Man I was thinkin' about. I'm the only one that had a big Joe collection on the childhood and gave them all to nephews, friend's sons and today begin to hunt all them back?

Man I posted on Outrider's Leatherneck pic and was caugh on this. I had the Thunder Machine (I loved it), the Forward Swept wings from Slip Stream Equalizer, Lynx and some others and many figures, from classical. I gave a good part from my collection to nephews and so one. I was hunting them back but I saw somethings that made me cry.

Can you imagine a shinny army Joe/Cobra reduced to dust?

Just two cents, I hope I'm not alone in this one!

I did that with all my Star Wars figures. Sold them $1 a piece to my aunt who in turn gave them to my cousin who was considerably younger than I was. As for the Joes, most of 'em broke (I was a single child) so there came a time when it was dictated by my parents, "keep a handful, lose the rest..." I don't remember where everything ended up going; charity or whatnot. But I had a handful of Joes and the APC. I recently sold the ARAH lot on ebay cuz frankly, I have no use for them. I kept the APC, secretly hoping H might do another one. Multi-functional vehicles were a great selling point back then and it should be now. What other vehicle could roll your Joes, float on water AND be used as a carrying case???

Course, I view the ARAH stuff as the past. I don't need or want to go back. I'd rather spend it on the new sculpt JOes just so I can sell them off a few months later when I realize that they were a mistake! LOL.

I've still got pretty well every Joe I ever bought, but I did make up a lot of customs for the nephews from the spare parts bin (they were little, they wanted bright colours!). Sonneilon, I hear you on the Star Wars thing. I had pretty well all of the original figures, and ended up throwing them all in the garbage one day when I cleaned out the wardrobe! If only I could have foreseen ebay back then....Oh well, too late now!

Yeah!

You literaly drop money on the garbage

When I sold my ARAH stuff on ebay, I thought they were in pretty poor condition. I mean, they were loved by me when I was 12, y'know? I had to explain when selling them that they were in pretty bad shape. It's not like they would be pristine, MOC stuff. They were loose in all regards! The stuff I threw away, I don't think anybody would have snagged them. Lots of broken thumbs, y'know? Yeah... if only internet and ebay was around back in the 80s.

I kept a significant portion of my childhood Joe's I'm planning on taking a "class of 1982/83 reunion group photo" and see what I come up with. My figures have survived pretty well, but vehicles were a little more used. Figures seem to have survived my many moves far better. I was lucky mom saved them and did not throw them away or "garage sale" them away...

I still have my 1982 VAMP and Straight-Arm Clutch. That guy is seriously floppy loose (I picked up a 1983 swivel arm Clutch for nostalgia reasons.)

I have two sons, 5 and 2. My 5 year old created some new "customs" from my parts bin (an old pencil box). I refer to his soldiers as the BCB (Broken Crotch Brigade) . He did come up with one amazingly good figure (that is, good for a five year old with ancient spare parts.) Anyway, I have to remind myself not to steer him through my childhood, but to let him have his own. My 2 year old refers to any toy with human qualities as "G-Joe's". So I guess I have already biased them towards my hobby...