The Energon Pub

Most boxes and blister cards tend to go in the trash but how often do you want to hang on to the box. Maybe the packaging is very nice or collectable in of itself (like the TFCC boxes use to be) But then where does it go, especially if you want to keep the figure out on display? Where do you decide that nice or not, it's still just a box and is taking up too much space? What about the blister cards? Sometimes the profiles take up the whole back. Do you chuck them anyway?

I usually hang on to the bigger and nicer boxes, such as the Voyager boxes. I always throw away the blister cards, because I'm not gentle when I open them. I have thrown away boxes for the Leader class figures in the movie line, as they are flimsy and cheap, but the boxes for the Generations, UT and special stuff like Devastator and BotCon stuff I kept. I did throw away the box for Generations Metroplex, as he didn't fit back into it after his arm was attached.

Anything G1/G2 stays, all the rest goes!

Masterpiece boxes and any generations box that doesn't come with a comic. If it comes with a comic I just keep the comic and the box goes. I also keep anything vintage which with me means anything pre-Cybertron.

I have too many boxes.

I have never thrown out packaging for a TF. I don't throw much away, I'm a bit of a pack rat.

Back in the 80's, my mom did take out the styrofoam from my g1 boxes and threw that away and folded up the boxes, to my dismay. She also would remove and throw away the bubbles from carded ones, but that didn't bother me as much, since that was what had been the norm for my Star Wars and MOTU figures before TF's started.

I have a rule I like to call BEF (Big, expensive, or foreign) for keeping boxes.

Like a madman I rip into all packaging with total disregard especially deluxe and voyagers then into the trash the packaging goes! Seriously unless it's a Takara MP, vintage G1 or maybe a TFCC (like they use to look) box as someone pointed out why bother...'nuff said!

NEVER!

Well, mostly never. The Kre-O boxes are rather convenient for storing spare parts, and I kept FoC Shockwave's cardback since for whatever reason I really liked how it looks, but for the most part... packaging doesn't usually survive the opening.

I keep everything.

For Deluxes and smaller, it's easy: I remove the bubbles and keep the cardbacks in a file drawer.

For Voyagers and larger, I've kept the boxes for all my "CHUG" and CW figures, but tossed all the boxes for Movie figures. I think I saved my Animated boxes because they had cool artwork. All my saved boxes are in plastic bags in my attic.

I only kept some of my Takara MP packaging (I love how compact they are for the autobot cars) and the ultra awesome sonokong boxes of Takara releases in Korea:

Always.

Never.

I used to keep everything, but I realised very quickly after moving house the amount of storage space I required to keep it all in.

Now I throw my plastic bubbles and keep the backing cards, the front insert, and the instructions all together in a plastic sleeve and filed away in a ring binder.

For voyagers, I flatten out the box, cut them into flat planes and preserve the character art and bio and do the same thing in a plastic sleeve. It looks pretty neat.

Anything bigger than that, I'll generally keep. If it's a collectible like Bandai SH Figuart and D-Arts. I'll keep the full box. Leader classes, Henkei/United/Generations 3 pack sets, I keep those 2, but they're slightly more ornate to the point that they make good displace pieces on their own because of the cover art.

I think it's wise to open them carefully & keep the boxes if you plan on reselling things at all - especially expensive 3rd party toys or things with a premium feel.

It may not make a huge difference in all cases but the more you let people have the more likely you are to get multiple bids and a good price on such premium items.

G1? Keep 'em

I don't keep blisters, as others have said, but I do try to keep boxes for bigger figures like voyager and Leader figures, I also keep boxes for Takara figures, though I rarely get them.

Given the size of my collection I have to be pretty brutal in deciding what packaging to keep and what to toss. Trying to keep it all organized is like a second job some days. I keep Masterpiece boxes, G1 packaging (easy since I don't have a ton of packaging for it), and Botcon/Club boxes because those are fancy. Anything else is totally arbitrary. If I like something but could maybe live without it, I'll toss the insert and flatten it.

I keep a lot of the boxes for storage. Since I can't properly display them, most of my collection is wrapped in bubblewrap inside these boxes. It becomes harder when there's a collectable box like a Masterpiece or TFCC because I don't want to dispose of the inner packing either to keep it collectable, but it does mean that one figure will take up a lot of space.

Whenever it can be reused

I keep MP boxes complete and the few Takara box releases I get. Most cardbacks, voyager and leader class boxes get trashed. Kept Metroplex's box.