How do you become a focus collector and what made you choose your focus?

How do you become a focus collector and what made you choose your focus?

I'm not sure that there's one answer for this, I've had three figure foci and a shop sticker focus at various points over the last 4/5 years.
Whilst I flirted with the idea of collecting vintage in the 90's (I deemed it too expensive and started in 2014 :lol: ) I am vary much still a new collector, many things are still coming my way that I've never had as an adult or a child so am arguably still finding out where my tastes lie.
Whilst most of the time my collection is a bit of everything I did enjoy having a collection that looked like it belonged together.
My first focus was Kaybee stickered items, which is probably my favourite of them all and I'm certain that I'll revisit at some point. I loved being able to buy anything but having a unifying feature in the price sticker. My only regret is not photographing more of it together. I started this after reading about the Trilogo overstock and developing something of a fascination with it.

My second was more of a false start than a focus which included 2 or 3 Kenobi MOCs and a 12" boxed figure, no group pic of them unfortunately.
Focus v3 was Bossk and I went full on into it with MOCs, MIB, loose, oddball and modern. I found this very satisfying and it looked great together. I started this as Bossk was the first carded figure I bought as an adult.

Focus v4 was Madine and this time it was foreign MOC led with a couple of smaller items. Again they looked great together and this time it was fond childhood memories that got me started.


Ultimately they all got sold apart from the odd item but I did enjoy putting them all together.
I don't think you can MAKE yourself a focus collector but if you have a particular love for a certain figure/vehicle etc then it can be a lot of fun and very rewarding!

Your focus will find you. :wink: 8) :lol:

i think its that bit where you go... that looks cool i want to see more of that... in all shapes and sizes, but im also the same mine have shifted over time,

My focus is on completing sets like 12, 20, 30, 41 & 45A but that feels more like general collecting than a focus.

That's a wide focus

My focus is to try and get everything I had as a kid. Nearly there, just a couple of difficult ones left (Palitoy 20-bk DSD, Cliro R2 bubble bath, ESB Dairylea box). Pretty wide focus as well, bit it's definitely a focus!

i think you fall into it

a focus chooses you

Its a bit like water circling a plug hole.. picks up the occasional bit of debris on the way and eventually finds the center! :lol:

I started off with Fett.. funnily enough a figure that I loathe, but that was more to do with a mug I owned in the mid-nineties and the artwork on it was cool, I had vintage a Slave 1 from my early collecting and a few loose in various colours, then I looked at MoC prices and realised that (especially as its not a fave fig) they prices are just daft.

I switched over to R2-D2, again not due to figures or MoC, I picked up an R2 phone and built it around that!

Finally I looked at my Moc Wall and thought about which card art I liked the most and it decided on Han Solo. I had a 12 back, an ESB carded and a Trilogo. I went after the Alt-Art Jedi and had a nice set. Built it on that really... Han became more challenging and expensive over time, but instead of switching, I added two 'side focus character runs' on my two favourite figures from childhood, or at least the two most played with in battles.. Rebel Commando and Hoth Rebel Soldier.

As others have said, you may trip and stumble along the path, but somewhere along the journey you'll work out which direction is right for you.. if at all... You may just want to complete a Palitoy Debut Run.. who knows what will happen...

For me it was all about continuing collecting. When you have done a loose and carded set, where do you go next? Variants didn't interest me, I've never been that fussed about a debut MOC set, and I didn't have the cash or space to just buy everything. So I have chosen a few fairly niche areas to focus on now my main sets are done:

Luke X-Wing
Palitoy Jedi MOCs with trilogo bubbles
MISB vehicles
Luke Farmboy

The character choices were just because I really like the figures and cardback art.

My main area of interest has always been loose figures so any focus I started would be centred around those. While I have never had what I call a real focus I have accumulated a number of different variants of a figure in the past with the intentions of it being the start of a focus, and my choice for starting these was always around love for that figure.

I have attempted it 3 times in the past and they have been with 3 of my favourite figures, all from the first 12... Han Solo, Leia and R2. In the end I gave up all 3 of them for similar reasons, namely that the variations were not significant enough, the cost and availability of the foreign variants was prohibitive and in the end I fell out of love with the collection.

