Meet the TXI Team!

Welcome everyone to Tantive XI - where all your collecting dreams will come true! Well a few of them at least, and definitely not those dirty ones you have about Princess Leia in a slave outfit. You perverts!

We're looking forward to getting to know every single one of you but for now we thought you might like to know a bit about us -  the freaks behind the circus. As you can see, we are from all over the globe - the U.K, the U.S, The Netherlands, Australia, Denmark, Germany, Canada, Spain and Mexico! Not only that but we all have a wide range of collecting passions and some of us are even considered world leaders in our own little corners of the hobby.

Please feel free to contact any of us if you have any queries. The Tantive XI philosophy is that there is no such thing as a 'stupid' question, so go ahead and ask us anything!

It does not matter how long you have been collecting or how many rare items you own, we are all equals here in the world of Tantive XI.

The TXI team
(Alexander, Christian, Chris, Clint, James, Jay, Javier, Kenneth, Marco, Ozio, Patrick, Steve)

James was born in Tennessee in 1970 and moved to Oklahoma when he was six years old. His love for Star Wars started in 1977 after seeing the movie seven times at the local theater. He collected and played with the toys well into his early teenage years, until, in his early twenties, he made the mistake of selling his childhood collection to a local comic store. James has now come to his senses and has started a new Star Wars collection over the last eight years (but it is pretty random and oddball    ).

James also collects many other vintage figure lines - Battlestar Galactica , Buck Rogers and Dungeons and Dragons - just to name a few . If you ever need help or advice with non Star Wars figure lines there is a good chance that he could give you a hand or at least point you in the proper direction to find the information you are looking for     .

What he likes most about the hobby is the thrill of the hunt. It makes him just as happy to find something he knows somebody else needs for their collection as it does to find a piece for his own collection     .

James's outside interests include horror movies , most sci-fi movies , scaring children at Halloween (or any other time he gets the chance) , fishing , flowers/gardening , and most important of all... MUSIC !!    

James has a wonderfully geeky wife, a stupid dachshund, and an aquarium full of tropical fish that are too damn beautiful to eat    .

Screen Name: psybertech
Real Name: Jay Williams
Position: Moderator
Location: Northern NJ, USA


He's been into Star Wars since the first film hit the silver screen. He saw them all on opening night... yeah, even I-III.   Unfortunately, during high school, all of his collection was either long gone or he sold to raise funds for some stupid kid thing. But he did hang on to two vintage pieces he got between 1992 and 1994... a Leia Boushh 65A MOC and a Darth Vader Palitoy 12B! Yup! Winner! Beyond that, he didn't collect anything except for an ongoing stream of Yoda bits and bobs from family and friends every year for X-Mas or his birthday. A long running joke (he's a little short).

Anyway...... fast forward to Dec 2012........ Jay's father brought him a garbage bag with about 25 or so vintage figures, a Vader and 3PO case, parts of the Death Star playset and a bunch of other bits. They had been in the basement, buried under other crap for decades! Best of all, the figures were from ANH and the ESB line! And, even better, barely played with! These were display worthy to be sure; especially a Luke Farmboy, Luke Bespin and (what would become the death of him) a Leia Bespin.

He didn't know much about them as collectibles go, so he hit Google and found TIG, SWF, RS and the SWCA and his jaw dropped! He was hooked.

Since then, Jay has set many goals.. changed them... changed them again..... and so on.

He has many ideas and runs going on at any given time. If it weren't for the lack of funds or space, it would be crazy. But, Jay's settled on a few things and life is fun in the collecting world.

Outside collecting, Jay is a techie. He's always been into PCs and gadgets since he was about 12. Commodores, Amigas, IBMs... you name it, he liked it.
10 print I love Star Wars
20 goto 10


Jay's self taught on everything and happy to say he makes his living programming and working with PCs and high tech imaging and medical devices. He is lucky to have a job that he loves doing and even more knowing it wasn't due to a degree or institution. He got lucky and just learned because he liked it.

Jay's a massive NY Rangers fan. He is also into RC cars (fast electric), RC trucks (nitro) and more recently, crawlers. He loves his WRX STI. LOVE Top Gear (UK, but f**k the BBC for sacking Clarkson!!!!!) - go Jeremy! He's a big time XBox Forza player. Jay's also into classic arcade games like Pac-Man and DK.  He is/was a crazy MTG player back in the day and loves to check out the new stuff from time to time. He also dabbles in making Star Wars custom figures too. OH, and he love drinking beer and doing...............................  

So that's Jay in a nutshell.

Cheers!

