Confessions of a Collector

Here I am, sitting in mid-March, anxiously for a collectible to become available that I can throw a quick $700+ towards. How did I get here? When did I allow that much money to become expendable towards a hobby? Simple. I've been doing this all my life.

Being a collector seems to be ingrained in my blood, almost as genetically determined as my eye color. Thinking back on it, I would be hard pressed to describe a time in my life when I was not collecting something and it seems that many other collectors tend to have a similar experience. Collecting as a hobby has existed across decades and interests, from stamp collecting in the late 1800s, to collectors of art or cars, and, of course, to the most popular collections of today...debt INSERT LOL FACE.

Seriously, though, collecting is such a popular behavior that there exists an entire sub-field of psychology, albeit small, that looks at the origins and motivators behind collecting habits. An idea that has stemmed from this level of study is that "everyone collects something" whether it be tangible items, photos, memories, etc., but it is hard to endorse all of those as similar concepts. Thus, when I talk about collecting, I intend to include the searching for, purchasing of, and maintaining of tangible items. The motivators behind my choice of collecting as a hobby? The innate sense to gather and collect can be tied back to the earliest of survival instincts, particularly in the sense of gathering food, but also the eventual evolution towards other items deemed important for survival, such as tools and clothes. There are a few identifiable antecedents that I can think of particularly for myself, but first, a quick glance at a few motivators that tend to popularly be brought up when discussing the collecting habits:

1. Sense of control: Collecting can provide a sense of security in having control over an entire aspect of one's life. As much of a double-edged sword as this could be, the hobby can also help manage difficulties with impulse control by keeping impulses targeted towards a single area.

2. Nostalgia: Perhaps the most popular motivator brought up in the collecting world is that of collecting things that are tied to our childhood. Childhood is famously labeled as "simpler times" and collecting is a method for extending those experiences with a variety of interests. Going a bit deeper into the psychology of it, collecting can be seen as helping to manage anxiety related to losing one's childhood and having to transition to adulthood.

3. Pride and recognition: While not the noblest of reasons, some people do collect for the sake of being recognized by others. There is little shame in enjoying showing off what you have accumulated, but there is definitely a fine line between that and being conceited. This can also blend with another motivator that I am not going to expand on, and that is building a financial investment.

4. Social interaction: Moving towards a different social benefit from that offered by the pride motivator is that of expanding one's niche. Collecting can both open someone up to a new fandom community as well as offer the ability to expand deeper into an already present fandom.

5. Never-ending - This is bit of an unconventional motivator, as most hobbies can attest to this, but specifically with collecting, it is easy to stretch the hobby to a never ending goal. Sure, no hobby ever has to end, but not all hobbies can remain invigorating while moving at a slow pace, whereas the search and patience that is inherently built into collecting can make long stretches of time feel natural and less of a down period.

Now, as it pertains to myself, my collecting recipe seems to include a sprinkle of most of the above. Of course, there are many other motivators for collecting behaviors, but taking what has already been discussed, my unique percentages would likely be:

1. Sense of control = 10%

2. Nostalgia = 45%

3. Pride and recognition = 2%

4. Social interaction = 35%

5. Never-ending = 8%

While collecting can definitely fall down a rabbit hole and lend itself to a darker, unhealthier side(e.g., hoarding), this a post of celebration and will leave the darkness for another time. At my core, I am a collector....and it has pretty much always been that way. This hobby came with a clear evolution for me, starting with a slew of cheaply made cardboard circles...

Pogs

You almost can not call yourself a 90's kid if you did not have some experience with the Pog phenomenon. Based on a game that was around in the early 1900s, Pogs had a very short-lived, but powerful, resurgence, that began in 1991, seemed to hit its peak between 1993-95 and fizzled out by 1997. If you are unfamiliar with the game, I will provide a brief explanation. Pogs (or milk caps) were flat cardboard circles that came with a variety of images, from random/trippy imagery to pop culture references of the time. While they could be purchased at toy stores, comic shops, and convenience stores, Pogs were also used as promotional products for various fast food chains and for other companies to advertise on, from cartoons to popular food items, which only expanded the vast variety of Pogs that existed. Outside of the traditional Pogs, you also needed an additional item for gameplay, which was called a slammer and was a thicker and heavier plastic version of a Pog. Gameplay occurred by having the players combine the Pogs they would use for the game to create a stack, then, each player would have an opportunity to throw their slammer onto the pile and any Pogs that would flip over are their's to keep. By that nature of the game, you never really had to trade Pogs since gameplay naturally resulted in changes to your collection.

