Blog
2024
06/ 03/ 2024 - Refining the Wiki
I've been neglecting this wiki for a while. Work and life simply got in the way. However, with a little more free time I decided to take the opportunity to refine what's where, as well as (finally) finish adding my three big collections.
I've upgraded the MediaWiki the site runs on to the latest version, as well as added a few things to make life easier, such as the ability to batch upload images and lightboxes to save having to navigate away from pages when looking at full size images. Once all the three main collections are added, I'll go through older pages and re-organise them a bit so they are little easier on the eye, most likely using a more table-centric layout.
TTFN
2023
11/ 08/ 2023 - A Moan About Blind Boxes
It's recently been announced that Monogram International are releasing a series of very cute Defenders of the Earth foam key chains. Of course I would loooove to get all of these but there is one problem....they are blind boxed.
While I've several items in my collection that were released as blind boxes, it is a release method I'm really not a fan of. The last blind box collectable I tried to complete a set of was a series of Sonic the Hedgehog suitcase tags. I bought a whole bunch and ended up with doubles - and in some cases triples - of some characters but no Knuckles. To this day I've not been able to track the Knuckles tag down because any of these things are incredibly inflated on the secondary market which makes a complete set all but impossible to achieve.
Of course I understand why companies would release items in blind boxes; the items are usually small and not expensive to produce, and customers having to purchase more boxes than items in the set to reach completion of said is an artificial way of increasing sales. But this prays on the collector mentality and FOMO. It's a very icky way of doing things, especially in todays world of housing/ food/ wage/ general affordability crises.
Of course Monogram isn't the only company to do this, and they have been very successful with their previous Disney etc blind box releases. However, as a collector I feel one needs to be considerate of what you're buying, and as I don't agree with the whole blind box idea, I will only be getting these if a) they are affordable on the secondary market or b) a retailer offers a guaranteed set of all key chains. Obviously DotE fans will want these items, but we need to let companies/ retailers know that we prefer to buy them in a fair, reasonable manner.
TTFN
08/ 08/ 2023 - Quality Over Quantity
Unfortunately, one of the drawbacks with collecting is that most people only have limited space, and when that space becomes full you either need to start really cram stuff in, or downsize.
Over the last little while I've been trying to re-evaluate my collecting; more carefully considering what I'm buying and if it's worth what I might be paying for it. Essentially, I want to try and concentrate on a "quality over quantity" mindset. For example, I could have spent £250 odd (plus shipping from Australia to the UK) on the collection of Boss Fight Studio's Phantom figures, but they are only 10cm tall (for comparison, Hasbro's Marvel Legends are 15.5cm while NECA's recent Defenders of the Earth figures are just under 18cm). In all honesty, I just didn't feel the cost was worth it, so instead I picked up the awesome Ikon 1/10th Deluxe Phantom statue for about £218 and I absolutely love it! A beautiful, high quality statue is much more desirable than several small action figures IMO, especially when said figures will most likely stay in their boxes.
As well as being more considerate with what I'm buying, I'm also trying to downsize my collection overall. This actually started last year when I was visiting my parents in Australia. All of the stuff I collected when I still lived there remains at my parents', so it was just as much an exercise in giving them their space back as it was parting with things I didn't necessarily want any longer. I made a decent dent, but there is much more to be done.
Back here in the UK I've only just started. Firstly I went through my Magic: The Gathering cards. I only ever play Commander now, and even then I've not played for a while, so apart from cards that were already in decks I've decided to get rid of all but one copy. In this way I'm able to move about 3000 cards. I'm hoping I'll be able to sell most of these, but if not they'll be getting donated somewhere.
Next, my wife and I will both be going through our bookshelves. We both love reading, which means we tend to fill up our shelves rather quickly. Of course, we also keep buying books no matter how big our "to read" piles become. The idea is to move anything we don't think we'll want to read again, or won't ever get around to. We're going to try Ziffit and see if we can get any kind of decent amount for the books.
Hopefully with all of this we'll have more room to better organise what we have left. However, I did just pick up this awesome Chaos figure.
TTFN
21/ 07/ 2023 - Blog of Infinite Collectables
G'day all.
I've always wanted to have a collection blog, but I've never really found the right place to have one. Now, with this wiki/ database of my collections it seems like the perfect opportunity. I don't know how many people will see this, let alone follow along or be interested in what I'm posting, but hey, this whole page is mostly for my own use anyway. However, if you are a collector yourself and have your own place on the world wide web, please let me know!
I've been collecting a long time. My first memory of wanting to collect - although I didn't know what "collecting" really was at the time - was with Mighty Max toys when I was around seven or so. I think it was my aunt and uncle who had bought me my first Max toy, and I thought it was the coolest thing ever. The back of the card said there was more of them out there, and I desperately wanted to play with all of them! 30 odd years later, and I've almost completed the collection.
After Max came comic books, in particular The Phantom, and the rest is history. Comics threw me into the collectors' mindset in a big way, and I've never looked back.
The idea for this blog is to act as both an on-going journal of sorts for my collections, as well as somewhere I can occasionally talk about the hobby and some of my favourite pieces from my collections. I'll probably geek out about cool up-coming things I'm keen on getting as well, as well as things I missed out on. I'm open to suggestions though, so if you've any thoughts on what you might like to see on this blog, please let me know.
Right, well I think this will do it for this introductory entry. Thanks for stopping by.
TTFN