
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.
GI Joe






Masters of the Universe












Legend of Zelda







Transformers