I still have a small handful of Pogs in a keepsake box, but these were picked up later on in life and, if I remember correctly, were received as a gift. I honestly do not remember getting into Pogs or what happened to my collection: whether I lost them, threw them away, or gave them to somebody. Like many of the things I owned, I have succumbed to the idea that they just got lost in the 10+ times I moved throughout childhood. But I knew I had them and that I had enough to identify as a collection, hence they take the place as my very first collectibles.

Megazords

Now, while I do not remember much about my active collecting of Pogs, I can clearly recall the role of Power Ranger Megazords in my collecting journey. The collecting pattern with these are the most similar to how I collect today, with a great deal of time spent waiting between releases. Megazords were THE Christmas gift for me every year from about 1997 through 2002. Altogether, I can remember owning about 8 or 9 by the time my Power Rangers-mania ended and they were my prized possessions. For the years I had them, they remained proudly displayed on my dresser, lined up in front of the giant mirror attached to the back of the dresser. As I think about it more, they were the focus point of my room, as I think a collection should be.

Of course, if you couldn't tell by the years defined, I started a little late in collecting Zords and missed out on Mighty Morphin and Zeo before I got my first, the Turbo Megazord. That left me about five Zords behind: the original Megazord, Dragonzord, Tigerzord, Ninja Megazord, Falconzord, and the Zeo Megazord. I would get so jealous when I went to this one friend's house because he had a few of those Zords and I think I tried to weasel one of them home with me, to no avail. As with many memories, those most vivid is that of disaster: what I remember most about my Megazord collection is when my brother would get mad at me, he would start on one end of my dresser and push all of the Zords off the other end. It is rare that one collection ends before another begins, and if you know anything about the late 90s, it is partly defined by a phenomenon that still has not died.

Pokémon Cards

From cheaply made cardboard circles to cheaply made cardboard squares, I fell into the black hole of the Pokémon phenomenon just as much as the next kid. Ok, maybe a bit more than the next kid? I was obsessed. This collectible card game, video game, and animated series was the ultimate collecting target. Why? Because the ultimate premise of the concept was to "Catch 'Em All", it was a collectible about collecting...how meta!!! These cards were my life and the journey to collect one of every Pokémon (which was 151 when this began) was some of the most exciting times of my life. Every booster pack I purchased came with an anticipation that would have me lose my breath until every card was revealed. I do not care what kind of surprises I have received/will receive in adulthood, it will be quite difficult to top the excitement of seeing a corner of shininess when opening a card pack. I may never forgive myself for thinking I would never want my cards again when I decided to sell them at 16 so I could get money to see X-Men: The Last Stand in theater. At the time, I sold over 2,000 cards for maybe $40 (I do not really remember, so I am just taking a guess). Funny enough, I never played the card game as a kid, only collected.

I was not able to get involved in the traditional games until the second generation of Pokémon with the release of Gold and Silver on the Gameboy Color after an aunt bought me the game (Silver) and system for a birthday. It was all downhill after that, losing hours and hours of daylight to conquering the Johto region. Prior to that, Pokémon Snap was my initial introduction into the world in a gaming sense and eventually would add Pokémon Stadium 2 to the rotation. After this collection of games, I would not revisit the traditional games until I played FireRed in college, and eventually would also play Ruby from the third generation.

I am far from ashamed to say that I still enjoy Pokémon and battle an almost daily temptation to get back into collecting the cards. The Pokémon GO phase caught me just as hard as most everybody else and will never forget the unity I experienced with complete strangers who were staring at their phones everywhere they walked. I have played through Pokémon Shield for the Nintendo Switch and have already pre-ordered the New Pokémon Snap. I will also end up with Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl at some point this year, pending an on-time release. I still make references and related things to Pokémon and am 99% sure I will never not love this world.

