That makes total sense. I noticed there is quite the black market of weapons to choose from. Anywhere there is a buck to be made, someone will find an easy way to cheat people. I guess I will eventually have to be able to prove my little surplus of weapons are real and not fakes. Its a shame there is always someone out there to crash the party and ruin it.

Hi !! Just joined this great site !

Name: Rodolfo
Age: 41
Single/Married: Divorced
Residence: The Woodlands, TX
Occupation: Enginneer
Kids: yes
Pets: no
Reason(s) you love Star Wars: Favorite as kid in Mexico
How did you get here?: Its THE Site for Star Wars experts
Collecting Focus: Lili Ledy
Character Focus: ALL
Collecting interest: Complete Loose Figures, Lili Ledy
Looking For: Expand Knowledge

Welcome to TIG, Chip, Fito and Rodolfo

Thanks much !! Great site !!

Welcome to TIG Rodolfo!

Long time lurker, new user.  Glad to meet you all!

Name: Matt
Age: 40
Single/Married: Married
Residence: Illinois
Occupation: Database Engineer
Kids: Yes
Pets: Yes
Reason(s) you love Star Wars: Something my dad got me into growing up.  To this day one of our greatest ways to connect, as we don't share a whole lot of common interests.  I'm currently indoctrinating my 6 year old daughter.  She's hooked.
How did you get here?: Topic interest, figure variation curiosity, google
Collecting Focus: 1978/1979 MOC First 21 (ANH), graded pieces primarily as I don't have any experience in spotting fakes
Character Focus: Immediate focus is just on A New Hope carded characters, but I do have a desire to gather some of the main/important characters from subsequent films after my current desires have been met (if that ever happens)
Collecting interest: Early variation, complete loose and carded figures and die cast vehicles.  
Looking For: Peers with same interest.  Knowledge sharing (eventually).  Other means of fulfilling my collecting interests, safely, outside of Evil-BAY.

Welcome to the forum TheRealBiggsDarklighter

Name: Rich
Age: Older than I feel
Single/Married: 10 years, 10 wonderful... Yes, I'm married.
Residence: House
Occupation: Enterprise Cloud Computing
Kids: No thanks, I have 2 already
Pets: Dead
Reason(s) you love Star Wars: Because it's Star Wars! I missed ANH in theaters but got to see ESB and ROTJ in theater and the rest is history. Ran many Betamax tape recordings of Star Wars ANH recorded off HBO into the ground. 100's of viewings into my teens. Had all the original figures, ships, etc. Went to college, came back first Christmas break and my basement was wiped clean. Mom gave em away to the Church... She still hasn't been let off the hook 25 years later.
How did you get here?: I've run into your discussions from some Google searches and thought I should join up.
Collecting Focus: All Vintage Star Wars figures & vehicles 1977 - 1984
Character Focus: NA
Collecting interest: I may not be liked here for this and may be promptly booted, but to me having a vintage Star Wars figure on a Mint Cardback is just Nirvana! I just don't want to pay top dollar for a MOC figure, to get the entire run would take years and tens of thousands of dollars, if not more. So I recard my vintage figures on my own work, my own cardbacks I've made that look just like the originals. I've spent hundreds of hours in Photoshop perfecting each one, looked at every detail, comparing every inch of the originals to make sure I have it just right. My collection is getting big, fast and they look absolutely amazing. I've taken it a step further after some friends wanted my work and I decided to grow this hobby onto eBay. I GIVE FULL DISCLOSURE that the cardbacks are my custom work, I clearly list if I use repro weapons / capes / etc. and if any restoration / paint touch up to the vintage figure was done. I know this is where I get kicked off but I love Star Wars, doing this is a great joy for me, I love getting to be hands-on and "play" with the toys I grew up with. Not to advertise, but my handle is RAWSTARWARS on ebay if you want to see what I'm talking about and hopefully, some of you will agree that I make these toys look like they did when they were on a Toys R Us shelf 40 years ago. I've had them autographed by Mark Hamill, Jeremy Bulloch and Mike Quinn and am working on getting more autographed. I know a lot of discussion here goes into bashing repro stuff, but if it helps to complete a vintage figure and make it look awesome, and nobody is passing it off as vintage, then why not? I care about making these figures look awesome and new and carded like they were when you opened your Christmas presents as a kid. I think the vintage figure itself holds it's value, but just not as much as if it had the original weapon or cape, etc. I'm not into AFA grading of figures and wouldn't even think of doing mine, because I usually have to touch them up and I'm not into "counterfeiting", that's not why I do it. I just love the hobby and I love the result.

So I opened up this can of worms, bring on the assault... or love and understanding. It's up to you.

Hi everyone
I'm Chuck in Gainesville, GA.

I was always into model building so when the first film came out in 1977 I instantly loved all the models of all the various ships and sets. I bought every magazine and book I could on industrial Light & Magic figure out how they had done it. And actually built my own models of x-wings and battle Cruisers long before anything was available.. I have an extensive collection of model kits that I haven't built only because I want them to be perfect so I do research for years trying to find all the details I can LOL I even went to Universal Studios to see the original model of the Millennium Falcon that they used in the first film.