Alex was spat into the world in 1979. Nine month's early at his mum's Christmas work party a rather unfortunate incident had happened involving a bathroom, a penis and a vagina. Although he missed the original film by a couple of years he did hear it from the comfort of his dad's ball sack and was instantly hooked!

Alex started collecting from a very young age with his older brother and amassed a large collection, but unfortunately like most people his age, this ultimately became the victim of the car boot sale boom of the early 90s. A series of random events kicked off his collecting again in 1998 after the discovery of some survivors of my childhood collection. Soon after he bought a collection of modern Star Wars figure off a friend which ultimately lead to him to collecting vintage figures. He's been collecting ever since. He mainly collect loose variants and has spent many long years focusing heavily on loose Luke Bespin variants which has lead to several new discoveries along the way and also caused him a lot of heart ache  

Alex discovered the online world of Star Wars late on, and since then has made a huge amount of friends around the world, several of which he had had the pleasure to meet, and he hopes to meet many more in the years to come.

He struggles to just have one of something, so he has a tendency to end up with lots of collections of random things. His favourite non Star Wars collections are his Zippo Lighters and his Guns N' Roses records. He has collected Zippo's for sometime, but he doesn't have too many, He has a couple of rare pieces and he also brings one home from every country he visits, so the collection, although small is quite interesting. He has collected Guns N' Roses records since he was a kid and has quite a large collection. In terms of other toy lines he also collect M.A.S.K. toys, this collection has only grown slowly though because of the Star Wars stuff!

Alex is also a huge music fan and plays guitar and piano in a local blues band. He writes a lot of music also. Naturally he's a huge film fan, pretty much any genre interests him and he even tinkers around making his own films, mainly silly ones  

Alex looks forward to meeting many new people on this forum in the future.....

Christian is also known on the collecting forums and Facebook groups as ‘Bobbybobs’. He's Australian-French (mainly Australian though lucky for him!) but he has lived in The Netherlands for over six years, where he works for an international organisation.

His main collecting focus is vintage Luke Skywalker – be it MOC, loose or bootleg.

He's only been collecting for about three years but he's a life long star wars fan and had a large collection as a kid. He was lucky enough (and old enough!) to see the original Star Wars film at the cinema in Sydney; albeit the second screening run in the late 1970s. Unfortunately he stopped collecting after ROTJ when someone at school stole all of his figures except for a headless Leia Bespin.    They were nice enough to leave me the Darth Vader carry case though...

Christian runs a blog called vintagestarwarscollectors.com where he mainly interviews collectors but he also writes articles relating to the hobby. The blog has been fun and has allowed him get to know a load of amazing people. He is truly blessed. He is trying to give something back to a community that has given him so much. He usually become quickly bored with hobbies but it is the people he's met that has kept him connected to this great hobby of ours.

He also collect comics (mainly Superman lines and Uncanny X-Men) and has a decent collection of old books and first and signed editions.

Other than collecting he has loads of interests which keep his ADHD busy.... He's three quarters through the first draft of his first novel (a philosophical coming of age/'everyman' type story), plans to also write a screenplay and dreams of writing and self-publishing a comic some time soon.

He's a huge movie buff (along with his wife), loves reading, studying (yes he's serious!) travelling and exercising. Also a huge sports fan - Olympique Marseille (French football league), Liverpool and the Balmain Tigers (Australian Rugby League) are his teams!

He has a fantastic wife, Meriam, who accepts his collecting neurosis but struggles daily to be patient with his non-stop mental energy! It was actually his wife's idea that he start collecting (which she must regret now!)

Well that's Christian. He's looking forward to getting to know more about our members!

Clint was born in rural Southern Ontario.  He doesn't remember seeing the films at the movie theatres, but he must have.  All though he does remember watching the movies over and over again on VHS, and laser disk while in his late teens, twenties, thirties, and now forties.  

His parents didn’t have a lot of money while he was growing up, so the only time he got Star Wars toys was at Christmas or birthdays.
He did manage to keep all his childhood figures (approx. 30), original weapons, card backs, trading cards & toys, safely packed away till about 2005.  That’s when he started collecting the loose figures that he had never received as a child.

It wasn’t until approx. 2009, while recovering from several surgeries, that he really got serious about collecting Star Wars, especially Canadian items and odd ball stuff and a few variants like Lili Ledy.

Clint suffers from Crohn's disease.  But he's an odd case.  He definitely don't look like the average crohn's sufferer.

He also collects vintage Canadian Battlestar Galactica items, and most recently, vintage Buck Rogers.

Clint loves to create things, so he's also slowly building custom figures that Kenner never made, but should have.

