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[BHMike]

It's not really difficult to make a living selling toys....... it's everything that goes along with it. I tried to make Bounty Hunter Toys different than most other stores by being more hands on it with it and not just an 'empty face' type of site. We all know Curt runs HQ, but do you 'know' Curt?

You have an idea on what type of person I am and such just by reading my updates online.

Yeah.... I know it's a shock, but as far as I'm concerned this has been a LONG time coming..... I just finally decided it was time.

Yes, I'll be taking a HUGE pay cut when I start working a 'real' job. ;-)

But I'll be more happy working for someone else than being responsible for EVERYTHING that happens.

As for this:

There really isn't any reason to go to Hamilton any more for me, unless work calls for it.  

I will make a trip for the sale as I was planning on getting the vehicles I needed for my collection.  This news just sped up the process.

The Joe Meet will STILL continue. So you'll be back in Hamilton I'm sure of it. :-)

I hope you do come down during July Pete - I have a 'surprise' waiting here for you (if you want it).

I'll post more later, apparently I just got a slew of emails in.
Mike

[Jon S.]

What will happen to this site?

[Pete The Greek]

But I'll be more happy working for someone else than being responsible for EVERYTHING that happens.

Funny, one my brother's told me this weekend that he had enough of working for idiot owners (in the restaurant world) and was seriously thinking of getting his own.  

I will be down in July but not the first week as I will be in N.O.  I was in Hamilton last week for work but I had my senior engineer with me.   If the Joe meets continue to happen, I will be there.

[BHMike]

What will happen to this site?

Guys, let me say this:

My 'news' does NOT effect my friendships with any of you or any of the other people I've met. I'm not vanishing from this I'hobby, the board will still be here, and the meet will still happen.

I'm seriously getting flooded with emails. I'm actually dreading tomorrow as I'll be open and I'm assuming my phone will be ringing alot.

- Mike

[akpayne]

I am in shock and have been for a couple of days now.

My selfish first reaction was "What?  You Can't!, What the hell am I going to do?"
Then the more I thought about it, the more I am actually really happy for Mike, I worked retail for many years, and was eventually the general manager of one of the largest computer shops in Canada - and I hated it.
It wasn't that I hated dealing with individual people, it was the fact that I had to deal with everyone who came through the door, good or bad.  And the 5-6 day a week grind of being the "responsible, buck stops here guy" really wore on me, and I can only imagine it was only worse for Mike.

I really hope that whatever job you end up at works out great for you, but like Pete, I really won't have much reason to shop in Hamilton past the end of July.

[Raptor]

I've linked myself and how I enjoy the hobby to "my second home" Bounty Hunter. It's true that without the almost endless $2 joes, I'd never have had the fodder or the nerve to do all the experimentation that took me from being an awful customizer to an average (and on a good day better than average) one. I became dependant on picking up joes on a weekly basis out of the bin.

But it wasn't just the $2 bin. I remember the first time I walked into BHT. The store is the size of your dining room, maybe a little bigger. Packed in that place was wall to wall 80's toys. Everything that you loved and that your mom ever threw away was there somewhere. A giant star wars armada fought against rattler and conquest for dominance over the tile skies. Large cases of Joes and joe vehicles, a wall of transformers, He Man, Star Wars, including stuff in packages drew you back to Kmart or Toys R Us back in the good days of end caps and Christmas Catalogues.

The store changed a lot over the time that I had been there. Shelves and layouts changed, but the core of the store didn't Wrestling really took over one corner, but though the ratios of wrestling to starwars to startrek to Joe changed, there was always some wide eyed kid at 9 years or 30 agape at the walls and display cases.

And you don't hit a store 8 times a month without meeting the staff. I now count Mike among my friends, and have bitched to him about things more often than I do my wife. I would go to BHT to depressurize after a particularly bad day/week/month. I'd bitch about the government and so would he. ;-) I met his wife, and he introduced me to his other friends. I've never met a shopkeeper that counted so many of his customers among his friends.

It affects me deeply to have this part of my hobby gone. Canada is really bad for Joes, much worse than almost anywhere in the US. It was great to go to a place where being a joe geek wasn't only acceptable, it was the price of admission.

So, rather than crying in my beer (I'll leave that to Ed. He enjoys a good beer more than I do...) I want to be the first (or close to it) to officially wish Mike the best in his new life. The Canuck Meet will go on, and there will continue to be a Joe Community in Hamilton, it'll just no longer have it's headquarters just off upper Ottawa street.

Thanks Mike, and good luck with your future!

- Charles

[gsmiley007]

Sorry to say, BHT will be missed, it was really cool to see a brick and mortar vintage toy store.

Good luck in your future endevours Mike

[Pete The Greek]

It affects me deeply to have this part of my hobby gone.

I second this.  

And it's the stories and memories that will live on with me at Mike's.  It's where I would shoot the shit with Mike for hours.  It's where I used to met up with Ed to drop off his items from Prozac.  It's where I saw the evolution of a certain 2 bin hoarder to a collector.  It's where Jon would tag along on a toy run when I was bored.  Like I said all good things come to and end.

[Jon S.]

It's where Jon would tag along on a toy run when I was bored.

I knew I was good for something!

[Raptor]

It was actually pete that introduced me to the place. I traded him a CAT mobat (plus some extra stuff...) for 75 figures. Little did I know but I'd done my first $2 bin raid. ;-)

Were it not for Pete I'd never have never gotten there.

-  

[Pete The Greek]

It was actually pete that introduced me to the place. I traded him a CAT mobat (plus some extra stuff...) for 75 figures. Little did I know but I'd done my first $2 bin raid. ;-)

Were it not for Pete I'd never have never gotten there.

-  

Your wife better not read this or I will never get anything done through the MOE lol.  Yet again, they work at snail pace any ways.

[Agent_Loop]

All good things do come to an end.
I remember first finding out about the store through a link on the Joecustoms. I remember seeing pictures of the store's interior, finding walls of vintage Joe vehicles still in their boxes, figures in their cards and I was blown away that this store was only a half an hour away from my place. The first time I entered the store and introduced myself to Mike, I had a hard time keeping a conversation and listening to what he was saying because I was just blown away in awe, staring at the stuff around me: a massive amount of GIJoes on one wall, a 90% complete USS Flagg on display at the front window, Terror DromeS, etc.
Further on my visits, Mike and I started to become friends. I'd make orders to be picked-up the next day, come by the store and chat with Mike about Joes, Star Wars, wrestling, whatever or even playing Smackdown. Sometimes, I would order something just for the sake of making a visit. It is a great place to hang out.
Since I have family in Hamilton and me visiting the store sometimes once a week (or at least once a month), it got me closer to my aunt and uncle, my cousin and nieces when I paid them a visit, after I paid Mike a visit.
It was great finding stuff at his store that I thought about getting on Ebay.
A place this great, I had to tell my friends about it, and they would sometimes make regular visits along with me. Back when I went to school at Sheridan in Oakville, me and one of my studiomates would skip life drawing class to visit Mike and his store.
I feel honoured and grateful for Mike to give me some involvement with his store/projects, like the drawing of Mike on his splash page and banners, the Joe Canuck design/sculpt, and the Black Ice drawing. He was also supportive by plugging my comics (it's funny at a convention when a person comes up to me and says 'I've heard about your comic on Mike's site') as well as sending prayers to me on his site when I had cancer.
Unlike other online toy stores, there is a face and a social personality in Bounty Hunter Toys.
I salute you, Mike, for you have also established a toy collector community that neither of us would have tapped into without you and your store.