With thousands of E.T. collectibles, some dating back to 1982, Nick Gjoka can proudly call himself the world’s biggest E.T. fan.
In 1982, when he was just 4 years old, Nick’s mother took him to see E.T. He doesn’t even remember that, but he does know that’s when he unboxed his first E.T. doll, at his grandfather’s house. He kept receiving all kinds of E.T. toys, and he would ask his parent’s to buy them whenever he saw them in stores, but it wasn’t until his teen years that he began putting together an actual collection.
Nick’s parents are both collectors, so he has always been familiar with garage and yard sales. At the age of 22 he was already looking on eBay, going to various sales and buying everything related to his favorite extraterrestrial. His friends and family realized his passion and started helping him in his quest of creating the world’s largest E.T. memorabilia collection.
In 2002, the re-release of the movie brought with it new E.T. collectibles that got Nick Gjoka interested in collecting. Later that year he visited Universal Studious, from where he returned with $300 worth of E.T. memorabilia. His collection grew two, maybe three times in only a few months time.
Nick Gjoka and his amazing collection were featured on VH1’s hit show Totally Obsessed, and he became known all around the US. Nowadays, Nick isn’t hunting for E.T. collectibles as he once did, because he hasn’t got the time or space anymore, but he says he’s always interested in new additions to his sizable collection.
