Quitting/putting collecting on pause

[Ru1977]

This. One reason I've never had issues selling anything on ebay is that I price my stuff as though I'd actually like to get rid of it as opposed to making a profit. Unless it's something I know for a fact has high demand I'll basically never offer an open figure for as much or more than retail was originally. And even the high demand ones I typically undercut the average ebay seller's price by 10-20%, because you see those listings sit there for weeks and weeks waiting for a whale. Those folks think their figure collection is an investment. I think mine is a hobby, and when it's time for a figure to go I want it gone.

I echo this, heh. Once in a while I'll price something with "if I get this, AWESOME, but if no one buys it at that I'm happy keeping it," but most of the things I list are deliberately set at the lowest price I can find on ebay. I wanna sell this stuff, not wait for profit.

 

[altcunningham]

I also think this hobby is more consumptive than additive.

I can see my progress drawing. I can feel the joy when Doc runs D&D for us. I... Sometimes... Like talking about comics and movies with people. The gym. Baking. Whatever. You're creating, growing.

Yeah, you can customise or build dios, but overall modern Toys feel every Got Mine, What's Next for a lot of the scene. People are competing for pre-orders. People want to be the first to get it. Some people want to be the only one to get it so they can feel special. Toys are finite resource, and it's competitive, which doesn't breed camaraderie in the larger scene. At least modern. The nostalgic stuff tends to have a little more of a social component cuz everyone is being wistful together.

So you chase it. Get it. It doesn't totally makes you happy. Even here there's lots of "I got Mutant Dude. He's Fine. He's Okay. Waiting on The Next Thing now."

Repeat.

 

[JakeEkiss]

Yeah, you can customise or build dios, but overall modern Toys feel every Got Mine, What's Next for a lot of the scene.

Honestly I think this is a huge part of why I want to build dios more now. It's creative, it's building something, it's making artistic choices, it's learning new stuff. It will have more benefits to me in a psychological way than just buying another thing, even if it's a thing I like.

 

[altcunningham]

Agree. It's why I like some of these third party offerings. Got me seeking out accessories, custom clothes.

 

[TheRealSmallville]

It's not even that I don't technically have the money. It's that I look at what I have and I'm angry that it cost as much as it did. And even though we're totally fine lifestyle-wise, I always get that guilty feeling of what we COULD have done with this money.

Yeah, this right here is something I've been dealing with. A few minutes ago I mentioned in a thread on third party stuff how much more joy I was getting from 3rd party/independent companies due to the care and artistry that is put into them. But a large part of that joy I get is also knowing that even though I'm paying more for a Maestro Union toy than a McFarlane one, I'm getting SO much more from a paint/accessories/artistic standpoint. I look at some of these things and then I look at my McFarlane stuff, and let me be clear - I love my McFarlane collection and I'm very happy to have it. And I don't wish to sell it. But when I started collecting them with wave 1, they were $20 and BAF were $25. That was it. Now, I'm averaging ~$30 for the same $20 figure as before with nothing extra, and while I still enjoy the figures very much I also get pretty pissed off knowing that very little has been improved to go with that extra price point.

I start looking at how 2 McFarlane figures could equal 1 really, really nice 3rd party figure that comes with all sorts of bells and whistles and isn't a slave to mold re-reuse and inaccurate costume designs. I can afford the higher cost of these things, fairly easily most of the time, it's not the money itself that is a problem. But the older I get, the more I get frustrated that the return isn't as great. Not a return on investment, but just a return on worth.

Hell, I'm sitting here with the new Haslab Ecto-1 still sealed in the box because I don't know if I want to keep it. $400 suddenly seems a bit steep for what it is based on reviews I've seen, and the longer I stare at the box the angrier I get that I fell into FOMO and backed it. I end up feeling guilty to myself, more than anything...the family is well taken care of, Mrs. Smallville and I make good money so it's not like anyone is going without something so papa can have his toys...but I end up with lots of buyers remorse at times.

I'm not really sure where I'm going with all of this, but your comment stuck out to me and wanted to say something lol Carry on, all.

 

[altcunningham]

I am with you, my dude.

 

[Damien]

I'm not really sure where I'm going with all of this, but your comment stuck out to me and wanted to say something lol Carry on, all.

No, you hit the nail on the head of what I'm talking about. And to @Xavion2025's point about 'I paid for it, so it can't be the money' - I just don't think that's true. I think 'I have the money' and 'it is worth the money' are very different and sometimes not even -related- conversations.
But I also don't necessarily subscribe to 'it's worth what you are willing to pay for it.' I think that's a misunderstanding of how our brains work and fundamentally not really true except in the most literal (and useless) sense. We talk about this on toy forums constantly. We intellectually understand that X figure costs Y dollars, so to get X figure, which we want, we MUST spend Y dollars.
The problem is we can't force our brains to feel that X figure is WORTH Y dollars, we can only force our brains to understand that to GET X figure we must spend Y dollars. So we intellectually accept it, but I don't think that means we emotionally accept it.

