The childhood memories, photo's, regrets and general question thread

I thought it would be fun to start a thread where people could post old childhood pictures and share there childhood memories of Star Wars. I'm also quite confident that over the years most of us have had some regrets regarding collecting.
So feel free to tell all here Smile

I'm fairly confident that I'm not alone here, but as a child I payed little to now attention to variants, yes I wondered why my Luke had brown hair and others had yellow, but I didn't think much into it. As an adult variant collectors however with the knowledge I've gained I can't help but question things from my childhood :scratch: So again, if there are question that you wonder about your childhood collection that now bug you endlessly, feel free to air them here Very Happy

I'll start with one of each Very Happy

My fondest childhood memory is of getting Hammerhead. My Dad did most of the buying and was obsessed with getting them all, Hammerhead however had always eluded him. It ended up being one of the last figures we ever got. My dad eventually found them in a small shop in a village called Thornton Le-Dale and bought two, one for me and my brother. All though neither ever got much play time, Hammerhead remains as my best memory because we had hunted him longer than any other figure.

Childhood photo:

The childhood memories, photo's, regrets and general question thread Baby_m12

This is one of only a couple of childhood photo's I have, I definately have a matching one of my brother in a Yoda mask which I will post when I dig it out. Half of my childhood photo's now reside with my sister, some of which where damaged in a flood. I love this pic, simply because it has my first, already opened Luke Bespin in it Smile

it also shows the sheer randomness of distribution in the U.K. the picture shows 3 clearly visible MOC's and between them you have ESB, ROTJ, Kenner and Palitoy. The pic is dated Christmas '83.

Regrets? Well more recent I guess, but this would be selling off my childhood collction and other figures. I don't regret actually selling off my childhood in terms of nostalgia as I have a few keep sakes, including Bespin Luke and both the Hammerheads from above. But I regret it from a research angle, I had my childhood collection and two other friends childhood collections, mostly beaters that had been heavily played with. When I firt started selling on ebay, I sold the vast majority to fund my collection. This was long before I had even considered origins, research or anything like that, Now I would have loved to have documented country of origins and stuff before selling Sad

Finally, questions! I was born in '79 and my brother in '77, so we would definately not have been collecting from the word go. Clearly by '83 we where in full swing. What bugs me endlessly is what card did my Han Solo figure come on? We had a small head Han and it was the only one among our friends, everyone else had big heads (probably our first variation question) Thing is this had to have come from either an imported early Kenner 12 Back or a Palitoy 12 Back (unlikely to be and ESB small head Shocked

) Must have been some old stock sat in the sme little shop somewhere.... Does drain me that though Rolling Eyes

Anyway, would love to hear some of your childhood tales Very Happy

Great stuff dude. Oh and you just stole the Han from some older kid lol!

I'll be at my Mom's next Sunday for Easter and have to go through the photo books to get some pics. Believe it or not, I've never looked for vintage pictures.

I'll report back!!

Excellent idea for a thread Alex. cheers

I'm not sure whether there are any pics of me with my childhood SW stuff :scratch: if there are I'll be sure to post them. Very Happy

Love the idea for this Thread Alex cheers

I know my parents have tons of pics of me as a kid around x-mas / birthdays - my dad's hobby was photography and he took pictures of everything . It will probably take me a good while to sort through his pics though because there are thousands of slides to go through phew

However , before my dad passed away (a few years ago) , he had started scanning his slides onto their computer so hopefully that might help find a few pics easier thinking

One of my biggest regrets is the same as many folks and that was selling my childhood collection

I do have a "dumbest thing I ever did story" though -

When Jedi came out I was 13 or so and had kind of reached a point where I didn't actually play with my figures anymore , but I still bought the figures for my collection Very Happy

