Monster Zero x SciFi Japan - Archive Only

Ok....we all remember what we had growing up to some extent. There were those toys that just stood out and possibly kept for whatever reason. Now....of the ones you had what do you still have that were yours and not re-bought as an adult. I have 2 Godzilla related (Mattel Godzilla Game & Carlin Playthings bendy Godzilla.....non Godzilla are all my original Star Wars Figures....all in all, I had them 40 years now.

My earliest childhood memory was of the Mattel Shogun Godzilla, sadly I never personally owned one, but I do remember seeing them in stores.

I am a child of the late 70's/ 80's and loved all the brands, but early on, my parents asked me to dedicate myself to one line, instead of smattering my interests across them all, so consequently I loved all the animated series, but only ever had toys of MOTU (He-Man), and later Transformers. I decided to grow my adult collectivization on when eBay was in it's infancy, and getting them at conventions wasn't insanely expensive. By 2006 I had managed to obtain pretty much every MOTU, Transformer, Bandai Godzilla, and Gundam MSIA I wanted, and even some Japanese ones I didn't even know existed as a kid. Sadly I had to sell them all later that year. I was out of the toy collecting....

Since my kids have grown, they've gotten a few toys here-and-here but no serious collecting. Until I was sucked back in by the Transformers Generations line in 2015 "Combiner Wars" -This represented the very best of what I loved about the original Transformers, but with modern toy engineering. For the past 3 years I've enjoyed collecting the various Transformers Generations lines (Combiner Wars, Titans Return, and Power of the Primes), with my kids. I don't plan to try to get back all the things I sold back in 2006, It would be nearly impossible. i just enjoy what I have now.

As an interesting parallel, in 2016 Hasbro remade the largest Transformer I owned as a kid Fortress Maximus:

I got mine as a gift in December of 1987, and owned it until Summer of 2007. So that was nearly 20 years. When I gave my son the new one in the Summer of 2016, I said "See if you can do better"

I had this Imperial "Rodan" which technically wasn't Rodan, but is still with me to date despite Imperial Godzilla getting lost over the years

Mm, the oldest toys I still have are probably my Imperial Godzillas (the big one and the small one). I gave them to my kids a while ago and we enjoy playing with them still (see the “wha5 made your day thread...”

Off the top of my head, I also have some of old micromachines (Star Wars and batman), a Trendmasters micro Godzilla playset, and some ‘90’s Star Wars figures.

I know my parents still have a lot of my old toys in the attic and we’ve raided them for my kids to play with when we visit. I have a brother who’s 10 years younger than me so a lot of things went missing as he grew up, but I know they still have at least some of my Batman (1989 as subsequent), Ninja Turtles (original line), M.A.S.K., and Transformers & Go-Bots (as a kid, these were basically one toyline to me).

As far as my current collection, I used to include some of my old toys from when I was a kid, but over the years I’ve phased all of that out in favor of newer, better, and/or higher end collectibles. The only real exception being some of the Star Wars micro machines (I got back into those with the modern Hasbro line in 2015, too bad it’s already dead!)

The six inch Imperial Godzilla, along with the Imperial King Kong (which was slightly taller than Godzilla - that always bothered me) were my first and two of the most special toys of my childhood. I still have them in good condition!

I made my Dad take me to several stores over the course of.... um, I dunno, I was four, let's say over the course of a week or two in the hopes of getting a Godzilla toy, as I knew one must exist. At the end of our first unsuccessful run I got a consolidation prize: a yellow T-rex. The second unsuccessful run: consolation prize was one rental of Godzilla vs. The Smog Monster from the local video store. The third run must've been the charm, because those are the only consolation prizes I remember. I found a box of Imperial Godzillas at Toys 'R Us and was very happy. How long did Imperial sell those things? This must've been 1992 or early 1993. I remember Imperial's inflatable Godzilla being on display in a KB Toys, but I didn't buy it.

Of course, a short while later Trendmasters came on the scene.

I always wished for good Godzilla toys when I was little and was too young for Shogun Warriors or even Imperial, so when I was a bit older and the Trendmasters line hit, whoo boy I was sold. I even mailed them asking about future kaiju for the line and they replied! Some of that stuff never got a full release but still, it was so cool.

What I grew up with from a much younger age were dinosaur toys, and though my family was poor, every now and then I'd end up with a new addition to my Carnegie Collection. Still have all of my childhood figures to this day, even the large Diplodocus and Apatosaurus.