I have found UA-cam to be very therapeutic for my own personal nostalgia. Just about every cool toy I ever had is on multiple YT channels run by collectors. And I enjoy supporting them🙂
Same here. I come on here occasionally to reminisce about toys, videogames and cartoons that were all the rage back then. Some that I used to own, and others I wish I had but never acquired. The cartoons and TV shows were a huge deal for me as it was for most kids... stuff from the '80s and '90s, I'll even look up commercials from that time as well. I find it comforting in an odd sense, considering how it makes you feel happy and depressed at the same time.
Occasionally I'll get these waves of absolute regret over long-gone comic books and toys I owned when I was a kid. I'll look them up on online and see the insane money they go for now and I just have to accept that it's out of my price range. The only thing that keeps me level is the realization no amount of money will bring back the actual exact thing I lost -- only a different copy of it. The one I owned, the one I cherished, is gone forever.
This feels relatable on a deep level. There are plenty of toys and such I look back on fondly, but I eventually came to accept that some of them are just not there anymore, and even if I did replace them, what am I gonna do with them? I played with them as a kid, but I won’t want to play with them the same way as an adult, and in the end all they’d do is take up space and remind me of a thing I can never really go back to. It’s a type of joy that just isn’t there anymore. I’ve finally come to accept that it’s best to move on from them, both with the ones that are long gone from being lost or sold in garage sales, and even with the ones I still have stashed away in storage crates on a shelf somewhere. I’m slowly going through the ones I still have and giving away most of them, keeping only a scant few that hold a strong specific significance to me, not just because I like them. I’ve begun channeling that same urge to collect and that fascination with toys into other avenues instead in a way that gives me the same satisfaction without wallowing in the nostalgia that I’ve come to see as an urge towards stagnation. Mostly Gundam models that fill that love of miniature replicas and figures, but in a way that requires me to craft them myself and use them as a form of self-expression and meditative creativity and not just a piece of plastic that comes out of a box and then lives on a shelf as some vain attempt to recapture my childhood,and through LEGOs, which I do as a combination of decorative elements around my home (their art and botanical lines are excellent for this), as well as making my own creations as part of a local club where we do displays and events for the local community. I’ve even recycled elements left over from when I was a child for the latter, so instead of trying to preserve them as they were, I use them to help make something new all the time that others can enjoy.
I've been a collector since I was 12 years old, starting with comic books. I was never one who collected them in the hopes of getting rich one day, but because I liked the artwork and thought the stories were fun. I discovered that the Omnibus existed a few years ago, so I gave my comic collection to my daughter and I 've started yet another one! When toymakers finally started making toys look more like the characters, I started collecting them as well. Especially Build-A-Figures! (I have 35 of them. Including Pitt & Timmy, Fin Fang Foom, the 14" Apocalypse, and Galactus.) I never intended to collect a bunch of Simpsons stuff, but since I'm a huge Simpsons fan, my brother got me a Playmates Bart figure for my birthday, but I liked Homer the most, so I went and got him. Then I wanted the whole family because what's the point of having just the two of them? After that, it became "How many can I get?", and now I basically have an entire wall dedicated to The Simpsons! I even have an extensive collection of movies on DVD & BD. Over 1,000 altogether. I told my family that when I die, let everyone come and grab the things they want. The rest, I want placed in the coffin with me so that only my face shows (like E.T. in the closet). Whatever can't fit, they can just throw on top of the coffin after it's lowered instead of flowers. I want to be buried with my treasures, like the pharaohs of old.
Yup. Pseudo intellectual shit like this is just...so tiring. "Oh you're just obsessed with ephemera from the past that can never be recaptured it is finite and only meant to -" Shush. For one, on a purely pragmatic, real-world level - No, it's not ephemeral. It's all made out of plastic and rubber and electronic bits and bobs and will just lay in heaps of trash not decomposing for hundreds of years, lol. Better a fraction of it be collected and enjoyed and displayed by people who like it than wasting away in a landfill adding to the death of our planet due to climate change, lol. And while I don't want to ignore that, like ANY interest, collecting can become an issue for people who don't know how to regulate...a lot of collectors see themselves as curators, too. As people who retain a piece of our culture. Some may scoff at that...thinking some old toys from 30 years ago as "part of culture" is an indictment in of itself. But like, however cynical you wanna be...it IS our culture. And it's culture that made and still makes people happy. Collectors don't just hermetically seal their childhoods behind display cases. They often pass it down and spread the interest to other generations. A kid seeing your old Star Wars toys can ignite their imagination and get THEM into Star Wars, for example. Others my look down on you for collecting TMNT as an adult child who needs to grow up. But fuck them. We're happy, and they aren't. Don't presume to tell me who am because you think enjoying old toys is some sign of arrested development.
my collecting is things I was never allowed to have growing up so I'm not really reliving anything, just more developmentally arrested by bad luck and shit parents
Collecting dust is the best hobby it is cheep and easy to start and maintain. What really sucks about collecting is when you decide to sell with high hopes for a big pay out and it is virtually worthless. collect for your own enjoyment and collect what you can afford.
When my grandmother died, I went to her house the next morning to help with her stuff. I'll never forget pulling up to the house and seeing a dumpster in the driveway. Inside the dumpster were trinkets from her travels, photos, paintings, clothes, dishes, and a bunch of other stuff that nobody wanted. One of the paintings was one that I commented on when I was a kid. She thought it was cute and said she would save it for me and I could have it when she was gone. Over the years, any time she caught me looking at it, she would tell me it's going to be mine someday. Now, there it was, sitting in the dumpster. I could have rescued it and taken it home, but it was rather large and in a gaudy gold frame. Ultimately, I thought, where am I going to put that so I let it go. It made me realize that 90% of the things you have and cherish now are going to be thrown out one day. The rest will either be sold or kept by family members.
