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My name is Patrick Stewart. My mother thought she was saving me from a lot of aggravation when she changed her mind about naming me Jimmy. If you ask me if I'm the real Patrick Stewart, the answer is "yes," but I'm probably not the first person you may think of when you hear the name.
I started collecting Joes seriously in 1989 because Snake Eyes v3 really is that awesome. I collected them as a kid from 1982-1985. In 89, I set the goal of getting one of each figure. That eventually led me to start collecting variations.
But this tendency is something that I think is just a part of my character, maybe even my genes. I still feel bad about my brothers original Han Solo. When I was a kid I was so obsessed with that bit that they would do on Sesame Street....the "one of these kids is not like the other" bit where you'd see 4 kids in separate quadrants of the television and 3 would be playing baseball but one would be wearing his football gear. I always felt compelled to keep my hand on the screen until the song was done to show that I could pick out the difference between multiple kids. In my young mind, holding my hand against the screen was a requirement for getting credit. And one day that song came on when our dog got a hold of Solo. Poor Han Solo. So I think I just can't help it. It is probably OCD.
But I have been around in some small capacity since the days when the Joe community didn't have the internet to connect us. I can remember getting pics of GITrekker's customs via snail mail, handed off from one collector to another because at the time that was the only way to show customs to other collectors. I can remember the rumbles of curiosity when a coming wave of Joes was referred to as "Street Fighters," rifling through Cotswold Collectibles, confusion over Ice Cream Viper who turned out to be Ice Cream Soldier (which at the time was even more confusing), and when Lunartixx were impossible to find. Everyone was scouring Value City to find them. Have you made a trip to Ross or TJ Maxx lately? Some things never change.
When variations ran out (or rather...became very difficult to find any new ones), my collection turned toward international figures and production-level preproduction figures. Funskool scares me. My head might explode if I ever got too deep into those. But lately I have mostly enjoyed finding any small change I can in preproduction figures. Of course I love getting the canceled or drastically different stuff the most, but even small changes are interesting. To me, those demonstrate that Hasbro really does look closely at the details to hammer out the kinks before toys are released.
While G.I.Joe is what I collect most intensively, I also collect Transformers and StarCom.
I have been working in movie theaters since 1996. I can't really remember how old I am because I like losing track. I've been holding on to 26 for so long that I am either 35 or 36. I don't like getting older.
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