In one of Maz's article, there was a bullet point he had that stuck with me. It pretty much asked the question I have here. When does a collection stop being a showcase and kinda meld into one mesh of figures?

I have been thinking about this with my collection. Currently I have the following on display:

- G1
- Masterpiece with some Alts sprinkled in
- Classics
- Prime line
- Animated line
- Movie figures (just 10 HA/Leader class figures)

They are all separated into their own. MPs with MPs, G1 with G1 and so forth.

But I am wondering, when is the greatness of individual figures lost? I have a G1 Trypticon on the shelf with G1 Predaking and G1 Obminus. (and a couple of other misc season 3 figures).

That right there is a whole bunch of awesomeness on a 17x17 inch pane of glass. 1 of 29 panes of glass the same size.

I wonder if my friends can come in and actually get the coolness of each figure. Or do they just see one big ass collection?

I was reminded of this fact recently when a friend came over and was going to make fun of me for my collecting, but then he saw my collection and commented on how awesome it had become.

But he didn't look at individual figures, he was just more blown away by the sheer size of it all, out on display. It was just over whelming and cool at the same time.

So just posing that question out to you guys. I go back and forth on this, because I always admire smaller collections and displays like Tigerblades.

 

Once you no longer care about the individual figures, I reckon.

I've got a couply of figures from other toy lines which I bought simply because they belonged to the late 1970s/early 1980s wave of Japanese robot toys. Sometimes I wonder why I have them. I never collected them as a kid and their quality is sometimes shoddy.

 

For me, I don't just leave them on display in one place. I bring one to work every day and bring another one home everyday. Then I'll put them in different spots and try to transform one everyday. Along with customizing them a little here and there, even the old ones still have fresh appeal when I pull them out...

 

I've had this for a couple of figures myself. One of those, why the hell did I get this figure again?

 

That's pretty much how I display my collection. I have a "showcase" in 3 Detolfs where individual robots are displayed and highlighted, and then there's the "subway platform" where all the rest are put in. The second part's main attraction why it's on display is the sheer amount of robots crowded into one space.

Kinda like some museums, where you'll have one room with a very tiny da Vinci all alone in a bare wall, with the next room filled end to end with eighteenth-century lesser-known impressionists. Both are impressive in their own way. In the first room, you sit on a bench in the middle of the room and stare at and admire the da Vinci. In the second room, you sit on a bench in the middle of the room and soak up all the works of art around you, without paying attention to any single one in particular.

 

I keep all my figures in storage.
I pull out about 6 randomly to display, play with and enjoy. Its Christmas every week and there is no clutter.

 

Good question, Alucard. This is something I've pondered. At home I have four detolfs for my MP and G1. I try to keep about three figures per shelf for MP. That looks good to me. At the office I have four cabinets of Prime, and AEC figures with a few movie leader class thrown in. Although I love my Prime collection, it does not display as well IMO. I've thought about boxing them up, but can't bring myself to do it. I have a lot of AEC boxed up.

I like the thought of just displaying six. Not sure I could do it.

 

To answer your question as simply as possible...when you let it. Anytime anything becomes just another so and so, is when you forget why you invested time/energy/effort into it in the first place. It can be anything, your wife, your job, your collection. My collection means something to me, because of the memories of my family they hold for me. To someone else, they are stupid toys... to me, there are memories. HA Jazz takes me back to a time when I was laying in the parking lot next door to my house taking pictures of Jazz in car mode, and my kids are all super geeked and anxious to see how cool those pictures would be. Or perhaps Mickey Mouse Optimus Prime and the fact that my wife waited to give it to me for my birthday when we went to Disney World. Or even Classics Prime which she gave me for Valentines Day a while back. Yeah there are figures that have no memory and I bought them just to have them, and they have become a blob. But a collection becomes a blob, when there is no reason for it's existence.

 

When you get to my point i may still look at them as indaviduls but most people just see a ocean of toys check my collection tread in my post i realy wish i could display all of them better

 

For me it's when you have so many figures on shelves and cabinets you can't see all of them and even the nicest figures don't stand out. It just becomes a sea of plastic and looks cheap, IMO. Even some of the nicest of pieces can look junky when they're crammed together on a shelf.

I don't do Transformers anymore, but I have five cabinets and one of my favorite cabinets has my Marvel Hot Toys figures - I have one figure per shelf with the box displayed behind it. Looks amazing. Even in my other cabinets I only have 3-4 figures displayed at most per shelf. I can see every individual figure that way. Nothing gets lost and it doesn't look junky.

But I prefer quality over quantity.

I don't do storage, I feel it's a waste of money and collection. I don't keep figures in closets or put away. I don't rotate. If I don't want something displayed all of the time, I feel it can be sold. Of course when it comes to storage, I'm not talking of being in the middle of a move, or a temporary living situation......but of having things in storage on a regular basis.

