Collecting - Your Favourite Year

I was thinking about this last night - what year was my most successful or enjoyable to be a collector.

Now I don't know if it's a case of my memory fading, but 2010 has been a phenomenal year for me.

My favourite acquisitions for the year have been:

2010 Unicron - The movie-accurate version that I always wanted
MP Grimlock - Even though his a simple toy by MP standards, he's GRIMLOCK :cool:
Reissue Predaking - My favourite gestalt when I was a kid and that gold makes him even more awesome

Runner-up years would have to be 1985 when I received Megatron, Optimus Prime, and Soundwave all from Santa (all of which I still have), and 2009 when my neighbour discovered a box of goodies in his garage including a complete / mint Reflector which he happily sold to me.

What was your most memorable year being a collector?

I thought 2003 was a pretty good year.
+ It broke that awful TF drought of 2002
+ We got lots of G1 reissues from HasTak
+ We got Armada, the first real new Transformers franchise since Beast Machines (as opposed to RiD which was mostly modified Car Robot, other repaints and a small handful of moulds intended for Beast Machines (e.g. AAOP, Megabolt Megatron, Bruticus etc.)) - and I personally like Mini-Cons (some of the best toys from Armada were the MiniCons IMO).
+ The year ended with the release of Binaltech Smokescreen and news of Masterpiece Convoy which came out early the following year.
+ We had our first taste of an Australian convention with the OzFormers booth at Sydney SupaNova. =)
+ I attended the Nexus Fair in Perth and met up with some of the WA fans there. Also hung out at Ark Ivor's afterwards which was heaps cool. :)

Runner-up years...
* 1997: Beast Wars was really picking up steam in its 2nd year and I felt excited at seeing the "Transformers Renaissance." And after years of searching, I finally found other TF fans online to interact with. Joined AusTransOTCA
* 2001: Attended lots of fan meets, including the big (well, it was big for those days :p) meet in Melbourne where we had fans from 3 different states (and 1 from Japan) in attendance, including myself, dirge, Demonac, Rhinox (aka Paulbot), Sofaman etc.
* 1986: My dad took my brother, cousin and myself to Hoyts cinema on George Street to watch an animated film called "Transformers The Movie." ;)
* 2007: June 16 premiere - got to meet Michael Bay and Rachael Taylor (oh, and that skinny tattooed girl who won't be in the 3rd flick :p)... and Deni Hines who was standing behind me in the line to the cinema. ;) Now apparently Transformers is "cool" again (which has its pros and cons)
* 1984: can't forget the year I started collecting Transformers. My mum took my brother and I into HobbyCo and bought us Brawn and Huffer. (^_^)

It isn't my favorite year as such, but according to TFwiki, 1998 was when Quickstrike was released. I can deal with "milestones" when it comes to my childhood, but at that time I was twenty three years old. Surely beyond being a child.

(in theory at least)

And yet there I was, buying my first modern Transformers toy.

There's been many great years since then - I look fondly upon them. And yet none of them have that same impact as when I rediscovered something so very special from so may years past.

2009 - when I first started collecting. And now I have over 100 TFs!!! :D

For me, it would too be 2010.
Why? for the following reasons:

1. Finally got on top of my Classicsverse collection (then they had to go ahead and add Generations :rolleyes::p)
2. Finally joined a Transformers forum after being lobbied pretty heavily. :eek:
3. Joined a Transformers forum... and liked it!, have learnt exponentially since and also have been poorer ever since. :p
4. Met many other people who shared in this passion. :cool:
5. My Collection has grown ridiculously! :D:D:D

Acquisitions of note for the year:

1. 2010 Reissue Predaking
2. Masterpiece Grimlock
3. G1 Scorponok
4. G1 Omega Supreme
5. FansProject :cool:

2008 as it had so much diversity:

Classics/Henkei/Universe
Movie
Animated
Encore
The birth of Fansproject

2009 was the year for me - mainly for a few reasons:

~ 25th anniversary of Transformers
~ Watching ROTF and it subsequently re-igniting my interests in TFs
~ ROTF showing me how much I disliked Movie-verse bot designs and making me want to revisit 'classic designs' (Universe/Henkei)
~ Rekindling my childhood and buying TF toys again after a 20+ yr hiatus
~ Joining OTCA (never imagined I would join a forum 'discussing toys' :p)
~ Buying 200+ TFs in the second half of the year (as a result of the above)

Hard for me to pinpoint a year really.

2003, because I started collecting Transformers again
2006, the convention was that year I think?
2008, Classics got me back into heavy collecting
2010, Finally got the figure I always wanted, "and the answer is Unicron"

2009. rotf gave me a chance to begin my collection on a large scale and i loved every figure that was released :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 1AZRAEL1

2006, the convention was that year I think?

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Yeah that was OzToyCon at King Street Wharf. :)

For me it would be 2004. I'd been buying tfs sporadically for years but this was the year i started buying regularly with Energon. The stores always had something to buy and my collection grew rapidly.

The other year would be 2010 when I met someone who not only appreciated my passion but also takes a lot of interest and surprises me with new ones on occasion.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by GoktimusPrime

Yeah that was OzToyCon at King Street Wharf. :)

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Yep that was the one.

Incidentally, my mate who I was there with, has a video of the event. I forgot to grab it off him when I was there last. I might try and visit him this Friday and get it off him and bring it on Saturday.

Upon further reminiscing, I'm going to revise my answer to 1986. I had been watching the combiner teams on the cartoon and imagined how awesome it would be if they ever came out as toys, and then they did.

Either 2004 for getting Predaking and getting back into TFs, or this year 'cos I've just picked up so many awesome TFs.