General Marvel Legends

Resilient said:
Similarly, my then girlfriend now wife and I bought a house in summer 2022. I was hoping to have a decent display space that turned out to only be a few bookcases worth in our shared office. While I don't think we see this as our "forever home," our really favorable interest rate might dictate that it is. That being said, I had to have a come to Jesus moment with myself to stop buying and stashing things in my closet for "one day when I have more space." I further narrowed in my focus and scope of teams I'm building in Legends, import figures, or lines that I'll dip a toe into just because the figure looks cool. I've also started going through my closet and working on clearing a few things out here and there that likely wouldn't see a display case anytime soon. It's honestly been a little liberating.
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This was me with GI Joe Classified. Marvel is my first love, and I have more there than I can display, but I'm ok thinking long term and hoping one day I will. I had to be honest about the Joe collection I was amassing, though - was that *ever* going to be put up, with its multiple vehicles with huge footprints? This was a fortuitous year to decide to sell off the collection as I ended up needing to bring in the extra cash anyway, and no regrets so far. I'm mostly just happy to have some closet/storage space back.
 
The space thing is no joke. I only have a house because I got lucky with writing work in 2010-2012 and was able to buy when the market bottomed out. We have 1080 sq. foot house which is condo-sized, but the mortage is under $2000 a month and you can't even get a studio apartment for that in Massachusetts these days.

Marvel's my first 1/12 love, too, but it's the collection that gives me the most anxiety. The Classified stuff aside from a couple of RIDICULOUS vehicles I can't find a home for have a relatively small footprint. The Marvel stuff I just have "OMG I need a ROOM to display all this stuff" going on.
 
When we bought our place I got down from 12 extra boxes of stuff (After my 13 Billy shelves were filled) which I sold down to just 1 and a half. Its now back up to 7. Im starting to think it's time for another purge, but it's a lot of stuff I dont want to let go of really. :(
 
Trust me, even if it's not about money or space, there's always going to be something to get in the way.

I'm a single guy who has one adult son (turns 22 this week) that still lives at home (and another 25 year old son who has been out for about 2-3 years now). I'm extremely fortunate to have a 4,000 square foot home with plenty of space that only 2 of us live in. I have beautiful built-in bookshelves throughout the house that are perfect for figure displays. However I work 70+ hours per week for my primary day job (leading a team of a data scientists for a hospital chain) and then as a side gig I run a collectibles business out of my home. Plus I make sure that I work out a minimum of one hour per day every single day. My house is packed to the gills with inventory. I have almost every figure that I could ever want for my own collection, but I have almost no time to actually work on displays or actually enjoy those figures. Most of what I've bought in the past several years has never even gotten opened.

I turned 50 this year. Retirement is no where on my radar yet despite saving plenty for it my entire life after starting my career as a financial advisor and stock broker. I just have very little interest in the concept at the current time. I hope to work until at least 70, mental and physical health permitting. However, I often wonder why I keep buying things that I never take the time to enjoy. I took on the side business because I love the hobby so much, but I never realized that the time used on it would essentially replace my time actually enjoying the hobby.

Like I said, there's always going to be "something" getting in the way for all of us. I've often wanted to start a YouTube channel to coincide with my side gig to do reviews, lists, engage in discussions and such, but I just simply don't have the time. Without trying to sound like an arrogant prick, I'm a gifted public speaker and presenter (it's just what I do) with the energy and voice to pull off a YouTube channel really well, but I simply don't have the time to put into it. I'd also really love to get heavily into 3-D printing to make those beautiful diorama displays that we all want, both for myself and to sell, but I just simply don't have the time.

This is even after my kids are grown and I have no significant other to try to keep happy (and zero interest in ever having another one).

All I'm saying is that by the time you have the space that you want, you might find that completely different things become an obstacle. Enjoy your collection when you can, however you can!
 
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Reno said:
All I'm saying is that by the time you have the space that you want, you might find that completely different things become an obstacle. Enjoy your collection when you can, however you can!
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Spot on advice, and this is how I'm trying to live.

NO judgement at all for those that don't go this route; but I can no longer really live in the world of 'but later, I will be able to enjoy it.' I can't keep holding onto things with the express intention of never looking at it 'until' something else. Whether that's until the collection is complete/bigger, or until we have more display space, or until the kids move out, or whatever other until. There can't keep being caveats on my collection. Either I'm enjoying it right now, or I'm not.
 
Reno said:
All I'm saying is that by the time you have the space that you want, you might find that completely different things become an obstacle. Enjoy your collection when you can, however you can!
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Perfect advice.

Y'know, aside from a few areas in my collection, the action figure stuff I CAN enjoy. I reorganized the Asgardians the other night and just zenned out for a while. It's the fucking BOARD GAMES I've bought I have to acknowledge I'll never find enough time with my friends to learn and enjoy, and amongst those, the "I will die before I have enough time to paint the minis that came with that board game" factor kicks in. I can enjoy alone time with my figures, but the GUILT I have about beautiful games in the studio I neither have time to play nor hours in a lifetime to paint... I am narrowing down the whole question of which games have pieces I would enjoy painting even if I never played the game itself that I know I'll hold onto but others I have to just admit defeat. (I will paint the MOTU game pieces by hand if it kills me just because I want to paint each of those characters ONE EFFIN TIME before I die, but the Marvel United game I might have to just admit defeat.

