Saturday, August 7, 2010

Scenes From The Collection: Star Wars

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You may or may not know this about me already, but I am a huge STAR WARS fan and a collector of STAR WARS TOYS. I have a pretty sizable collection, most of which is stored in my parents' garage (a.k.a. GIANT WAREHOUSE SHOWN IN THE LAST SCENE OF RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK) back in Southern California. I recently went back to visit, and took a couple of hours to search thru a few boxes, looking for a few choice things to send or carry back with me to Georgia (yes, I did get hassled at the airport security - I filled my duffle bag with all manner of ASTROMECH DROIDS, diecast spaceships, etc...stuff that would look WEIRD on the baggage x-rays)...mind you, these are just a VERY FEW boxes we opened, so daunting was the task. I know that there are people who have much much larger collections than I, but I can safely say that I am not a dilettante or a casual collector...

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Most of the collection is MIB, MINT IN BOX...I would always get two or three of everything, depending on how much I liked the toy - one to open, one to keep. Some items I would get in multiples simply because that is how they would appear in the movies - in large groups. For example, I have over 100 STORMTROOPERS, opened, that I would display as a whole battalion; I have about 30 JAWAS that would ride around in their giant SANDCRAWLER; I have about 15 ADMIRAL ACKBARS - just because he's one of my all-time favorite characters from the Star Wars universe. I even have more GUNGANS than I would care to want, only because in the movie they appeared in large battle scenes. I was looking for all these loose figures (my main goal was getting all the Stormtroopers back to Georgia), but the heat in the garage coupled with the vast number of unlabeled boxes to be searched forced me to abandon the mission before it was completed...at least I found my Sandcrawler!

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My parents would love love love it if I flew to California and rented a truck or large van to haul all my stuff back to Athens. Or I could ship everything in bulk using PODS. Only problem is, we don't have a GARAGE here at Rancho Cocoa, and the shed in back is already filled (and too small anyways to house the collection). If I could I would - lord knows I could probably make a nice chunk of change selling-off all the unnecessary extras on eBay! Parts of the collection I've been slowly passing down to to my nephew and nieces (well, to my nephew, more so...he likes Star Wars)...

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Oh, and don't even get me started on my collection of MIB SIMPSONS ACTION FIGURES...

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