Where is your collection going!

[Gaetznes]

Its been an observation of mine. That even the collectors that never sold. Are now doing minor to extensive purges. This observation started a few years ago.

Starting with my trading of G1 to MP and CHUG. However, there are people that are down right selling off there collections. Especially G1 seems to be the target.

From a sellers perspective. I've also noticed those that are buying. Are no longer buying the junkers. Those people were generally just the Modders.

But even those that were just filling in there collection till the better version came around, seem to be hold out till they do.

Is this just a natural progression? or a larger sign that the economic demographic of us collectors are changing. Perhaps its simple enough to say the collectors taste are changing. The possibilities of such are more then I can currently imagine.

I've personally have had done a large purge last year. But am currently rebuilding. But am not doing the instant ebay or trades I once did. They are coming from yardsales, flea markets and value village.

Its not like I didn't do this before. But the drive to need a figure is primarily gone. So the will to pay medium to top dollar or trade for it is almost non existent.

Maybe with the exception of Has MP Soundwave. But even then i've passed on pre-ordering it a few times now. In light of buying tools that will earn me income down the road. Or doing repairs on my own van, vs paying out more to have a garage to do it.

I guess this post is about practicality. Those nice little priorities we either assert as goals. Be they obligations in life, like bills etc; or our past times, which are our hobbies.

So what changes have your collections gone through? Where do you see them transforming into? Pun intended.

[brr-icy]

i've gotten sick of the "almost" figures, like a lot of classics, they almost look like the character, or almost are good figures, with well over 1000 figures, i don't see the need to get anything that's almost good enough anymore. i see more classics sell offs than g1, g1 is getting more scarce than before imo.

and hurry up and get mp soundwave. no excuses, lol. favorite character in as close as you'll get to perfection without paying takara prices

my collection is heading towards complete show cast mps, and complete us, euro, and japanese g1 and g2

[Gaetznes]

Hey Brr

I got yeah on the MP soundwave. I keep just putting it off. As I just dropped $500 on tools, this month. I'm standing at the homedepot. Saying to my self. I could get the cheap 80 drill or $300 on that sweet ass drill and impact set. Those two hours standing there were me trying to figure out how I could get MP SW and good tools. Good tools won out for the first time in my life.

It all came to what do I need now, what can I get later. Need tools to work that day. Soundwave can come later. However I did go crazy with the TF's at sussex flea market. Bought about 50 good figures and several hundred junkers. Plus perhaps 4 pounds of misc parts. It was crazy. Impulse buy.

Side note:
I still take pride knowing 5 or more of those cassettes were once in my collection.

[jjwankenobi]

I 86'd all my CHUGs, Bayverse and TFA earlier this summer in favour of just G1 and Masterpiece. I really wanted to get back to "grass roots" for my collection so appearance based on the G1 cartoon was the key. Yes, a lot of G1 toys look nothing like their animation counterpart so I've stayed away from those as well (i.e., Ironhide and Ratchet). Despite taking a considerable hit I do feel relief from that "hoarder" feeling I was starting to get.

[Gaetznes]

Originally Posted by jjwankenobi

Despite taking a considerable hit I do feel relief from that "hoarder" feeling I was starting to get.

Did you ever feel that you justified the Hoarding as I can just rotate my collection? As in the rest are in a closet or storage locker?

I still have a closet filled with figures and boxes. No space to display them. Unless I change out a few things in the showcase.

[questlyfe]

My priority in what i buy now compared to 2 years ago when starting out collecting hasn't changed but i did go through the collector trap where i explored other lines to satisfy my fix when i couldn't afford my G1's. Other lines like CHUGS because i really wanted a good representation of a G1 cartoon figure updated with all the articulation and at a good price point compared to G1. Ontop of that i ran into the Cybertron line which i still currently enjoy quite alot and dont see myself ever selling off. Then Beast Wars hit. I was totally against them at first but i caved and got 1 and something about them just got to me and so i started collecting all the main autobots and some neos. Bayverse hit me as well just not as hard as some other folks. I bought some but eventually sold every single one of them because i realised how much of my collecting was starting to get out of hand and of course because bayverse figures are just pure shit. I'm so thankful i didnt get hooked on animated cause that woulda been more financial strain.

It took awhile to finish off some sub collections like Cybertron and Beast Wars but now that there done i'm happy and wont be selling them off. The CHUGS and WFC,FOC stuff all of those will be sold eventually for alot of people due to the fact Takara's MP line has truly made it pointless to purchase them. Brr-icy put it perfectly. CHUGS are 'almost' like the G1 characters but the MP line has made them pretty much identical to what a G1 fan would ever hope for. I've seen classics being sold off the most with bayverse figures coming in second. As much as i enjoyed the TF Prime series and some of the figures i think will start to see alot of those being sold off at some point in the near future to help pay for 3rd party figs and MP's and i might be one of those people who do but i haven't decided yet.

So as much as I was strictly a G1 collector at the beginning i did find myself being caught up with wanting to explore other lines but now i'm back at stage 1 again 2 years later and have gone back to my roots of collecting G1 but with the added MP line ONLY...right now.

It's hard being a TF collector because there really is some great figures from every line and if you have that collector gene in you sometimes it's very hard to stop at collecting just 1 specific line.

[Rev]

I'm leaning more towards MP now and 3rd party.

To get my cheap toy fix I have started picking up non-Transformer toys. Something I never before did. Classics Turtles, Starwars Black series etc.

[razin]

I've started pondering the "purge". I had boxed up my Bayverse shit and tried to sell, but no one wants that crap. I almost pulled the trigger on TFP, but once I started transforming them to box up I found I still enjoyed that line too much. Animated is never leaving, still way too good of a line to lose. As for CHUG, I may start selling off characters that are replaced with MP's. So I may have the Lambo twins and Datsun triplets up for sale at some point.

[big dawg]

I have considered selling chuncks of my collection (classics, movie verse, prime, WFC) but in the end I never do because I know I will eventually want them again any way. I mean, what is the point in selling the movie toys if all you are going to get are peanuts?

And to those that sell off your classics, how do you deal with all the amazing third party stuff coming out in the classics scale? I mean, I far prefer things like PE Reflector to say classic ironhide, but you can't have a collection of third party toys without rounding out the cast with classic bots. Third Parties generally try and tackle characters hasbro hasn't. Green giant looks amazing but no way he can stand with an MP display. Same goes for Herc- you need to display these guys with classics (Herc especially, in the G1 cartoon weren't the constructicons individually bigger than other bots/cons?)

[General Tekno]

I've definitely pondered it as well. 90% of my movie stuff is definitely purgeable, as well as a lot of UT stuff; the main issue is the effort/time involved to actually purge it.