I agree that the marker "everyone" owned varies by generation. Or at least is a hallmark of a particular age cohort and when one started playing.
Apparently I'm slightly off for my generation. Started playing in 1994 at age 12. The first marker I owned (and which I still have) is a .68 Special that I bought used that same year. Finding someone local willing to offload that beat up Special saved me from buying something like a first gen Stingray. I got two of my buddies into playing and they both got VM-68s. I moved up to an Automag at the very end of 1995, around the same time that most of my age cohort were acquiring their first Spyders. Having never owned a Spyder, Brass Eagle, or Model 98 seems to make me a little odd for the (now) late 30s to early 40s cohort. I also briefly had a unibody Phantom in the mid-to-late 90s, but it was more of a consignment I was trying to sell for someone else. I think I got into paintball just a year too early to catch the Spyder trend that seems to be the hallmark of my generation of players.
I've never owned an Autococker, and have played with one only once. Cockers were relatively rare (but not unheard of) in the deep Southeast, as we were firmly on the Mag side of the East Coast / West Coast Mag vs. Cocker split. Interestingly, a bunch of the older guys I played with as a teenager shot Palmer guns, mostly Typhoons and Strokers and at least one Blazer. They'd all started in 1989/90 so every one of them had owned a PGP.
For the kids a bit younger than me, my friends' little brothers who started playing around the turn of the millenium, they appear to have been more of a mix of 98s and Spyders.
Apparently I'm slightly off for my generation. Started playing in 1994 at age 12. The first marker I owned (and which I still have) is a .68 Special that I bought used that same year. Finding someone local willing to offload that beat up Special saved me from buying something like a first gen Stingray. I got two of my buddies into playing and they both got VM-68s. I moved up to an Automag at the very end of 1995, around the same time that most of my age cohort were acquiring their first Spyders. Having never owned a Spyder, Brass Eagle, or Model 98 seems to make me a little odd for the (now) late 30s to early 40s cohort. I also briefly had a unibody Phantom in the mid-to-late 90s, but it was more of a consignment I was trying to sell for someone else. I think I got into paintball just a year too early to catch the Spyder trend that seems to be the hallmark of my generation of players.
I've never owned an Autococker, and have played with one only once. Cockers were relatively rare (but not unheard of) in the deep Southeast, as we were firmly on the Mag side of the East Coast / West Coast Mag vs. Cocker split. Interestingly, a bunch of the older guys I played with as a teenager shot Palmer guns, mostly Typhoons and Strokers and at least one Blazer. They'd all started in 1989/90 so every one of them had owned a PGP.
For the kids a bit younger than me, my friends' little brothers who started playing around the turn of the millenium, they appear to have been more of a mix of 98s and Spyders.
Comment