How To Beat Collecting Addiction.

[SSPorunga]

Just want to thank everyone in this thread for their input. For awhile I was getting completely out of hand and going into debt purchasing mostly unlicensed 1/6 DBZ resin statues and some licensed 1/4 scale statues. I've finally got a hold of things and started to realize what I like, what I don't like, what looks good in my collection and overall have taken some of the advice here to heart and sold off a large chunk of my collection and am quickly getting myself back out of debt because of it. I've sold everything from all of my DBZ Sh Figuarts, PVC statues and a lot of my 1/6 scale statues but still have a bunch more to sell. I sincerely appreciate this discussion, and the whole "quality over quantity", refinement suggestions and everything thats been said around giving collections more focus. I've decided to only collect 1/4 scale moving forward. Getting rid of all my 1/6 scale statues was a huge step. I collect DBZ, Berserk, Guyver and Witcher and it's all from Prime 1 with the expection of DBZ (those are a combination of Tsume and Unlicensed Studios).

 

[SnakeDoctor]

SnakeDoc

 

[thebreen]

SnakeDoc,
Thanks for posting that sketch! I remember seeing it years ago, but forgot about it. Oddly enough, I remember it had even helped me with some of my obsessive/compulsive tendencies!

 

[Jay1138]

Pulling up this epic thread, as I hit a wall and decided to refocus my collection yet again. I've been downsizing the last few years, and reorganizing has been great. However I've realized a few more things. 1. I have more collecting time behind me than I do ahead. 2. If something were to happen to me, organizing and making decisions about my collection would be an overwhelming and monumental task for my wife and collector friends to tackle.

Since I believe I'm a collector by habit and nature and I love movies, I've decided to move towards production and screen used items as a focus. Expensive for sure but more time will be spent fund raising and researching. In the long run, I hope this will make my collection more manageable for me (and others) and still enjoyable.

 

[Jay1138]

Refocusing my collection is still ongoing, and just this last week decided to cut another theme from my collecting. Dealing with the feelings of disappointment (as I know something will come out that I want!) and relief.

I also continue to unearth miscellaneous items that have no real place, so selling off and donating the randoms has become a chore too.

Anyone else doing a reorganizing?

 

[BACON!]

I am in the process of moving cross country. For many years, I have squirreled away boxes of toys here and there across my 3 br apartment. Getting them all out in the open is a revelation. I feel like such a hoarder. I don't want to get rid of any of them, but the sheer volume of seeing them all in my living room is a bit overwhelming. packing them up and putting them back in the boxes was an emotional experience as well; knowing I won't see any of them for the better part of a year until we get settled is another experience.

 

[DeltaForceChung]

Good God!

I never believed this topic would ever be discussed in this forum.

Try asking the same question in a HOT TOYS forum and let us know how it goes.

 

[Jay1138]

I am in the process of moving cross country. For many years, I have squirreled away boxes of toys here and there across my 3 br apartment. Getting them all out in the open is a revelation. I feel like such a hoarder. I don't want to get rid of any of them, but the sheer volume of seeing them all in my living room is a bit overwhelming. packing them up and putting them back in the boxes was an emotional experience as well; knowing I won't see any of them for the better part of a year until we get settled is another experience.

That's where I was/ am still at. Looking at all of everything is overwhelming.

Speaking of Hot Toys, I know a few different collectors personally -they all tell the same story of getting out of the HT game. I know HT isn't suffering from their loss. Interesting that some collectors reach the same stopping point.

 

[potato]

nowadays i only buy neca turtles, and only those i like, not everything from the series. i haven't bought any toys but boy even the selective neca turtles can add up quite alot of them...

but i have yet bought any 1/6 figures for 2 years.

i now focus on battery powered car toys, which i only keep 3 of them and work on them, they cost money but less space, also doing the car models i have stocked up, they will take some time. occasionally i just pick up a Hot Toys or 1/64 car once a while.

with ebay now forcing us to switch from paypal to new system, those that doesn't switch will not be able to sell, the new system is a hassle to sign up and requires papers and documents. the pandemic also caused many international services to be disrupted.

 

[GhostBeard]

I am currently reading a book entitled "Beat Your Addiction" and have come to realize my collecting is interwoven with a lot of baggage I needed to unpack. I am officially done collecting with just two more purchases I've committed to for next year. After that I am done buying for myself and have begun the process of removing what I'm willing to from what I already own. For my money, collecting was an endless cycle and was more about the "chase" than the "own."

