And So It Begins ...

Growing up in the 1980's, there was nothing cooler than action figures. Star Wars, He-Man, GI Joe.. the list goes on and on. I wanted them all  - each and every one of them. I raked yards and washed cars to earn money to buy them. I begged friends to give them to me on my birthdays. I spent hours poring through Sears Wish Books each holiday season so that I knew exactly which ones to ask Santa.... and my parents for.

Believe it or not, even with all of that hard work, I never managed to get my hands on all of them and the collection I did acquire made its way into a number of garage sales over the next umpteen years ( Moms can be so cruel - can't they?).

Since the Internet and Ebay boom, collecting has taken on a whole new feel. Items that had taken years and luck to track down, if you could find them at all, were now only a click or two away. Suddenly it became possible to own every Star Wars figure ever made or every GI Joe Vehicle ever produced. On top of that, countless other figure lines that were less popular or under produced began to find favor amongst collectors.

Well folks, I've decided to make another run at that old, impossible dream and, although I know that I'm going to regret this, I'm going to broaden that goal. I am going to try to acquire every, single, complete action figure from every, single action figure line produced or sold in the United States in the 1980's. I have some ideas as to what I'm going to do with that collection if and when I ever complete it, but I'll save those details for later.

Now, just to be clear, I'm only talking about the actual figures here. Due to the space restrictions that come along with apartment living in New York City, having a GI Joe USS Flagg Aircraft Carrier just isn't feasible. Also, equal to my affinity for said "action figures" is my distaste for those larger Mego style or 12" GI Joe "dolls," so I won't be including those in my collection either. No offense to all of you who collect those sorta things, but they just never appealed to me.

Because I have a pretty demanding job and a social life ( before the 40 year old virgin jokes start rolling in ), I plan to do most of my searching on line through Ebay and various figure message boards. I don;t have all the money in the world, so I'll need to be crafty in how I go about this and along the way I'll share some of my tricks with you.

So without further ado, let's get this part started. Feel free to help me out if you're feeling generous and I look forward to your comments and questions along the way.