While it did NOT have the legs that Pokémon did, I was just as deeply ingrained in Digimon for the year that the first series aired. I did collect the cards, but they were a bonus/additional purchase that supplemented my Pokémon or Yu-Gi-Oh card purchases. So I would grab a few packs of Pokémon/Yu-Gi-Oh cards and then put one back and replace it with a pack of Digimon cards. In greater transparency, I can distinctly remember times I would steal a pack of Digimon cards here and there from 7-Eleven. Outside of that initial run of the animated series, my interest in Digimon waned heavily and was quickly overshadowed by other fandoms.

Yu-Gi-Oh Cards

This wasn't a transition in collectibles as much as it was an addition to the card collecting I was already deep in. The major difference with Yu-Gi-Oh was I actually played the card game, thus I spent more times with the cards and came to enjoy collecting them much more. Since they had more value to me, representing both a collectible and a game piece, I became much more involved with the cards, animated series, etc. and Pokemon slowly became more of an afterthought. The growth of my Pokemon card collection ultimately became non-existent and I only dabbled in playing the Gameboy games after the second generation's Pokemon Silver. (That interest would end up revitalized in college when my then girlfriend and myself bought Gameboy Advance SPs to play Pokemon FireRed and LeafGreen.) I still kept up with the animated series, which helped me maintain a general knowledge of the next generation or so, but ultimately, that interest fizzled out as well.

Yu-Gi-Oh and its lore became my sole interest, as my focus was maintained on building competitive decks to compete in local tournaments. Ultimately, a lack of funds and resources limited me to playing in only two tournaments at the local game/card shop (anyone remember when those were a thing?), one in which I placed 2nd. I can vaguely remember getting a few free packs for placing in the tournament, but honestly, I have questioned whether I actually placed 2nd or if its a false memory that I created out of hope and I placed further down.

Of course, like many fandoms, my interest eventually began to fade after the five seasons of the original series ended. With a new series also came major changes to the card game, neither of which I found enjoyable, especially since it seemed to transition the card game to one that required sufficient enough funds to have a collection of some of the best cards. The game started to feel cookie-cutter and I could not financially keep up with the changes and, thus, could no longer compete with many other players. Everyone was playing on a PlayStation while I was still running on the NES and was left behind, leading to the end of my Yu-Gi-Oh interest by mid-2006 at the latest. I think the really cool thing that came out of my Yu-Gi-Oh love is that it invigorated an interest in ancient Egyptian culture since the manga/animated series are built on Egyptian lore. I remember when I first visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art at Central Park and explored their Egypt exhibit how I related everything back to a card game I had not played in almost 10 years. I still carry a bit of an interest in the culture and have a children's card game to thank. Like Pogs, I still have a small handful of Yu-Gi-Oh cards left for nostalgia's sake and recently received a few Yu-Gi-Oh Funko Pops that serve as an adequate homage to perhaps the favorite of my childhood hobbies.

Movies

Collecting movies (i.e., VHS, DVDs, and Blu-Rays) spanned from very early childhood to about 6 years ago when I really put on the brakes. This particular collection began out of "necessity" more than pleasure. Growing up, whether or not we had electricity was a wild card, so it should not be much of a surprise that cable/satellite was a luxury not meant for me. If it could not be seen with the bunny ears, I would have to wait to hear about from someone else. What we could afford, however, was one of the most revolutionary and under-appreciated technological advancements in human history: the VCR. I would say over 95% of my viewing experiences from birth until 16 came in the form of home video release.

From the thin, slide 'em out from the bottom VHS boxes to the overly padded, thick plastic VHS tombs, my childhood movie collection was nothing to sneeze at. Ok, it was actually a very tame collection in hindsight, but as a kid, I was rich in cinema. The beginnings of this collection included what would become the odd staples of my childhood, with movies like Baby's Day Out, Getting Even with Dad, Homeward Bound, and Jungle 2 Jungle dominating my shelf. Later on, as the transition to DVDs began, the collection would eventually become more focused on movies that would better represented my cinematic tastes in the future, like Big Daddy, Scream, Frailty, and X-Men. I do not know if this is still as widespread of an option as it was when I was younger, but some of my favorite days were spent traveling to the local library to rent movies to watch. Without cable and visiting the theater being as elusive as traveling to Europe, the library's rentals served as my temple of new content. I attest that these experiences were pivotal in my obsession with horror movies, as that genre was always abundant with available rentals.

