KUANTAN:A long-time passion for collecting action figures since his younger days has left Mohd Sakeri Mohd Yunus in possession of more than 3,000 of them in all shapes and sizes.

Mohd Sakeri, 42, a business development manager said it started when he was in primary school and he worked as a dishwasher at his family’s eatery to finance the hobby. 

“At that time, the most popular figures were from animated television series such as the Ghostbusters, ThunderCats and Ninja Turtles and slowly my interest moved towards action figures from films such as Batman as well as the Transformers followed by action figures such as from The Avengers and Deadpool.

“Besides that, there are also figures from popular characters such as Doraemon, Toy Story, Smurfs, Spiderman, Dragon Ball and Super Mario video game besides local animation characters such as Upin dan Ipin and  BoBoiBoy,” he told Bernama at his office in Indera Mahkota here today.

Mohd Sakeri keeps his action figures collection at his office and will take time off looking over the figures in order to relieve work stress.

This way, his wife would not have to look at too many action figures at home, he added.

When asked about his most prized items, without hesitation Mohd Sakeri said they were Bumblebee and Optimus Prime, characters from the Transformers movie, in which he spent RM2,500 each for them.

Mohd Sakeri said the lowest price he had to pay for one action figure was RM5, adding that what makes a toy special is not determined by its price tag.

“This hobby is for my own satisfaction and personal therapy. This collection can also be a source of income because old action figures are hard to come by these days and the selling price can fetch several times more than the original price.

“Someone had offered to buy my whole collection for RM50,000, but I have to refuse because I know it will be impossible to buy the same figures if I were to sell them,” he added.

Mohd Sakeri said each of the figures in his collection is well-taken care of so much so that the ones that are battery-operated can still function perfectly even though they are more than a decade old.

Every month, he will spend two to three days to clean the dust on the toys in his collection besides occasionally changing moving their display positions to avoid feeling bored.

-- BERNAMA