I'm surprised I haven't heard about this sort of thing more often...


This guy was amazing, he'd do that little trick with eight or nine figures sometimes. I'd been with him when he'd walk up to pefect strangers and ask them to purchase two figures for him, some people turned him down, but a lot of people would do it. I'm not sure what the wave was called, but it was the Star Wars figures that came out around the time the special features versions of the movies hit the theaters, maybe a little bit later.
One bright note in the way of "punishment" for this guy was he was moving a bunch of the boxes of figures from his storage unit to his garage. We got about three quarters of the collection moved, but that night his starage unit got flooded. Although the figures themselves were ok, their mint packaging got ruined, so those couple of remaining boxes were sold off as loose figures.

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Ha ha, it's pretty funny because you see these types in almost every toy hobby not just our hobby.

There is a well-known collector who is infamous for this practice. I'm not naming names, but he takes his handle from a certain robot who bears resemblance to an 80s Walkman. Doesn't converse with actual fans, simply spams his army-builder pics all over the internet on every board for every franchise.....Joe, SW, TF and several others. Not so much an enthusiast but a show-off. Needless to say this sort of thing irritates me.

I love looking at display pics, but only when there is taste, class, and genuine enthusiasm involved. You can tell the difference. Likewise, it makes me sad that thanks to the show-offs, people with smaller collections seem to feel the need to apologize nowadays, comparing their collections to the powerhouses, as if their own pics are somehow unworthy of the viewer's time.

Our hobby is a toy hobby

But if you'd see that in say, golf clubs, that would be a little odd to say the least. Usually it's smaller, cheaper crap that gets hoarded. Unless there's some "LASER BLAST HOLE" out there with a few dozen hundred left-handed golf clubs...

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Drama Monkeys
The one that gets me are the drama monkeys/board wars. Certain sites form alliances and enemies on the net. Heaven forbid if any poor soul stumbles into enemy territory to post something unawares. You will find yourself on a dozen ignore lists ostracized for being a traitor. This group of collectors believe everyone should have to post on their site exclusively because it is the end all of toy collecting and the universe. They want to call the shots and dictate how everyone else is supposed to collect/customize/visit sites/play with their toys.

Suitable punishment:
Having to go without internet for a month. Being forced to realize that their site makes no difference in the world, and hopefully remember what this hobby is about.....collecting and enjoying toys.



Some sites/guys are worse than others, but I'm sure just about everyone has encountered "don't post there, they are the other guys." Just because we collect toys does not mean we need to act like kindergarteners.

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props to Fridge

The TRUE Believer: Joe is not a science fantasy collection, for this guy, it is actually military hardware, from our time.

This collector has been around since who knows when, but always remembers Joe as the collection that has nothing but state of the art military hardware, and nothing but military hardware. When anything shows up, for either side of the conflict, that seems to be the slightest bit out of that scheme, the True Believer bemoans the fact that the line has forgotten its roots!!! It does not matter how many robotic suits, or troopers you show to this guy, or how many lasers have been there since day one, if it ain't official issue to G.I.'s in the service, it needs to go! Of course, he is willing to overlook certain completely impossible vehicles, as long as they are painted olive drab, or desert kahki.

Suitable punishment: This guy needs to be sat in front on a tv that is stuck in an endless loop of Megaforce, Plan Nine From Outer Space, and the remake series of Knight Rider, with hie eyes held open Clockwork Orange style until he accepts that non-reality can be fun and interesting, or his head explodes. The latter is more likely to happen first.

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props tp Werecat

The Completionist.“Gotta catch them all! I don’t care what it is, I need at least one of each!”