Collecting movies was my longest running hobby, encompassing over 13 years of purchases. As time went on, I would try to transition my collection from more quantity to quality by trading in and selling movies (R.I.P. MovieStop). Throughout the latter years of collecting, multiple people would point out that at some point there will be a greater transition to digital files and that I may not want to have such a large physical collection. What a load of rubbish, I thought. Surprise, they were right. It was not just the shift to digital and the rise of streaming, but also my personal evolution to preferring a minimalist style and being bothered by clutter. Over the years, I have stopped collecting movies as a whole and only purchase select movies (e.g., comic-based movies, favorites), while also having sold off most of my collection. Ultimately, I have cut down the most recent iteration of my collection from around 350 movies to about 130 or so.

Comics/Trades

I struggled on whether to include these as a target of collecting since comics and trades were targeted at the lowest degree of collectibility than everything else in this post. I had always been enamored with comic characters, but mostly in cartoon and movie form, and not much in the comic realm, not at least until my teens/early 20s. I was never much of a reader either, actually, I hated reading. A big part of that was because the little exposure I had to it was the books assigned in school and those were an extreme bore. Prose novels are just not for me, primarily because I get bored staring at a bunch of words and end up getting easily distracted or falling asleep. When I started dipping into comics in my teens, I found myself a bit more successful in reading and getting through stories, but this still didn't transition into collecting but rather buying trades and hardcovers so that I could read the stories. I still purchase these collected editions today as my preferred way to consume the content, although that is more for completed storylines, while I tend to read current stories in the ultra-convenient digital versions.

I would eventually transition into collecting single issues based on cover art, as I heavily dabbled in drawing throughout my childhood and remained interested in the visual arts. These purchases were relegated to the likes of the 25-cent boxes and never came close to being a financial focus. Even when I dove deeper into the realms of purchasing graded comics, which are the creme-de-la-creme of comic collecting, I steered way from what I wanted and focused on maintaining financially responsible purchases. Though, these purchases overlapped with the beginning of my statue collecting and did not expand at all outside of a few intermittent purchases since I wanted to focus my finances elsewhere. I ended up with the first appearances of Carnage (which I recently sold for almost 3x my initial investment) and Phoenix. Since then, I've also accumulated first appearances for Gambit and Omega Red, but at this point, these are more potential investments than something I am collecting for the sake of owning. But outside of grabbing the 1st appearance of my favorite character, graded comics will not be something I plan to visit often. I still like to have my collected editions on the shelf, but outside of a few select favorites, I would not struggle to get rid of most of them, thus realizing that I view them as less of a collectible than my other items.

Action Figures/Small Scale Statues

Now this is where I want to begin by setting the record straight, I was never a real toy collector. I may be gatekeeping myself a bit, but I've seen content from real toy collectors and I was far far removed from that. The primary intent for this section is to demonstrate the stepping stones that led to my current state as a statue collector. At this time, I was building my movie collection and buying collected edition comics. In addition to those, I wanted something to supplement my book shelves. Like most kids, I owned various action figures throughout my life, but never for display purposes. Outside of Power Rangers, which you already know about, I also had plenty of wrestling action figures and transformers, mostly from Beast Wars. Upon discovering Marvel Select figures at my local MovieStop during a storewide sale, I became quickly interested in having a small collection of comic characters to complement the rest of my collections. Marvel Select figures are produced by Diamond, were of a higher quality and better detailed than the typical action figure, usually came with a number of accessories and, for some, also had a base. This led to them being more displayable and were the first step into the world of statues, but there a few more stones to overturn.

Exploring Marvel Select figures led to discovering Diamond Select's Gallery Statues, which are highly affordable PVC statues (non-posable collectible figures in case you get confused with the term "statue") that hover around fifty dollars. To this day, I consider these the best bang for your buck collectibles for those on a budget. Not long after, I found my favorite small scale niche, which was Kotobukiya's ArtFx PVC statues. These were notorious for having plain black bases that displayed the accompanying figures magnetically, which brought a premium feel for me. Include a couple of random small-scale bust purchases and I had opened the door to a new collection focus. At this time, my purchases were pretty all over the place, whether it was favorite characters, figures I thought looked cool, or grabbing a piece or two because there was a good sale at my local comic shop.

