Oh, definitely. My dad was thrilled by them. He was a design engineer back then, loved to fiddle with mine.

Hasbro's sort of killing off customers lately, though.

I see these “one-step” change Transformers at the store all the time and think “Man, kids have gotten so dumb and lazy”

You just push a button and it instantly transforms for you, they don’t even look cool

Hey, though, remember the ones from G1, though? Topspin and Twin Twist?

Pull them back, they flipped open?

Oh yes, those guys were one step

They didn't really take off, though.

Yeah, the gimmick gets kind of boring after awhile

I have a G1 Bumblebee on my desk

And an original Snake Eyes from GI Joe

I have G1 Optimus upstairs.

*nods*

I collected both.

Damn, lucky

I collected later, though, when I was a teen.

Walmart has a re-issue of G1 Optimus that’s exactly like the original. He’s a whopping $50

Want to feel some agony? Before I every went online, I got tired of my almost complete G1 collection, and sold almost every single one for yard sale prices.

I didn't know what they were worth.

Oh man, I’d hate myself LOL

I'm hurting still, yep.

I only have about thirty total left, including the cassettes.

A lot of my stuff isn’t worth much anymore since it’s been well played with

Never expected any of this stuff to be worth a fortune

Same. I wasn't collecting to keep mint.

What drives me nuts nowadays are the collecting latecomers.

Modern stuff is *not* going to be worth $500 a pop loose.

Definitely not, I don’t expect any modern “collectibles” to be worth anything

VHS tape collecting is crazy too, they aren’t worth anything but people will pay a fortune for them. We sold all of our cheap a while ago

I customize figures and vehicles as a hobby. Loose toys and parts are my jam. Nowadays, people at yard sales want five bucks for a legless Stormtrooper because "It's *collectible*!".

Damn that’s cool, I’ve been interested in the customizing thing for awhile, but decided to just stick to collecting

I’m not an avid collector either, only if I see something REALLY cool I buy it

Same here. I don't actively collect anything.

Back in the day, I had Star Wars, my friend had Joes. He kept breaking them and losing parts.

I'd fix them for him, he'd give me the extra bits. Eventually I started slapping together my own.

Then painting, then carving, then...LOL

I have a Zartan somewhere, his rubber band snapped

So now he’s in two pieces

Easy fix. Hardware store, buy package of small O-rings. Tiny Philips screwdriver, replace.

Cool, I try that out

Zartan's gimmick was criminally underused in toys.