Re: My AT-AT Driver helmet (and collection)
Thanks a lot vaderdarth, DarthWad3r, Thoth, DOGFOX2109, MClass, kurtyboy and Lando!
Being in Romania collecting these is quite hard even today. I grew up with Star Wars when my country was under the Soviet rule (70's and 80's). I watched SW (ANH) and ESB on cinema, but ROTJ had to watch on a friend's VHS player since Ceausescu (the Communist leader/president) didn't allow it to run on cinemas - maybe he was afraid and saw himself as the Emperor who got thrown out of his throne...
Before 1990 there were hard times in this part of the world, and Star Wars OT was like a light tower for people here, especially for children who watched it. Of course there were no SW toys to be found in this part of the Eastern Block, but even so I considered SW an inspiration, a way to make people forget about their every day problems.
Times are much better after 1990, but even today it is hard to be a collector here.
Why is hard to be a Romanian collector:
- very few people understand your hobby
- problems with paypal (they ask Eastern Europeans to open US Bank accounts or limit the amount of money one can send/receive through paypal)
- problems with ebay (because of paypal)
- huge shipping quotes because of international transport costs
- 24% VAT tax
- budgetary salaries lowered by 25% due to crisis, this measure affecting all teachers, doctors, police, etc.
- customs charges (they tax the shipping cost too, thus is a tax on a tax)
- problems with people thinking everyone from Eastern Europe is a thief (I encountered this more times than you may think)
- foreign stores that don't ship to Romania
- no sci-fi or comic conventions (we can't even think of a Star Wars convention yet)
- no SW toys or rarely a few SW toys in local stores
- 99% of the trades/buying are happening outside the country
And the list can go on and on...