Good post Kostis! I recently went through a purge, we might've talked about this on another thread. I decided what was most important to me, not just what entire line to keep. I found out quickly Ebay was the best way, but Craigslist helped.
Hasbro SW took up a lot of space and it was time for them to go. I sold a bulk of vehicles to one guy and the rest of the EU line/bulk boxes of PT trash. I opened them first to get some enjoyment out of them, but I didn't. The quality of the figures were absolute garbage. Hasbro quality isn't for me and I dumped it all.
Then I purged 95% of my Legos, 550 now down to 3 sets now with 2 loose minifigs. That was like 10 big totes worth. That took some time, but I had them organized.
I then purged the comic collection, like 6 half size comic short boxes with a ton of GNs that I got at Cons. Sold all to one guy for a solid price and kept the legendary ones like Old Man Logan, The Dark Knight, The Long Halloween and my precious Tales of the Jedi comics.
Then I had my SW Miniatures from the WoTC miniatures game. I collected all of them. Loved that game. Some great models. I despise the PT stuff now, so I purged the sets that were PT only and then halved any sets of the other PT/CW stuff. That is like the only place you will find some awesome EU figures, like a Mandalorian Basilisk War Droid! In addition, I slimmed down my Fantasy Flight X-Wing/Armada miniatures to EU and OT only.
I've kept some neat Noble Collection LOTR stuff. I've kept my Gentle Giant EU SW busts (Nihilus, Jade, Revan, Malak, Thrawn) with a Marvel Venom. Added some Sideshow Art Prints. Oh. and I have an Alex Ross Black and White Batman along with a Punisher Classic PF from SS. Statues are just too much nowadays. Know how much I bought that one for? $350. Statue prices are like $600+ and I got out of that game. Sold my SS Cody Legendary Bust and LOTR Witch King.
I realized that I love Hot Toys and Hot Toys is my pure focus right now. Focused on my favorites.
I've learned that things and taste change over time. Being a completist just made it that much more difficult to get rid of. Find your favorites and enjoy those. Those Legos/figures/miniatures in the totes or boxes? I feel like you are really not enjoying what you own if you don't have them on display and have them just sitting in a box. I bought white lack wall shelf units for my minis/busts, detolfs for my Hot Toys. Also have a nice open up dvd organizer to place some HT on as well. Built a good PC out of the Lego money and I've learned less is more.
Thanks man, likewise!
Personally, it's less doing away with what I have, and more trying to control what I get moving forward. In my parts there weren's any LCS and the such, so I never had a proper collection growing up. I collected one line through the internet, and I have quite a few figures, but they're all in a box beyond a couple I'm keeping for display. I've been collecting comics monthly for about a decade now, and apart from the unfinished series that I have no desire to fill the gaps in and will most likely throw away, everything else stays. Stored, but I'll keep some close by, my favourites. I have a complete run of East Of West, and something like that I'll want to display in some way. Now my 100 issues of Deadpool... eh. Lego was always something that I saw in catalogues but no shop carried them. I'd find some old, small, SYSTEM sets, and once in a blue moon some Star Wars stuff around the time of TCW, but beyond that I never had the chance to buy them. At some point I ordered a couple of modulars and other brick heavy sets to build backdrops and sets for my stopmotions (that never happened) but that's where it stopped. Now they're all in boxes sorted by colour, plus the figures and things like Eclipsegrafx and custom figures I bought.
For me, this is a collection that I want to complete at some point. I don't rule out the odd buy, but I need a plan, otherwise where do I stop? Buy the 1/6th? Then the statue? The omnibus? What about the 6"s? The MAFEX/Figma/Revoltech/Whatever? What about those Nendoroids and Egg Attacks and whatnot? If I don't put limits where do I stop? When is enough enough? So I try to sit down every so often and refine those lists. I have a couple of them, depending on the medium, but I always try to trim the fat. One part of it is money and space, they're not infite. Another is the hassle. Trying to keep up with everything, POs, sales, insider news, it's time consuming and tiring. Mostly, it's about having a collection that says something.
See, if I bought everything I've ever liked, for one reason or another, it'd be an extreme hodgepodge of random things that I'd get simply to go "oh, yeah, it's that thing". And to me that doesn't mean much. Completionism is something that plagues me, so oftentimes I find it easier to just drop something completely and pour more resources into something I've already invested in. If I don't like something enough to want multiple things out of it, it goes. If I haven't already invested enough time and money into it, it goes. I've found that it works far better and it leads to a more cohesive collection. I'm not advocating for collecting literally one thing, everyone's free to do what they want. But I find that a bunch of cluttered shelves end up looking rather ugly and ruin what should be a nice view. These are expensive high-end figures, they shouldn't be posed like 6" Hasbro figures.
I don't know, maybe it's just me and I'm trying to rationalise not having to spend 100K on all this. But it's always rubbed me the wrong way to just like it/have it all. I feel that if you don't choose, even something as meaningless as which dollies to collect, you lack that "something". I never got into Marvel/DC Flame Wars for example, but I had to choose between SHIELD and Checkmate. I can't collect both HYDRA and COBRA. I don't like duplicates, I suppose. And that bleeds into everything. The end result of it all has to be a reflection of my tastes over the years. Maybe I don't particularly like something now, but had a period of obsession with it. I'll go the extra mile and drop 300 euros on it if that's the case. If it was a fleeting thing, then it's gone.
When I begun I figured I'd keep it to villains only. But those were few and far between, plus I had too many non-villain favourites. Then it started spiralling out of control (thankfully only in my head and not with impulse buys) so I had to set some boundaries. As it stands, my strategy is this: If it's a comic, and I genuinely like it still, I buy the HCs/Omnis/Absolutes. I then buy a figure to represent it. If it's a movie, the same, but with some physical copy and a figure. If said character is in my Top 10 or so I get them in other lines too. A MAFEX or something. If it's in my Top 3, I hunt down everything I can get my hands on. And that's more or less it. But I want it all to be there for a reason. Sometimes it's nostalgia, others it's genuine enjoyment, but it depends.
I'm rambling again, same old, same old. But I'm still trying to figure it out because I don't want to end up with some garage filled with things that mean nothing. I want a room I can look at and say "yes, this is me". It sounds a tad silly to say it about dollies, but we'd never buy them in the first place if we didn't want to see a part of ourselves be reflected. In this case the childish part. I don't want to look around and see a myriad of overpriced plastic that has no meaning. I want to look around and see the Lucifer Omnis and JonCon figure that represent my edgy teen years, and so on. Some properties I like enough to want to set up a shelf, others I want as one-offs in a glass case and so on. It's a work in progress anyhow, but I have to do it.
