I'm not talking about the prices as much as the accumulation of "things", but do you folks ever feel it's lame to spend all this money on effin' plastic/diecast/vinyl/name your poison? I think every collector goes through this once in a while, but I just look at my shelves on a rare occasion and think "what the fuck do I need all this crap for?" Granted, the other 99.9% of the time I look at it and think "damn, this shit is cool", but every now and again...

There is some stuff I've collected that over the years have fallen out of favor for sure. Then there is stuff that I have cherished and will continue to like for many moons.

On a sort of related note, my wife busted into my office last night after watching the Suze Orman show (some personal finance guru) and one of the callers was the wife of this real prolific Star Wars collector. 16 years, 3 rooms in the house filled and $60k worth of toys. I guess she was at her wits end and didn't know what to do with her husband. Suze's advice was to "stop collecting for 2 years" and see what happens... now, granted I didn't see the show myself, so my wife could be paraphrasing for her own purposes, but I thought it was interesting.

I don't see what stopping for 2 years will do? Are you supposed to wake up and realize all this money you're saving and invest in T-Bills?

Boycott Suze Orman!!!

imagine all the awesome stuff you'd miss out on if you skipped 2 years of your collecting life?

Spending money on these figures is a waste, but if I weren't wasting money on figures, I'd probably be wasting it on something else. Most people with expendable income waste a lot of it away. That said, I have always been pretty selective about what I buy, and now I am becoming even more selective. I think it's important to maintain control. It's too easy for collecting to get out of hand, and before you know it you are being controlled by these things.

Heh...and with our mentality, we'd have to then catch up what we missed out on the last 2 years! I think the key is focus. Finding a few lines you really like and focusing. I've tried to do that, with some success. Thankfully, as far as I'm in with regards to "new kaiju"/fight figs, is Sunguts stuff, some of the Gargamel stuff (Smoking Corps, Thrashman), and some Rumble Monsters. My downfall is Marmit/Marusan/M1go kaiju. With those, you almost need to pick one character to focus on. Some people can just pick the few that they think look really cool, but the problem for me is that I they they ALL look cool.

but imagine all the other stuff you can do in 2 years with the money!

I love the stuff on my shelf, but not as much as I love being well rounded & going lots of places.

have you been talking to sarah?

Yeah, if I didn't spend my money on frivolous stuff, I wouldn't have made some pretty nice friends here.

ok hillsy11... what did u buy? spill it!

oo new banner

Yes. I actually find myself thinking this somewhat often. But it's not because I don't like what I have. For me, there's two main reasons why I feel this way. The first is the monetary reason. I'm pretty tight with money, and don't like to spend it unnecessarily. The second is I don't like to accumulate too much stuff. I like a fairly tidy, well organized, clean, modern, utilitarian living space.
I've managed to create a collection using my two neuroses. For the most part, my collection only consists of KAWS and one Secret Base sculpt (Skullbrain). By only collecting these two things I keep costs down (compared to other collectors), and keep a small, organized collection (again, compared to other collectors).
But even with my putting limits on my collecting I find myself thinking "Why am I doing this?". Sometimes I think about selling off most everything...I think the only pieces I would never sell would by the KAWS wood Be@rbrick, and the Chum. Those are two pieces that just have a great aesthetic presence in my clean/organized/modern living space that I try to create.

HAH! No, but I shoudl! Send my regards! Tell her to stop buying pink vinyl for a month & I'll lay off the Dolls, and we'll go to Rio or something.

Hillsy, I hear what you're saying. I've gone through many "tired of collecting" cycles, but this one seems to be the last. I just came back from Japan where I was in a virtual jungle of Japanese toys and only grazed just a bit.

And the gifts! I had to throw away my underwear and socks again just to get everything in my bag. (Luckily, I prepare for this every time I go there, and have only had to do it twice.)

There's a toy company that I speak highly of on the internet that has sent me over $700 worth of stuff this year. The last two things they sent me are very cool, but I don't want them, so they're being re-gifted to two other people.

