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When I first got into collecting Transformers as an adult (around 2001-2002) there were a number of interesting things happening. The brand was coming back to life, there were increasing numbers of lines, and people still argued whether G1 reissues were “knock-offs.”

I always tried to keep an open mind and explore the various offerings that were out there. Coming back to collecting, it was still a matter of “G1 and…everything else”, but as I saw how intricate RiD was, how amusing Armada could be, and how innovative Alternators were; keeping an open mind became “experiencing/collecting it all.”

Admittedly, that was easier to do back then even with all the lines we had. Somehow, I managed to stay on top of collecting and what had been a casual hobby fast became a driving social interaction for me. I build friendships around my hobby and it was really good. At the same time, I would see people check out of collecting in glorious fashion on the forums on a routine basis.

“Too much…”
“Too expensive…”
“Have to pay for an engagement ring, baby, house, car, school etc…”

I always hated those posts. I hated seeing people pack it up in dramatic ways and declare their disengagement from something I enjoyed so much.

I thought…never me. There but for the grace of God go I.

Don’t think for a moment I’m about to do the same thing now. I’m not nor have I ever been that rash.

A funny thing happened to me on the way to the forum (forums?) though… A reality struck me in the course of my many travels up and down the east coast. I actually remember the day pretty well that everything changed in terms of how I collect.

See, while in Delaware we would often have gatherings of friends and collectors at our various homes. One Saturday with several of my good friends in my collection room, I went to show off a rare piece I had tracked down and tried to point it out on my shelf.

…and I couldn’t find it.

Not at first anyway…you see it was buried behind a bunch of figures that I cared little to nothing for. After the event was over I went back and looked at the number of figures that were eating up shelf space, detracting from the things I genuinely liked looking at.

It was a lot. Something had to change.

Over the course of two years and three moves, I started thinking really hard on what I cared about keeping and what was just temporary entertainment. I purged a LOT of stuff. I don’t know how much exactly, but the gross revenue was over 10k (over 2+ years, before all the expense of doing so and cost of original purchase, etc)

It was a really interesting time for me because as I did this, I was able to stop impulse buying things “just to see what it’s like.” Further, I was able to better define what I cared about and what was a passing interest.

It was also odd, because many of my friends are hardcore collectors. I went from buying everything because it was fun to do, to politely justifying why I was not getting into this that, or the other thing. That’s not easy either. It’s like saying no to a drink when everyone else is drinking. Even if that’s the end of the story for you…everyone else worries you’re passing judgment on them for drinking.

Further, with the podcast it became really hard for me to talk about certain things because I was no longer talking from first-hand experience. What’s more, I found myself shrugging off questions of whether I was still a fan, or still “into it.”

Not because I quit…but rather because I cut back to a level I could personally manage.

The good part is that the people I have gotten to talk with and explained how this all came about for me have been exceptionally positive. Some of my best friends have come about through this experience and it’s fascinating for me to see how everyone has changed through the years with how and why they collect.

Now that I have a home of my own and a place that’s permanent, I’m seeing how my decisions about collecting are shaping up and for the most part, I’m very happy with my decisions. Space is still an issue and questions of how much I can reasonably accommodate are still there, but I now have a far better grasp of what I want and how I can accomplish that.

I’m still building my collection room. It’s probably 80% completed at this point. I hope to post pictures soon, perhaps by the end of the year. In the meantime, how did you come to manage your collection?

Have you set parameters for what it will be yet?

Better still, if you’re somewhat new to collecting and are in the phase where you buy up everything you can, what does your future collection look like?

I've collected a lot of my favorite things from toys, video games, and even DVDs. In recent times there's been a line made with it though due to various reasons that are personal, financial, or just a change in interest. With Transformers, I'm collecting my favorite characters that I want the toy version of that I liked, though my main focal point is Megatron and his many incarnations. I've limited myself to not collecting all the various repaints/reissues of him though and instead the paint schemes that I like, are easily available, or find close to being "show-accurate" and sometimes I'll reach for some rare pieces that I like as well. I want to eventually pick up Megatron's from the series of shows I didn't necessarily "get into" to basically "complete" the collection I'm working on, but that's really contingent on their availability to me on eBay or Amazon, financial status, and space. I'm limited on space myself and even though my collection is not very big, I enjoy collecting my favorite characters that stick out to me just like I do enjoy reading/watching things about my favorite Transformers characters and to me that's all that matters. I mean I picked up AoE Lockdown just the other day because I liked the character. Same with getting some other Bayformers Decepticons that I keep in storage right now. I don't think collecting your favorites makes you any less of a fan though.

