The Energon Pub

I don't have a problem with what I have colected so far, but I came to a realization just a few months ago that I have communicated in other threads-I started having a lot of trouble understanding why I bought a lot of the figures that I had been buying. I came to the conclusion that there are many figures that I want, but I no longer have any desire to complete any given line or delve into lines that I don't consider important to me. There were many figures I bought impulsively in the last two years that I just can't say I like enough now to have purchased them in the first place. Now, I take a really long, hard look at what I am considering buying. I make certain that it is something that I truly feel I cannot live without, or that it is something I know I will regret not getting if I miss it. If I don't get that gut reaction of "holy crap, I have to have that", then I don't worry about it.

So, I don't feel like getting rid of what I have, but I really don't feel like buying figures that end up being "filler" for my collection. I always tell my GF and people I know that I always wanted to get a Gibson Les Paul (I have always been a Fender guitar guy). Well, the fact is this; I could have easily bought a Les Paul with the money that I wasted on Transformers that I didn't end up caring about. That kind of makes me sick at this point-$10 here, $20 there really adds up fast. Don't get me wrong, I love most of the TFs I have. There are just quite a few duds in the collection too, and I don't plan on making those mistakes again.

Prime Riblet wrote:I don't have a problem with what I have colected so far, but I came to a realization just a few months ago that I have communicated in other threads-I started having a lot of trouble understanding why I bought a lot of the figures that I had been buying. I came to the conclusion that there are many figures that I want, but I no longer have any desire to complete any given line or delve into lines that I don't consider important to me. There were many figures I bought impulsively in the last two years that I just can't say I like enough now to have purchased them in the first place. Now, I take a really long, hard look at what I am considering buying. I make certain that it is something that I truly feel I cannot live without, or that it is something I know I will regret not getting if I miss it. If I don't get that gut reaction of "holy crap, I have to have that", then I don't worry about it.

So, I don't feel like getting rid of what I have, but I really don't feel like buying figures that end up being "filler" for my collection. I always tell my GF and people I know that I always wanted to get a Gibson Les Paul (I have always been a Fender guitar guy). Well, the fact is this; I could have easily bought a Les Paul with the money that I wasted on Transformers that I didn't end up caring about. That kind of makes me sick at this point-$10 here, $20 there really adds up fast. Don't get me wrong, I love most of the TFs I have. There are just quite a few duds in the collection too, and I don't plan on making those mistakes again.

Well said, and I know exactly how you feel. It's almost like you have to learn how to collect the right way for you, and not just be a completionist.

I don't mean to sound all pseudo-spiritual when I say this, but I find that thinning out my collection is a healthy and theraputic exercise for my soul. I'm not trying to be all like "You shouldn't have things because there are poor people in the world" or some like, high and mighty junk, but it feels good for me to get rid of my stuff.
I started hyper buying a number of years ago after my father died, mainly I think because holding something in my hand physically and saying "I own this" made me feel better. I try to explain that to my girlfriend when she finds another box of my toys that are all still in their packages, and I'm vehemently opposed to keeping things MISP.
For me, this action of getting rid of stuff is a personal one, so I can't really give advice. But I wanted to get in on the talk becuase I know it is hard to do this anyway. In the past I've tried almost all of these suggestions here, and the lions share of my collection right now is stuff that I do hold dear, but I still have a lot of filler, and some stuff that I just think of how difficult it would be to send away.
What I did/do is start with lines or series that I'm not particularly enamoured with. Basically, that meant that my very first casualties are things Movie(s) releated, the few Animated figures I had, the Alternators and most anything Beast Wars. After that, I started figuring out the things that I actually liked collecting, and that left MPs, Classics, Botcon stuff, and G1s. I guess basically, I kept what I consider to be quality pieces, which are actually easy to find once-or-if you come to the conclusion that your collection has entered overkill territory. For me at least.

have yourself a BOYchild... i swear he SCREAMS so loud at sight of any packaging stored away the missus just gives him stuff... MY GODDAM STUFF. Although G1, dont care how loud he aint gettin it but he raped all my RID stuff... its all ****.

SEXFIGHTER wrote:have yourself a BOYchild... i swear he SCREAMS so loud at sight of any packaging stored away the missus just gives him stuff... MY GODDAM STUFF. Although G1, dont care how loud he aint gettin it but he raped all my RID stuff... its all ****

Would you please post in a more coherent fashion?

