Interview - The Hartmans Talk Transformers Collecting

Brothers Jon and Karl Hartman are known to the fan community as one of the most hardcore avid Transformers collectors. We then heard their announcement that they were selling their entire collection at this year's BotCon and that prompted us to ask them some questions about their collection as well as their collection habits. Read the full interview.

TFormers.com: What do you two like most about collecting toys?

Jon and Karl Hartman: We never really considered ourselves to be collecting toys as much as we were collecting Transformers. The obvious "cool factor" of the designs got us interested to start with, and the Completist attitude we developed kept us going.

TFormers.com: What inspired you guys to build such a great collection?

Jon and Karl Hartman: No inspiration, just OCD. Seriously, though, we always had made lists of stuff since we were kids, and it just became a big hunt to find those things that we didn't yet have. Plus our parents probably went a bit overboard in the beginning with making sure we weren't missing any of the toys that had been released.

TFormers.com: Where do you find the resources to get rare toys?

Jon and Karl Hartman: Being in the right place at the right time, making good contacts around the world, and credit cards.

TFormers.com: What are some of the problems a collector faces?

Jon and Karl Hartman: Space to store everything safely and efficiently, being able to manage your collection with knowing what you have and what you don't, and balancing Real Life responsibilities with doing what you'd like to do (i.e., knowing when not to spend money on "just toys").

TFormers.com: What's your feeling about opening your toys and keeping them MISB?

Jon and Karl Hartman: We had always opened our toys when we were kids, but we kept the packages. That let us have pretty much the best of both worlds. In later years we would typically buy one toy to open and one to keep sealed to get the same effect.

TFormers.com: Do you guys collect repaints? If not what is your opinion on them?

Jon and Karl Hartman: Yep. If it was a variation, we got it.

TFormers.com: How does collecting Transformers change as you start to complete various lines?

Jon and Karl Hartman: The great thing about collecting Transformers is that there are just so many different things to collect that you can never really be done. It is a nice feeling, though, when you've been able to complete a certain category that you've worked on for a long time.

TFormers.com: What are some of the differences between collecting American TFs and Japanese TFs?

Jon and Karl Hartman: We had largely stayed away from collecting the Japanese Transformers, but, if we had gotten into them, the main differences would have been the challenges of availability and price -- much more so than with American Transformers.

TFormers.com: Are you done? Do you have ALL the TFs?

Jon and Karl Hartman: Well, no one has *all* the Transformers. But we were able to complete all the American toys (excluding variations) that were released at the time we made the announcement that we were selling our collection.

TFormers.com: Have you stopped collecting? or are you just selling your collections?

Jon and Karl Hartman: It's a little of both. The bulk of the things we had gotten over the last couple years were just the new things that were being released and not any vintage items. We'll probably still continue to get a few new ones that seem interesting, but we have stopped collecting with the definition that we've used over the past 22 years.

TFormers.com: What do you think / hope the Movie toys will be like?

Jon and Karl Hartman: Judging by the images that have been seen so far, the movie toys promise to be some of the most detailed and unique designs in the last ten years. They will certainly generate a lot of reactions when they're finally released in the coming months.

TFormers.com: Do you see what you do as an investment? A hobby? A little of both?

Jon and Karl Hartman: We always viewed our collection as a hobby at the time that we were getting things, never that we could eventually make a lot of money from it. It's only because we've held on to it for so long and been fortunate on several occasions (what we called "probability spikes") that we've begun to realize that we might have made an investment along the way, too.

TFormers.com: Do you collect other stuff?

Jon and Karl Hartman: We had collected Star Wars items from 1980-1995, but we sold that collection off eleven years ago. Our friends had suggested many times over the years that we should expand out into other toy lines (like X-Men, Batman, or Exo-Squad), but we were content with staying focused on Transformers. In hindsight, it was probably one of the smartest decisions we ever made. Collecting Transformers was enough work!

TFormers.com: Where do you put all those toys?

Jon and Karl Hartman: For the most part, all the pre-Beast Wars toys have been stored in our old bedroom at our parents' house, and everything released since then has been stored at Jon's house.

TFormers.com: What do people say when they see your collection?

Jon and Karl Hartman: Of the few people who have actually seen our collection in storage, seeing the vintage toys usually generates the comparision of walking into a Transformers-only toy store. The more recent toys have been stored more with efficiency in mind than presentation, but when people stop and look, they realize just how much stuff is actually there. It's still mind-boggling at times for us, too, at how big our collection has gotten.

TFormers.com: What kind of advice would you give to TF collectors just starting out?

Jon and Karl Hartman: Focus at first on just the things that interest you. If you feel the urge to expand the boundaries of your collection, start slowly to test the limits of what you can handle. But don't be surprised if it takes two rooms to hold everything you've accumulated after you've been at it for 20+ years. :-)

TFormers.com: Thank you very much for your time.