Buying never made me happy long term but did cause struggle with my wife, not financially just "when is enough enough?" type conversations. I can't recommend the above mentioned book enough, very eye opening. For the first time in quite a while I feel free and at peace. I still come by here to read up on what's what because I do find the sculpts and work fascinating. Plus, it feels good to see and not want. Your mileage may vary.

 

[Mad Old Lu]

I've been whittling my collection down for a couple of years now, and this year alone I got rid of 10 figures, with maybe another 2 to go. In 2019 I sold 5 figures and did not buy a single new one.

I have one figure coming this week, and one in pre-order for next year, but that's it. I have one or two grails that I'm still waiting for HT to make (Bespin Han and maybe Hoth Han) and I can call my collection complete.

My Father in law has been cleaning out his basement, precipitated by their hot water heater breaking and flooding the basement. So he's been sorting and trying to get rid of everything he's been holding on to for 50+ years. And by "trying to get rid of" I mean, give it to me and my wife. There's a lot of junk among his stuff, like film cameras from the 90s, old cell phones, even an old GPS, plus stuff he's held on to from my wife's grandmother when she passed away like porcelain crap from Hallmark and literally Hummels. But a lot of it is kinda useful, like tools and all kinds of wire (electrical, phone, cable, etc.) and electrical and plumbing equipment. He used to do all his own repairs and helped us fix our old house when we first bought it years ago. There's a lot of old science equipment as well (he was a science teacher). It's stuff that's valuable to someone, just not to us at the moment. And it's so much that it's overwhelming. There is no way we could ebay it all. We could open up a store with all the stuff.

So as we are "forced" to take stuff home with us, our junk piles keep growing (we're no angels either in hoarding stuff), and I've really reached the point where it's all too much. And Jay1138's point about what will happen to our stuff when we die, it's just overwhelming. We don't have kids either, so our nieces will inherit everything and they will have a hell of a time sorting through all our stuff.

My wife and I like to go to estate sales on weekends, mostly to look at the old houses, and it occurred to us that our nieces will have to do this for us one day. I will say that, since we collect antiques and curios (in addition to my figures), our estate sale will be epic!

 

[ZE_501]

My father didn't leave much behind upon his death. A couple of old photo albums, some documents, some tools. He was still with my mom but his material possessions at that point more or less fit in one bedroom, minus a bunch of tools in the garage. I guess I take after him with my minimalist bent.

Friends of mine have described quite the time with what their deceased parents left behind. Reminds you that all of this ends and what you think matters is likely someone else's headache. That being said, barring a minimalist lifestyle (not for everyone) organizing, cataloguing and documenting things surely makes it easier for those charged with disposing of our earthly collections, once we've shuffled off this mortal coil.

My family has always been open and pragmatic about death, and as she's aged my mother has taken some time to reduce (auction) or distribute her many possessions, as well as document legal and financial matters with me.

I didn't just collate a file, but attached a sort of user's manual with instructions to myself based on our conversations, since in the best of circumstances I wouldn't remember everything, and the death of a parent is a time of grief and stress wherein one isn't necessarily high-functioning.

 

[darth dennis]

This is a very interesting thread. I have a pretty substantial statue and 1/6 scale collection in a large basement/home office. I'd like to think I've got years and years of enjoyment left but at some point it will become a burden to my children. I think I'm going to set out on a mission this week to catalog all the stuff and put corresponding info on box location in the attic/storage so if something does happen to me they're able to maximize the value of the collection. I am a long way from considering selling it off myself as I've got another 15 years of working and as a full-time remote worker, my office makes the day a whole lot brighter

 

[willocrew]

What? Why are folks here talking about what happens to their collection when they die?

Firstly, your toy expenditure should be viewed as a personal consumption. If that personal consumption is eating into what you could potentially leave behind for your kids than you’re spending way way way too much.

If you got the balance right than it’s perfectly fine to enjoy the fruits of your labour during your lifetime. You should be perfectly fine with your kids throwing your collection out when you’re gone. I think it should be viewed as a sunk cost so to speak.

Just to put a number, I think the average person should not be having a net spend on their toy collection in excess of $10,000. So let’s say the average figure or statue costs $500, that means you’ll have around 20 items in the collection at any point in time. I think that’s more than enough. If it’s 1/6 figures, that’s 5 detolfs worth. Aesthetically it’s beginning to overwhelm your home decor!

