Rediscovering my childhood (aka sorting out my old collection)

[mikemgmve]

So I have no idea whether this will be interesting at all, to ANYONE. But I'm a long time Turtle fan, who only really collected during the OT phase. TMNT was my life, and I have the figure collection to prove it. The figures, sadly have been binned up at my parent's house & garage for far too long. I'm getting to a point where I also just want to have LESS STUFF consuming me, and I also know I could stand to sell it to someone who would cherish it, and also give it a home.

I would venture a guess that I have a good 85-95% of the figures produced from 1988 through 1993. See, I was just a kid obsessed, but then my mother and grandmother became expert Toy hunters and enjoyed searching them out as much as possible. And whenever they did the random lines of turtles, like Turtle Games, Talkin, Wacky Action, Bodacious Birthday, or whatever insane getup they'd be put in - I couldn't just have one of them, it was all of them, ALWAYS. I was a bit spoiled, but I also had to do chores and yard work to earn them as well. So valuable lesson learned!

I'm going to be going through them all, cleaning them up, and pairing them back up with their accessories (I have a giant bin, I'm sure I have MOST of those as well). Eventually I'm planning on selling them. Thinking a big lot if it's worth it, or creating smaller lots - or even helping other fans here fill in spots in their collections. I'd love to make some money to pay off some debt, but I also want them going to good homes.

I started out by bringing home my figure bins and accessories. The 10+ boxes of vehicles & playsets are still in my parents garage. And the first to be gone throguh was my old carrying case.



This house my "go-to" figures for playing with. With the Turtles side, you had the 4 boys, Usagi, Casey, Splinter, 2 Aprils (1 with a broken leg - unfortunately, she had great paint... ) and Walkabout. My foot side had Tokka & Rahzard, Dirtbag, Scale Tail, Slash, Chrome Dome, SuperShredder, Triceraton and Krang.



Being some of my favorites, and most played with some of these did have more wear and tear then I remembered. Tokka actually had some "custom paint" that I actually remember applying now. Basically gray shell, and black accents. So, crap to that. I later quickly looked through the rest, and I didn't see any other customization, luckily. Chrome dome's 'chrome' i looking a little rough. My Metalhead held up much better in terms of his VUM.

First "score" - my Slash looks to be the rarest variant. Bright yellow chest, purple belt, red S.



I finished wiping these guys down, and bagging them up with their clipped cards (if I had them, missing a couple) and their accessories. So far only missing one of Casey's bats, but I haven't gone through my actual bin of accessories - this stuff was just in bags of accessories within the case, and had most of their stuff.

Doing all that took quite awhile so I basically took my two large green trash-can-like bins and started pulling figures just to have a look through them all.



Don't ask me why I ever got these. I actually can't stand troll dolls, never liked them. But of course I had the Turtle versions!

and last pic for the night:



I had emptied one can out on the couch and table, and then emptied the other can into the first one as I sifted through. These are my own discoveries about what's missing and/or surprises:

- My shredder is a soft-head!
- Cheif Leo: One of his feather pieces snapped off, probably from being compressed in a bin.
- I can't find my original April, or my April 2. I'm pretty sure my original one's leg snapped off - which is what happened with one of the ones pictured.
- Speaking of the two, one's orange isn't as bright, and she has no press on her. The other one, which is broken, is brighter orange, has press - and it's a shame she's broken because her face paint is excellent.
- My Robot Bebop's has pieces broken off his shoulders. Not sure if they actually broke or just slid-out. Hoping to find them in my accessories bin.
- My Rahzar has a red-ish nose. Is this a variant?
- My April the Ravishing Reporter will never be seen. I feel bad for what happened to her hair.. and her face.

I'll be posting more tomorrow. And I also want to post something, which I think I have in a folder of personal paperwork to show everyone how amazing Playmates really was (is?).