The Energon Pub

Okay, I'm mostly a character collector. As such I get every version of specific characters I can find from anywhere in the world. At the same time, I have limited display space. A 6' by 3' cedar book shelf. Five shelves for display and the bottom for books. At first, I had plenty of room. As of 1999, my total collection fit on the top shelf with Star Wars, Total Justice (later DC Direct), X-Men (later Marvel Legends) on the decending shelves. Episode 1 overkill ended Star Wars toys. DC peddered out with dozens of versions of the Justice League just getting boring. Higher prices and declining quality ended Marvel Legends. Now all 5 shelves are Transformers but just a handful of characters. Now even those shelfs aren't enough so I need to start cutting figures. So I have this ideal of Perfect Grade. It's basically a 5-10 of the best versions of these characters. For example:
Starscream- G1, Master Piece G1, Henkei, Movie G1, Titanium War Within.
Can anybody help me make these hard choices?
What are your Perfect Grades?

Wow, my shelves are starting to look like yours. I can't make your decisions for you really, but I only generally collect versions I like, and if there is some flaw I don't like, I don't buy the figure. I also only collect 1 version of each mold, excluding repaints that are supposed to be different characters. For example:

I have nearly every Prime, except for Armada because I don't like it. I also don't have G2 because he's almost the same as G1. I don't like the colors of Laser Prime, but I have RiD Scourge instead. Same goes for Armada deluxe, I've got a custom Nemesis instead. Same deal with Alt/BT, no Prime but I've got the Nemesis.

Starscream, I don't collect anything that has some resemblance to the G1 character. MP-03 is good enough, as is the original Energon. I did make an exception to my 1 version of the mold for the G1 repaint of Energon Screamer, because it's too cool. I don't have Robot Masters, because it's got no knees and I don't like the bright color scheme. I also have only 1 version of G1 Starscream.

Megatron, if it isn't silver, black and red, I don't want it.

And so on for each character.

DON'T GET RID OF FIGURES! GET MORE SHELVES!

Just box them all up and send them to me!!!I'll give them all a good home.

Anyway, I think we need a list of all the characters you want, so far it's Prime, SS and UM, but it's hard to make out the rest.

Mykltron wrote:DON'T GET RID OF FIGURES! GET MORE SHELVES!

Whoa, whoa, hold the phone! Get rid of figures? Last thing in the world I want to do! They just go in storage. But I have literally HUNDREDS of Transformers. And look, I'd love to put them all out and make my whole place a TF museum. But I live in a small apartment and my fiance would kill me. I was looking at these glass shelf towers at Ikea but those and cats don't work together.

--B-- wrote:I think we need a list of all the characters you want, so far it's Prime, SS and UM, but it's hard to make out the rest.

Well, in the picture it's
TOP SHELF: Optimus Prime
2nd SHELF: Megatron
3rd SHELF: Optiums Primal & BW Megatron
4th SHELF: Ultra Magnus, Rodimus & Nemesis Primes
5th SHELF: Starscream Thundercracker & Skywarp
I've taken down the Beast Wars figures to make room for Animated but I have Classics up as a place holder (irony of ironies.)

It used to have more characters on it before the Movie. Bumblebee, Jazz, Grimlock, Soundwave, Shockwave, Dirge, Thrust, Ramjet, Galvatron, all used to have spaces. But now I don't even have all of the figures of the characters I do put up. G2 Prime, Cybertron Megatron, Movie Starscream, Air Attack Optimus Primal. Shelf space is the main reason I don't have Master Piece Megatron.

Sad thing is all this is happening because I realized I have no where to put Animated Ultra Magnus. I'm making space to fill it.

The only one that I really have a decent amount of is Prime, but be clever with your usages. For instance, Only use one "Bendy" OP, UM, or NP, as long as you have the mold out.

As for Primes, I'd vote:

MP/20th
Laser
RID
Classics/Henk
Bendy or Movie, it's a tie, but movie if you use Bendy UM or NP, which IMO are better than OP.

Although I am a contant pose changer, transforming guy, so I perfer to just leave out the molds that I enjoy transforming or posing, that's why I love the bendy mold, laser mold and the MP mold. I love my G1, but it's pretty boring to pose and transform, so I'd pack it away.