Welcome to the first, of hopefully many, critiques of peoples collections. And we have an absolute pearler to start with! But before that, let us put ‘Collectors’ in general in perspective (the male ones anyway).
There are your first type of collector who embodies the most well-known stereotype. Sad, pathetic little fraggers who both look and smell damp like little toads, still living in the room they grew up in or entombed in their parents basement. The touch of a woman will remain forever an unearthly and purely imagined delight that will never be sampled and human companionship is relegated to whatever chatroom they frequent most to angrily discuss the merits of whatever sci-fi foolishness is gracing the big screen.
Then you get the second type of collectors. The ones who are your average joe. Could be your neighbor or the guy sitting in the next cubicle. They have friends, go to work, even do ok with the girls. They just happen to have a penchant for collecting a particular genre, be it baseball cards or model trains. They make up the grist of society and I’m sure one is responsible for creating the colour beige.
Then you get your third type – the fabled ‘Alpha Collector’. These guys looks like they could bench-press you and probably snap your spine with a modicum of effort if the whim struck. Not only are they socially well-adjusted but also usually the life of the party, with plenty of mates who want to hang with them and plenty of girls who want to sample what’s hanging from them. And when they collect they don’t dick about – they collect big time!
This third type of collector is rare. I’m proud to say I’ve tried to live my life as one, this article is about another. Let’s meet Jordan!
Like me, Jordan grew up on a farm so a few thousand acres was his playground. Now, also like me, he is older with a nice 3-bedroom house, a lovely wife, beautiful kids and a steady job. Main difference is he still looks like he could lift a pizza truck whereas age has made me look like I could eat the contents. I met Jordan in the flesh for the first time a bit over a year ago and despite the 11 hours apart we live from each other I promised that one day I would come to see his collection. On Tuesday I got that chance.
Entering Jordan’s lovely hilltop home overlooking a picturesque lake you could be forgiven for thinking this is not the home of a collector. Everything is very neat and tidy, you can see a couple of Lego Pirate Ships on top of a cabinet and a Generations Metroplex in the dining room but with kids in the house this is to be expected.
Entering Jordan’s kitchen I start to get a sense of what lies beneath. Spread everywhere are quite large containers and boxes filled with various Lego pieces – even to my untrained eye there seem to be a few thousand.
“I’m just sorting out a bunch of old boxes while I have the house to myself” Jordan explains. It then becomes apparent as my eye takes everything in that there is Lego EVERYWHERE! Many of the boxes have pre-made kits in them. A couple are old enough that I remember them from my childhood but obviously there are ones spanning the last 20 years on show. Jordan takes me through all assembled (and also disassembled) and I marvel at some of the more elaborately constructed vehicles.
“Right! Let me give you the tour” Jordan says.
Now, here is why Jordan’s looks so normal on the surface. Because every nook, cranny, cupboard, draw and shelf is absolutely CHOCKERS with collectibles of all sorts! By the end of my tour I was certain if I opened the fridge I would have found a scale-replica Tie-Fighter in the crisper and some Micro-Machines in the butter dish. There are MISB playsets in the tops of his kids cupboards, MOSC TF Animated toys in the top of his WIR, video games in draws under the master bed, TF jigsaws in the laundry, Xbox games in the basement and the study is just a mancave dream full of toys, video games and a bitchin guitar and drum set!
None of my descriptions or photographs can really do his collection justice since it is so spread out in so many small (but highly significant) groupings all over the house. With pics you can never really get an idea of just how BIG this collection is, you would need a specially designed shed or underground cavity to do it justice by having it all together. I will say to my mind the most impressive collections were those of his Lego, retro 80’s toys, video games and of course Transformers! But there were plenty of other smaller ones on show such Masters of the Universe and TMNT.
Some personal thrills of mine were to see toys and games I had myself owned as a kid and not seen in manys a decade. Strider (the metal horse) and Fisto (guy with a big metal fist – think he does German porn now) from He-Man made up 90% of my collection from Eternia back then and sure as She-Ra Jordan had them!
You know when some guy says “Oh yeah, I got thousands of games man!” and you think “bullshit you do”? Video Games tend to be a lot like sex, the more a dude brags he has the less he probably really does. Well I’ve only heard Jordan mention his games in passing before, but this is a guy who could say and mean it literally that he does have thousands of games! Everything from the current era of consoles to dating back before I was born! Some of these systems I had never even heard of! The Vectrex – who has ever heard of a friggin Vectrex?! But one was there and it’s like the first Tron movie finally made sense! I got a massive rush seeing that many classic games I had owned that Jordan still had such as the Mario games on the NES, Zombies ate my Neighbours on the SNES, Goldeneye 007 on the N64 – all brought back brought back font memories. A MAJOR thrill of mine was to see that he had ASTERIX on the Atari 2600! And in the freakin box! I wasted many hours of my pre-teen years trying to clock this unclockable game!
After taking me on this big tour Jordan unveiled what he knew I had come in particular to see – his TRANSFORMERS!
First off was the Animated collection in his WIR. Nearly every figure I could think of was there MIB or MOSC. And he very kindly took down (after he saw me nearly lay a freakin egg in excitement!) his pristine Botcon Stuntcon set. I gotta admit, I was drooling over this and thoughts of grabbing it and throwing myself out the nearest window to run into the night did cross my mind (only problems were we were two stories up and it was daytime – small but critical flaws in an otherwise brilliant plan). But then it was time for Jordan to take me to the linen cupboard of splendor!
Inside Jordan had about 100 to 150 G1 figures. Certainly a respectable collection! He even had Hosehead and Camshaft who I lack myself. But even more impressive was the massive amount of miscellaneous TF merchandise from the 80’s era he had! It was UN-F*CKING BELIEVABLE! Everything from tents to gift-set, candles-to tooth-brush packs, records to books-on-tape! I have a lot of misc TF merchandise myself but to compare mine to his would be like comparing a dandelion to an oak-tree – in other words there is no comparison! Whilst I may have more, very little of it is from the G1 80’s era (most from the last decade) and 80’s gear is what Jordan had in spades – I felt both envious and aroused on so many levels I would have fainted, except a lack of consciousness would have meant I had to stop looking at all the cool shit on show!
In the end, I only was able to spend 2 hours admiring Jordan’s collection before time dragged me away, but I could have spent days there. As I left I realized I’d spent so much time drooling over all the great collectibles that I’d forgotten to do the interview part of the visit! Jordan said “Don’t worry man, just send me any questions you have” so if people have questions please post them below and I’m sure he will get a chance to answer them at some point.
I’d like to thank him for opening his home to me and showing me all his wonderful stuff! This man and his collection are both to be highly respected and honored. Maybe if you are lucky one day he will give you a tour too!