Speaking of time, though, I'm over here having an existential crisis because I have a night off from work and I want to take some action figure pics and am having full on decision paralysis with what to do a setup for.
 
docsilence said:
It's the fucking BOARD GAMES I've bought I have to acknowledge I'll never find enough time with my friends to learn and enjoy,
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I just spent a few weekends doing this with movies, actually. Sitting down and looking at the list of movies and TV shows I've saved and going 'I will literally never have enough time left to watch and enjoy all of this - I need to get rid of a lot.' I think when you are in your 40s is when you really start contemplating how much time you have left.
 
Damien said:
I just spent a few weekends doing this with movies, actually. Sitting down and looking at the list of movies and TV shows I've saved and going 'I will literally never have enough time left to watch and enjoy all of this - I need to get rid of a lot.' I think when you are in your 40s is when you really start contemplating how much time you have left.
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In fairness, I'm squatting on physical media if I have it because it feels like seven sociopaths are trying to make sure we never get to watch the shows we want when we want them (see also: the Muppet Family Christmas movie problem in the other thread). Between moving and the hous fire I don't have a TON of physical media films and TV shows but man, they'll have to pry my copies of Babylon 5 and Deadwood from my cold, dead hands.
 
docsilence said:
In fairness, I'm squatting on physical media if I have it because it feels like seven sociopaths are trying to make sure we never get to watch the shows we want when we want them (see also: the Muppet Family Christmas movie problem in the other thread). Between moving and the hous fire I don't have a TON of physical media films and TV shows but man, they'll have to pry my copies of Babylon 5 and Deadwood from my cold, dead hands.
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My stuff wasn't physical media. It was electronically-stored.... acquisitions.
But it was taking up GIGS of space on a hard-drive and I'm never gonna fucking watch 'em. I gave up on physical media the last time my wife and I tried to watch Scrubs and realized that like.. the third disc in a four disc season was not working properly. I was enraged and just went on a tear getting rid of almost all of our physical copies of movies and TV shows except the most-dear stuff (which I also have back-ups of on a drive).
 
Damien said:
NO judgement at all for those that don't go this route; but I can no longer really live in the world of 'but later, I will be able to enjoy it.' I can't keep holding onto things with the express intention of never looking at it 'until' something else. Whether that's until the collection is complete/bigger, or until we have more display space, or until the kids move out, or whatever other until. There can't keep being caveats on my collection. Either I'm enjoying it right now, or I'm not.
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This is why I've said this coming year is the display year. Get the collection out of the boxes and onto some shelves. More active and creative for me, probably less expensive, and encourages me to commit to the collection I have and use it as an excuse to have fun in more than one way.
Damien said:
I just spent a few weekends doing this with movies, actually. Sitting down and looking at the list of movies and TV shows I've saved and going 'I will literally never have enough time left to watch and enjoy all of this - I need to get rid of a lot.' I think when you are in your 40s is when you really start contemplating how much time you have left.
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Movies are the one I don't have to worry much on. I rewatch my movies regularly, and my movie collection was already wiped out once, so it's current state is extremely tuned to my enjoyment.

My 40's have definitely been an acceleration in this thinking, but family stuff got me started on the path about a decade ago.
 
JakeEkiss said:
This is why I've said this coming year is the display year. Get the collection out of the boxes and onto some shelves. More active and creative for me, probably less expensive, and encourages me to commit to the collection I have and use it as an excuse to have fun in more than one way.
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Something I love about the idea of dios, even if I never have the opportunity to do it myself, is that it can ("CAN") help to create a hard limit on what your collection can before you have to admit you're going overboard. If you've got a big Hoth display, for example, and you're buying even more Snowtroopers that can't fit into that display... what are you doing? It gives you that hard line on 'what fits in here, and nothing more.'

I tried that YEARS ago when I had a Daily Bugle set-up and it was the only place I allowed myself to put any Spider-Man stuff. The irony was that I sold off all my Spider-Man stuff before the display was full. Whomp Whomp.


JakeEkiss said:
Movies are the one I don't have to worry much on. I rewatch my movies regularly, and my movie collection was already wiped out once, so it's current state is extremely tuned to my enjoyment.
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I re-watch things a lot too. And that's mostly the stuff I kept, to be honest. A lot of what I was getting rid of were the things I saved going 'I will eventually watch this.' I can tell myself that, but if I'd honestly rather rewatch an entire 10-season show than watch that one movie in the six years it's been out... maybe I don't really want to watch that movie very much at all. And realistically, my life only has so many hours left in it and I want to be honest with myself about how I'll spend those hours. Probably not watching that movie. So why is it taking up valuable real estate on a fairly full hard drive?
 
I'm a physical media fanatic. 6000+ comics, 500+ Blu-rays and DVDs, 2500+ toys, 5000+ Heroclix, etc. I decided in January to finally watch all of the movies in my collection that I hadn't seen yet, as it felt silly to own something I've never actually watched. I decided at the same time to include them in a larger list of movies I had never seen that I have watched once a week all year long.

There have been some very surprising results, movies I had very little interest in ended up being favorites, and movies I thought were a lock ended up being some of the worst I've ever seen. It has actually helped me de-clutter, as deciding to get rid of the stinkers has opened up the possibility in my kind to getting rid of all of the crappy movies or movies I'll just never watch again but I still own for whatever reason.

I'll probably try to donate them, let somebody else suffer through Inferno or New Jack City or The Nice Guys.
 
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