a thought on these 3rd party products.

[kup]

To me, they're just not Transformers and they belong in the same category as KO's and I would never want to dilute the purity of my TFs by adding them to my collection.

(VP ducks for cover)

My comments here isn't focused at anyone in particular, just commenting on the term mentioned above which I have seen used by a few people in the fandom.

Without flaming nor getting into the tired discussion of what constitutes a KO, I never understood this 'purity' stance. Why is a collection that has 3rd party upgrades any less 'pure' than one that doesn't. Don't I still own the official figure that was upgraded? What about complete unofficial figures like Defender; is my collection any less pure when I display it? Is it so Powerful that it lessens all my hundreds of official figures composed of Botcon, G1, BW, Binaltech, Classics, etc into null if I display it besides them?

I can understand someone not liking 3rd party products or making a conscious choice to only collect legit items but this collection 'purity' concept is something else entirely.

I know most of us here see Transformers as something much more than just a hobby, I know I do but some do take a strange ideological, almost theological stand on it. The concept of this 'purity' is very abstract in a theological way so I feel that if I ever take such a stance, collecting Transformers would no longer be about fun for me but something much more serious which would suck the joy out of it. This hobby serves me as something fun that I do to distract myself from the monotony of everyday life while enjoying it with others. It's not a religion in which I need to impose a strict ideological and moral structure onto it which I use to judge the 'purity' of mine and other collections. Collecting helps me enjoy life a bit better, it doesn't need to have a strict ideology.