The Energon Pub

Hi, my name's Burn, i'm nearly 34 years old, and I apparently like to live in the past.

For those that don't know me, i'd better explain.

I'm a fan of Transformers. Don't ask me how big my collection is, i've never counted it. Don't ask to see pictures of it, they're stuck in a lot of boxes. But let's just say it would be over 1000 and encompasses all lines of TF's.

I was there at the beginning, and i'm here now. I've seen pretty much all of it in between.

I could bitch and whine about the recent stuff, but i'm not going to. I'm instead going to sing the praise of a small aspect of what drives me as a collector.

Restoring G1 figures

Now this isn't about me being a "Geewunner", but I do however, really enjoy the G1 figures. Yes, a lot of them were bricks but they had something that figures these days don't have anymore.

Stickers and more loose accessories than you can poke a stick at!

I know what some people think, they were bloody annoying. The parts were easy to lose, the stickers were a pain in the arse to put on.

To some extent I agree. But i've also found it to be a great sub-outlet for my collecting.

This year, my big project was Scorponok. While I have all but completed him (missing a gun for Fasttrack) finding the parts was fun. Admittedly, it would have been cheaper for me to grab a 100% complete one.

With him out the way, my next project has become Trypticon. I have the main body, complete with a battery cover! And he even still walks. These two guys alone have a lot of little accessories, take a look on E-Bay and see how much some of them go for.

But I love hunting them down because of the satisfaction it gives me when I finally complete a figure. Be it a seeker (who when you break it down comes with two wings, two rudders, two tail fins, two fists, two launchers, bombs and null-rays and a landing gear!) or a massive figure like Scorponok, hunting down each and every part and getting closer and closer to my goal is just bloody fun!

When they're complete though, I don't stop. No no, generally when you pick up a G1 figure they're pretty beat up. Joints are too stiff or need tightening up, or the stickers are badly worn. Which brings me to my third project for the year.

Doubledealer

He was essentially tossed in as a "freebie" with Tryticon, I didn't mind. He wasn't a figure I was really chasing, but he was still a figure I needed. He even came with his missile and one of his powermasters. While tracking down the remaining powermaster and the engine connector turned into an expensive exercise, he was still complete! ... though he sure did look like crap. Dust, dirt, bit of rust ... and oh so horrid stickers, not only worn, but in the wrong places!

So I placed the order with those nice folks @ Reprolabels who hooked me up with some replacement stickers for Doubledealer.

I don't know how long it took, but I think I deployed in HMW three times while stripping off the old stickers, cleaning off the dirt and dust, and applying the new stickers.

But then he was done, and by gum has it made a difference! While this particular set of stickers aren't 100% accurate, they, along with the clean, have breathed new life into Doubledealer. He looks fresh, vibrant, and most of all, 100% complete.

Take a look at before and after!

And this is one aspect of what I enjoy about being a TF collector. Being able to track down the old figures and bring them back to life. Something I don't feel can be done with today's figures.

How about you? Do you share a habit like this or do you aim to get them 100% minty?

I currently am on a similar project with a G1 HardHead...

I've got the body and one of his Shatter Blasters so far...

But in general, if I'm buying a G1 or equally old figure I tend to look for complete ones. The reason my Hardhead is incomplete is because he was only $2 bucks at a garage sale.

However I'm not an avid G1 collector. I started collecting when the Classics line hit shelves, so all the G1's that I have are mostly to fill in the gaps of the roster.

I got a couple that I simply knew wouldn't get Classics figures though. Like Battletrap
and Sparkstalker.

The vast majority of my G1's are the Minibots, which I now only lack Powerglide, Warpath, and Bumblebee to complete.

That's a really neat way to collect, and yes, your passion definitely shows through your hard work to rejuvenate the individual pieces. Good job!

Myself, I collect in a different way. I collect the same certain figures from each line. By that I mean I collect every Prime, Megatron, and now Grimlock and Hot Rod/Rodimus in every line they were in. Once I am done, I think Soundwave will be next. I don't have every single Prime or Megatron ever made, but they are grouped together on display accordingly.

I usually try to get complete figures, but I also enjoy the hunt for completion if it's not complete, though I probably don't have as much money and patience as you, so I don't take it as far. I do restore/clean the figures to the point where they look good in the collection, though they don't have to be so clean I could eat off them. (Which I wouldn't do.)

I also have gone this route from time to time, and it is so much fun to hunt piece by piece for G1 parts. My most recent was a G1 Snapdragon that needs only one white wing at this point, but I can't remember if it's the left or the right off the top of my head.
I think this is a good path to take for fun or in my case, because that particluar Snapdragon means something special to me. So, it's like restoring a car or a house. Or like baking cookies with love in every bite.
Unless you're allergic to love....

Restoring G1 figures is what I eventually wanna do, either by replacing accessories, stickers or entire limbs of combiners. I have a few projects lined up already, and one is a childhood piece of mine:

Defensor (1991 EU reissue)
This one's the worst off. Hot Spot and Blades have worn out telescoping legs, Streetwise has a widened socket in the back from the get go and some are yellowing from either the sun or my parents' smoking habits. Fortunately I still have all accessories.

