About Michael

I am a lifelong California resident, except for the four years in college when I lived in Oregon and met my wife. We’ve now been married 23 years and have two kids and a plethora of pets including two dogs, a cat, and two canaries.

Growing up as a kid in the 80’s where Masters of the Universe and GI Joe toys were stocked floor to ceiling and Toys R Us was still a thing, I have fond memories of my Dad to taking me to Toys R Us grand openings in Southern California to meet Darth Vader but every time I went, Darth was a no show. My 5 year old mind could not understand that there were multiple Toy R Us stores opening in the area so I always took my Dad back to the same one lol. I always ended up with a toy out of the journey but I never wised up and thought to go to other stores. As a kid, I always displayed my toys either on the extra twin bed in my room or on shelves in my closet and I always loved seeing my toys and I still do this to this day (minus the extra twin bed).

My collecting bug started back in 2001 when I spotted two World of Simpson’s Playsets and figures on my coworker’s desk while I was working at eBay and I fell in love with the line that I had to buy them ALL. Instead of clothes in my closet, I had a full aisle of Simpsons toys and that’s where it all went downhill! At the same time, eBay was encouraging its employees to use the website so I took that as an open invitation to re-spark my love of toys I used to play with as a kid so I started with the vintage GI Joes from the 80’s but I didn’t start with buying one…no…I started buying people’s collection by the hundreds in lots. I learned really quickly that if I bought a collection and resold most of it but only kept the figures I was interested in, I could collect the figures I loved and make some money on the side. I found this worked for Masters of the Universe, Transformers and the M.A.S.K. toy lines but at some point I had too many figures coming in than going out and found myself drowning in toys, which wasn’t a bad problem to have. 

Fast forward 20 years later and I am still going strong. The Simpsons was a gateway into collecting figures and the main toy lines I collect to this day are GI Joes from the 80’s to the Classified Series, various Masters of the Universe lines, Generation 1 and War for Cybertron Transformers, and M.A.S.K. Not to complicate things, I caught a retro gaming bug back in 2016 and re-sparked my love for the Legend of Zelda (LoZ) franchise, which also sparked an urge to collect ALL of the Nintendo consoles from 1986 to today so I can play the LoZ games as they were intended. I have a room in my house called the Time Machine where I have all of my favorite toy lines proudly displayed

I love collecting toys, talking about toys, shopping for toys, you name it! My love of toys has fueled my passion for creating Toy Habits and started my friendship with Larry.