What age did you start Collecting for real?

[Omega_Prime]

Hey guys,

Just wondering when everyone started collecting seriously.

No I don't mean when Mommy bought your first one and you waited for Christmas for your second one.

I mean when did you decided to go out and spend your own money to create your awesome collection!

My story!

My dad would always went to garage sales and finds transformers for dirt cheap. I can remember I had G1 Thundercracker, Silverbolt, movie Scourge (the blue sub), Ultra Magnus without the trailer and even to my surprise today, Scorponok! That's right Scorponok bought at a garage sale.

So after a LONG time after getting Beast Wars toys as presents, I stopped paying attention to transformers for a while because Beast Machines sucked so I was out of the game. I saw a commercial for Omega Prime and was BLOWN AWAY! I was still pretty young then so I still didn't pay attention.

I was 17 when I saw Cybertron Wingsaber and thought it was Awesome because it combined with Optimus Prime and asked my mom to buy it for me (yes my mom bought it for me). I was so destined to buy Optimus after so I hinted my friends to buy it for me for my Birthday and they did. 2 weeks later, I fully bought Omega Prime and ever since then I started collection for real.

Now I have bits and pieces of every series just collecting the ones I like, (since I don't want to pay the current market price for some figures) all the Animated figures, (excluding stupid repaints) and Classics (as in non Cybertron repaints).

So now I'm 19 and I'm collecting seriously!

[Robimus]

1995 with the New Star Wars Figures released then. I would have been like 21.

Transformers I've only rekindled in the past few years though.

[J.Soundwave]

20...classics line is what started it all. I decided after buying a few that i'd make one big ebay purchase and try to buy a figure of all my favorite characters(TF and non-TF). Included the U.Magnus/Skywarp 2 pack (i think i got it for about 35-40$ WITH shipping at the time )a Gambit, Green Goblin, Spawn and some Street Fighter toys etc...Anyways i guess i wasn't happy with what i had because i haven't stopped since. Of course the Universe and Masterpiece line didn't help there...not to mention loving Animated and buying up every character.

[DECEPTICON_BRAWL]

i liked tfs since as long as i can remember.i know i liked it since at least RID i got a few figures from the RID line and i didn't even know the show existed. when i got the rid prime i didn't beleve he was optimus prime cause i knew he looked like a semi truck.that was when i was about 3 or 4.when i was 5 i got armada hot shot.that was when i learned how to take the twisty ties off he was the first figure that i culd take them off by my self.the real collecting came when the energon toys came out.i am 11 now so i guess thats been about 8 to 9 years or so i have been collecting.

[astrana]

When RID just came out I bought the Terrocon 3 Pack and Construction Team.
Almost got the Rail Team back in the day. I remember that time I was living with my cousin in Cold Lake during summer break. He goes to work all day, so I walked 40mins to get to zellers and found out they had transformers there. So thats what I did in that summer... checking Zellers everyday for new TFs. few years ago I saw Reissue hitting the retail, but didn't bother getting them since I couldn't afford paying almost 30 for a TF.
I nabbed Alternator Sideswipe and Hound around that time.

Didn't really start to collect till last year when I watched Animated. Then I watched all Unicron Chronicles and GeeWen. I stopped buying anime PVC and build Gundam Kit (too expensive, no time) instead start collecting TFs

[crimbot]

I think it was really kicked back into gear for me in 1996, some high school friends and I rented the transformers movie, got a case a beer, and laughed and talked about all the toys we had as kids. Of course I still had all mine.... it was around that time I started lurking on ebay. Beast Wars was on and totally rekindles my love of the bots, so one of the firts things I bought was all of the old episodes on shitty VHS. I think that's where it actually kicked back into high gear.

[Batman]

1997. I started picking up figures here and there. Mostly Batman and Spawn, but later branched into other things. I picked up a couple Beast Wars toys, but I never watched the show at the time. Once Armada hit though and focus shifted back to vehicles, I was all over Transformers again.

[Nocturn]

2007, I had just turned 15, and a movie was about to be released (though that was outside of my knowledge at the time).

[tusko]

Alternators.
Gotta catch 'em all!

[Bruticus82]

Well, I collected back in G1 when I was a little tyke. I was so upset when they stopped selling G1 toys. Then I picked pu 1 or 2 of the g2 figures, mostly new ones like g2 megatron, because I realized the others were just weird repaints of my g1 figs. I did get a grimlock and a slag? (triceratops) but it's because I realized they were virtually identical to their original incarnations.

Then in beast wars I started buing a few, mainly of notable characters, still nothing serious.

I continued to search for g1 figures the only place I knew how, at the time, at garage sales (Thrust, thundercracker, Rodimus Prime, etc.), and then there was this collectible show in Hamilton they had three or four times a year at Sherwood High school, I bought a few transformers there, and at Bounty Hunter Toys (now closed) which enabled me to pick up some G1 that I had missed, like astrotrain, and swoop.

Then I really didn't buy much, until I found these boards (age: 26), and now I've really started buying, spending myself further into student debt. I've decided to take a break though, no more stuff from now until TFCon...unless I find a really good deal...

Stop laughing! It's not funny! *Cries*