I probably am coming across as a bit of a addiction enabler, but IMO a net $10,000 lifetime cap on your hobby isn’t too much in the grand scheme of things when you consider how much other hobbies can cost.

I think it’s helpful having that cap. So you really ask whether you really want to start collecting particular lines. Because honestly lots of stuff look really really good these days and many of us can fall into the trap of buying something not because we really like the character or source material, but because it looks so damn good.

Perfect example for me would be the Threezero Rambo. I’m not a Rambo fan or a Stallone fan. It’s a little outside my age group. But that figure looks so well done that time and time again I’m so tempted to pick it up.

 

[Mad Old Lu]

For me it has nothing to do with money and what monetary inheritance I leave behind. It has to do with leaving behind to loved ones the burden of having to deal with a pile of, let's face it, junk.

I mentioned in my post that my F-I-L is currently giving me and my wife all his stuff that he has amassed in his lifetime, and it's overwhelming. It's going to be even more overwhelming when he actually does pass away since he won't be picking and choosing what he gives us. It will be everything, every last single item that he has collected, that we'll have to deal with.

I don't want to do that to my nieces.

My wife's grandmother died and left behind hundreds, if not thousands, of hummels, Madame Alexander dolls, and collectible plates and porcelain figurines. When she was alive and we would visit her, she would always point out her collection and how valuable all those things were. We humored her. But there isn't a single thing of value in any of it. Most of it is from the 70s and 80s and no one alive now has any interest in collecting that stuff. Anyone who might have had interest has passed away too. So now all those things sit in storage in my in-law's house waiting for us to handle when they go. We'll have two generation's worth of stuff to get rid of.

That's what it's going to feel like to my nieces when my wife and I go. Just a house full of junk that they will have to sort and try to figure out what to do with.

 

[generalszabo]

I am currently reading a book entitled "Beat Your Addiction" and have come to realize my collecting is interwoven with a lot of baggage I needed to unpack. I am officially done collecting with just two more purchases I've committed to for next year. After that I am done buying for myself and have begun the process of removing what I'm willing to from what I already own. For my money, collecting was an endless cycle and was more about the "chase" than the "own."

Buying never made me happy long term but did cause struggle with my wife, not financially just "when is enough enough?" type conversations. I can't recommend the above mentioned book enough, very eye opening. For the first time in quite a while I feel free and at peace. I still come by here to read up on what's what because I do find the sculpts and work fascinating. Plus, it feels good to see and not want. Your mileage may vary.

Great points, it's the meaning we bring to our habits and we have to ask what are we really trying to do/replace within ourselves, in aquiring the next purchase? Collecting for me is a hobby and I love the artistry, and can afford the pieces I get, but I know if I unpacked my issues I'd probably find a lot of interesting revelations. We all know the feeling of getting a new toy as a child, and I think a lot of us may be trying to recapture that feeling. That's no different from other addictions like drugs, gambling, retail therapy etc.

Also I think you're all very thoughtful in wanting to make it easier for your loved ones when you die. However, I don't have so much that it would be such a burden. I mean, if worst comes to worst and it's not worth that much, they can always just take it to a tip/garbage. I have life and critical insurance so my loved ones won't be left in the lurch, my toys are for me to enjoy while I'm still here lol

 

[potato]

What? Why are folks here talking about what happens to their collection when they die?

Firstly, your toy expenditure should be viewed as a personal consumption. If that personal consumption is eating into what you could potentially leave behind for your kids than you’re spending way way way too much.

If you got the balance right than it’s perfectly fine to enjoy the fruits of your labour during your lifetime. You should be perfectly fine with your kids throwing your collection out when you’re gone. I think it should be viewed as a sunk cost so to speak.

Just to put a number, I think the average person should not be having a net spend on their toy collection in excess of $10,000. So let’s say the average figure or statue costs $500, that means you’ll have around 20 items in the collection at any point in time. I think that’s more than enough. If it’s 1/6 figures, that’s 5 detolfs worth. Aesthetically it’s beginning to overwhelm your home decor!

I probably am coming across as a bit of a addiction enabler, but IMO a net $10,000 lifetime cap on your hobby isn’t too much in the grand scheme of things when you consider how much other hobbies can cost.

