Depends on how you see it, but I would say that was around 2008-2012. I didn't know what was customizing before 2008, but when I knew, you could get simply so much stuff at such a low price, you could buy joes for 1 $, vintage, even rare ones in large lots. Wonderful for the customizer.
Now you have thousands of options, but that is if you prefer the modern customizing, and you are ready to pay for the base parts. Of course, it's a relatively cheap hobby, and buying a 100 $ lot will give you countless hours of entertainment!
I have amassed so much in previous time, that I still have a large box. But it is now ever dwindling. I have taken a lot of parts just to resale, because they have become so expensive. To show you something, I got a BAF DC Apache Chief bought for around 20 $, planning to customize it. About 5 years later, he costed about 100 $. I think now he is more like 200 $!
And don't get me started on communities. Before there were many forums just on GI Joe, and for example, on spanish there was just a wonderful forum, full of information, reviews, activity, friendly, with hundreds of really active and friendly participants. It closed, due to too much success, and with the times of social media, all forums seem dead. Now Hisstank seem very active, surprisingly, because there is not a such active forum interested in action figures, except maybe, Rebelscum for Star Wars. Thefwoosh is almost dead.
I quite hate Facebook, instagram and all this. The culture of the like, that leaves you empty, only what is posted today is interesting, and gets buried forever to be forgotten and unreachable.
I have little time to customize, less to post, so I try when I can to post a bit in Hisstank, if a bit more in Figurerealm, and then it's here.
But 1:18 is dying and quickly. It might revamp at any time, or it might die forever.
About the hobby, I would say there has never been so many customizers, but these only might make a few, and probably never sculpt. Never so inside. And sad is that hundreds, thousands of custom figures are made, and never posted, or if posted, you can really never seem buried in groups, sub-groups and the like.
I would love that Joecustoms website allowed comments, like Figurerealm, and became as popular as to house all Gi Joe customs. But it seems hard this will happen.
_________________ See all my customs in high resolution on my blog; http://cobrafactor.blogspot.com/
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