I bought the sets of metal model kits at DragonCon in Atlanta in 1981 and just came across them again the other day. Does anyone know anything about them?

Chuck and Rich!

Hey folks, Brian here from North Carolina,
  I've been collecting since the mid 90's and primarily have a focus in all things vintage, though I'm a big fan of every collecting era. My parents bought me the trilogy set when I was about 3 and I remember watching it and my tiny brain had no idea what was going on, but I liked the lasers. Got a few years older, revisited the movies and love affair began. My first purchase was a closed belly Tauntaun that I picked up at a flea market when I was 9 that was missing the reigns and also an ear, that I didn't notice until later (psssh amateur). Paid $8. Ever since I've been hooked on collecting. Now, I have a pretty good sized collection and not enough space to display everything. I've been a lurker on this sight for a while and have used it for years for identifying repros vs original weapons & accessories. Honestly, I've go tons of friends, but none with any Star Wars interest, wife included. So with joining IGF I'm hoping to find a community to escape to and have meaningful Star Wars dialogue with like minded individuals.  Wampa Wampa Wampa!!!

For some reason I never get notifications when this thread gets new comments/member introductions. So excuse this rude Aussie for not saying Hi.

Welcome

Name: Nando
Age: 44
Single/Married:
Residence:BCN
Occupation: scaffolder
Kids: 1
Pets: 0
Reason(s) you love Star Wars: they were my toys when I was a child
How did you get here?:looking for information about originals and fakes weapons
Collecting Focus:
Character Focus:
Collecting interest: vintage
Looking For:complete my collection, I have lost most of the weapons

Welcome aboard. have a look around and start getting to know the guys around here, it is a fun group to be involved in.

Hi Everybody!

Name: Alex
Age: 41
Single/Married: Single - soon from the market
Residence: Germany
Occupation: Astrophysicist
Kids: 0
Pets: 0
Reason(s) you love Star Wars: Who doesn't?
How did you get here?: Checking to see if the figures I bought were originial variations. Your site is a fantastic reference! Keep it up!
Collecting Focus: Vintage (1977-1985) only, near mint loose vintage, variations, MIB, MISB
Character Focus: Darth Vader, Boba Fett, Han Solo, Stormtrooper
Collecting interest: Near Mint loose vintage, PBP, LL, Glasslite, Palitoy, last 17
Looking For: Near Mint loose vintage, PBP, LL, Glasslite, Palitoy, last 17

May the Force be with you!

My name is Rob Genovese
I’ll be 42 in April
Have a Girlfriend of 5 years
Living in Brooklyn, NY
I’m a full time Art Teacher and former tattooer
I have a 10 year old daughter
Was born the same year as Star Wars and grew up with The Empire Strikes Back
I found The Imperial Gunnery as a reference for authentic weapons to avoid repros
I’m working on completing the loose Vintage figure run
Also looking for The Empire Strikes Back MOC’s
Interested in anything not reproduction!

Welcome to TIG, Alex and Rob

Thanks Paul!

Sent from Topic'it App

Hello to all.
As my parents are getting old, they asked their childs to get ride off all the old stuff that was at home, and I ran into my old toys, I have plenty of figures from my childhood and decide to sell them,. So i put it in a Spanish website. When i got hundreds of responses asking for the figures, I decide to investigate and run into this forum.

But after investigating I might pass from seller to collector. I have some figures that might be pbp, and want to know if they are prior to sell them and start collecting normal figures, just one of each, af my income isn’t to high, and mainly my wife does nto aloud me to spend so much money.

Well, this is my data:
Name: Valentin
Age: 47
Single/Married: already told
Residence: Valencia / SPAIN
Occupation: engineer
Kids: to many
Pets: just past away 6 months ago after 14 years of good life
Reason(s) you love Star Wars: was one of my best toy in childhood, playing with my bros
How did you get here?: looking through internet
Collecting Focus: just normal figures, but all vitange,
Character Focus: mainly boba fet , it was the figure I liked the most, but i have losted
Collecting interest:
Looking For: Firs know what do I exactly have
Also know if 4-Lom jacket red armor is the same as brown armor. I have 3 old 4-lom, 2 jackets and one brown armor and one red armor

Br to all

Welcome Valencia. If you can take good photos of your figures and start a new thread in the vintage chat regarding them. If you can not post photos, feel free to shoot them to either myself or one of the admin via email or even use a third party photo hosts and just post a link. Pbp are not my specialty but several here do collect them and have studied them. Javi who wrote a whole book about pbp figures also is a member here and pops in time to time.

thanks Brian. I will try. It will take some time as with 3 kids not to much time left.

I know about Javi´s book. He is spanish as me, and I think that Sergio was one of the buyers that tried to buy mi collection.
br

Hi to all! Newbie here but a long time SW fan. Started building prop replicas and am now exploring collecting OT figures. I'm on a quest to collect at least the first 12 but have a feeling it will go beyond that eventually.
I have managed to get 11 out of 12 and am looking for a clean Complete Leia. Wish me luck!

Welcome to TIG Panaflex
Good luck with the hunt for Leia