Rant: The issue with 'Vintage'

Vintage gear: it's awesome.. but somewhat.. TOO precious.

Yesterday I had the best time, hitting two pool party/BBQ's for Australia day; as part of the fun we had some pretty crazy water fights with several water blasters that definitely were a huge hit at both parties. Now, naturally I couldn't expect anyone else to bring water blasters (mainly because most of my friends who are my age just don't spend their money on that sorta thing) so of course they all had to use mine. The thing is, just because they ARE grown ups doesn't mean they necessarily know how to treat toys any better than kids- in fact they're more likely to mishandle them and/or gawk at the prices of them if they had to replace them on the event of damage.

Sure enough, every water fight results in gear damage- In the past few years I've watched my Water Warriors Pulse Strike's nozzle come off, the pump neck pop out, my Pulse Blaster's neck get jammed; my Super Soaker Triple Shot lose air pressure and my beloved Flashflood's trigger spring finally snap. Every blaster gains a few more scuff marks on the plastic and are subjected to newbies looking for the "best gun" but not knowing how to use them properly. But that's ok if they're current ones that can be replaced... which leads me to the topic of the rant for today; what if they CAN'T be replaced? Yup, I'm talking about those ever awesome vintage blasters we all go after...what really IS the point if you can't play with them?


In the past it's always pretty painful to watch people rough handle my gear- watching a girl (doesn't matter she's hawt in bikini!) struggle with the pumping mechanism and almost bending it in half, or throwing a blaster against the pool side, scratching the paint/plastic and leaving it looking.. as they would say "played with".

Sooo.. this year, I ended up leaving many of my prized water blasters at home, especially my vintage CPS series blasters which was kind of sad because I really wanted to use them, but was mindful of the issue with replacing/repairing them should they get damaged. Even a broken Flashflood is painful, so I basically brought with me mid range- nothing special- gear. Which was probably the best decision..

And that's the big issue I have with older/discontinued/vintage stuff. They may be awesome, they may be better than current stuff, but you can't replace them if they get da broke. I was sitting on eBay eyeing off a vintage 1996 king-of-the-hill Super Soaker CPS 2000 and was soo tempted.. but then I thought "when/where am I ACTUALLY ever going to get to crack that puppy out?"  In turn, to those of you who're lucky enough to own a vintage Nerf Crossbow- how many of you throw it around and let your mates have a go, knowing full well it's worth over 200 bucks?

Thoughts? Anyone else have this dilemma?