Here's what I mean. I moved through phases in my collecting, stuff I'd get interested in and fixate on. Curious what your phases are/were.

1. 1982-1985 The pure phase - playing with the toys, watching the show, etc. Just flat out enjoyment of everything.
2. 1986-1994 The take what I can get phase. Loved Hawk and the 86 figures, but start to pick and choose a lot. Stayed with it and got pumped to see the more realistic Joes coming back in 93-94, only to watch the line end.
3. 1995-2001 The lean years. Bought stuff I never could get during high school, like 83 Duke and others. Still into Joe, but had to take what I could get till the 97 re-releases and the wondrous 2000-2001 campaign when I actively Joe-vangelized by buying kids figures and vehicles whenever possible. My USS Flagg obsession phase went here, and I obtained it. Good years all in all, and actually some of the best, as I appreciated everything I got.
4. 2002-2005 The New Sculpt years in which I was all about diorama everything. If it was in scale and I could use it, it was fodder. Rebuilt the original 13 for fun, did some customizing, loved it.
5. 2005-2008 At seminary, so basically curating the collection. Worked hard enough in school I didn't do too much besides push out two of my best dioramas on breaks (Cobra Castle and the ARBCO dio).
6. 2009-Today: Touchstone phase: Unable to keep scads of crap I'll never touch laying around, I have my core figures displayed (82 & 83) and I collect things which bring me all the joy without all the space hogging. Examples are my 1982 Grunt costume t-shirt (it looks like Grunt's webgear), my USS Flagg hat, and such.

My big want for now is to design and built my own XLMR laser rifle from the cartoon. Pit Viper studios has a decent one, but it's black, not brown like I want.

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I guess mine would go:

1982-1986 - This would be my years I was purely into G.I.Joe. I was 10-11 when it all came out. Since I wasn't made to "grow up and forget toys" I washable to stay in it until I was 15. Then the "girls" phase hit me.

1987-1992 - I didn't forget toys or G.I.Joe. I backed off on getting some of the other lines, but I stayed strong buying everything G.I.Joe, Transformers, and Toy Biz Marvel/Xmen. I just wasn't playing with the stuff.

1993-1998 - I found the beginnings of the Internet and found bulletin boards. Later found the first newsletters, yahoo groups, etc. for G.I.Joe. This revived my interest from just being a collector to wanting to customize and all that. Started meeting a lot of the guys I still know today here on JoeCustoms. A couple that I finally got to meet face to face at this year's convention!

1999-Today - Really nothing has changed. I've lost my love for the original figures and have been thinking about selling off a lot of it. But the core of why I'm still in it is there. I'm only being forced to back off due to space.

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Have you contacted them? They are easy to deal with.

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I had wanted to make that gun and offer through D&J Toys stuff. It's just so big and I don't think I want to get into trying to figure that project out. I am doing "The Commander" which I'm sure that's easy to figure out:

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It'd be nice, but the price is just really, really high for what it is. I understand resin is expensive, and molding is not cheap, but over $300? That seems far too high to me. I could see $300 for those Macross helmets, but for a static prop, I dunno.

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Sold. Where do I pre-order?

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Happening soon. I'm getting those gliders going first then I hope soon after the gun will be ready to go. I started doing the show and tell on my site and debuted at the con just to get the word out.

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Agreed.

Matt and I had talked about doing this, but the project never got off the ground. Glad to see your version. It looks great!

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89-93 - being 5-9 - heavy play with every Joe I had (about 10) - enjoyed the cartoon watched every episode I could

94-98 - wondering why I couldnt buy joe anymore - collected yardsale finds - discovered the original marvel run of comics - started writing about Joes- really liked Sgt Savage and the screaming eagles! - not extreme

97-98 - TRU special edition toys got me back into it

2002 got the internet for the first time found Joecustoms.com - saw how people customized and my eyes poped!

