Dear all,

My name is Maz, I'm 32, and I'm a Transformers/pre-Transformers collector from the UK! I thought it was high time I registered here at OTCA as my friend Heroic_Decepticon has nothing but great things to say about the people he's made friends with here. It's a pleasure to meet you all!

For a few years now I have been writing articles online about rarer variant G1 Transformers (Mexican, European, South American etc) and Takara Diaclone (Joustra, Japanese, Finnish) for my site http://www.tf-1.com.

In the last year I have started doing weekly articles and interviews for http://tfsource.com/blog/ on TF-related subjects that I found interesting.

About my collecting focus, I thought it might be a good idea to paste my toy collecting history here after a similar thread elsewhere:

1998 - 2000 - Got into adult TF collecting and was tracing down G1 I never owned as a child - primarily Autobot cars, jets, early combiners and leaders. This was from online stores like Digital Toys and collector's shops in London, England.

2000-2001 - Got online properly and discovered eBay, all downhill from there, buying the first reissues, Car Robots in import stores and continuing with G1 gaps (Shockwave, Swoop, Sixshot etc). Diaclone and pre-Transformers/variant sickness is born thanks to Yahoo Diaclone group, Devvi.com, Morgan Evans's Skywarp.co.uk and ArtfireStepper2000's website

2003 - Sold all variant Transformers, all G1, all Diaclones and reissues, keeping only childhood stuff and a White Astrotrain and Tigertrack reissue for display

2004 - 2007 - Returned to collecting thanks to Alternators/Binaltech and specifically an email from a Finnish guy showing me his Diaclone Black Tracks, unlocking the secret of that toy's identity finally, got into prototypes and specifically Ceji Joustra Diaclone (always loved them but finally starting paying up and buying them). Also started collecting original boxart, Animated and Movie 2007 toys.

2007 - 2008 - Once again sold pretty much everything I had collected in the last 4 years except Binaltech, Animated, Masterpiece, original Alternators boxart unreleased handpainted G2 prototypes, G1 production samples, Diaclone yellow Sideswipe, GiG Mirage, Powered Convoy, 6 special colour Diaclone Trainbots and Joustra Diaclone. Decided to waste a few years getting good at Gran Turismo on PS3 and playing competitively online and in national/international competitions and trying to break into motor sport journalism.

2009/2010 (?) Picked up (was gifted) Human Alliance Bumblebee, Sideswipe and Barricade, MP Grimlock and Skywarp but not actively collecting.

2011 - Saw pictures online of a Joustra Diaclone Red Corvette (pre-Tracks) which kicked me clean off the wagon again. Started collecting Ceji Transformers, Mexican TFs again, Diaclone again and gold box classics. Sold prototypes, sold production samples, sold Alternators and Alternators protos. Resumed my goal to complete Ceji Joustra Diaclone collection.

2012-present - Sold (or in the process of selling) all CHUG, Movie 2007, Reissues, Animated, boxed G1, Exclusives, minibots, Gold box Classics to focus solely on Ceji Joustra Diaclone and the odd Finnish Diaclone.

Current collection count is around 100 toys; 35 of which are Joustra Diaclone as well as two factory case boxes (1 full), 25 of which are Binaltech-related, 14 pieces of original Alternators box artwork, 9 or so Japanese/GiG Diaclone, 3 Finnish Diaclones, 4 Mex TFs, 4 Human Alliance, 12 Ceji TFs, 1 Car Robots toy, 2 G1 production samples, 3 reissues 2 model kits and 1 Grapple wheel. Oh and a few Mini-cons

Phew.

All the best
Maz