How You Got Into Collecting

Very cool welcome to the boards. I hadn't seen wwe toys in years before I was browsing some wwe sites and saw an ad for the newest exclusive cm punk figure and thought it was the coolest thing ever. After that it was over for me lol

I've been collecting since the LJN line in the 80's. Went on to Hasbro and then the very first Jakks before taking break. Mattel Legends came out and I was hooked. Four Detolf display cases later and I"m still going.

This Video Got me into collecting.






Jk lol. In all seriousness, I started collecting Mattel in 2013 after a sub par experience with Jakks figures. I didn't start collecting Mattel right away because I thought that they wouldn't be very good. Boy, was I wrong.

Kinda reminded me of what I used to do - when the Hasbro's started coming out, there certainly wasn't enough at the start! started using my TMNT figures in my own toy fed as well. my first big angle/swerve had Casey Jones turn heel on the newly minted UWF (Universal Wrestling Federation - before I knew such a thing really existed!) Champion Raphael and join forces with Shredder, Leatherhead, and Demolition to take down the Turtles and Hulk Hogan.

I'm not really sure what figures they were when I got started this was like in the late 90s period when I first started getting them I'm sure they were a lot cheaper than today's. All the ones I have are loose but have started saving some boxes for elites.

My dad was a wrestling fan before I was born and we've always watched together, so I literally don't remember a time when I didn't watch wrestling. I can't even tell you the first match I saw because I've been watching wrestling since before I was forming memories. So it was just kind of natural that I'd play with wrestling figures. As a kid, I'm not exaggerating when I tell you those were nearly the only toys I played with. For Christmas that was 95% of my gifts cause it was all I wanted. I remember the year that the tag teams BCA sets with the Godwinns, L.O.D, etc. came out, I got every team in the set for Christmas. When I started moving past playing with toys, my dad and I would still collect wrestling figures together cause we enjoy it.

I was a little kid in the 80's and I had just about every action figure line except wwf. I loved action figures up until video games took over as the main source if entertainment. I've always loved wrestling but never desired the figures.
Flash forward....three years ago my son was turning 3 and was getting too old for baby toys. It was time to come up with more grown up toys like action figures, and since I had been playing wwe video games with my son, I randomly googled the number one action figure I would want if I was gonna buy one for me......the honky tonk man. I fully expected to hate it but I fell in love. I paid $25. Then I found ringside collectibles website and they had a few macho king and nwo savage in stock for $35. I got in just at the right time. I will be fully caught up once I get my bossman.
My son still loves them too even though he doesn't play much. He was so happy to finally get Nash this week, it was his first favorite wrestler from the video game back when he was 3.

When I wad younger, I collected Jakks figures. I remember having a lot of them from various series. After I stopped watching wrestling, I gave them away.

When I started again, my brother and I decided, why not start collecting again. We started with whatever we found at our local target which was the elite Sheamus, Brodus Clay and Mark Henry. It just snowballed after that. Other Targets, Toys R Us, Amazon, eBay and the Frank and Son's event. We have over 200+ figures, at least from the last time we checked from the past and current. I'm glad we got into this, otherwise we'd be bored and indoors majority of the time.

Sidenote: Whenever we see Jakks figures, we can remember which we had. Recently find a Ric Flair from the McMahon/Flair two pack and it brought back the memory of playing with them.

Just like BestLookingInTheWorld I can't remember when wrestling wasn't a part of my life either. But I was very particular about my toys and loved the standardization of 3 3/4" G.I. Joe ARAH figures in the 80s so they were my wrestling toys back then - even made really rudamentary rings out of wood and elastics for them, plasticine (remember that?) shaped as belts with foil for the plates.

My first wrestling toys were Tito Santana, JYD, Jake Roberts, Corperal Kirchner, Jesse Ventura and George Steele from the LJN line. I didn't get back into toy collecting until 2001ish when I discovered eBay and had disposable income. So I started with Hasbros. Tried to get into Toybiz but the wonky scales, action features and over-articulation killed it for me. I tried Jakks but the inaccuracy to scale, thunder thighs and the inability for these wrestling toys to not even be able to perform a simple looking boston crab also killed it for me. Then I saw these Mattels. Purchased Ricky Steamboat and was amazed at how far wrestling action figures have come. Attention to scale, just the right amount of articulation, detail, etc. love it. Best time for being a wrestling toy collector.

The sad thing is, it's 2016, so all the figures I'd love to own like Freebirds, Steiners, Midnight Express, Koloffs, etc. will probably never see the light of day because it's going on 25-30 years and none of these new fans really appreciate the older guys (see proto-hell Magnum T.A. and shelf warming Horsemen). I wish what we're getting now was avaialable 15 years ago.