CNN iReport

My name is Johnny Disini and I grew up in the 80's in the Philippines. Back then, before cable existed in the 90’s, all the kids watched the same shows on free TV. We only had 5 TV channels in the country; namely 2,4,7,9 and 13.  The kids watched anime shows like Voltes V (which was banned by our former dictator Ferdinand Marcos and made it even more popular!), Mazinger Z, Daimos, Voltron, Macross, and later on GI Joe and Transformers.

I never had these toys as a child and always wanted all of them, so when I graduated from college and got my first job I spent my first paycheck on Transformers. It is my mission to collect all Generation 1 Transformers, GI Joe Vehicles and Robots from Japan.

From 2003 to present, I’ve spent all my paychecks on toys. It is a very expensive hobby and my collection value is around $10,000. I keep all my toys sealed in plastic and will never sell them unless it's a life or death situation, which in that case I must be buried with the toys.

In the past, I had to meet up with other collectors to buy from their collection at ridiculous prices. But since 2003, when toy reissues became popular, things have changed. 95% of my collection is reissued and I'm proud of it because it is guaranteed to be in mint condition. I now have over 100 Transformers, which is practically most of them, Voltes V, Mazinger Z, Macross, a very small collection of GI Joe figures and vehicles and Masterpiece Transformers and Binaltech. I attend toy conventions every year and meet other collectors with the same passion.