Favorite Sports and Action Figures Through The Years!!

kclj520

If He Can Hold The World, He Can Hold This Moment
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Hey all,

After some hype, looks like Fanatics' relaunch of the Starting Lineup figures happened yesterday, with some NBA figures: Steph, King James, Jayson Tatum, Giannis, Joel Embiid, Ja Morant, Luka, and Trae Young.

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They are rather prohibitively priced at $49.99 each, but here is the link to check them out!
 
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Thanks, Kevin. I think we can expect Fanatics to start doing things with the Topps brand to try to appeal to a wider audience.
 
Now, I was born in 1981, and started with He-Man and Skeletor in about 1984 or '85.
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I then went on to GI Joe (as what red blooded American 6 year old in the 80s wouldnt have??).
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As I progressed into card collecting, I LOVED the original Starting Lineup figures, but may not have exactly had the best taste in talent, since Mike Tomczack from the Chicago Bears might have been popular in Chicago in the late 80s, but not exactly a household name now....

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I would say I redeemed myself with these next two:

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But forget about finding this figure ANYWHERE in Chicago in the early 90s, I mean, come on! The 92 Dream Team was jut that...a DREAM!

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Thankfully, I had the good fortune of growing up with two Grandparents who just adored me, and were VERY generous with what they got me, so I had a LOT of these toys growing up. My kids could CARE LESS!!! Which is just hilarious to me, since the toys were so special to me as a young boy, but I want my kids to like whatever they want to like, so its all good!

Looking at the price tags on the original figures it amazes me that adjusting for inflation, buying a $4.99 figure in 1988 is about $12.50 now, which is a LOT to pay for a figure. That having been said, my middle son wants a series of Prodigy Epic figures for Christmas and they are $12-$15 each on ebay (if we are lucky). We love the kid, so we are forking it over.
 
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Thanks, Kevin. I think we can expect Fanatics to start doing things with the Topps brand to try to appeal to a wider audience.
I would agree with you Larry, I think Fanatics has a lot to shoulder right now, since we have a lot of expectations as a collecting community for Topps! If Fanatics wants to stay relevant, they do need to move it out to a wider audience (think: kids who collect with their parents!!)
 
Some other favorites of mine over the years:

Went through a long Universal Monsters collecting phase in the late 80s/early 90s!

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My gosh, seems silly now, these were HUGE toys, heavy as bricks, but I had to have them all!

This was the next series of monsters I collected, Hamilton Gifts from 1991:

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My 6 and 8 year old sons and 10 year old daughter looked over my shoulder when I was checking these out on ebay (stupidly expensive) and were like "whoa cool!" to which I said, if any of you want, we can pick these up for Christmas, and they were all like "naah..." :)

Kind of a cool article re: the evolution of the monster toys: https://theretronetwork.com/universal-monsters-a-retrospective-in-toys/
 
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Would love to see everyone else's favorite toys from over the years!! Post them here!
 
Those are just awesome! Almost as cool as the fact that you have a Dodgers room in your home!!

Love the 2 Kirk figures by the signed ball, and the Jackie and Larry figures are sweet! I never saw those before!

Vin Scully's call from 1988 is just unforgettable:

 
So I took a short detour from GI Joes for a bit to collect some TMNT figures,

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But then went right back. "Yo Joe!"

Following that, got into some band figures, Ozzy at first....
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...loved the KISS figures too (Ace Frehley is my favorite), but I was by this time in college, and collecting went by the wayside for a good long while...

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s-l400 (1).jpgs-l400 (2).jpgs-l400.jpgimages.jpegIn just the past year, I have picked up a few new (old) figures at shows and online, some cool items from my childhood that I either didnt have, or had and later sold...
 
And here is a figure of the Master of Disaster himself, Dick Butkus!
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I created this custom 8x10 to display alongside the figure!

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My wife and I met, got engaged, and got married while at U of I, and I was fortunate to have Dick sign this stadium giveaway item from 2008!

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Bumping this back up today, anyone have any favorite action figures or collectibles they want to show off??

This article is prety hilarious, I remember many of these figures as those I did NOT put on my Christmas list!!

 
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