I think it’s helpful having that cap. So you really ask whether you really want to start collecting particular lines. Because honestly lots of stuff look really really good these days and many of us can fall into the trap of buying something not because we really like the character or source material, but because it looks so damn good.

Perfect example for me would be the Threezero Rambo. I’m not a Rambo fan or a Stallone fan. It’s a little outside my age group. But that figure looks so well done that time and time again I’m so tempted to pick it up.

$10,000 today would be maybe $5000 ten years later, so your cap of 20 would now be maybe 10, due to inflation and greed of companies (makers/IP holders). So the cap needs to have some sort of % increment added just like inflation to make it work. Sure your $400 statue might be worth $800 in ten years, it might not, but the profit gained from the sales (discounting inflation) should not be taken into account of the cap, instead it should be separated as a "Bonus cap".

 

[potato]

For me it has nothing to do with money and what monetary inheritance I leave behind. It has to do with leaving behind to loved ones the burden of having to deal with a pile of, let's face it, junk.

I mentioned in my post that my F-I-L is currently giving me and my wife all his stuff that he has amassed in his lifetime, and it's overwhelming. It's going to be even more overwhelming when he actually does pass away since he won't be picking and choosing what he gives us. It will be everything, every last single item that he has collected, that we'll have to deal with.

I don't want to do that to my nieces.

My wife's grandmother died and left behind hundreds, if not thousands, of hummels, Madame Alexander dolls, and collectible plates and porcelain figurines. When she was alive and we would visit her, she would always point out her collection and how valuable all those things were. We humored her. But there isn't a single thing of value in any of it. Most of it is from the 70s and 80s and no one alive now has any interest in collecting that stuff. Anyone who might have had interest has passed away too. So now all those things sit in storage in my in-law's house waiting for us to handle when they go. We'll have two generation's worth of stuff to get rid of.

That's what it's going to feel like to my nieces when my wife and I go. Just a house full of junk that they will have to sort and try to figure out what to do with.

I think it's more about whether you are willing to spend time to offload them. One man's junk is another man's treasure, sure there will be junks that no one wants you could donate or discard them, but for those that has some value, if you can find the right group of people, they would probably be interested in them, sure it will take time to offload them, you could offload them in bulk and get pennies (like what we have seen on youtube) and make someone else happy, or take some time doing part time sales for them.

The fact is most people are so occupied with their lives they just want to offload them ASAP, irregardless of their value. However if you have people who has free time and reward them for their sales it might work (like younger niece & nephew or children), it also trains them on how business works.

 

[potato]

Great points, it's the meaning we bring to our habits and we have to ask what are we really trying to do/replace within ourselves, in aquiring the next purchase? Collecting for me is a hobby and I love the artistry, and can afford the pieces I get, but I know if I unpacked my issues I'd probably find a lot of interesting revelations. We all know the feeling of getting a new toy as a child, and I think a lot of us may be trying to recapture that feeling. That's no different from other addictions like drugs, gambling, retail therapy etc.

Also I think you're all very thoughtful in wanting to make it easier for your loved ones when you die. However, I don't have so much that it would be such a burden. I mean, if worst comes to worst and it's not worth that much, they can always just take it to a tip/garbage. I have life and critical insurance so my loved ones won't be left in the lurch, my toys are for me to enjoy while I'm still here lol

Most people started collecting the things they want, when the hobby becomes big people join in for the fad, meaning they are more likely to buy something people like instead. They love their collection not because they like the items, but because they know people love them (like people collect Rolex simply because it is a Rolex). The addiction starts when it starts to become like a competition (others have it i don't, must get), or fear of losing out (item sold out and value shot up, opportunity lost!), some people spend money to relief stress. The problem only comes when 1.People run out of money 2.People run out of space. Then they start thinking about having no display & storage space, and the hobby starts becoming a burden, yet they are still buying, despite slowing down, their collection becomes overwhelming even to themselves, so now they knew how their family members feel. When things like this happen, the only solution is to offload them at a huge lost. Unless you only have every single desirable piece it will take some time to offload most of them.

Or you could gather a few fellow collectors and open up a store to offload your collection. I know folks whom rent shops for few months just for that. But i don't know how physical toy shops works nowadays when online sales is the norm. But i have to say people tend to make more impulse purchase inside a physical store than a webstore.

 

[Bo Shrek]

I have beat my Hot Toys collecting habit by being bored to ***** with their releases!! On look Boba Fett's sitting on a chair.....(figure).