2002 - 2006 thought VvV and Spy troops were kinda lame- didnt like em enough to take em to college

2007 - Bought all of the 25th stuff and loved that they looked cool enough to display at school

2008 - present: new comics - decided to focus heavily on trying to make one all inclusive universe with crossovers and complete character, team, and situation lists - current project

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From 1983 to1992 I played with Joes. Mixing in other figures from time to time, but the core of my play time was with Joes. Making a world of my own live through my action figures.

1986- Flash assumed command of my team until the figure vanished one morning.

1987- Blowtorch became the leader of my team until he lost both his thumbs and his right knee.

1988- Falcon takes over for the wounded BT and still is the leader of the few remaing childhood Joes that I have.

1990- I discover the fun of making Franken Joes which gives new life to some of my broken figures.

1993- My passion for creating scenarios and adventures got me into tabletop RPG like Dungeons & Dragons.
Since I don't play with my toys anymore, mom decides to give them away to my cousin's kids. Only Snake Eyes V3 who now has a cat head remains.

1999- Talking about GI Joe with a college friend and how he still has his childhood Joes makes me realize that I miss my troops. I give a call to my cousin to see if her kids still play with my Joes. She says that they barely touched them and played with the bigger figures like the super heroes and TMNT. Since they don't care about them I asked her if I could have them back. She then answers that she'll assemble what she can and put them aside for me.
10 of my Joes are now back home.

Until the 2000 two-packs, things have been rather quiet. Through an add I discovered a toy store in town that had old figures for sale. They recently bought a collection and they had a bunch of loose accessories which allowed me to equip my guys once again. I even got a SE V3 figure to put the cat head on, so that my childhood figure would be human once again. I even became interested in the 12" figures since GI Joe started at that size.

When the 2 packs came, I was all over them. I really like the rubber forearms and wished we had those back in the days.

The Spy Troops and VvV days came and I was happy to have a regular feed of new figures. The six packs in particular with their classic RAH figures were and still are among my favorites.

Sigma six came and while I enjoyed the show, the toys didn't fit with the rest of my collection so I only bought 3.

Then came the 25th and forward and now I have way to many figures than I can display, but I'm still as passionate about GI Joe as I was that summer morning when a neighbor asked me if I wanted to play army guys and I saw some GI Joe figures for the first time.

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I've been playing with/collecting Joe's since 1985. It's pretty cool to try and break this down into different stages...lets see here:

82-84 - "The lost years". I was born in 80, and missed out on the first few years of GI Joe due to other toys like Playskool.

85-87 - "The casual collector". I didn't actively seek them out, but played with them a lot when I received them as gifts. It wasn't until late 87 that I started to look for figures I didn't have.

88-94 - "Hardcore fanatic". I went after everything GI Joe, and this was not limited to just toys. I collected GI Joe party favors, GI Joe table cloth, bed sheets, clothes...everything. I pretty much gave up on all other toy lines except Ninja Turtles and Toy Biz Marvel figs, and focused primarily on Joe. I played with Joe's constantly in my toy room, and if my mom wanted me out of the house for a few hours I'd take the Joe's outside.

In 93 I bought my first collection from a classmate. He sold me a large gym bag full of figures and some vehicles for about $30.00. This allowed me to complete many holes in my 83-87 collection.
My parents and grandmother would reward me with GI Joe's. One night back in '88 my grandparents stopped over at the house, she has a plastic bag full of carded GI Joe figures. I was able to pick out 2 Joe's for every 'A' I received and 1 Joe for every 'B'.

Also in 93 I began to imagine my life as a Joe. My hours spent in school wasn't learning about history and Math, it was imagining my desk was a Skyhawk cockpit, and Gym class was PT. The walk home from school was covert mission behind enemy lines requiring me to sneak through the neighbors yards and hide from oncoming traffic as if eluidng enemy sentrys.

