Spotlight: Current Collection on Display

Before I continue writing about individual action figures I decided to show some pictures of the current collection on display. My collection is displayed in two small spaces/rooms in my current apartment. One of the rooms is our laundry room/pantry. There is a washer & dryer present as well as 5 shelves that we use to store cereal, rice, tuna fish, etc. The room only measures 68x64 inches but the ceiling is 9 feet tall so there is good wall space. Most of my

G.I. Joe, Star Wars, Marvel Legends, and movie/comic book theme figures are on display in this room. Without further ado:

Spotlight: Dale Keown's Pitt

The first spotlight is on one of my favorite big guys, Dale Keown's Pitt. (for more on Pitt clickHERE).

Pitt was released in 2007, ironically by Marvel Toys. The only way to get Pitt was to get all six of the "Legendary Comic Book Heroes" set. Each figure contained a piece of Pitt and you would have to piece hime together. While it was not the first time you had to get 6 figures in order to build another figure, I feel the Pitt figure was detailed, easy to put together and a perfect likeness to his comic book and the vision of the artist. One of my favorites.

Don't Call It a Comeback....

..... I've been here for years.

After consistently bloging on TheAlRocksalotExperiment.blogspot.com since the beginning of this year, I have decided to write a second blog by continueing this blog which I started in June of 2009. This blog will be exclusively for my love of action figures. I mean it has to be love... you don't spend 10 plus years buying and displaying something if you don't have a certain love for it. I collect a whole bunch of stuff but it seems that action figures are the one thing that I look for and buy the most of every year. Let me go take a quick count of how many figures I have displayed in the back hallway and laundry room... give me a few minutes.. alright I'm back. I counted a total of 359 figures on display. For the past 10 years I am averaging a purchase of 3 action figures a month. (roughly 10% of my collection was given to me so the average is a bit less). With an average cost of about $8 per figure, I have spent somewhere in the range of $2880 in action figures over a 10 year period. Not bad considering a pack a cigaretts cost about $8 and after your done smoking all you have are the memories and a less healthy lung, I get to keep my cool figure for as I long as I want.

I have decided, for the time being, that I will feature a diffrent action figure for each blog entry. The figures I spotlight will not be an upcoming action figure or even all time favorites, rather it will be the figures that I own and that resonate with me. Some blogs will be on other parts of the action figure collection game (and indeed it is a game, but I will get into that in the future) but all the blog entries will be related to action figures. Hope you enjoy.

The spark that started it all....

This is the story of one of my hobbies and how I came to really enjoy playing with and eventually collecting action figures.  It started with a movie, then Saturday morning cartoons and then it was further fueled by my love for sports and the silver screen.

In June of 1983, my uncle took me and my two cousins to see a movie called "Return of the Jedi". I was 8 years old and simply put... the movie blew me away!!! Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Obi-won Kenobi, Chewbacca, C3PO, R2-D2.... these characters were just plain cool. Luke Skywalker's "sword", the light saber, was the coolest weapon ever!!! To this point in my life I really wasn't into watching movies or TV. I spent most of my time in school or outdoors playing with my friends.  Then I found that Return of the Jedi was part three of the Star Wars saga, eventually I saw Star Wars: A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back.  A few months later a friend of mine showed me Star Wars figures that his dad bought him.  I think he had Obi-Won, Luke Skywalker and Greedo.  I was mesmerized, to see these characters on the big screen was cool, but to be able to have a Han Solo action figure in the palm of your hand was awesome!!!!  I played with the action figures for a few hours at my friends house and the second I walked into my house I ran up to my mom "mami, can you pleaaaseee buy me some Star Wars figures????"   

I grew up in the inner city and we didn't have a lot of money (when I write that "I walked into my house..." I mean our apartment) so it wasn't often that my mom could afford to buy me toys. About 6-8 times a year we took the bus to downtown crossing so my mom can shop for clothes, although I disliked going shopping with her because she took FOREVER, she would always buy me a Star Wars action figure before we went home.  We would go to Sherman's Department store located on Bromfield Street because they had the best Star Wars figures in the area, they were in a locked glass case and I'm pretty sure it was so that the shoplifters wouldn't walk away with the goods.  My mom must have bought me 8-10 Star Wars figures within a year... this was the beginning of my love for action figures, this was the spark that started it all...