Vintage Star Wars Collectors Under the age of 30

I have always wondered what drives people to collect vintage who actually did not grow up when the toys were in the stores. It is great to see younger people collect the toys that some of us older guys grew up buying and playing with, but it just facinates me that some vintage collectors are young enough now that POTF 2 is what they grew up on.

Only because you like picking up young kids online you dirty perv.
Watch him, Liam. He will be asking you for pics with your Sandcrawler soon. :lol:

Hey ...your an old ****....I was surveying the youth. :wink:

:lol:

Exactly the same thing has always intrigued me...any answers??

Yeah I was thinking the same thing the other night, it came to mind when I read a thread where Liam said he liked the old playstation one games.

By my calculations the Playstation one was released around the time Liam was born :shock: :shock: :lol:

I reckon it has a lot to do with the exposure to the original films, they stand the test of time so it only makes sense that anyone who loves the films wants what ever goes with them, toys!

Maybe....I shoud have called the thread "Under the age of 30/ Over the age of 18 :lol:

To be honest I'm not sure! I'm 29 until October so I feel I'm qualified to answer the question.

I was given a lot of hand-me-down toys from an uncle and I remember playing with all of the figures and the Millennium Falcon as a kid.

My dad was a big fan of the film, and like me, he can rewatch a film time and time again. I remember growing up if someone asked me what my favourite film was I would automatically say Star Wars (in some aspects it still is but that's another thread!)

My girlfriend at the time (now the wife) took me to my first convention (memorabilia at the NEC) in 2001/2 just because I was mad on the film and my collecting started there just because I love the look of the cards

I am over 30 so Star Wars was my era, but as a kid I was also fascinated by my parents old Action Man etc toys from the 50s and 60s. I imagine it is similar for the younger people in to Star Wars, or that like old music.

Also my Grandad was a designer at Hornby making trains and Scalextrix etc, so I think I have toys in my blood

Im over 30 but i only really got hand-me-downs as we couldnt afford all the stuff.

But he man was much more popular when i was in infants school

Im 18, and my full focus onto vintage Star Wars only started some years ago.

First of all, my family loves the Star Wars movies, and my first Star Wars movie in the cinema was Episode 1. I did see the old ones in the TV some times, but my collecting was in my first years on all Star Wars, so every thing that had any thing to do with Star Wars I collected.

I have a brother who is 5 years older then me. He also collected Star Wars though only in the vintage and potf 2. So when I got all his Star Wars some years ago when we traded my GI Joe for his Star Wars, I began to collect vintage.

I never got any allowance, so my money came from birthdays and Christmas. I bought my vintage Star wars from flee markets, and from local sellers.

I have never paid more then £15 on 1 figure. And I am trying to finish my loose collection, on the same way that I started. I know this will take some time, but I am not missing that many. Though I have to go spend more then £15 to get the Blue Snag, since he never came in DK

Because vintage star wars toys are the best collectables ever. Anyone from any age can collect from 50p beaters to MOCS. There's tons of varity without the market being smothered like modern star wars. I guess it's also the same reason people still buy holy books millennium after the (fact). :lol:

yes....Relic collectors. I guess I understand the appeal to collect the stuff If you were raised around it or had been given an older realitives collection. We all collect for varying reasons. Mine is to remember my youth and the toys I grew up with. At first when the modern Kenner/Hasbro line came out (He-Man sculpts) and those horrible bendies...I started buying them. After a while, I decided that the new toys held no real meaning to me and I had no connection to them.......so I sold off all that stuff (Not that I had much). So with that rationale, I was quizing the younger ones as to why they would collect toys older than them. I think Grant really hit it on the head.

I know soldiers who collect Nazi memorabilia.

Former British prime minister Tony Blair is deeply religious and collects ancient texts.

I think first you have to have the passion for the subject. Star wars has crossed generations and is probably the poster for globalised pop culture. It is so popular it will always attract.

I think it's also nice to be close to the heart/source of the enjoyment. How many Beatles fans want a first edition vinyl of revolver or a 1st edition of lord of rings. Titanic fans would love a plate from the titanic eventhough they were born 50 years later.

Like you say Todd- relic collector.

Oh yeah- Todd- I sent your parcel today. Feel free to take your time to send that cantina. :lol:

BlueDog said:

Yeah I was thinking the same thing the other night, it came to mind when I read a thread where Liam said he liked the old playstation one games.

By my calculations the Playstation one was released around the time Liam was born :shock: :shock: :lol:

I reckon it has a lot to do with the exposure to the original films, they stand the test of time so it only makes sense that anyone who loves the films wants what ever goes with them, toys!

