I recently discovered Invaluable.com, which is a great site for browsing items to add to your own retro collectibles and memorabilia, and it made me want to write a piece about some of my collections.
My retro collection is pretty eclectic, I have to say. There’s not much structure. A lot of the things I collect are quite random and are either things I remember from my youth, things I have always wanted or perhaps things I have discovered in recent years. But I don’t have too many ongoing collections in one particular toy range for example. A lot of my items are random or standalone. One area where I do have distinct collections, however, is in the realm of movie and TV related books and publications. Some of these I had in my youth, but others I didn’t even know existed. That’s one of the reasons I enjoy these collections. I’m very much a completist, so if I know there are, for example, 30 items of one particular range I won’t rest until I get all 30 and I’ll feel slightly sick until I do, even though I do enjoy the hunt. But these collections below are great because I quite often stumble across an item that I can add to my collection that I wasn’t even aware of. And for someone who is engrossed in all things retro right now, and becoming more and more immune to that nostalgic buzz, it’s great to get that rare feeling of surprise when I find something I didn’t know existed. Below are some of those areas and the items that I have collected so far.
Movie novelisations
Some people don’t really see the point of movie novelisations, as you’re kind of just reading about what you already saw in the film. But one thing I love about them is that they were often based on an earlier version of the script or contain sections that got cut from the film. You can really learn quite a bit more about a film by reading the books. One great example is Ghostbusters which actually has two different versions, by two different authors, which I believe were based on different versions of the script and contain parts that were cut from the final theatrical release. I also don’t just collect novelisations of movies but even if it was a book first and then made into a movie I still like to read and collect the original novel, such as Jaws, Contact and others below.
TV novels
These are more rare but TV novels are often just like the movie novelisations where they write about the same story that you saw on the screen. The Knight Rider one below is like this where it is essentially a dramatisation of the pilot episode. But the Street Hawk and Automan novels are great as they bring new stories to the characters that both only had one series on the TV. A fantastic chance to explore the world of those characters a little bit more.
Sticker Albums
The classic sticker album. A staple part of every childhood in the 80s. And every good film, tv, cartoon and toy franchise would have one. These can be harder to get hold of, in good condition at least, but there’s nothing quite like holding a completed sticker album. You can just imagine the blood, sweat and tears that went into getting those last few stickers. They are trophies to be cherished. I need to get some more of these. Particularly the Return of the Jedi one that I had as a child. I thought I had actually acquired one recently but I can’t seem to find it!
Annuals
Another area which is very close to my heart are annuals. I’m not sure if they got these in the US as much but they were hugely popular here in the UK. There were annuals for TV shows, cartoons, toy ranges and other things including the WWF. I’ve only realised now, looking at my collection, that most of these were produced by two main manufacturers, World and Grandreams. They all consisted of roughly the same sort of content. Photos from the shows, comic strips, illustrated text stories, games and quizzes etc. Hard wearing, brightly coloured and the perfect thing to receive at Christmas.
Movie storybooks
Movie storybooks bring back huge memories from my childhood. Particularly the Ghostbusters and Goonies ones that I used to pour over as a child. The Goonies one always really confused me because they have actual photographs of a section of the film that didn’t make the final cut. The number of times I rewound my VHS tape to try to find that part of the film. I drove myself insane! This is the item that I keep getting surprised by finding them out of the blue at flea markets and car boot sales. I love getting the buzz when I find one, particularly when I didn’t know it existed.
One of the reasons I love going to car boot sales and flea markets is in the hope of finding one of the above books that I wasn’t expecting. You never know what you’re going to get!