 

These are just about the best answers to this question. One of the things that impressed my wife when she first was getting to know me was that, despite the size of my collection, she could point to any figure and I would rattle off their name and some random information about the character, and sometimes even a particular anecdote about that figure. That was one of the big reasons she came to accept (and later embrace, to the point of buying figures for herself as much as for me) my collection - because it really did mean that much to me.

Sure, there's been figures where I've looked at them later and said, "I have no attachment to you," but that's happened only a handful of times in the seven years I've been collecting. As long as that doesn't change for me, it will never become a 'blob.'

 

I'm thinking of moving more towards this with some things.

 

I definitely prefer a more "curated" look rather than the "let's cram as many figures as I can on this shelf" approach. The latter looks cluttered to me (even if they are all neatly lined up and otherwise organized) and doesn't really show off the individual pieces as well.

Something about a curated presentation and/or collection demonstrates some careful and deliberate thought: Why is this piece here? What does it mean to me, or to the person viewing the collection? Why do I want to display it here, why with this other figure or why by itself?

If you have too much stuff to display at once, rotate them in and out of storage, and think about each display as a limited time "exhibit" (not to sound too museuem-y; after all we do take them down and play with them too, which can factor into the whole picture as well). It provides a newfound appreciation for certain pieces in the collection ("I just can't put this guy away he's too awesome" or "I haven't displayed / played with this one in so long I forgot how awesome it is") and may help you filter out others that may not mean that much to you after all ("I only bought this guy to fill a hole in the series, otherwise I will never really display or play with it").

I like staging groups of 3-4 characters that go together - maybe a couple of more if the scene "demands" it (e.g., a group scene of the '87 movie main characters). On a shelf, maybe 5-6 at most. I find that it provides a nice balance between appreciating a piece on its own ("MP Prowl looks so great!") as well as in the group context ("MP Optimus Prime in truck mode with trailer next to a couple of MP cars in alt mode - so choice"). To make an imperfect analogy, it's being able to appreciate the forest and the trees at the same time.  

One exception I have is for legends sized or smaller figures which I do like to display en-masse sometimes. 1. They don't take a lot of space anyway 2. Something about a mini army just looks fun. But I don't like to leave them out all the time and I do switch members in and out as the mood strikes me.

 

I kind of do the same thing. I have all my collection in Plastic Drawers and a few in a small old glass front cabinet. But every day I pull out a few to take pictures of. Play with them in bed with my wife as she watches TV and put them away before I go to bed. I occasionally bring one to work with me as well.

 

So personally, I have gone back and forth a lot. I like the clean simple collection. I think it looks great.

But recently, I am appreciating the look of the whole collection as well. Seeing all the G1 (US Cast) out at the same time has a feeling of accomplishment. Same for the whole feel of the whole collection.

Sure individual cool figures do get washed out, but for me, I know who they are. I just cannot get to them too well with out taking my time to move other figures around.

Personally I take great pride in attempting to use risers and so forth to give each figure it's own breathing space. Regardless how small that space is. The thing that I like about each figure needs to be seen. In addition, there is a method to the madness. Season 1 is together, then season 2 and so forth. They are matched up, so if you look across a shelf, your looking at one of the seasons. (Even though G1 Autobots season 1 and 2 across 51 inches does make it hard to give each breathing space). Then to layer on that, I have ideas of why figures go together. IE, Ratchet, Wheeljack and the Dinobots all live on one shelf. Now why Red Alert, Inferno and Omega Supreme live on that same shelf is a different story (but one I can justify).

For friends, who come over the house, I wonder. But yet again, I don't really think most of my friends are into toys anyway. They care more about football and hanging out. Their kids just think it looks cool. I think, they think the same as my friend who came over. The massiveness of it all is impressive to them.

So I am not questioning for me at this point. I don't mind being a wash in transformers.

 

I've got the same thing going on..Prime, Classics, G1, and MP.

It was my classics that were beginning to look like an ocean of plastic...there's just so many of them that they became indistinguishable from each other. It was the moment when some of my better 3rd party figs were getting lost in the sea of Hasbro Classics/Generations that I decided to stop with classics.

I've only stopped with the offical line of classics. what I've done is break up the collection to Wreckers, MTMTE crew, and RID crew. Putting various 3rd party figures in with them to fill gaps.

My main display is MP and 3rd Party combiners and that's where my focus is.

I still plan on adding to the Classics collection with specific 3rd party figures, like MMC's upcoming DJD group. As it stands, my interest in the main line classics figures has waned considerably as MP and combiners took precedent to the point where the mess of classics just wasn't doing it for me anymore.

 

Here is how I have mine right now.



I like varying sizes on each shelf. I think Wheeljack, Bee, and UM will really help with this.

 

It's already happened to me a few years ago now.

I really need to down size sooner or later.

 

when you don't take care in displaying them

 

When you don't bother too dust your shelves after 8 months and there is a crust of dust forming on your toys.... taking time to display them and maintain them shows you have pride for your collection.