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Ryan hit it Bang on here!
Thats it really.

It was 2000 when I first watched the Original Trilogy. I can still remember it now 8) I loved it and was "Dad I want some Star Wars Figures non stop for the rest of the Day. So then. At that time TPM was just a fews months away and star wars fever was everyone! So I started collecting POTF2 Figres. Buying them from carboots and flea markets with my pocket money! I then watched EP1 and collected those figures all the way up to ROS in 2005! Thus I still have my huge modern collection. Then me and my Dad were told about "Ebay" in May 2005! "I searched Star Wars and was gobsmacked all those vintage figures and playsets. Thats it I gonna get some original SW! So I slowly brought some loose figs from ebay and all the while buying stuff from carboots. Then in one boring afternoon in College I was surfing the net and game accross a Football forum. I throught "God, there must a Star Wars Forum!
And from that day forward was life would never be the same again

Josh said:

Only because you like picking up young kids online you dirty perv.
Watch him, Liam. He will be asking you for pics with your Sandcrawler soon. :lol:

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:lol: :lol:

Sorry to dissapoint you Todd! :mrgreen:

I've explained why I collect at my age a few times over the years but here it is again!

When I was little I had two older cousins, one on my Dad's side and one on my Mother's side who both had a lot of Vintage Star Wars toys (will come back to these guys). In the late 80's and early 90's my parents used to take me to loads of bike and car shows like Enfield Pageant etc where they not only sold a lot of auto jumble but they also ALWAYS had Vintage Star Wars toys by the bucket load. Obviously as a child any toy stall pulls you in and Star Wars was so plentiful that it was hard to overlook them.

Now, my cousins..one of them had ALL the figures including the POTF in a Rebel Transport on top of his wardrobe and he used to frequently tell me he had them up there but he wouldn't get them down as they were worth money and rare..so I only ever got to play Subbuteo when I went round to visit on his homemade pitch (which I later got..not that I ever wanted it!) Anyways one day he did get the Transport down and took the lid off and wow, gleaming minty figures staring back at me, I remember seeing Amanaman and thinking it was the most awesome figure I had ever seen even though it looked completely different to the ones I had seen before. He quickly shut the lid down, put the transport back on the wardrobe and I never saw his figures again although I often wanted to go up and steal them I couldn't reach so that never worked out lol

My other cousin, knowing that I had an interest in these figures promised me that he would give me his entire collection, he said this about 10 times over a few years and I believed him every single time. He never did of course, I am pretty sure he sold them to buy booze or something else

So I knew from a young age that these were old collectable toys and as such I always had an interest in them, I was collecting Vintage with my pocket money before I had even seen the films, I would make sure I always came away from one of those shows with a figure or two if possible - Strange but true!

Although I had built up a large collection of loose figures, mini rigs and creatures I stopped collecting through high school. When left school and got a job - all my money went on booze but later the toys took over..When I first got on ebay (actually to buy clothes and music) the idea to search for these figures just popped into my head one day and you all know how that ends. I found that not only could I get these figures all day long on ebay but that other people collected them too! So I went about learning and buying and buying some more.

Joe...28 years old, born in 1984 - Vintage collector for life!

Maulster79 said:

Oh yeah- Todd- I sent your parcel today. Feel free to take your time to send that cantina. :lol:

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Yeah...It may take a while to get to you. :lol:

Im 29 in August but have been collecting vintage on and off for about 16 years or more. (This feels like an opening line from a "Collectors Anonymous Meeting"

I have spoken before about why I started collecting but here goes again.

I absolutely loved the films the first time I saw them and they must have had some kind of profound effect on me. My mum is an antiques dealer and I have grown up around collecting. My mum took me to visit a shop in Shepperton near me called the Toy Box which sold vintage toys and action figures. Simon the owner had loads of loose vintage star wars. He tended to keep the best ones in a case behind the counter. I started putting together a loose collection by picking up the odd figure with pocket money when we went to visit.

I started getting really into it ans attended toy fairs like sandown, kempton and Cheshunt etc. This was around the time I was collecting the last 17 figures and I found these fairs were the only place I felt comfortable buying some of the rarer figures like Yak. Those fairs were AWESOME for vintage in the mid to late nineties. I used love looking at the carded figures as a youngster thinking one day Id own a few.

I could rattle on but I guess to cut a long story short I loved the films, Vintage Toys rocked and I was from a heavy collecting background. I have my mum to thank for alot to be fair!