what got you into micro machines?

[good shot jansen]

in the vast world of star wars collecting, it wouldn't be far off the mark to say that micro machines is about as far away from the center of the star wars collecting universe one can get!

yet here we are, (as well as other clans scattered about the web), still holding fast to our little toys, believing deep in our hearts that they are the best line of sci fi toys ever produced.

what was it that drew you in initially to the mico machines universe?

for me, it was november of 1995, i was in a walgreen drug store, waiting for a prescription order to be filled. i wandered down the toy aisle, and lo and behold, i stumbled upon an action fleet a-wing.

i was taken back by not only the ships terrific size scale (Mason was 18 months old at the time, and when it came to toys, it had to fit in his small hands), the level of detail was incredible. i hadn't seen this kind of detail since my days as a youth collecting corgi and dinky toys!

noting on the back of the box that there were 5 other ships available, i immediately relised that i had to track all the others down!

then in 1996, when i got a tie interceptor (the 1st vehicle i found from the 2nd wave), i noticed that the box now contained a url address for galoob, i checked out the web site, and instantly became hooked on the buzz board!

i actually spent the 1st year and a half, sitting quietly in the dark shadows of the buzz without saying peep,(that is until vt made the scene!, his relentless point of view on anti-scalping is what brought me out of the wood work to make my 1st post sometime in 1998!)

so for me it was a two pronged affair! 1st was the quality and size of the toy that got me interested, then it was the company's web site (particularly the quality of that site!) that made me a regular long time customer (you lissen'n up hasbro?)

what's your story?

[jeddah]

I saw an AF X-wing in the Commercial Road branch of Toymaster in Bournemouth early in 1996 (GSJ, you are talking about AF in your post too, right?) for £12.99 and snapped it up because of the realism. I’d been aware of the MM line for a year or so as my brother had the SD but I was never really into them that much. I bought about 3 or 4 and the Y-wing with visions of creating a massive diorama (which were scuppered when I remembered I was 24). Seeing the back of the boxes with pictures of the upcoming B-wing, I had to wait until late 97 before I actually got hold of one (anyone in the UK will be able to vouch for me when I say the distribution here is lamentable), and by that time I was hooked. Although I was desperately disappointed with the way the B-wing had been hopelessly thrown together – resembling a guppy, I loved the fact that the cockpit rotated and I bought the Ertl-AMT b-wings to replace my AF ones. Well before that time, I got on the GalooBB by the same route as GSJ. That was a cool experience and one that I miss. I won an Official EP1 poster (fabric) for a poem I wrote in one of their comps but the best thing I won was a crazily boxed Test Shot of the TIE Defender for my Transport ship design “The Paradigm”. Hasbro never give me stuff

Tesco then made the treacherous decision to reduce all their AF s to £6.99, £4.99 and finally £2.99 so I bought everything up, then got into Battlepacks and that led onto MMs.

In a strange anal twist, I have now more or less knocked collecting on the head in favour of making prop replicas…. I am of course going to buy up all the EP2 Afs that will undoubtedly be made and I am after the big Hasbro B-wing. I want to collect all the POTJ figures but so far only have the first 4. As long as I get R4-M9, R2-Q5 and any other astro’s I’ll be happy. Okay, before I meander anymore……


Jeddah
*I forecast this thread becoming a nostalgic reminisce of old days on the GalooBB*

[britcit3]

Moi?

I got into them in either 93 or 94, when the 1st Star Trek micro's were released.

I saw them in the window of a sci-fi shop in Lancaster (sadly closed down), and I had to have them (the 1st 3 packs released).

To this day I don't know why I bought them.

And when I got home and opened them up, I was delighted - I couldn't stop playing with them.

As I hadn't bought a toy since I was a kid, let alone played with them, my Mrs thought that I was having a psychotic episode.

And then they released the Wars MM's and I had to have them too and the rest is history.

I only started collecting AF's last year (as MM's now completed), but the collection is coming along nicely.

Cheers

BC3

[britcit3]

PS

Was completely unaware of the old buzz board and this site until VT stumbled into my site and brought me in about 2 years ago.

BC3

[shinakuma43]