I have cut back HEAVILY over the past couple years. I have packed alot of TF's that i don't have space for any longer and just have some gems and personal favourites displayed. Or i have given the ones that i wasn't interested in any longer to the neighborhood kids, donated or given to my friends children. I'll display the packed ones again once i get more space.

I got control of my impulse buying and of buying figures that didn't suit my idea of what i wanted my collection to consist of. I have no particular leanings towards any one generation of TF's. Just what i like......and i've pretty much almost bought everything i like. I may have plateaued as it were but i still pick up figures regularly enough. One or two every three months or so.

I'll continue to collect and display figures because i very much like them. I'm just a lot more particular now. Plus i'm pretty private with my collecting. Friends know i collect and see my collection and the odd figure floating around the house but i've never actively pursued other collectors in my city to hang out with and talk TF's to or play with figures.
I've only ever just come on this site to post comments on figures here and there or post photos.

I cut down A LOT some time between the TF Prime and DOTM lines, when Hasbro opted for a "simpler toys" policy. I had since then cherry picked from Generations and almost didn't touch the DOTM and AOE lines, and mostly concentrated on MP figs.

Space was an issue, of course, but I had also started to develop an interest in model kit building, which meant I had to divert more of my "fig funds" towards non-TF merchandise.

I buy a lot of stupid TF toys. I've never bought one of those non-Transforming $10 "Titan" figures and don't plan to ever.

A couple years ago that would not have been the case. So while I still generally will get everything at retail, the path of the brand has made strict completion-ism such a stretch of logic that even I can't do it anymore.

Worth noting that "complete" in my book has always meant domestic stuff. I've never bought import stuff carte blanche.

Counterpunch wrote:Have you set parameters for what it will be yet?

When we moved into our new house I got the whole basement for my collection. After I had all of my collection out on display for the first time I realized that I didn't want to display all of it. I really only wanted to see the G1, Classics, and MP stuff. The Movie and Animated figures just didn't appeal to me anymore. I still have those figures, but I don't display them all the time. The miscellaneous figures that don't fit in anywhere don't get displayed at all. The collections displays so much cleaner and nicer now. Now that I'm thinking about it, my collection thread is from when I had everything out. I should probably update that!

Counterpunch wrote:Have you set parameters for what it will be yet?

Thankfully, when I got back into collecting (2006) as an adult, I set pretty strict parameters for myself. Only G1 characters from the US show, and only if their alt modes were similar to G1. Only Hasbro/Takara toys, no third party. I only bought lines that were out at the time (Classics, Movie, and Animated). the Cybertron and Beast Wars stuff really didn't interest me at all having not seen the shows. My goal is to have a Generations representation of the whole G1 cast. When I can i try to find G1 figures that my wallet will allow me to purchase. Reissues are fine with me!

Counterpunch wrote:See, while in Delaware we would often have gatherings of friends and collectors at our various homes.

I miss having the meetups. I tried to get something together 2 different times a while ago and only got like 2 responses. Oh well.

Counterpunch wrote:I’m still building my collection room. It’s probably 80% completed at this point.

Congrats on this and on being in the "permanent" home. Sounds like things are going well. I am looking forward to seeing the finished collection room!

i believe there is such a thing as too much. when i moved from my student room into my house, i ditched a large amount of my tf's because i couldn't display it properly. my student room was filled with wall-mounted shelves, filled to the brim with tf's and gundam models. before moving, i kicked out the entire unicron trilogy.
afterwards, when i first set up my collection room, i found it was over-filled. i had a single room filled with ikea ivar modular shelving, but i couldn't walk around without knocking figures over, and it was just impossible to look at them normally.
so i took out the entire double middle row of shelves, and moved half of it to the attic room. i decided on focusing my collection and sold all my animated, prime, RiD and most of beast wars.
my collection room is now where all my japanese stuff resides. sentai mecha, figuarts and the remains of my gundam models.
i store my masterpieces in a glass-door cabinet in my living room, and all my other tf's are on display upstairs in my attic room : generations, movie and the beast wars cast.

I definitely can relate!

Something that bothers me looking at collections is seeing "endless" robots shoulder to shoulder... While to each their own... I can't help but think these are Toys and meant to be in some way "played" with. (Currently 80% of my collection is still in boxes!)

Recently I have started looking into sculpting foam, and starting to outline some ideas for properly displaying them as such. Conceptually my "Necessary Room" will not be shoulder to shoulder, but rather attempting to create re-inactments of battles between Autobots and Decepticons. This to me will be more enjoyable than the "Pokemon Mentality (Got to catch them all..)"

