>>9863244Anyways, about 5 years later in 2016 I realized that new Lego was fine but not the same as the Lego I loved as a child, so I bought a vintage set I had as a kid (pic related) and ever since then I think I managed to collect every Castle and Space set made from the mid 80s to mid 90s ever since. I'm missing a few but overall my collection is like 95% complete. I had all the sets as a kid and then some. And when covid hit I moved back to my home state and found as much as I could of my old Lego collection at my family's place so now I have quite a few duplicates. There's just as much missing, though, so I have turned to BrickLink to make a project out of completing my missing childhood sets.
After Lego I got into collecting Battle Beasts, because after Lego they were probably my second favorite and most memorable childhood toy. I spent the past year or so collecting those and I'm one figure short of having them all, and just a half dozen weapons or so and I'll have a 100% complete collection.
But collecting toys is now a think I must do. My most recent obsession is MOTU Origins. MOTU was one of the first toy lines I played with as a kid and I had SO many of them. I have no idea what happened to my childhood collection, as I've only found maybe two figures and a couple of weapons. I thought they were cool but never knew where to jump in until I was sold on Origins more recently; the vintage figures can be pricy, incomplete, and worn. The Classics line looked amazing but I wasn't paying attention to non-Lego toys when it released and I'm now priced out of even thinking about trying to collect them.
After Origins I will probably try to start collecting more random vintage toys from my childhood, like Rocks & Bugs & Things, Diener mythical creatures & alien eraser figures, maybe a couple Supernaturals. So many cool toys are both in the past and present. It's a never-ending journey.