I have been collecting Sailor Moon merchandise since about 1995. Not bragging or anything, but I do think I have a pretty sizeable collection. I don’t have a whole room or anything, but as a young teenager I would mostly spend my allowance on Sailor Moon and No Doubt merchandise. Let’s look at some of the first items from my collection even if they are bootlegs. I still cherish these items very much!

Sailor Moon aired very early where I lived. It came on at 7:30 AM on KCOP in Los Angeles. I don’t think I saw my first whole Sailor Moon episode until I got a day off in October. I used to have to ride the bus to school, and get up really early. I had spent Thanksgiving and all of Winter break watching the show and loving it. In January of 1996 I transferred schools to one that was closer. I would spend about 10 minutes before I went to school watching the beginning of the cartoon. Sometimes I would get engrossed in the show, and have to run to school to avoid a tardy. Which is really ironic since Usagi is late to school herself. After awhile I calculated how much of the show I could watch before I had to leave for school.

I got my very first piece of Sailor Moon merchandise in late 1995. I’ll say like November or December. I got it at this stationary/toy store that mostly sold bootleg merchandise that was near the Vons outlet store my parents and I used to shop at. That stationary/toy store was pretty neat. They used to sell a lot of old official Sanrio merchandise like from the early 90s stuff that they didn’t sell at the mall anymore. They also sold a lot of bootleg toys there; figures that were the wrong colors, bootleg Barney figures, and other stuff like that. I mostly remember seeing bootleg Mighty Morphin Power Ranger merchandise. I remember in October 1994 they sold small child’s bootleg costumes there. They were all the different ranger colors but all had the Pink Ranger mask in different colors. Eventually in late 1995 they started selling a little bit of Sailor Moon merchandise there. They sold some of those bootleg Planet Girl dolls, and some stamp pens. These stamp pens were no ordinary stamp pens. They expanded much like those Animaniacs toys from McDonald’s.

 There was a small pen at the bottom and a self inking stamp on the top. When I saw them I just had to have one! I bought the Moon tiara stamp pen.

After I got the pen I brought it to school and everybody wanted to use this strange pen. I think they might have also just liked the stamp. Since the stamp was just her head and part of her shoulder I used to practice drawing the rest of her body.

I forget where I got the second Sailor Moon stamp. I think I got it at either the Montebello Towne Center or the mini mall. That stamp is of Usagi posing with her transformation broach from the first episode.

I’m not sure if those pens were a fad or what, but I haven’t seen a pen in that style since 1997. Perhaps they were regarded as impractical because they really were. The expandable part was too floppy, and they were awkward to write with. I have also only seen those style of pens with Sailor Moon characters. I know I have seen a Sailor Jupiter one and once I saw a Dragonball Goku one, but other than that I have not seen these pens in any other characters.

Eventually the pen part broke off and all I had left were the stamps.

I seem to remember there wasn’t much publicity for the show or the merchandise. I don’t really remember seeing many commercials for the toys except the Moon Cycle one. I don’t know why I wanted a Moon Cycle so badly, but I eventually got one on a trip to Citywalk in Hollywood in the mid 2000s. 

I also remember seeing a print ad for the Bandai dolls in the November 1995 issue of Disney Adventures, and the dolls mentioned in a Christmas list wish section in the December 1995 issue. I think I wanted Sailor Moon dolls for Christmas that year, but I got a Tiger Dear Diary and a “Friends” t-shirt.

I bought these stickers in the beginning of the summer of '96. I got these at the mini mall I really liked them. 

The Sailor Moon R stickers I liked because they had a bunch of different characters on them. I just love the R season even if back then I had not seen all the episodes from it. I got these other stickers because I liked the expressions of the characters on these; especially the cupid Usagi.

I had used the stickers to decorate my binder. Binder decoration was very important at my school because neither my junior high nor high school had lockers. I had one of those binders with the plastic front pocket so I could stick things inside the big plastic pocket. 

I used my 2 sheets of Sailor Moon stickers. I guess I was known as “the girl with Sailor Moon stickers in her binder” not that I was trying to get noticed or anything I just liked Sailor Moon.

One day some popular girl really wanted one of the stickers from the “R” sheet to wear on her face because wearing stickers on your face was a really popular trend for girls at my junior high. I’m not sure why though. I never got it. I think might have been inspired by the movie Clueless. I think though in the movie they wore small stickers that were worn by the eye. Not big 1 inch stickers on your cheeks. She offered me $5 for one sticker which was more than I paid for the stickers. I refused. I didn’t care. They didn’t sell these at the mini mall anymore. I’m sort of a completeist. If one sticker was missing off the sheet it would bother me.

One of my friends who spoke Chinese told me the other stickers were in Chinese. For some reason people also thought they were bandages because of their shape.

I bought these stickers late in the summer of '96 also at the mini mall. I liked Usagi’s expression on this one and the other had all the inner senshi and eternal Sailor Moon, but I didn’t know that at the time. 

For some reason I liked keeping these trading card sized stickers in my wallet.

I used all my stickers that I had at the time to practice drawing the characters. 

You can check out some of my early work on my deviantart account.