward to my birthday 1984, my folks take me to a little store called Toys'R'Us where I receive my first Transformer, Skywarp, as an early birthday present. I also received Ratchet for that same birthday a few days later. Many more Transformers followed and I became a dedicated fan for life.

I of course ran into my teenage years and lost interest in the playthings of my younger years, and my collection of Transformers (which by this time included some jewels; MIB Trypticon, MIB Metroplex, MIB Galvatron, MIB Sky Lynk, MIB PMOP, MIB Roadbuster, many loose '84 guys like Soundwave, Skywarp, casseticons, many '85 cars, Insecticons, Triple changers, etc. Let's just say, I had a pretty decent collection going for a kid.) languished in my parents' basement for years.

Fast forward again to 1997. I had watched a few episodes of BW on TV and made the connection to the G1 TF's of my youth, but I was a 21 year old married college student and father of a 1 year old. Money was tight, and a friend of mine knew a guy who said he would buy all of my old TF's off of me. I sold my entire collection for $1200, which paid the rent, bought some groceries, and kept the heat on for another month. As time went on I got a better job, a new house, and life was looking good. A few BW figs (nothing great, no show characters), snuck into my collection of Spawn figures. When the 3rd season of BW was airing, and then BM started up, I was going full-tilt collecting of these awful, awful toys.

In May 2000, I had the rug pulled out from under me, as I was involved in a car accident that effectively had me bed ridden for 2 years, but I still collected like a madman. RiD was fantastic (toywise), and the rest is history. I now have over 300+ figures (I just received my WST Dinobots today!!!), and am looking forward to another 20 years of collecting Transformers.

I now own my own commodities trading firm, make a significant amount of $$$, support my wife and 3 daughters (ages 10, 6, and 2), have a mortgage and the whole disaster, and really don't want for anything. My collecting is an important part of my life, but I definitely keep it balanced and have my priorities straight.

For all of you younger folks out there who feel they have to hide their passions about Transformers, my advise to you is: don't. These people you feel you have to hide from won't matter two tugs on a dead dog's cock to you in 5 years, so screw 'em.