The phrase First 16 means a few different things to me.
For one its the first sixteen redlines in the Hot Wheels range. I'm pretty sure I had a few if not most of them in 1968 and 69. Its hard put into words how much I loved Hot Wheels and the first sixteen will have been the wonderful debut of these cars in my young world. The metallic colours were the palette of childhood and no other toy car could really fill those hues. Nowadays their value is astronomical. I don't have any, never see any and my life is the lesser for it. By way of a compromise I collect the poor man's wheels, Superfast.
Those first redlines were part of my own first sixteen years, that fabulous launch of the young human form we all enjoy before landing on the planet where adults dwell. The final year of high school brings those years to an iconic close and the tentative steps we take from there into the unknown is a rite of passage that helps define us. My life was sweet up to the age of 16, a candied hamper of family, telly and toys and it was all good, as I hope and expect it was for most children. I'm glad I had that time, which shaped who I am. Sadly it ended seismically in my last year of secondary school when my Mum died tragically young and things would never be the same again.
The other first 16 - or maybe its the last - concerns Star Wars figures. I'm slowly gathering a handful of the 1977 releases again, after buying and selling many of them before in the past. Then it was as a dealer acquiring large collections and selling them on my toy stall and later on Ebay. Nowadays it's pure chance as forces align to put me in the right space at the right time to get just a few. I think I have now Darth Vader, Chewbacca, Stormtrooper, Boba Fett and a Taun Taun. Its fun to let luck just bring them my way and I'm taun about what to do next. Find more figures or succumb to the dealer still inside me.
Does the first sixteen mean anything to you?
