Alien vs. Godzilla Now that would make for a cool movie! Collectors Tales How I got my first Scopedog The Sock of Gangsta Chogokin!	[NEWS] [SHOGUNS] [GODAIKINS] [SUPER ROBOTS] [RESOURCES] [EMAIL]
	This page is a very personal place where I'll divulge my life history as it relates to collecting diecast robot toys. I'd also like to have a list of cool toy aquisition stories. I'll start with some of mine, but if you have a cool story email me and maybe I'll put it up on the page. Lauren likes Mazinga.....Mazinga gets ignored My 6th birthday 1977. I got a Mazinga and a space 1999 eagle ship. What a great time to be a kid. Uncle Tony helps out while Mazinga waits Bill & Ted's excellent battle! (Note: Thanks to Big Ted, my grandfather, for all the Black and white photos)       Oh no, I have to get a job!     I hate writing HTML!       Are these the Chogokin masters?   I got my first Shogun Warrior when I was six. In the pictures I don't seem so interested in Mazinga, but don't let that fool you. He had made an indelable impression on me that would grow with time. Being six years old and having a cool little sister who liked to play with my toys, Mazinga didn't last long. But I soon got a diecast Mazinga and Danguard Ace. Too bad the fists weren't tied to the robots, because they were always the first pieces to go. I think they both ended up in Mr. Robin's Ivy patch. In 1981 for Christmas I got my first Godaikin. It was a beautiful Godsigma and the same one I have to this day. By now I was 10 years old and understood how to treat such an amazing toy. I also think that the Godaikin box really helped keep all the pieces together. Next I aquired a set of Combattra feet from a friend, and my Combattra obsession began. In the mid eighties I was able to get a Daimos, Goggle V, Abega, and a few others. I also managed to get a couple diecast shogun pieces, but not in very good shape. Then in 1987 I discoverd Forbidden Planet, a great sc-fi store on broadway and 14th, during a trip into Manhattan. This was a major turning point in my collecting. I discovered Hobby Japan and other magazines which gave me a clue as to the origin of the Shogun Warriors and Godaikins. In 1989 It was off to Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh to study architecture. All thoughts of Robot toys evaperated, as I was consumed by college life. Not to mention the fact that Pittsburgh had no cool sc-fi stores except Eide's and a few comic shops. The fire was rekindled in 1993 when I saw some guys at school watching a gundam movie in the library. I soon got a copy of the tape and started searching the Bulletin Boards for information on Japanese toys. I found a few pieces at local swap meets and got back into the swing of things. After graduation I started working as an architect and finally had a little cash to spend on robots. In 1996 I discovered John Eaton's site. I found it amazing that we could all see each others collections no matter where we lived! My page was finally up by November of 1996. Soon I met lots of other people through my site as well as those who had made their own sites. This made collecting and trading a lot easier and my collection grew even more. Although this also caused prices to increase quickly and steadily. On December 13, 1998 the first Chogokin Summit was held at Roger Harkavy's house. It was a great event not only for the people who attended but for the community as a whole. I guess that about sums it up. Hope you found something of interest. Collectors Tales How I got my first Scopedog by Ted Terranova     What a nice box.   A Camo Scopedog!     I didn't like Chiricos Orange suit so I created my own paint scheme. In the summer of 1985 I was living in a town called Manasquan on the Jersey shore. At the boardwalk there was a cool arcade called GEE-GEEs which my friends and I would always go to. One day after playing skee-ball I was looking at the prizes case to see what I could get with the points I had won. There was the usual junk and the impossible to get TV sets, but on one shelf was a cool box covered in Japanese writing and containing a very un-shogun like robot. What was a Scopedog? Where did it come from? How did it get here all the way from Japan? The only thing I new was that I had to get it, but I had less than a hundred points and it required 3000 points! That summer was filled with many hours of skee-ball play and anxious moments. Every day I'd go into Gee-Gees and look in the case to see if someone else had won the Scopedog. Finally after months of playing skeeball, and who knows how much of my moms money, I got the Scopedog. I couldn't believe how different it was from the Shoguns and Godaikins and yet it was so awesome in its own way. I actually painted the toy like the box says to do and it looks pretty cool. Now that the reissues of these toys have come out, I've taken the opportunity to get a second one in mint shape. To this day, I never figured out how a Japanese release Scopedog got into the prize case of a New Jersy arcade.   The Sock of Gangsta Chogokin! by Roger Harkavy I decided if people in our hobby should have an icon to rally behind, it should be this sock, this cotton artifact whose (seemingly) immaculately conceived appearance would be the stuff of legend for weeks to come. I quickly created a storage container for it, and inside this it currently resides on the top shelf of my collection, watching over it. So then could this sock be... Gangsta Chogokin's? Whatever its powers are, remains to be determined. So far it's protected my robot toys from theft, shark attacks, and meteor showers. I've even put it in with the laundry a couple of times, and none of the magic seems to have been washed out. (x-ray image of sock) Once upon a time, there was a robot toy collector. Let's call him "Steve Zivanic". Steve had to pick up his sister in the 'hood' one day, at the house of a 'gangsta' named Juan. When he arrived at Juan's house, he felt scared, but piled on the floor he saw... a stack of highly desirable robot toys, including a Super High Complete Model L-Gaim Mark 1. While Steve talked to Juan about the toys, he indicated that he used to collect, but didn't have much of an interest anymore (the gangsta life must have been much more exciting and profitable compared to collecting robots). Steve offered Juan a pittance for the stack of toys, gathered up his sister, and high-tailed it out of there, never to return. Back then Steve was a semi-regular visitor to Cafe Chogokin, and he told us all about his toy score in the 'hood'. Someone referred to Juan as "Gangsta Chogokin", and the name stuck. Of course, as soon as I found out that the L-Gaim was part of this heist, I was all over Steve like ants on candy. I had been searching for this piece for over ten years, and I wasn't going to let it get away! It was about a month after his initial visit that he sold the SHCM to me, along with a couple of other non-super HCMs. Steve's packing job was phenomenal, sealing the toys in bubble wrap, then sealing those in boxes, then sealing those boxes inside larger ones... liberating them was an adventure in itself. One day, while emptying the packing peanuts from the leftover boxes, a single brown sock spilled out. I didn't recognize it as one of mine, and neither of my roommates would claim it. I asked Steve about it, he said he wasn't missing any, either. So then could this sock be... Gangsta Chogokin's? It seems an undeniable fact. Some of you are probably laughing right now, but how many special socks do you have in your collection?   If you've got a cool tale, email it to me and maybe I'll add it to the page.
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