Dreadwind & Darkwing
Again, complete, but some parts are bent out of shape, and yellowed. And I think Dreadwind has a faulty gimmick.

Burn, that's great that you have the patience to do that! I don't collect a lot of the toys, but I do still have all of my original G1 figures, and a lot of them are in very well played with condition - I think Twin Twist must have hung out in the snowbanks too long, or got chewed up by one of the cats...I suppose if I picked one in my collection to restore, it'd be Blaster - to this day he's my favorite! Perceptor would be a close second. I'll probably never get around to doing that - I personally don't have the patience - and I think their condition reflects the many battles they've been through (or, as I like to put it, how loved they were!) I do admit it would be nice to have restored, clean, beautiful toys that could be displayed proudly.

But, I do admire your tenacity to bring something back from the dead and make it beautiful again!

Patience honestly isn't an issue. I wasn't one of those kids who got whatever he asked for (I still did okay mind you) and once I got a job I couldn't afford everything I wanted (still did okay) and living in the boonies and having to wait eons for things to arrive I guess it just became second nature to bide my time.

I've also become more conscious of my money so when I go looking for parts I don't rush out and grab the first one I find, I search fairly extensively to find them at a good price. You pretty much have to these days anyway.

I understand what you mean. I was one of the poor kids from the boonies too. What I have is very near and dear to me - probably why I've hung on to them for so many years. My OP was given to me for my birthday from a guy in New York I used to write to and was my very first TF toy. That one is in extremely good condition because I just didn't play with him like I did the others - not because I didn't want to. It was more because it was one of the nicest things anyone's ever done for me.

But the whole restoring thing, I completely get - even if I can't make myself interested enough to do it myself. My husband restores Harleys and there's really nothing more gratifying than seeing something built from the ground up, piece by piece, back into the beautiful machine it was meant to be. So, anyone who can do that, regardless of what it is they're rebuilding, has my complete admiration.

Plus i'm saving a TF!

I actually sold my original G1 Prime. Now before people go "ZOMG! BURN IS HEATHEN!" I did it because i'd already replaced him with a MIB 1985 release that I snaffled off E-Bay for about $20AU.

I restored my old Prime as much as I could, trouble with die-cast though is it's hard to match the colour, and the chrome was just a silver paint. Still, it didn't stop some (grand-)mother snapping it up off E-Bay for their kid when the first movie came out.

G1 repainted Prime with trailer, missing a few accessories ... $50AU. Yeah, I cashed in on the movie's popularity.

I have already restored G1 Twin Twist and Topspin. It was a complete strip down, clean up and rebuild with both figures. The stickers again coming from those kind chaps at Reprolabels. For Topspin I even had to get a donor to replace some of his damaged parts.

My latest project is a Late G1 Devastator. Its the very late G1 version, the yellow one that originally didn't come with the combining parts. So what I've had to do is buy the 'original' G1 green Constructicons individually so I can swap over the respective combining parts, which means my nice yellow G1 Constructicons do now form Devastator! I also found to my cost, that the purple components, IE the hip connector are a different colour from the G2 version, so again I've had to buy two of those as well. I then bought a KO version, so I could use the gift set box and the foam insert to display them just like the originals. All I need now are the missiles and the original instruction manual to complete the project.

Up next is G1 Reflector, I bought him MIB 100% complete, so it should be a nice easy project (fingers crossed).

Pretty cool expression of the hobby, guys!

this is the way i've been collecting for years!
It truly is very rewarding tightening, cleaning, replacing and getting new stickers if needed.
SOOO much fun reserecting a figure to it's former glory.
I mainly collect G1 and have only bought 3 figures complete. Double Dealer, Megatron and Wreck-Gar.
The rest of the figures in my collection and the varying loose guns fists and whatnot have been hunted down at garage sales,flea markets,swaps and Ebay.
Got a few nice tricks up my sleeve aswell that i've acquired over the years.
One of my favorites to restore was my Omega Supreme. The electronics worked but intermittently so the wiring had to be cleaned up and the internal gears that worked off the motor were broken and in pieces.
Once i opened it up and spent the afternoon rewiring and epoxying the gears back together straight and true and turned him on.........It was GLORIOUS to watch him walk across the room and watching him on the track spinning his head around lighting and the cannon moving up and down.
That was a good day. Then i detailed him. Good as new! well almost.....still looking for one of the small yellow clips! very elusive

ahhhh fully restoring an Omega Supreme including the electronics ... if I wore a hat I would take it off to you!

I regularly restore my old G1. There's a certain satisfaction seeing figures you enjoyed as a kid change from old toy to beautiful display piece via the work you put in. At the moment I'm looking for a body for Brainstorm [they are not cheap for some reason] before I order another batch of Reprolabels.

Actually, this seems like a great opportunity to ask something that's been on my mind for a bit...
I've been mulling on seeking out old G1 Autobot guns (Sideswipe, Prowl, Jazz, Hound, Hot Rod, Kup etc.) for some custom projects.
Would any of you be able to offer some advice on where to get such items? (and how much I'd expect to pay etc.) Kind thanks in advance, dudes!

To be honest, the obvious answer here is eBay, I usually get most of my parts there.

To be honest, the obvious answer here is eBay, I usually get most of my parts there.