The Completionist Collector is the ‘Joe Collector that will buy one of everything, no matter if s/he likes it or not. It can be a highly sought variant, or a common repaint that’s been peg warming for six months. It doesn’t mater, as the this individual MUST have it to maintain a “complete” collection. The Completionist Collector is also known to gripe about suck pieces such as Butt Plug Duke, Valor vs. Venom Alpine, or the endless repaints of Vomit Characters, but s/he will buy them anyway, because a missing item from a designated wave is more abhorrent than simply refusing to buy things they don’t like. These type of collectors can’t be reasoned with, and while they fully realize their compulsion, they are typically powerless to break free of it unless a severe intervention forces then to quit, such as a decline in disposable income or the threat of a divorce from a spouse.

Suitable punishment: Because the obsessive/compulsive behavior of The Completionist Collector is so great, care must be taken to wean them off of their obsession. The first step should be to force them to skip all foreign figures. Once the initial withdrawal symptoms wears off and they can function without constant adult supervision, they should then be forced to cut out any variants. If they are able to demonstrate this without relapse, the final stage is to force them to only buy things they really want. Anything they don’t care for must be left behind.

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LOL. Buying one of everything is silly.


You have to buy two of everything so you can keep one in the package and open one.

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Bold and italics for emphasis, and my own truth.

However, I am free now, and haven't bought anything since the first ROC figs came out.

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Old fart here. And dang it I'm only 32 so you whipper snappers with your 25th/roc figures need ta get off my yard or I'm gonna turn the sprinklers on you.

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There's one thing worse than running into Drama Monkeys on the Internet, and that's running into them in person. This happened to me at a Convention several years ago. I won't go into details, but suffice to say there was a rather considerable difference of opinion, which later extended to the Internet on their part.

And quite a number of years ago, I think it was 1995, I ran into a TRUE Believer at a small Convention. This was when there was a greater schism between 12" and 3-3/4" collectors than there seems to be today, and while I was having a pleasant conversation with a Hasbro rep that was on hand that I had met at a larger convention a couple of years prior, this guy comes up, with an original 12" Joe in hand, literally bumps me aside, says, "Make room for a REAL fan, little boy!" (I was in my 30's?), and starts to berate the poor Hasbro guy about how what he has is the REAL G.I.Joe and Hasbro needs to forget all about the little ones for good, since they'd ended the year before. If the guy hadn't looked like a 350-pound Dreadnok, I might've challenged him, but there's something to be said for self-preservation.

....one of the things I talked about that happened at Joecon this year.

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Also, youtube.

I'm not against army building. I like army building, but sometimes a few people going to extremes makes even finding one figure you want either difficult or more expensive than it should be.

And there gets to be compulsion with some where they are army building characters (like named clone commanders, masked characters in GI JOE), not by accident, or for novelty's sake but just out of obsession with sheer numbers.

Huh, well, that wasn't me, since I wasn't there this year, but I suppose this sort of thing happens more often than it should.

The Great Seer of Things Yet To Pass and Knower of That Which Is Hidden.

"No. Hasbro would never do that, what they're going to end up doing is..."

The Great Seer claims to know many things. Of course, most of it is crap. He claims to know what Hasbro will and will not do, and makes predictions based upon.... well...

Any dumbass knows that major companies have their employees sign documents called "Non Disclosure Agreements". This means that you're going to keep your damned mouth shut about it. Why? So those apes down at The Corps! briefing room don't steal an idea. So that people are more eager to rush and get something that they just found out about, instead of wondering if it will make it out of prototype. He-

Wait, what the hell am I talking about? This guy doesn't work for Hasbro. At best, he emails some guy in Hong Kong who steals figures from the factory- at best. Even then, he bases his knowledge of what is going to happen based on the same thing that you or I have- A Wild Damned Guess. And you know what? Yours is as good as his. What, ROC figures sold well, and they're gonna make MORE? Holy LaserBoobs, Gargamel! I didn't see that one coming at 15 MPH blaring the horn with the brights on! The 5-packs are gonna be repaints? Since when?

Face it, the only people who know anything about the future of Hasbro and GI Joe aren't going to talk to you and lose their Job.

Suitable Punishment: Having visions of the future- namely his time and cause of death. And no matter what he does to avoid his fate- he always sees his death. Also, his impotence, divorce, and financial misery.

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