Looking back on almost forty years of "collecting" (as of this writing, I'm 45 and while I received my first Transformer at the age of four, I certainly wasn't a collector then), I'm always astounded by what are often referred to as "once-in-a-lifetime" finds. Things that happen by pure luck or circumstance, or even hard work, but that will never, ever happen again. And in all my years, I've never had a story like that.
Until now.
It all begins, strangely enough, with a trip to New Zealand. Or what was supposed to be a trip to New Zealand. My first to that side of the world, actually.
You may or may not know that my day job is that of an independent author. This basically makes me an entrepreneur who writes and publishes books for a living. As such, one of the things I do periodically is attend author conferences as a sort of continuing education, considering my industry has nothing formal.
And New Zealand was supposed to be another one of those trips. Albeit, a very special trip. And I was ready to go. I'd made all my reservations, filled out the paperwork, booked the flights and was eagerly anticipating the trip scheduled for late March of 2026.
But then I happened to go to another writer's mastermind in Savannah for a few days at the end of February. And all of a sudden when I came back, I wasn't so excited about going to New Zealand anymore. It wasn't that something bad had happened in the interim, but I believe I had gotten my fill--at least professionally. I came away from Savannah with some excellent information that I could put towards my business.
And all of a sudden a 10 day trip to New Zealand was starting to look more like a liability than an asset.
Now don't get me wrong, I love to travel. But I would have had to have taken this trip alone as my wife would have needed to stay home with our new dog. So I didn't exactly have anyone to share this trip with. Not only that, but we had a lot coming up in the following months that would have made the trip something of a time crunch. In other words once I got back, I would have had to hit the ground running with no chance of a rest or reprieve.
So what does this have to do with Transformers? Or collecting in general? Don't worry, we're getting there.
I decided (after a lot of back and forth) that this wasn't the best time to be going to New Zealand. And that staying home and focusing on my business was the better call. At least for now. There would always be more trips and more conferences to attend. And most wouldn't require two full days of travel to get there.
With New Zealand firmly in my rearview, I put it out of my mind. But when you take something away, you leave room for something else. Something new.
See, I'm not the kind of person who likes to drive places just to go shopping. I'd rather just order what I want online. If I'm going to travel somewhere, I want it to be like Botcon, where I would have 2-3 days at a show that had a lot of offerings.
But early on a Saturday morning in the middle of March, 2026, that changed.
I woke up early to find someone had posted a picture in a Transformers Facebook group--a group I was not a member of, but it was served to me by the algorithm regardless. It was a picture of an array of e-hobby Transformers that had just come into stock in a store in Greensboro, North Carolina--an hour and a half drive from me.
And in that group were about eleven figures I needed for my ehobby collection. I'd been looking for these figures for months. Even years. Shining Ultra Magnus. Prototype Astrotrain. Magnificus, Gold Jazz, Twincast, Minibots, Silverstreak, Black Hot Rod...the list goes on. It was like a puzzle piece that fit my missing collection. One trip up there and I could almost complete something that had eluded me even during my first collection.
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| Almost exactly everything I needed...in one fell swoop |
But even so, I just considered calling there and asking if I could purchase them over the phone. Instead it was my wife who suggested we just drive up. We had the day free, why not? And she could investigate a few local antique stores.
Now, I had originally been scheduled to leave for New Zealand the following Monday. And had that trip still been in place, I would have been in no headspace to take a day trip to Greensboro. I would have been packing, making sure I had everything in order. Trying to tie up everything I could before leaving. In short, it wouldn't have happened.
So I reluctantly agreed to go, thinking that the store would probably have everything priced so high it wouldn't be worth purchasing but one or two items just so I didn't feel like the trip was a waste.
Little did I know that something amazing was about to happen. Something I can barely even describe.
For that, stay tuned.
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