Dave's World

Until recently, I felt there was no where in Michigan that held any interest in the Transformers or their universe.

Last year, at Michigan's largest comic book convention (the Motor City Comicon), I found a dealer who sold Japanese Transformers cartoons. After purchasing a few of the tapes (which I recommend to anyone who can get their hands on some) my pursuit of a Michigan Transformers following began. Eventually, it brought me to a comic shop I had been visiting for the last eight years (Time Traveler's in Berkely, MI off 12 Mile). This store carries everything under the sun as far as action figures and comic books are concerned. Most importantly, this store had Transformers.

One of the employees I met, Dave Mamer, was very helpful with my Transformers purchases.

Laster, I discovered that he had a business out of his home. It is called "The Empire". He sells a variety of toys from his home. Some of the collectible toys he sells range from the X-Men toys to the Super Power to Mego to G.I.Joe. His second largest focus after Transformers are the Star Wars toys. I soon discovered that the majority of his sales and collections are (of course) the Transformers.

His basement is covered with Transformers. He has everything I could have imagined. From boxed Transformers to loose Transformers, the cards, to collector's cases - Dave's "Empire" has it all.

Dave originally started out by selling the Star Wars toys, with a little of everything on the side. As he began buying more and more collections, he became less picky, and soon started taking whatever was with the collections he looked over.

As for Star Wars, Dave has basically gone as far as he wants to currently. He has most of the figures, and feels there is little room for growth with his Star Wars collection.

"I found the Transformers more interesting that anything else," Dave stated candidly in an interview with Trans-Forum. "The Transformers are cooler!"

Dave can be found travelling around the country as both a dealer and a collector; visiting a variety of shows from Ohio, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Illinois, all the way to Colorado. The next upcoming show Dave will be dealing at will be Botcon July 12th - 14th, 1996, in Chicago.

As for what Dave sells, he has a large variety of both loose and boxed. The majority of what he sells is loose, however he does have some highly desired boxed characters such as Fortress Maximus and Megatron. He occassionally sells Transformers accessories he may have, but only if they are extras.