And I think that's part of what's killing the hobby for a lot of us.

 

[TheRealSmallville]

Justincredible on YouTube had a video recently where he talked about how a lot of collectors have lost their "childish wonder" when it comes to toys and collecting, and I do think he's on to something there. When I was a kid, my TMNT went on hundreds of adventures with Batman and He-Man because I had a few of a dozen lines instead of dozens from a few lines. So everyone was constantly hitting up that Technodrome portal and traveling to different dimensions to hang out and fight bad guys. You made do with what you had because it's all you had. Fast forward to today, and we're grownups now and we don't need to worry about only having 5 MOTU and the 4 brothers from TMNT...if you want every MOTU chararacter, you can go get it now. And I do think that affects our enjoyment a bit, or at least affects how the dopamine hits our brains.

It's probably the reason why things like Christmas and birthdays don't feel "like they used to." We get new toys constantly throughout the year, whereas as a kid you looked forward to Christmas because it might be one of a handful of times you got something new. And of course, the more we buy the more we require to get the dopamine to hit the same, which leads to overcrowding, overspending, just...overwhelming lol

 

[JakeEkiss]

It's probably the reason why things like Christmas and birthdays don't feel "like they used to." We get new toys constantly throughout the year, whereas as a kid you looked forward to Christmas because it might be one of a handful of times you got something new. And of course, the more we buy the more we require to get the dopamine to hit the same, which leads to overcrowding, overspending, just...overwhelming lol

Somewhat related to the 'hedonic treadmill' notion. It's adjacent to a thing I'm finding very true about middle age in that, yep, I've got a lot more money now, what I lack is time and energy. I've got the figures I want, but sometimes I just forget to enjoy them because there are too many other important things fighting for my attention. I only have so many hours in the day and days on the planet.

 

[Damien]

Somewhat related to the 'hedonic treadmill' notion. It's adjacent to a thing I'm finding very true about middle age in that, yep, I've got a lot more money now, what I lack is time and energy. I've got the figures I want, but sometimes I just forget to enjoy them because there are too many other important things fighting for my attention. I only have so many hours in the day and days on the planet.

This.

I've literally spent entire weeks going 'I'm gonna play with that later' and never doing it. So I've got this super cool figure that I want to pose out, but realistically it actually is still on my shelf in the pose I put it in when I bought it, and I haven't touched it since that day 3 months ago.

FUCK, I bought a 300 CAD giant Sentinel figure and I still haven't even POSED it. I looked it over, thought it was really cool, tested the blast effects and extra parts, cleared off a shelf to put it and it's standing there middle fingers up until I get around to actually posing it out with some figures.

 

[RicksNerdLife]

I know many of us here are Millenials.

I was just watching a TikTok where someone went into great length about how Millenials are stuck in a weird place where we are both obsessed with time and yet have no concept of time, because we never were lead down a linear path. And as such we feel both young and old at the same time and those two idealogies combat one another repeatedly.

We were raised by Boomers who told us this path that we were expected to go down: college, career, marriage, kids, white picket fence.

But how many of us were not raised in these so called "traditional, nuclear" values? How many of us were latchkey kids, forced to grow up without our parents being there as much as THEIR parents were for them?

I think that relates to this. Many of us want to hold on to this childhood that we never got to experience, we still feel like kids at heart...

...but then we are battling this other half that was repeatedly beaten into us by our parents and society before us that THIS is what you should be spending your money on. Anything else is irresponsible. There is that guilt that is built into our very being, coded by the previous generation.

Not ideal for just trying to enjoy a hobby. Not trying to pass the buck, but it does make sense.

 

[AgentHemlock]

Yeah, it's time and energy for me, too. I have some really cool figures that I just don't get to spend as much time posing and swapping out accessories with as much as I'd like. I love my 4H Santa figure and usually I set him up with the moose and a few other Narnia like Mythics but this year he didn't go up until right before Christmas, I didn't spend as much time setting him up and getting everyone posed how I wanted them.

My displays are now usually half finished. It's probably time I cut down to just what can look good in a minimalistic display in the cabinets I have.