I'm currently toying with the idea of a Yoda focus. I have picked up a few variants, and find these more significant in their differences. I also find them easier to pick up on places like eBay if you know what you're looking for without having to pay a fortune (I'm on a limited budget), whilst still presenting a significant challenge (and this is what excites me). And I also find myself looking at beyond the toys items and thinking actually I quite like that, perhaps that could be in my collection. I've also joined a Yoda FB group so who knows maybe this will be the one.

I decided to go for the first figure I received as a kid, the mighty Zuckuss!

Dr_Ball_MD said:

I decided to go for the first figure I received as a kid, the mighty Zuckuss!

Click to expand...

So for me, but with the not less mighty Chief Chirpa.
Sad for me, this figure has in Mattias Rendahl a very prominent focus patron - which owns nearly everything.
But as I will likely never be able to work on amounts for prototypes and cromalins, it's OK for me.
As Gus Lopez said on his FF panel: "Do not worry about whether others have same focus".
Over the time, Ihad to find out, that Chief Chirpa is not the cheap focus figure it seems to be, as it is to be found on a wide range of cards (even its a ROTJ figure) and there are a couple of hard to get MOC variants.
I had never learned that much about Star Wars vintage collecting in general without that focus.

TheJabbaWookie said:

My main area of interest has always been loose figures so any focus I started would be centred around those. While I have never had what I call a real focus I have accumulated a number of different variants of a figure in the past with the intentions of it being the start of a focus, and my choice for starting these was always around love for that figure.

I have attempted it 3 times in the past and they have been with 3 of my favourite figures, all from the first 12... Han Solo, Leia and R2. In the end I gave up all 3 of them for similar reasons, namely that the variations were not significant enough, the cost and availability of the foreign variants was prohibitive and in the end I fell out of love with the collection.

I'm currently toying with the idea of a Yoda focus. I have picked up a few variants, and find these more significant in their differences. I also find them easier to pick up on places like eBay if you know what you're looking for without having to pay a fortune (I'm on a limited budget), whilst still presenting a significant challenge (and this is what excites me). And I also find myself looking at beyond the toys items and thinking actually I quite like that, perhaps that could be in my collection. I've also joined a Yoda FB group so who knows maybe this will be the one.

Click to expand...

Yoda is on so so many oddball items, can pick up a great variety of quite unique looking pieces on the cheap with the oddities for sure. Be a great choice for a focus

Plastikheld said:

Dr_Ball_MD said:

I decided to go for the first figure I received as a kid, the mighty Zuckuss!

Click to expand...

So for me, but with the not less mighty Chief Chirpa.
Sad for me, this figure has in Mattias Rendahl a very prominent focus patron - which owns nearly everything.
But as I will likely never be able to work on amounts for prototypes and cromalins, it's OK for me.
As Gus Lopez said on his FF panel: "Do not worry about whether others have same focus".
Over the time, Ihad to find out, that Chief Chirpa is not the cheap focus figure it seems to be, as it is to be found on a wide range of cards (even its a ROTJ figure) and there are a couple of hard to get MOC variants.
I had never learned that much about Star Wars vintage collecting in general without that focus.

Click to expand...

Wasn;t aware you were a Chirpa focus collector, you need to do a limelight buddy

5

I seem to prefer collecting sets rather focusing on one figure. I guess my first focus has been trying to assemble a Palitoy Logo'd Debut MOC set and secondary to that is completing a MOC 12, 20, 30, 41 and 45A set with Variations which I find very challenging and may never complete but I guess its more about the Journey than the Destination.

My foci are all based on my childhood favourite toys and came about once I'd completed a loose run. I didn't have space for a full carded set so decided on these

Han Hoth
The die cast TiE fighter
INT-4

I'll go for a run of DV Ties at some point too as that and INT-4 were my only childhood ships until a 2nd hand landspeeder came my way

For me I started with a loose run of the figures.

Later I tried to do the vehicles and playsets in box, I did not want them as loose so I choose to get them with box and as complete as I could find them.

My focus changed again also to boxes, cardbacks and moc with old danish price stickers, I did that because they have danish history and they helped me even more to remember the good old days in the stores when I saw the old stickers from the diffrent stores.

Again my focus got bigger now also to commercial catalogs from the factores but also catalogs from the shops that sold the cool toy.

My focus got bigger to also cardbacks, moc, puzzels and posters.

Then I got into variants.

and last I got into board games :lol:

But before all this happen I started in the early 90s to collect the dark horse star wars comics, it was there I think it all began again after star wars had been silent for years.