His interests are, riding his motorcycle, sci-fi & action movies, classic rock, hard rock & heavy metal music.  He also tries to be outside as much as possible, and working with his hands.

For years, Clint worked in the construction industry as a framer, masons assistant, general labourer, etc..  Then he decided in 1994 to go back to school to finish some courses and get his diploma as an Architectural Designer.

He is married with 1 daughter and 2 step daughters and they have 2 dogs, 2 cats, and some fish.

Steve has been a Star Wars fan from the start & avidly collected the action figures throughout their original release. Steve's first figure was R2-D2 on a Palitoy 12 back card. Steve kept his childhood collection and got back into collecting while at university in 1994 after discovering a little shop selling film & tv related toys. Steve initially set out to acquire the five last 17 characters missing from his original collection & upgrade ’played with’ figures. Steve then expanded into loose variants and bargain moc’s. Steve is currently focusing on completeing a loose Lili Ledy set, Jawa variants (loose & moc) and cardbacks, particularly Stormtroopers.

One of Steve’s most cherished SW memories was seeing the original film at the cinema with his dad. After the film finished they stayed in their seats & watched it again!

Steve has a wonderful daughter. His free time (when not involved with SW) is spent looking after a number of exotic pets (including snakes), fishing and listening to rock music.

Chris was born in Bedfordshire on July 26, 1975, educated in Buckinghamshire before moving to Cornwall in 2001. He is married with a 7yr old son and has two younger sisters.

Chris's interest in Star Wars emerged in 1983 when he had the chance to see ROTJ in the cinema, during its original theatrical release, and he still has vivid memories of being in total awe of the Jabba's Palace scene, with all of its weird and yet amazing creatures. His passion for collecting vintage figures followed a year later when he received the Jabba the Hutt playset as well as a Luke Jedi, Han solo and Chewbacca figures. The following year he received an AT-AT and a Millennium Falcon, and from that moment on, was hooked on collecting it all.


Chris continued collecting right through the nineties, picking up figures, playsets and vehicles at flea markets, car boot sales and collectors fairs. But then when it came time to leave for college and uni thereafter, He decided it was best to pack everything into storage, and so as a result, the collection was out of sight and consequently, out of mind. Chris then took a long break from the hobby lasting around 10 yrs.

But around 2010/11 he decided to bring everything down from the attic and go through it all with the intention of listing it on eBay. But he quickly realised that not everything was complete. Some of the figures were missing accessories, so he began picking up the odd missing item here and there, thinking he could make more profit from his collection if everything was more complete. But that was his undoing, he started to  pick up odd pieces from time to time, which soon became a weekly occurrence,  until it quickly became apparent to him that he had re ignited his passion for the hobby!
He soon realised that the idea of selling everything was an absolute impossibility and that in fact he was keen to acquire more and more.

In 2012 Chris became a more active member on TIG after having lurked in the shadows for nearly a year; learning about his newly discovered world of variants.
He began contributing pictures to the weapons guide, the Power of the Box guide, PBP/poch discussion thread, Ledy guide and the Vader Figure of the Week thread. He also used his keen interest in photography to better capture quality reference images for the site.
In 2011 he chose Vader as a side focus project, and since then has amassed quite a large collection of loose Vader figures. He also has a keen interest in PBP/Poch and Lili Ledy figures.

In early 2015 Chris was contacted by the TXI founders and  asked to join their new team, which he gratefully accepted. He continues to add loose figure variants to his ever growing collection, as well as recently expanding into the 12" vintage figure line.

Patrick was born on October 10, 1975 - early enough to get infected by the SW figures virus but sadly too young to see the SW movies in the cinema (at least too young from his parents' point of view). Therefore Patrick first watched the films when they were broadcast on TV in Germany, which was probably in 1985 or 1986.

He was introduced to the world of SW at the age of around four or five by a neighbour's child. That boy was about three years older than Patrick and he had a lot of SW figures, which they played with in his room or in the sandpit in his family’s garden. It didn't take too long to convince Patrick's mom that he absolutely needed some SW figures too. So one day they went to a toy shop and little Patrick bought his first figure and was allowed to choose another one which he would get as an Easter present from his parents. Those figures were a Death Star Droid and a Sandperson. Well, it was a very small toy shop so there weren’t many characters available. Otherwise it would have been a Luke, Han, Vader or a Stormie, … of course! Patrick and his friend fought great battles and they often lost weapons in the sand.

At the age of maybe 13 or 14, when other interests had already replaced playing with SW figures for some time, Patrick had the clever and profitable idea to sell every single SW figure he had collected over the years at a flea market.    In retrospect this decision turned out as neither clever nor profitable, because at the age of about 21 Patrick rediscovered his love for those great little figures, at which time he figured out that it was not easy nor cheap to buy them again. While he made about two (!) DM (approximately one Euro) for each figure when selling them, they were now 20 DM each and some characters even more!  