95-99 - "The in between". I was pretty lost with GI Joe being off the shelves. I discovered Transformers Beast Wars, and became really into that, but I'd never forgotten about Joe. I managed to absorb my borthers entire collection when he became more into things like drugs. I used to trade him marajuana for GI Joe's.
I proudly displayed my collection, but played with it less due to hanging out more with friends and a girl friend.
the TRU figures released towards the end of this period really reignited my interest in GI Joe, and I began to actively seek them out again.

2000-2002 - "The Internet glory Days". I used Ebay to begin collecting again. I scored huge lots of figures, and began collecting duplicates. I had figures for display and figures for play. I was also able to collect a large number of vehicles I had missed out on as a kid.

2002-2005 - "Customs". In 2002 I started customizing. My first customs were simple parts swap with black camo added via a Sharpie. I soon discovered Joecustoms.com, and the obsession took over from there. I started buying more large lots off Ebay and this time would have figures for display, to play, and for customs. After my daughter had been born I had less and less time for customs, and slowly stopped all together.
I collected JvsC, Spytroops, and VvsV but only casually.

2006-2010 - "The dark years". I am an ARAH purist, and I found the ME sculpts completely lacking in appeal to me. I tried to collect the 25th ann. early on, but it didn't hold my interest. I also began a pseudo-career as a comic book writer and started a small Self Publishing company called Antidote Comics. GI Joe completely took a back seat to anything comic related. I sold off all my display figures, and all my custom fodder (which I now regret).

2011 - current - "Jonah's Joe's". There was a recent reawakening in me as to the awesomeness of ARAH GI Joe. I began customizing again, and trying to build back custom fodder. I began filling gaps in my collection as well as started army building, and I also began doing dio pics. I've been sharing all of these online. I've made an active effort to become more involved with the Joe community, both locally and online. I still enjoy writing and have struck a balance between family, career, writing, and Joe...I don't sleep much.
My focus is still ARAH only, and other than the occasional vehicle I do not collect the ME stuff.

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Which of your sites have featured a write up about this? I'd be interested in reading more.

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It's on the Facebook page actually, and I said stuff on Twitter. Beyond that a few people mentioned it on their sites. I'll be putting something up on my D&J Toys site when I do the gliders. A "coming soon" with a description.


On the subject topic I could include this:

2008-Present - I've been enjoying dipping my foot in giving back to the hobby. With the Cobra Base and other projects, I've found people enjoy these things. It's been fun and can get overwhelming at times. I hope to keep going for a while and introduce new stuff as I can.

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85-89: Early years... loved the toys when I first got my hands on a Mainframe. Was able to get a figure now and then as gifts. Played with them heavily, until they got more than a couple of dozen.

90-94: Heavy Collecting years... was able to work part time during college, and was finally being able to buy joes with my own money... hence, I got every joe I could at this time, missing only about one or two per series.

95-98: Rest... stopped collecting, and focused on starting full time jobs. Did some customizing on the side, but nothing really done with paints, just LBCs.

98-200(?): Catch-Up years... heavily invested in ebay, buying and completing figures that I have missed or lacked.

200(?)-2005: With all those extra figures from ebay, I started customizing heavily, and started using Tamiya paints on the hobby.

2006: Ugh years... When 25A came out, it disgusted me, and I totally dropped the line, even customizing (for a while), but never let go of my collection.

2008-present: Back to buying loose figures, but only focused on ARAH figures. Junking any 25A figure parts I get, or just giving them away to my nephews to play and easily destroy the flimsy plastic.

2012: still waiting for the 25A line to end, and await the return of the ARAH line. (i wish)

82-92: Bought the ones I liked.
93-94: Bought the new characters I liked.
97-98: Laughed at all of it (regretted it when ebay came around).
2000-2001: Addicted to eBay
2002-Sigma 6: Filled holes for figures and vehicles while very liberally picking and choosing new stuff. Then I purged.
25th-present: Conservatively picking and choosing, custom fodder.

It is always about the toys and the character. If something strikes me I'll go after it. If it doesn't, I'm at a point where I'll let it go and pick it up later if I really want it.

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