What is the one item in your collection you would save if your house was being swallowed by a sink hole, carried off in a tornado, and then swept away in a flood?
This took some thinking. Like I said earlier, I don't really collect much anymore. A lot of what I've collected in the past is in storage bins, but I do have a few things on bookshelves in my office. I figure that's a good indication that I value them more than - say - that old Six Million Dollar Man action figure with the threadbare uniform or even the re-issued Millenium Falcon playset I was so happy to finally get as an adult after not having it as a child. In the Falcon's case, not displaying it is more about size than it is the value I place on it, but still...if it was that important to me, I'd likely make room.
One of the reasons that it's not is that it's a re-issue. That means that it came with some cool features that the original Falcon playsets didn't, but it also means that I don't have as much emotional attachment to it. I took it out of the box and flew it around a little while, blowing up the cat with my pretend blasters, but I didn't spend hours making up stories about it the way I did with other toys when I was little. Like my Star Wars figures.
What I'd grab first from my collection is the small handful of original Star Wars figures I still have: R2-D2, Han Solo, and Chewbacca. I may have a lightsaber-less Luke Skywalker somewhere, but he's not on the shelf with those other three. I have no idea what happened to Darth Vader, Obi-Wan, Leia, C-3PO, the Tusken Raider, the stormtrooper, and the Death Star commander. Maybe my brothers have those. It doesn't really matter. It's not about the figures themselves.
Though Han and Chewie were always my favorites (that's why I coveted that Falcon playset so much) and I love the cool, clicking noise R2 makes when you turn his head, those toys are special because they represent a huge part of my childhood: both emotionally and in terms of time spent playing with them with my brothers. Nothing else on any of those shelves comes close.
The rest of the League also has stuff they wouldn't want to lose and, like me, a couple of them are particular childhood toys. Life With Fandom is attached to one from another series, while Branded in the '80s has a different Star Wars toy that he can't give up. There are also some awesome items in other people's collection. I especially love Brian's King Kong model and Lair of the Dork Horde's Mego Conan. But my favorite post of all is the one by Flashlights Are Something to Eat that not only explains his blog title and URL, but includes clips from the cassette tapes he and his brother made as kids. Such awesome memories. That's what collecting is really about for me.
No comments:
Post a Comment