Believe it or not Patrick didn't discover eBay and SW forums until January 2010! So between 1997 and 2009 not many figures came into his second collection because flea markets and local comic shops were his only chance to get some of the beloved figures ... but then his collection grew really quickly. Inspired by the COO guides (especially from Wolff and Mirco) Patrick's interest in COO variants and later also mould and paint variants had been awakened. And in the meantime many figure variants found their way into Patrick's collection.

Patrick is very happy to be part of the TXI Crew and hopes that this new forum will be a platform where every SW vintage collector has the opportunity to find a good and powerful platform for exchanging with others and helping each other in a democratic collective of collectors. Without behaviour like that: but much more like this:

Marco became interested in vintage Star Wars toys from the age of seven when he first saw the Clipper 12 backs hanging in a Dutch Vroom & Dreesman warehouse. They exerted an almost magical appeal on the little boy and until today that magic has not vanished.

Collecting for him started years later after going to college and already having started his working career. It was the summer of 2009 when he walked into a comic shop in The Hague and saw the one vintage figure that he had always wanted to own as a child but was always sold out in the local dutch toy shops - the Tie Fighter Pilot! It turned out that Marco still very much wanted this figure so he bought it without hesitation. But by ending his childhood quest, this event simultaneously made the spark that ignited his collecting journey until today!

Marco’s biggest passion are loose variants and especially the figures from the Mexican Lili Ledy and the Spanish Poch/PBP lines. He also likes collecting MIB vehicles and playsets very much. In addition he has a decent collection of never released vintage based custom figures.

Before he came aboard TXI, he was a very active member on The Imperial Gunnery. The TIG community is therefore still very close to him – in fact most of his collector friends come from the same warm TIG nest – and he has “A New Hope” to meet them again here on board this Rebellion flagship. Though he very much appreciates the “plastic and cardboard” in his collection, he has started to realize there is nothing more rewarding in the hobby than to meet like-minded collectors, and to initiate and maintain durable friendships with them.

Marco hopes that XI will be a success, being a new type of forum with a new "look and feel" and including modern functionality (for instance being able to instantaneously upload pictures from a smart phone). Marco considers Facebook an opportunity – not a threat – to the existing vintage fora and he is confident that the team behind TXI will be able to bridge the Facebook and forum communities.  

In daily life Marco is a program manager. He is married to An and considers himself very lucky that she is so supportive to his hobby. Apart from Star Wars, his other interests are China, history of the 19th century, movies, and running.

Kenneth was born near Copenhagen on June 22, 1977 and hereby cannot escape from the fact that his 40th birthday is approacheing drastically. He has an older sister aged 41, who works as a teacher and just like Kenneth she has two small kids

Kenneth´'s interest in Star Wars began around 1984, when he received his first two vintage SW figures from his grandparents for Christmas (Biker Scout & AT-ST Driver). Reflecting on this today he wishes he had started collecting at a younger age, since there wasn't much vintage SW toys left in the toy stores the following Christmas (1985). Therefore he had to purchase most of his vintage SW toys second-hand, which were often in average condition and missing weapons and accessories. He can though still remember the very cheap POTF and Tri-Logo figures in the stores around 1987 and now dearly regrets, that he didn't purchase any of them to keep MOC. On the other hand he was lucky to get many of the POTF figures and vehicles at very cheap prices used - either through advertisements in newspapers or through a small shop near his home which dealt in used vintage toys. It was here that he also bought his childhood Yak Face at a price of DKK,- 5 (less than $ 1). He turned down a Luke Stromtrooper at the same price because he was annoyed by the fact that Luke was missing his helmet...

Kenneth stopped collecting around 1989, and at that point he had managed to find 84 different 3 3/4 vintage SW figures and some vehicles in boxes - mostly mini-rigs but also an AT-ST and a loose Rancor. He started collecting as an adult again in 2002 after having found his old vintage SW collection in the basement at his parents. He is pretty sure that his girlfriend would have much preferred that he didn't visit his parents that fateful day... In other words he has been on the collecting scene for 13 years, which makes him a long time collector - or one of the "last dinosaurs" within variant collecting, which is his collecting passion. Besides loose vintage figures Kenneth also collects foreign Kenner licensed MOCs, where the figures differ from their Kenner counterparts paint and COO wise (so far Takara, Glasslite and Top Toys).  He also collects vintage playsets, vehicles and creatures MIB, but his main focus is loose figures. One day he hopes to be able to add a PBP Luke Farmboy to his collection, since that one has been haunting him for almost 10 years.