I am not sure if it was because of my collecting stamps with Dad or my comic collection but , somewhere along the way , I got in my head that paper / cardboard was bad for "collectables" . So , to preserve the life of my figures , the 1st thing I would do when I got a new figure was open it , immediately put the figure in a ziplock bag (then into a shoebox with the others) and then promptly throw the original package in the trash . I didn't want all those nasty acids in the cardboard to destroy my figures affraid

I kick myself in the ass every day now for that little stroke of brilliance :I am stupid:

DarthBerizing wrote:: Oh and you just stole the Han from some older kid

The thought had crossed my mind, but we didn't start out thievery until many years later Razz

ourchickenshack wrote:: I kick myself in the ass every day now for that little stroke of brilliance

Ouch! That's actually worse than the fact we all opened hundreds of figures as kids..... You'd actually stopped playing with them by that point and where actually sort of 'collecting' them! Ironically the zip bags where probably more damaging than the nasty acid cards :cool laugh:

How did they fair up in the end?

Found a couple more pics, both dated '83 again, however unless I had a quick fringe trim and a change of PJ's on is from a different year, probably '84. Speeder Bike Very Happy

The childhood memories, photo's, regrets and general question thread Sany2058

and a Snowspeeder Very Happy

The childhood memories, photo's, regrets and general question thread Sany2059

Yes I know, I scored all the good looks :cool laugh:

General Kahn wrote:

ourchickenshack wrote:: I kick myself in the ass every day now for that little stroke of brilliance

[justify]Ouch! That's actually worse than the fact we all opened hundreds of figures as kids..... You'd actually stopped playing with them by that point and where actually sort of 'collecting' them! Ironically the zip bags where probably more damaging than the nasty acid cards :cool laugh:

How did they fair up in the end?

no shit , right

I was definitely still 'collecting' at that point and I am sure I had all the ROTJ figures mint in ziplock baggies lol!

I remember that I would also re-buy the star wars / empire figures that I deemed not perfect enough for my collection because of years of playwear - open em , ziplock em and then add them to the shoebox - all the while throwing the destructive cardboard away immediately doh

I'm not sure how they fared in the plastic bags in the long run because my next stupid move was selling/trading them to a local comic dealer when I was 18 - 20 years old

What a cool thread.... :clap:

I did not get a lot growing up being the youngest of five. My favorite memory was when my Dad brought home a pack of Star Wars cards for me. That evening I decided to cut my hair like Luke Skywalker looked on one of the bubblegum cards : ) Lets just say my Mom decided to shave my head when I was done!
Here is a picture I have from my 8th Birthday party. My Sister (pictured with me) gave me the Han Hoth, Leia and Jawa as gifts. It was the second best moment of my childhood cheers

-Steve

I will have to go through the albums to see what I can dig up. I do know I was disappointed with my very first fig I got C3P0 my younger brother got Han so here I am with this comic relief character with no weapon that was quick to change as by that age I was already an avid model builder and well my 3P0 was my first custom who I still have btw.

I really don't think I even thought of variations and such as with living in Canada we never seen much from other parts of the world aside from the U.S. my dad was in the navy at that time but back then stamps and coins were my passion so when he was in other countries he brought me back various coins/stamps had I been a avid star wars collector I am sure I would have had figs from all over at that time.

I do however remember how shocked I was to see the first movie and yes I was hooked right there and my wife still bugs me when I watch it like what is this now 300 or 400 hundred times you seen it lol. But me and my friends always played as if we were in the movie I was always a rebel trooper I love the underdogs lol that is most likely why my first costume I am making is a fleet trooper one.

I only really started re doing my collection give or take a year before finding this forum at which point I was really shocked at just how large the Star Wars phenomenon really was I still can't keep up with all the different varients and coo's etc but it sure is fun trying. I have at lest got all the things I had as a kid again ie blue snag, the falcon, etc that is until and if I find photos and realize I am still missing toys Smile

. But if it weren't for my love of star wars I wouldn't have found this place and not have met so many great people who I can truly call my friends and family.

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The childhood memories, photo's, regrets and general question thread

The childhood memories, photo's, regrets and general question thread

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