I think there's an "I knew an old lady who swallowed a fly..." bit to collecting, where you want other figures because they go well with your figures. I want this because I have this. NECA Toon TMNT is like that... do I need a Triceraton, or do I want to have the ability to have a Triceraton in the display if I decide I want one? How much do I really care about the Triceraton in and of itself, if i had no other TMNT figs? The 4 bros, Splinter, April, Shredder, Krang, Bebop and Rocksteady all seem crucial to me, but maybe I can live with just them and purge the monsters of the week. It's hard though, because I do LIKE them...

 

[RicksNerdLife]

Look at us.

TSI went and made us this nice forum for us to talk about toys, and so far, it's just all of us talking each other out of the hobby.

He's not going to have anyone left after this is all said and done. Lol

 

[JakeEkiss]

...but then we are battling this other half that was repeatedly beaten into us by our parents and society before us that THIS is what you should be spending your money on. Anything else is irresponsible. There is that guilt that is built into our veey being, coded by the previous generation.

I definitely think there's a generational aspect. I don't typically feel guilt in the way that I'm missing some life milestone I should want, though I know that's true for a lot of folks our age. For me it's a lot more practical. I work a job that, though my hours are ostensibly 9-5, the space I run operates 24/7, and since I'm the boss any problem too big for an early 20 something student worker, or too big for a mid 20 something recent grad supervisor (which is to say, most problems) will filter up to me in short order. So unless the whole place is closed for holidays, I'm basically always on call. Stuff comes up between 5p-midnight about 2-3 times a week, and stuff happens after midnight about once a month.

After that there's just all the life stuff, and never truly disconnecting from work makes that harder. I get home and largely just want to vege out. Not even mess with my figures, just sort of sit and watch youtube and decay slowly. One of the reasons I've been more active about planning gaming with friends is because even though I'm tired, it's doing something, and having other people part of the commitment means I'll keep it most of the time.

I think there's an "I knew an old lady who swallowed a fly..." bit to collecting, where you want other figures because they go well with your figures. I want this because I have this. NECA Toon TMNT is like that... do I need a Triceraton, or do I want to have the ability to have a Triceraton in the display if I decide I want one? How much do I really care about the Triceraton in and of itself, if i had no other TMNT figs? The 4 bros, Splinter, April, Shredder, Krang, Bebop and Rocksteady all seem crucial to me, but maybe I can live with just them and purge the monsters of the week. It's hard though, because I do LIKE them...

Oh this is DEFINITELY true. And the moment I had more money to spend I noticed it. I've had to mentally draw lines with myself on things like Star Wars. No, I don't actually need the full cast from the original trilogy. I like them all, but I really only want figures of Han, Luke, and Leia, and only one look for each. Love Chewy, love the Droids. Love Lando and the rest, but I can live with the core 3.

 

[TheSameIdiot]

So WHAT IS IT?!? Whatever it is, I wish it would go away, because I really miss the good ‘ole days.

Fam... that's clinical depression.

"Jesus, is this it?"

This is on par with "For sale: baby shoes, never worn," as the single saddest sentence in the English language.

Toys feel every Got Mine, What's Next for a lot of the scene.

Toys are basically the only thing I do this with. I place my order, open the box, set it on the shelf, and do it all over again.

I'm a good little consumer. If they didn't bring me more joy than not, I'd stop for that reason alone.

We intellectually understand that X figure costs Y dollars, so to get X figure, which we want, we MUST spend Y dollars.
The problem is we can't force our brains to feel that X figure is WORTH Y dollars, we can only force our brains to understand that to GET X figure we must spend Y dollars. So we intellectually accept it, but I don't think that means we emotionally accept it.

And I think that's part of what's killing the hobby for a lot of us.

Inflation kind of broke my brain.

I just bought two nightstands for like $110 each. They're cheap Wayfair nightstands, but they're surprisingly decent quality. If I wanted them to, I have no doubt that they could last the rest of my life.

Compare that to a nice meal with my wife. If we share an appetizer and dessert, there's almost no chance we're spending less than $110 after tax and tip.

Compare that to a quality import figure. Let's call it $110 for simplicity's sake.

Which of those is the most valuable? You could make a good argument for all three.

I think it's also worth noting that $110 isn't that much anymore. Outside of consumer goods, which seem cheaper than ever, you aren't getting far on $110. Good luck finding a hotel room for $110.

I've always had a weird relationship with money because my Grandfather, raised during the depression, made sure I never spent beyond my means. Now it's worse because I have no idea what anything should cost.

I know many of us here are Millenials.

I was just watching a TikTok where someone went into great length about how Millenials are stuck in a weird place where we are both obsessed with time and yet have no concept of time, because we never were lead down a linear path. And as such we feel both young and old at the same time and those two idealogies combat one another repeatedly.

I feel that. I blame the economic fuckery. It's a constant stop/start.