Money is an issue, but space is more important for me.

I try to find a character or mold I like. Buy it and happily display it.

But once a better mold is produced, I start to replace certain bots and store them in the rubbermaid totes (AKA void of dark energon).

Example:

Movie Baricade - HA Baricade

ROTF Skids - HA Skids

Classics Bumblebee - War for Cyberton BB

Cybertron Excellion - Generations Drift

ROTF Sideswipe - HFD Sidearm Sideswipe

Classics Skywarp - Classics Cyclonus

ROTF Optimus Prime - ROTF Buster Optimus Prime

Universe Onslaught - Fans Project Bruticus

Superlink Ironhide - Fans Projects City Commander

HA Sidswipe - HA Jazz

Energon Baricade - Generations Darkmount

ROTF Beachcomber - HFD Breacher

you get the idea...


I only have two major display cases for my TFs. If I had anymore, I'd be tossed out of my home (and my marriage).

My wife has two "knick knack" cabinets, so we're even...

Counterpunch wrote:

SEXFIGHTER wrote:have yourself a BOYchild... i swear he SCREAMS so loud at sight of any packaging stored away the missus just gives him stuff... MY GODDAM STUFF. Although G1, dont care how loud he aint gettin it but he raped all my RID stuff... its all ****

Would you please post in a more coherent fashion?

You're right...thats the worst English since me Grimlock. I was in a rush.

i have a 3 year old son... i swear he SCREAMS so loud if he catches sight of any transformers packaging i've stored away, in the end the missus just gives him the stuff if im not there... MY GODDAM STUFF. Although the G1 gear, dont care how loud he screams he aint gettin anywhere near it but alas he raped and pillaged all my RID stuff... 'tis no more [/quote]

tigertracks 24 wrote:
Well said, and I know exactly how you feel. It's almost like you have to learn how to collect the right way for you, and not just be a completionist.

That is really true. It takes a while to pin down what you want in a transformer and to understand the result you are trying to accomplish by collecting. Well said as well, TT24.

I tend to buy in batches. I guess I think that I havent bought anything for a while and need to catch up. I also have a problem passing over a poor figure that I find on sale.

As far as selling goes I look at my list of figures and pick out those I could live without but then I dig them out and once I box them up or look at them in their box I tend to change my mind, especially when you consider the low amount of cash you a likely to get for them and the pain of having to box them up and haul them to the post office. Has to be done though from time to time.

Most figures have some sort of redeeming feature that makes you want to keep them. You just have to be cold and say good bye.

Well i've been collecting since i was 8 years old, and i tried to keep collection intact but im sure everyone has the mother who says "your to old to be collecting toys" or "it's time to get rid of this stuff" and she gives it away or sells it at the garage sale while your still in school and you have your heart broken cause your favorite toy is now gone. I still have nightmares about it (shivers)

Anyway, i still have a great deal of G1 Transformers, GI Joe and Starwars i've collected through my life, but ended up being a HUGE Starwars fan through the 80's & 90's and when the late 80's/early 90's hit for Transformers and i started to see Transformers take shape that i've never seen before and no more Transformers cartoon, i was thinking "what is hasbro doing" so didnt care for those types of Transformers cause i wasnt use to seeing Prime and Megatron in different forms and when Beastwars hit i was like WTH!!! Hasbro is desperate! so i continued on with Starwars my collection is HUGE!.

The year of 2007, after the first action movie of Transformers was released, i started collecting Transformers again and placed Starwars on hold, and collecting Transformers really brought back alot of good memories as a kid and better than collecting Starwars and Joe stuff combined! So after collecting most of the first movie stuff, i started on a mission to find my G1 stuff which i found in the old Transformers cases out in my parent shed or barn and most of them are in good condition and some just need a good cleaning, but all in all i was happy and the childhood memories come back and felt like a kid again and I've change since then. Soon after the first movie was gone, i was seeing the TFU 2.0 classic line up which relating back to the G1 classic, just with a modernized form with each character and the first two i bought was Octane and Sunstreaker and man! i was really impressed with this line and thought to myself "Hasbro did a bang up job with these figures" so i continued on collecting them and collected everything in this line. Then i met a local collector who introduce to the henkei line and my first two purchases was Red Alert and Hot shot, again really impressed with these guys and the detail was really good too. I continued on with collecting Henkei items here and there and now have a great collection that i will never ever sell.