Family is very important for Kenneth and the best thing that has happened in his life was the birth of his two beloved daughters Gabriella (2010) and Carolina (2012). Kenneth hopes, that the fact that he has no boys (yet at least), will increase the chances of his vintage collection remaining untouched/undamaged by children''s hand. His girlfriend Christina, who he met on December 15, 2001, has for some strange reason decided to stay in his life and also to give birth to their two wonderful daughters. All four of them live in a three-room apartment just outside central Copenhagen, around three kilometers from Kastrup/Copenhagen Airport. Kenneth had to say goodbye to his collection room a few years ago, so everything is now stored away. He hopes that he one day will have his SW stuff on display again if they move to a larger apartment or house.

Job wise Kenneth is studying to IT Support, which he has done so since April, 2014. According to schedule he should be done by November 2016. He is however not sure if he wants to spend the rest of his life working with computers, so he is also considering other options.

Kenneth's hobbies are family, sports, vintage SW - and in recent years also travelling around the world to attend SW conventions. He also has been so lucky to have had the chance of visiting three of his best (collector) friends during the past few years (Wolff, Henrik and Marco).

Most collectors who know Kenneth would probably describe him as a pretty friendly, warm and open person - or/and as a "gentleman collector". He can also also be a bit shy and much prefers being in the company of close Family or friends. Kenneth's motto is: "Treat other persons as you want to be treated yourself."

Lastly Kenneth hopes, that TXI will turn into a great success, and he is very honored to be a part of a mod team with so many good friends and skillful, hard working, honest and dedicated collectors.

Ian was born in December of 1971, in a little town called Farnworth in Lancashire, England.  In November of 1974 his family moved to Canada, first to Northern Alberta, then to Hamilton in Southern Ontario.  It was here, at 5 1/2 years of age, that Ian first saw a little movie called Star Wars, an event that changed his life.  A few months later, he acquired his first figures, R2-D2 and C-3PO, which started a lifelong obsession with toys.  His collection consisted of almost every figure made up until 1984, along with most beasts, a few ships and playsets, and three 12" figures (Vader, 3P0, and Fett).  However, soon after, most of Ian's toys ended up buried in a closet, and would rarely be touched until he moved out of his parent's house in early 1995.  It was at a toy show set up in a local mall a few weeks later that Ian came across a seller with a number of vintage Star Wars figures - including some Ian was not even aware had been made.  Ian became obsessed with obtaining all of the figures he did not have, an obsession that only intensified when the POTF2 line was introduced later in the year.  Ian eventually built not only a complete loose collection, but expanded it to a full run of movie figures MOC, along with the Droids and Ewoks lines, missing only 3 Droids figures carded to have a complete run.  Some of his prized figures have unfortunately been let go in recent months due to circumstances beyond his control, and he stopped collecting modern toys in 2005, but Ian's passion for the vintage line has never been stronger.

In the Star Wars community, Ian has had an online presence since late 2000, shortly after he got his first home computer.  He has helped moderate a couple of smaller SW boards, and at one point was an admin for the Canadian site Snowtroopers.ca (even winning a contest to rename that site in 2002 from its original name).  Ian developed a reputation for intensity, showing no mercy to forum trolls and scammers, yet is more than happy to help new collectors learn about the hobby.  He learned a great deal from some of the biggest names in the hobby, and has the philosophy that to keep the hobby alive into the future, that knowledge must be passed on.  He also strongly advocates against reproduction items and U-grade sales, and tries his best to educate others so they do not rely on companies such as AFA for determining condition and authenticity of their collections.  In late 2015, Ian was invited to check out this new forum, quickly found it a favorite place to visit, and in June 2016 was honored to accept an invitation to join the team as a moderator.


At home, Ian has been married to Janine since 2000, having known her since 1994, and has three kids, Aidan (14), Shawn (7), and Jenna (5).  He graduated from Hamilton's McMaster University in 1996 with a B.A. in Social Sciences (specifically Physical Anthropology & Archaeology, with minors in Primatology and Geology).  However, he ended up working in a factory from 1997-2007, and when they went out of business, began an apprenticeship in plumbing in 2008.  In his spare time, Ian is a huge fan of horror movies, hard rock/heavy metal (mostly from the 1980's, but not exclusively), reading (especially Stephen King), and is a not-always-proud supporter of the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Ian has met a lot of new people here at Tantive XI, and looks forward to getting to know many more.  He is always available to answer questions if someone shows a willingness to learn, or even just to shoot the shit.