I have a few
. When I was a kid, I made battles in the shed we had in our garden, and I used a lot of plasticene to keep weapons in place, make armours, mini vehicles, etc. I left them overnight, and on the morning, a few had vanished, others were heavily displaced, and the plasticene was nearly gone. After thinking longly what could have happened, there was only one conclusion; rats had eaten the plasticene, and went so far as to take away the whole Joe. I cannot recall exactly what I lost, but more or less it was a Madelman 2050 orange (which only one weapon was left) , a Beachhead bootleg, a Kaido and possibly another Joe I've forgotten. I had very few joes, so it was a huge blow for me
. After that, I never ever played with plasticene in the garden
.
More; I applied for a mail-in offer of Kelloggs, in which after buying many cereal boxes, you could get a free Joe figure! I wanted Astro Viper badly, and so I chose him. After what seemed eons, months and ages, Raptor arrived (apparently, all the others had run out, probably). I was very glad to receive it after having forgotten about the offer, but it came without filecard. So I thought for ages that Raptor was not a GI Joe figure, but something different made by Hasbro, something Sci-Fi or motu style. When I played him as a Joe, simply because of his similar build, for me was "Eagle-Man", and was always a Joe
. Another fun fact; I lost his head cowl, and replaced with plasticene, and yes, left it in the garden. His headgear was eaten, but at least he survived unscathed, and I still proudly conserve him
. I was flabbergasted to learn he was a Cobra!
More; my brother got for his birthday Sludge Viper, Sci-Fi with the Star Fighter, and the Sgt Savage jeep, at a big Toys R Us sale, in 1997. Without that sale, I probably wouldn't be here
. This got our interested for Joes back again, and after finding a Monster Blaster in 98-99 in an old town shop, being so empty of figures got us rounding up all the figures that were GI Joe or seemed like together again. In a fleamarket we found Airwave and Vapor, with his leg attached with tape which we promptly repaired
. After that, we went to a corner shop, and they still had some GI Joes. My brother could choose between; Mudfighter, Snowblaster, The Tiger Paw with euro Psyche-Out carded cellotaped on top, Darklon with the Evader and the Fang 2 with Frag Viper taped on top (to clear everything, they taped figures on the boxes of the vehicles that didn't come with driver. After much consideration (with more or less the same prices than 10 years ago, that by the time were more or less acceptable
) My brother chose Darklon with his Evader and so we battled on countless battles with him! and having the catalogue and being able to identify everything, defined our Joe-collecting mania for the future.
Another curiosity; I bought a Cobra Invader through eBay, new, mint and sealed. It was a bit expensive at the time (about 30 $, very cheap considering nowadays prices) to open it and mount it. I was surprised when opened, that instead of having Payload, it had a whole carded bent Astro Viper v2 inside! and two extra cockpit windows. The down side, was no missile launcher! I wonder what went with that!
And I have more, when I have time I post them
.