Now onto the ROTF line, I could not wait for this line to hit and bought everything from this line and even bought dups just to have, and the only thing i can say is i regret buying any movie stuff at all! I think i was hoping on the band wagon just wanting to buy something "Transformers related" didnt care where it came from i just had to have it. So, to sum everything up for my situation is that i've change the way i'm collecting Transformer and sold everything from the first 2 movies cause one im not a completest and no desire to be one and two i dont have that much room to be a completest. After selling a majority of figures from the first and second movie i've only kept the main characters from the movie line that everyone did see on the big screen. Now still collecting Henkei line due to the fact is relates back the G1 era just with a new modernized form and buying up Encores and G1 re-issues that i missed as a kid to fill up space in my collection.

I will never let my collection get the best of me or win me over to buy everything out there Transformers related that's out there. Just buying what interest me and that's it.

*sigh*

Like some others, this thread has made me look at something I've been considering for a while now...whittling some of my collection. I've been pretty completionist from BW through Cybertron, and I'm seriously considering getting rid of some of those (looking at you, Armada). I cleared out the few movie molds I had and just avoided buying movie line toys altogether, unless it's exceptionally cool or different (biplanes? hot rods? cool motorcycles? SOLD). Now I'm seriously concentrating on G1 and Universe updates of G1 figures. The other lines just sit in bins in a closet...

It might be hard, but I may have to start on here and post a near-complete set of Armada toys in Carbombya and just take that first step. I have no idea what a lot of that entire line would go for on ebay, but I may have to do some research there as well...

I've already told my mother and sister to start looking for another place to live since I need their rooms. Seriously though my main problem is that everything I've bought I had the intention of opening and fiddling with, that hasn't happened and has made me question my purchases. I know somewhere down the line I will have to thin the herd but my concern is just being able to get back what I spent.

(reading rest of post) What? GI Joe? Were you going to tell us? You're the one who brought me in? What will we do now? With POC on the way? Who's going to break it to numbers and editor, they're sensitive ya know?... Slip me a note with whatever exclusives and variants you want to get rid of and we'll talk.

chuckdawg1999 wrote:I've already told my mother and sister to start looking for another place to live since I need their rooms. Seriously though my main problem is that everything I've bought I had the intention of opening and fiddling with, that hasn't happened and has made me question my purchases. I know somewhere down the line I will have to thin the herd but my concern is just being able to get back what I spent.

(reading rest of post) What? GI Joe? Were you going to tell us? You're the one who brought me in? What will we do now? With POC on the way? Who's going to break it to numbers and editor, they're sensitive ya know?... Slip me a note with whatever exclusives and variants you want to get rid of and we'll talk.

I'll still buy an occasional, but I am getting rid of all my old Spy Troops, Valor Vs. Venom. I had all them plus variants in package, and it just takes up to much space for something I will never open of display.

I ran across my SDCC PDD Golds in storage yesterday. Such a cool collectible.

Here's how I've done it.

1.) You do NOT need every single incarnation of a character. (I.E. If you have Leader Class Starscream, you don't need the Voyager. Likewise, if you have ROTF Starscream, you don't need his TF1 counterpart.)

2.) You do not need repaints and remolds. (Only keep them if you prefer them to the original toy, or they're so drastically changed that they become a different character.)

3.) Ones you don't tinker with or even pay attention to any more. (For me, that's things like Armada Demolishor and Cyclonus, or Human Alliance anything.)

4.) Keep the ones you absolutely enjoy, keep the true collector items. (To us, yes, they're all collectibles, but there is a substantial difference between your run of the mill TF and something like a FansProject product like City Commander. They're also the hardest and most expensive to attain, whereas the mass retail items can usually be reacquired with minimal effort. Note: I said usually, didn't say always. Want to get that out there before I'm lynched and people feel a need to "correct" me.)

It's served me well, so far. Yes, I still have a rather sizable collection and room's quickly becoming scarce, and yes I have some that are collecting dust and haven't been focused on lately, but what I have kept, I hold dear to my heart and know I'd miss them terribly.

chuckdawg1999 wrote:I know somewhere down the line I will have to thin the herd but my concern is just being able to get back what I spent.

I hate to break it to you, but that's one of the things you'll have to come to terms with: You're most likely going to lose money. And lots of it.

