Thought of this earlier today..

There are a lot of great collections and rare interesting toys in people's collections here.. How about trying to get a small colour photography book made of some of the treasures on people's shelves?? Could even have small commentaries on how people found the figure, why they like favour it over others in their collection etc.

It could be funded through Kickstarter or maybe S7 could dust off their publishing boots and put something out??

I think that the major issue would be getting a consistent quality of photography.

This could be community funded and published through something like Blurb.
http://www.blurb.com/

I thought, to make it simpler I would jusr create a Skullbrain group on flickr to which we could all post. But it is already there... http://www.flickr.com/groups/skullbrain/

Wow . Thanks for sharing the Flickr link, there's some amazing pics in that group.

As to the idea of a collective book of Skullbrain photos, it has already been brought up a few times recently here and here.

I see some issues with this, one of which is that we need to consider the vast scope that is encompassed by the collectors on here. Not everyone might be interested in photos of all the other toys they don't care about. So it might be more relevant to do subissues, for example a classical kaiju one, one for resin/independent toy makers, a vintage dream one, etc. Stuff like RxH and SB have enough to cover their own book, but that would not necessarily appeal to folks who like Dehara. Photos alone, while enjoyable, might also be kinda gimmicky - nice to look at, but not exactly a reference or something you would pick up repeatedly. And for that, there are a lot of photos already out there(here). I still think we should do it, just not aim our expectations too high. I love the idea of showcasing the toys and people's photography of them.

And for the idea of focusing more on collections, I think that is more a great idea for Super7 to cover in their magazine/new Mook (one can dream right); in whatever hardcopy or electronic form it gets revived in. That way not only do great collections get showcased, but we also get to hear the stories behind them and learn more about the specific motivations and history behind people's collections. I like the idea of having a personal touch behind it, learning about the people on here and the passion for collecting, not just photos of toys we can all just look up on the internet.

What I would really LOVE to see, is an english version, of the classic Japanese Toy Books. I have some books that show the vintage Bullmark, Popy, Marusan, etc... figures, but I can't read the character's names I'm "language challenged" when it comes to learning a new language It would be really helpful to see a "database" format. One for the vintage line-toy maker, toy series, characters, and the Kanji following the english-translated names, and then perhaps a purty database picture book for the new stuff--i.e. Buta database, Toygraph, M1GO, etc... Perhaps as "book sets" in Flickr?

...damn great idea, but i think the logistics would be too hard.

BUT if someone is willing to fly round, take interviews and photograph people's collections, i'd buy the book!

Not impossible though! If I had a contact person, I could send pages from say, one book to start off with (and YES! my choice would be VINTAGE! ), have someone help me translate the page (that's the hard part!), then I could post a call from a particular toy maker, figure size, figure character, have people post pics in the topic (or link to an arranged flickr), and "re-issue" the same format in english, using the collection photos of our Boardies. Then create the pages in flickr and type in the translation. The flickr search function could help as a database search...

A book along the same lines as badteeth proposes was kicked off a couple of years ago, and got as far as people submitting photos, a brief essay and proofs being returned. A few folk I know from here, and some vendors and creators contributed - but then all seemed to go quiet maybe a year or so ago.

I love to see pics of peoples collections, and hear why people collect what they do. I cant see it appealing much outside of the audience here though - so maybe you might consider how to do it on a small scale. Is it possible to publish a photo book using an on-demand model?

Blurb is actually great for that. You can order as few or as many copies as you want.

I can totally see the bottleneck being the layout though. Rights et al. need to be very clear!

All in all a great idea if someone with enough time/layout skills takes helm.

That's what I was thinking, of course.

I was thinking though; most of us take collection photos from time to time, but I think when it is your own stuff it gets kind of overly familiar.

A great idea (at least for folks in closer proximity to one another) might be for people to arrange for collector friends to visit and photograph each others' toys. Like say JoeMan has Rich over to photo Joe's toys to get a 'fresh' perspective that Joe might not have seen, then later on for JoeMan would return the favor by photoing Rich's stuff.

If several photosets could be produced like that, and interviews transcribed, then it could all be submitted to an Editior or Editorial Board who could take the material to Blurb. Then whoever wants a copy could order one, plus it could be updated as needed.

I've got a book of linework designs by tattooist Thomas Hooper from Blurb and it is very good quality.