I don't want to sound ungrateful, I'm not, but I have so much stuff at this point, and so much of it is in boxes overflowing out of my closets, and I'm just so dissatisfied with accumulating MORE STUFF. (cue George Carlin)

And trying to figure out the money, time, and effort you've spent on this stuff is also nuts. And there are so many beneficial things it could be spent on. I'm going to stop before this goes on a really maudlin tangent.

For those of you with too much stuff, please send it to:

Keith & Chococat
San Mateo, CA

I'm happy with everything I have and don't feel any of it is a waste but my collection is on the smaller end. I'm a student/retail-zombie so I have limited funds which makes me a bit choosier about my pieces. I try to limit myself to one version each of everything except my absolute favorite sculpts and I only buy american vinyl by biskup, bwana, soto and kozik. So far I'm really happy with my collection and my self imposed rules. I'm a bit nervous what'll happen when my funds increase and my rules go out the window cuz there's way too much rad stuff out there that I don't know if I could be so selective if i wasn't so broke.

this is funny
day before christmas eve I jetted up to Birmingham to visit my family.
We went to see my nanna in her nursing home and I said to my sis something like 'why do I buy all the shit I do, go through all this bullshit for a toy and alls that gona happen is that i'll end up here ' and she just said yeah, but what else ya gonna do? but your right it is a waste of time , effort and money.
my nanna has nothing but her clothes and shares a room with someone she dont know.

saying that I bet I have a different outlook when my Blood Pirate lands next week!

If it makes ya happy why stop?

I think if other aspects of your life suffer, you may want to scale back.

Thern again, most people I know spend all their money on booze and drugs and gambling. with the toys, at leats sometimes you can turn the toys into something else. And, for me..the toys fire my imagination and help me do my creative work.

I often have this argument with girlfriend. She like sfancy restaurants and will happily spend 200 on a meal. I personally consider this a waste. She thinks its 'experience' and cannot understand my dissapproval.

Answer: No

do i ever think its a bit nutty? yes. do i ever feel a bit overwhelmed by how much stuff i have? yes. it can be overwhelming.

but i honestly don't feel out of control about it. definitely NOT a "waste"!

It was beer before toys...

records before beer

shoes before records

hos before shoes...

Hmmm... from hos to toys?

If I don't love something, I sell it. If I love it, I feel like it's worth having. Life is short and I enjoy surrounding myself with beautiful things that bring me happiness. It's art I tell you!

My car's front bumper is hanging off on one side. I parked too far over one of those concrete stops in the lot and when I backed out again, it caught on the bumper so some of the bolts that hold it on popped off.

It probably won't cost much to fix this (and it has to be fixed, because soon the bumper will be rubbing against the front tire) but for some reason I am dreading going to the dealership to get an estimate.

And yet I bought two more Tachikoma candy toys off of Yahoo Japan without batting an eyelash this afternoon, very soon after posting my first response in this thread.

YAY MORE STUFF.

I'm actually thinking about slowing down my collecting. I bought a fig recently and even as I was hitting the "buy" button I felt like I should have skipped it. But I bought it anyway. But I'm taking it as a sign that maybe I'm starting to collect things for the wrong reasons and that slowing down and being a bit more selective is the way to go.

I look at some of my figures and think I should have not bought these two and used the money to get "XYZ" instead.

But honestly if my house caught fire tonight I wouldn't replace most of it. I think I enjoy the hunt more than the actual prize a lot of the time.

I think, as you said, that every collector goes through this every now and again. I certainly do. But I agree with what GB has said:

If I weren't spending money on vinyl toys, I'd be buying shoes or clothes or some other crap thing like a new bread maker that I don't need. Collecting is a hobby. It may be a hobby that's more expensive that some, but I'm sure it's also cheaper than others. The long and short of it is, it makes me happy to hunt down, find, buy, and play with a figure that I love. Sometimes that happiness is fleeting, in which case that tells me I shouldn't keep it. But more often than not, the figure makes me smile every time I see it and it's here to stay.

before toys I collected records. as one vinyl collection grew, the other shrank. now it down to about 100-150 records. mainly gifts and things of sentimental value. Basically I go through the same feeling from time to time. I really feel if I wasn't doing this it'd be something else...
I'm sure something not as cool too.

PS-I think collecting hardcore records really primes you for this "hobby"

how is that? your post doesn't indicate.