Hi, I'm Tine, a woman from Bruges, Belgium. Most people who regularly surf on the web, searching or selling old VW Beetles toys know me as bugbug_be.
For me it all started in the 90ties … I’ m a nurse, and I worked in Africa with doctors without borders. In between two missions I came home to Belgium and I wanted a car. But with little money at that time I did not find one. Until one day, my sister in law told me she was selling her car, it was a beetle from 1967. I immediately fell in love with this little beauty.
After a couple of months I left Belgium again to work in Africa. There I showed some pictures of my car to the local people… they all laughed … and shortly after they gave me a gift…. They made my car in wood… and this was the start of my Beetle collection.
At first I collected all that resembled a beetle toy, most were beetles toys from the 80ties and 90ties, with a few older ones. I also started collecting all books about VW Beetles (only first editions), and this is when I first heard about BoB Gilmore, and shortly after also Jozsi and Rick.
I’m so great full that I met these guys!!! Thanks to them. I decided to sell nearly my entire collection (all the new stuff) in the early years 2000 and to only buy old VW Beetles. Now my collection only contains oval and split Beetles. A small collection and some lovely friendships of which I’m very proud!
Tine
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