Now, it is very hard to discuss small scale or budget collecting in the 2010s without talking about Funko Pops. I have never been a Funko collector and with their increased flooding of the market, never will be. However, I have owned a number of Funko Pops over the years, from obscure characters that I would not be able to collect in another form or, again, a good sale I could not pass up. I still have a small group of Pops, all of which have been purchased for me. Out of all of the Pops I have ever owned, I purchased maybe 15% of them myself. So while a part of my overall collection, I do not specifically collect them. I do still collect some small scale statues and NECA figures, most of which I have received as gifts. This collection is comprised of Dragon Ball Z/Super statues and horror-movie related figures. These are a part of a slow build collection since the majority of my collection funds are relegated to the collectibles that represent the pinnacle of this entire collecting journey.

Premium Statues

I remember being in my first apartment following the completion of my Master's Degree and securing my first professional job. My brother was staying with me on his summer break from college and we were talking about collectibles and looking at pictures of more premium collectible items. We spoke hypothetically about my ability to financially afford a couple of these large scale statues of my favorite characters. Our internet searching and "hypothetical" discussion resulted in the discovery of Sideshow Collectibles, a company best known for producing polystone statues of characters from various corners of pop culture. That "hypothetical" discussion would end with my first pre-order with Sideshow Collectibles (Dark Phoenix Premium Format Figure), whose payment plan option would allow me to break up the $500 purchase across eight months, making it seem much more reasonable. The idea of having this 22 inches tall, quarter-scale (1:4) collectible was too exciting to bare, so exciting that I ended up purchasing a Batman 1:4 statue off of Ebay soon after. Not only that, but I also pre-ordered my second statue with Sideshow just three months after Dark Phoenix, when they announced their Hulk and Wolverine Maquette Statue.

It took a while for me to learn that statue collecting is much more than just buying statues, there is a deep community for this hobby. Some of the community is for sharing and communing, some is for critiquing, and there is also a part of it for unlicensed statues (it is essentially the Black Market for high-end collectibles) and the community is where I found a lot of my joy for the hobby. What did not take me as long to learn is that in order for me to sustain this hobby, I would have to be more selective with the pieces I purchased since I would only be able to comfortably afford 2-3 per year. Thus, with three statues son to be under my belt, I quickly had to make decisions about what I wanted my collection to represent. The easy choice was choosing the main focus of my collection: X-Men characters, which has been my favorite Marvel property since childhood. But there are also other characters I really like, so what should I do about them? Since outside of the X-Men, my next favorite comic characters would come from the Spider-Man Universe, I decided that I could create a small set of statues (specifically centered around Venom). I ended up sticking to Spider-Man, Venom, and Carnage as my non-X-Men/Marvel premium collection.

But don't I like other characters and universes? Of course. A Batman collection with Nightwing and some of my favorite rogues would be great. A set of Dragon Ball Z/Super characters from my favorite sagas from the anime and a collection of horror characters and an Avengers set-up and my favorite team of Pokemon and a...well, I'm sure you can understand the struggle. I sold my Batman statue not long after receiving it and eventually sold a few others to narrow the collection down to my desired selections, as well as to upgrade to newer statues of characters. The picture above is of my current X-Men collection, minus an Iceman statue while I wait for a replacement body due to a breakage in shipping (For size reference, the Magneto statue/red and purple guy is 25.5 inches tall.) I will continue to focus on filling out my X-Men collection, waiting on characters like Beast, Angel, and Apocalypse, while giving myself one permission to purchase outside of that focus: Godzilla.

Getting involved in premium statues has helped simplify my life. It follows a pretty standard cycle these days:

1. Get excited for new statue

2. Anxiously await statue release

3. Awe and excitement displaying new statue

4. Get the itch for another new statue

5. Research available statues

6. Anxiously await new statue reveal

7. Get impatient and consider selling everything and quitting the hobby

8. Return to Step 1

Funny thing is, I wrote this to reflect on collecting and my personal evolution throughout the hobby. At some point during all of this writing, I realized how much collecting $700+ statues just makes sense to me and ended up feeling a strong sense of validation. Unfortunately for me, or fortunately depending on the perspective, these 26,000+ characters later may have quite the financial repercussion. Now, let's see what statues are available to order...

To sum it all up, my nerdy self created a timeline graphic of my collecting journey thus far.