With the economy in the toilet, and the figures shelfwarming, their value seems to depreciate like a car. Some of the older stuff (5+ years) is starting to pick up steam in terms of pricing, or heavily wanted stuff such as Classics (not Universe 2.0, Classics), but most of what's available recently or currently, you're better off returning them to the store, honestly. I've had a terrible, terrible time trying to get my Human Alliance figures sold. They're not going to, not unless I let them go for about $10-15.00. Sucks, but it's true and I've come to terms with it.

Besides, if you get into collecting with money in mind, you're setting yourself up for a massive letdown. Some figures will surprise you and fetch some major coinage, but for the most part, you'll end up losing money. But...if you need the money to pay a bill, or eat, well...some money is better than none, and at least you enjoyed them while you had them. Isn't that the most important aspect, in terms of value?

Autobot032 wrote:Here's how I've done it.

1.) You do NOT need every single incarnation of a character. (I.E. If you have Leader Class Starscream, you don't need the Voyager. Likewise, if you have ROTF Starscream, you don't need his TF1 counterpart.)

2.) You do not need repaints and remolds. (Only keep them if you prefer them to the original toy, or they're so drastically changed that they become a different character.)

3.) Ones you don't tinker with or even pay attention to any more. (For me, that's things like Armada Demolishor and Cyclonus, or Human Alliance anything.)

4.) Keep the ones you absolutely enjoy, keep the true collector items. (To us, yes, they're all collectibles, but there is a substantial difference between your run of the mill TF and something like a FansProject product like City Commander. They're also the hardest and most expensive to attain, whereas the mass retail items can usually be reacquired with minimal effort. Note: I said usually, didn't say always. Want to get that out there before I'm lynched and people feel a need to "correct" me.)

It's served me well, so far. Yes, I still have a rather sizable collection and room's quickly becoming scarce, and yes I have some that are collecting dust and haven't been focused on lately, but what I have kept, I hold dear to my heart and know I'd miss them terribly.

chuckdawg1999 wrote:I know somewhere down the line I will have to thin the herd but my concern is just being able to get back what I spent.

I hate to break it to you, but that's one of the things you'll have to come to terms with: You're most likely going to lose money. And lots of it.

With the economy in the toilet, and the figures shelfwarming, their value seems to depreciate like a car. Some of the older stuff (5+ years) is starting to pick up steam in terms of pricing, or heavily wanted stuff such as Classics (not Universe 2.0, Classics), but most of what's available recently or currently, you're better off returning them to the store, honestly. I've had a terrible, terrible time trying to get my Human Alliance figures sold. They're not going to, not unless I let them go for about $10-15.00. Sucks, but it's true and I've come to terms with it.

Besides, if you get into collecting with money in mind, you're setting yourself up for a massive letdown. Some figures will surprise you and fetch some major coinage, but for the most part, you'll end up losing money. But...if you need the money to pay a bill, or eat, well...some money is better than none, and at least you enjoyed them while you had them. Isn't that the most important aspect, in terms of value?

I'll go one step farther. Right now I think we're in a speculator market much like comics in the early 90's. The prices on some things are just so astronomically out of wack that when the bubble bursts the value of everything will drop. I don't collect for investment having gotten burned by comics in the 90's but I'd like to think somewhere down the line I'll see something back on a few of my choice items, most aren't TF's.

When I was in your quandary I had some hard decisions to make as well. I decided to keep collecting one toyline in particular (G1) and fill out my collection with figures that I really liked the most from all the rest.

Since then I have collected most of the Universe Classics, most of the movieverse figures, and definitely as many of the third party stuff as I can get.

What this means is the rest all goes bye bye except for the molds I really really really like. When a new toyline comes out I make some really hard decisions. Do I like what I'm seeing on a given toyline enough to start collecting them as well? Most of the new ones I decide I don't like them enough to bother (like Animated and the new Power Core Combiners).

And finally, what I did was start buying book shelves. I have managed to pick up 4 book shelves and they barely handle my complete G1 collection. I have to buy more of them in order to get the other 2/3rds displayable.

Now with the updating of G1 via Classics/Generations I find myself wanting to sell off some G1.

Why would I do that? Because some of them are too expensive on the upkeep. Some are so old the plastic breaks during transformation, joints get tough with rust, and some of them yellow on me. I love the G1 but Jetfire costs an arm and a leg to keep replacing those armor pieces. Know what I mean?

Those are my words of wisdom.