When buying Transformers now I often times ask myself... "How does this fit into this concept?" I have to admit I was skeptical of 3rd party Transformers, but now the more I see some of them I can see how in-corporating some of them into my displays will be essential.

So I have level of question:

1) Will it fit into my display with the look and feel that one is going for?

2) Is the mold worth getting or waiting till a better one comes out?

3) Is the Transformer within a set of characters or type I like most? (Soundwave, Bruticus, Superion, MP?)

4) Does the Transformer have gimmicks that stand out or is it a shampoo bottle?

5) Do I already have this mold... Do I have to have another version of this or is it better than the one I have now?

Usually within these 5 ok 6 questions I can quickly walk away from a lot of things on the shelves now. #5 often I find myself in the biggest debacle as often times new colorations or usages of a mold tend to be better than the first! Look at some of the new colors of the AOE Dinobots dangit!

I've cut back almost completely.

I started out similarly to you, just with a much smaller budget, but now I've utterly cut back.

I realized that what I really wanted out of this was to have the G1 cartoon cast in an accurate and advanced form, so articulation, detailing and cartoon accuracy. That exists now in the form of the Masterpiece line. So all I collect now are Masterpieces, and even then not all of them, only the actual cartoon cast, no weird themed repaints or extra characters like Sunstorm.

Still deciding what to purge from my original collection, or if I just want to keep it all as a reminder how not to do things.

this thread has been helpful

as a kid i played with TF's.
as an older kid i collected comics.
as a young adult i started seriously collecting TF's.
as an adult i shifted to seriously collecting comics.
and now (im 30) ive slowly shifted from seriously collecting comics, back to TF's.

i feel, i finally know how and what i want to collect. i still want comics in my life, but at a much smaller scale. TF's have gotten bigger and better in the past few years, and its a much funner thing to collect.

i restarted with my TF's thinking: G1, MP, classics, and BW/BM. but then i started thinking how about this, how about that, which has led to me considering collecting everything again. and im a real "all or nothing" kind of guy.

but now im starting to reconsider, maybe i should just keep my original focus in tact...

In the meantime, how did you come to manage your collection?

Long ago, in 2007 - I made a pledge that I would skip the Movie figures because their aesthetics did not match the Classics/Universe stylings that I was already collecting at that point. I realised that while I could display two lines at once, I would rather keep my money. That line of thinking kept me going through Animated.

Transformers Prime almost got me committed - I had much of the first wave in my Pile of Loot in BBTS when the First Edition scandal occurred. It pissed me off so much I emailed BBTS and told them "please cancel these, they're already sold out so they won't stay on your shelves" and they did just that. Since then I've gotten the occasional TF Prime figure that fit the character and merged into my Classics collection, but I managed to skip 98% of the retail lines and 90% of the deluxe and larger molds.

Have you set parameters for what it will be yet?

My parameters are that the figures must fit into the neo-G1/Classics styling that I've been collecting.

Better still, if you’re somewhat new to collecting and are in the phase where you buy up everything you can, what does your future collection look like?

My future collection is the various factions as they exist in the Aligned-Classics universe which so far contains: Autobots, Decepticons, Star Seekers, Predacons and Minicons. Anything outside that is either left on store shelves or in my tubs, like my Beast Wars collection.

When I started out, I was just a kid; I had the benefit of being under someone else's roof, so my collection was managed/kept in check by how much my family was willing to put up with my clutter. I fell out of the toys for the most part, only collecting a few figures here and there, usually the characters that I liked from the cartoons/movies, which probably helped shape the rules that I have in place for myself now that I'm in charge of my own space and finances.

I've limited myself to my top four characters, but my plan is to collect every instance of those characters, so I guess I'm a "completionist" in that sense, but I don't go out of my way to collect full lines.

I'm a sucker for a unique gimmick or feature on a figure, though. It's probably why I like characters like Ultra Magnus, Soundwave or the combiner teams so much.

Plus, one of the characters I'm trying to collect is Bumblebee, so I'm probably not sane enough to say when enough is enough

I've never had the desire to collect everything, even when I had the space, time, and cash. I've splurged and bought a dozen or more toys at once, but only after a long absence from collecting where I was going back and cherrypicking from several years of toy releases.

I've been collecting Transformers for thirty years, and have a total of just over a hundred. Probably eighty or ninety have some interesting quirk which keeps them in my collection. There are quite a few toys I would have been more than interested in when they originally came out, but I never got around to getting them and these days they're honestly not really up to scratch in terms of engineering (and they cost a bomb even for old, half-complete versions).

It does have the advantage that I can cram them all into a single bookshelf, or a large box for transport. I don't think I'll ever be in danger of losing an entire room to my collection, or at least not any time soon.