I originally started collecting 12" figures back in 1995 when they came out. I stuck mainly with just the 12"ers and a couple 3 3/4" figures here and there up until the Freeze Frames were cancelled. A few months after the Freeze Frames were cancelled I started ollecting all the figures with freeze frames, I guess it was because it would be possible to get a full set and also since 12" figures came out in sets of 4 probably about 3 times a year so I needed something else to buy. I think there are 53 or 55 different figures released on FFs, I have 73 including variations. I've seen AFs and MMs during this time but never could see what would make anyone want them. Around 1997 I saw an AF Rancor, Virago and green A-Wing. I was very tempted to buy them but resisted the temptation. I saw Rancors and Viragos again and was again tempted and again resisted. Then it must have been in early 2000 that the big clearance sales started. The local TRUs had Action Fleet ships for 4.97 each and KBs had them for 5.99 each. I could no longer resist and picked up a few. The Green A-Wing and TIE Interceptor were the first ones I got. Shortly after that I decided to get more and so I started getting all I could. I was only able to get about 20 of the Afs from KB and TRU so I had to track the others down online. I checked different sites but had no luck, I then went to ebay where I got a few. I wanted the Defender, E-Wing, Sail Barge and a few others but they were each selling for about 30.00 on ebay at the time. I knew they would go down in price soon or that I'd find them for much less at TRU or KB in the near future. Well, that never happened and the prices, especially the E-Wing and Defender, steadily rose. I kept telling myself that they'd go down again and help off every time. I got lucky and struck a deal with SWAFMAN for a boxed but opened Defender. A few months later I broke down and payed 125.00 for an E-Wing and 105.00 for a MIMB Defender. I also discovered a few variations so I started collecting box and paint variations which I'm still doing. Well, after I had pretty much everything for AFs I needed something else to collect so I went to the Micro Machines. I now have a very near complete set of MMs. I still need some of the foriegn releases like the X-Rays and Mini Heads and any box sets released outside the US that I don't have. But today I finally got what I've always thought of as the hardest to get MMs, I got the Epic Collections 4, 5, and 6. Somewhere along the way I started collecting Star Trek MMs as well. I still only need a couple of the higher numbered sets to have them all and about 10 ships to have them all loose as well. I mainly got into them since they were MMs, I never really watched any of the Trek shows. I liked the Q and Borg episodes of Next Generation, but that was about it. I also got into Galaxy Voyagers MMs too. I never knew they existed until I saw Britcits site, I think his images were also the first I've seen of the Epics 4-6 as well. I have a very small collection of GVs, I only have sets 1, 2, 3, and 6 carded and set 9 loose and also a loose playset with the box. I'm not sure why, but I also wanted the Jonny Quest MMs after I found out the existed. GSJ was able to help me out with them and got all 6 carded sets for me. I have one of the playsets and have been waiting since November for the shipping charges for the Lighthouse playset which I won on ebay. Well, before I got into Galoob items I never understood why anyone would want any of them and now if it's not Galoob I'm not interested. I have every 12" figure and exclusive all the way up to at least the second Episode 1 wave and quite a few carded figures and I am not interested in any of them anymore. I did get a few other 12"ers though (the bounty Hunters and both Speederbikes [12.44 and 9.94 can't be beat for them]). I knew about SSG before I started collecting Galoob stuff and usually checked to see what was coming out. After I started with Galoob I found the MM forum and at first I just read messages, after a while I started posting, and now I'm still hear. The MM forum is the only part of the SSG I ever look at anymore, any info I need will surely be posted here.

Later,
S43

[LTBasker]

I've been interested in micro-machines almost all my life, I liked to get the army micromachines and have little battles with them, I was really young. Then I got my first Star Wars and Star Trek micro-machines, so as I already loved micro-machines, I had to get these since I was also a major Wars/Trek fan. Although over the years when I stopped being able to find Star Trek micro-machines when I could only find the Generations pack I gave up on'em, never got a collector set, and I never saw one either. I was interested in Action Fleet but at that time they were too expensive and even though I could easily find the Falcon wave and a couple Jabba Sail Barges actually sat at a Walgreen for I think almost a year, I never got'em cause I was concentrating on figures...

BC3, it's kinda funny, when I was getting interested in STMMs again and I was looking all over the net for a place to find them I stumbled across your site a couple times and one day I decided to check over SSG's message board to see if they've got any STMM info and was pretty shocked when I found out you and VT posted here.

[britcit3]

The Micro Machine community certainly is a small, small world.

Bc3

[LTBasker]

Or just really big but majorly compressed.

[vulcantouch]

whatever gave you That idear, gsj?
it'd be nice if there was some mechanism whereby a person could type "star wars micro machines", "star trek micro machines" etc, and a direct link to this forum would come up in search engine results.
oh well, until then at least bc3's site comes up
all this nostalgia for the galoobb bc3 must be wonderin what he missed, so: personally it was nice to've experienced it, but this place's Way more stylin
s43: this is the only ssg forum you read, eh? check out general sometime, it'd be great to see you chime in on the hump (& that goes for the restayou crastinators too ) so which stmms are you needing? any you got unneeded xtras of? (pardon if i've axed that last quextion previously & forgotten; such is the habit of a trade connection-maker )
ltb: why shocked? had you previously hearda me or bc3?
vt

[shinakuma43]

VT: I'll be sure to check it out soon, I just took a quick look but will take a closer look later on. I have a loose lot of STMMs on the way from Germany. They should have been hear a while ago and so I'm getting a little worried about them. If they do make it to me I think I'll just need 3 STMMS, the Kazon Torpedo, the Array, and Sisko's Bajoran Sailing Barge, if not I'll need a lot more. The only carded sets I need are 13 and 16 and I do have all three boxed sets. Hmm, there is a fourth loose STMM I need the Ent A from the first boxed set. Hopefully I get the loose lot from Germany, one of them is an Ent E and I'd hate to have to buy another one. Hmm, there is a Star Wars set I'd like to get which I haven't had any luck at all getting. The Ewoks on the gray striped card is the only Star Wars set I believe I still don't have (at least out of the US carded sets). I've seen 2 on ebay that I've noticed. One I meant to bid on but as usual forgot about it until it was already over and someone got it and a few other sets for 5.00. The second time it was included in a lot of about 15 sets. I got the high bid on the lot, but the reserve wasn't even met. I kept increasing my max bid just so I could get it but I had no luck. After it ended I e-mailed the seller to see what the reserve was but he never let me know. Whatever it was it was ridiculously high. It ended no where close to my max bid. Oh well, if you can track down a gray striped set of Ewoks it would be greatly appreciated. I'll try to put a list together of my extra ST MMs soon. RIght now most of my extras are from the low numbered sets, but when I get the lot from Germany I should have a couple extras from the higher sets.

Later,
S43