I bet your grandmother is looking down on you with the deepest shame. She thought the painting would make you happy and just made excuses to leave it in a dumpster? Hopefully she didn't leave you anything of monitory value.
the weirdoes scolding you in response are totally missing the point lol. even if you had taken that item it would have ended up in the dumpster eventually. your kid or your grandkid or greatgrandkid would have done the same thing eventually. EVERYTHING is ephemeral. everything. including sentimental value
Try being a historian! The passing of time is always with you. I started studying history at the college level in 1970's. Think how much farther in the past World War 1 is now than when I first taught college lessons about it in 1984!
I think about time similarly: it's a melancholy way to preserve the concepts in your mind... but also fascinating. And in studying history, I find it makes past materials more relatable to me - it also humanizes people and events when trying to put them in perspective of just how short our general conception of a decade or a century is in the grand scheme of things. It's also amazing how as we age, the breadth of time for each day, year and decade.... s-l-o-w-l-y contracts more and more - often making material that we once engaged with as young people that seemed so distant, seem much less so. And this is in the face of the reality, that since you first encountered those concepts as youth, there is a MUCH greater distance from the events and your present. Just think that between 2024 and 1984, the same amount of years have transpired (40 to be exact) since you began teaching about the post war-era - as was the time transpired when the post-war era began and you started teaching about it! And while in both scenarios 40 years has passed: the time between now and 1984 is just a living memory (recent and familiar), while the same amount of years before that time, feel like a detached history that you only remember the parts that you personally present for as a teenager and child. It's amazing how our brains categorize emotion and feeling to time that we experienced, versus that which predate us. Something that occurred only a few years before your birth may 'feel' like a different era entirely to you - while an period that happened almost 25 year ago (like the new millennium), is familiar and not so distant. 🙂
Maybe I feel a bit targeted by the thumbnail and the video using old TMNT as an example (cuz I collect vintage TMNT toys)...but I digress. There is definitely a problem with nostalgia obsession in our culture. But not everyone who indulges in it is some state of arrested development and sadly clinging to the past. Engaging in nostalgia does not automatically equate to being a slave to it. Some of us are perfectly capable of indulging in hobbies and still being adults and know how to compartmentalize these things. And we're still capable of expanding our interests. I don't JUST collect toys. I'm a cinema buff. And I go out of my way to explore as much varied cinema as I can. Same with novels, etc. And I'm not JUST my hobbies. I'm a adult. With a job. With bills. With a social life. Maybe the problem with capitalism crushing our very beings that's the real issue...not people who have fun collecting stuff they like.
As far as collecting, I only collect what I have room to display. Nothing is ever in boxes. I collect fossils, video game consoles (but not rare games), and Roman coins, but only a limited number of each category, and I never collect anything that is expensive.
I also collect fossils and the unique problem I have with that is just space. It doesn't directly cost anything to go fossil hunting (just gas money really), so I come back with a backpack full of fossils and now I have no room for the 76th identical brachiopod. But I can't just LEAVE IT to be destroyed by nature!!1! 😆
I'm 49 and I had to come to terms with the fact that around 99.6% of the stuff I want / wanted to read, listen to, watch, and play... I'll never experience in my entire life. Has helped me control my spending and collecting. One day in about 1996 I was at Target with my buddy and his girlfriend. I was checking out the awesome new LEGOs with my buddy while his girlfriend went and shopped. When she came back to get us, we realized we wouldn't be going home with any of those sets, and would probably never build them. He said "some day when we're younger." That always stuck with me. It's sad. It's wistful. But it's reality. EDIT: one other thing I realized a while back is that there are really only two things I love in this world: dopamine and serotonin. It's all the same brain chemicals that let you enjoy life. Be happy with what you're doing at the time (in your leisure time), because life's too short to be worrying about missing out on something else -- remember, that something else produces the same chemicals as the thing you're doing now.
I'm almost 49, so we're basically in the same age range. There was a time when I really wanted some old GI Joe items that my mom couldn't afford for me when I was a kid. Then I started collecting LEGO, and it's probably one of the most valuable collectibles out there! I was pretty selective, as most LEGO sets are pricey, not even counting the huge UCS sets. I also collect sixth scale figures, which is fun, and not something I collected as a kid. But oh is it expensive sometimes!
"Some day when we're younger". Beautiful. Sometimes when I walk places I have fond memories with I think what would it been if I get these items I have now when I was a kid. A place where my friend lived and we were playing gi joes. A place with other friend where we were reading and talking about comics. A place where is a school library and I was lending comics. A place where me and other kids in kindergarten were talking about transformers etc.... Now I would take my toys and comics and go there and show my old kiddie friends "look what I have!!!"but...there's no one there and even if there was....no one would even care.
@@adriantrela no doubt about it, the old saying “you can’t go home again” holds true. I left the USA to work overseas, and when I came home years later, I was a different person, and all of my friends disappeared. Such is life?
I'm an older gen x. I've collected several different things in my lifetime. I got rid of most of my collections but kept a little bit from each collection and have it displayed because it truly does make me happy to look at. I only kept a few items which bring me the most joy.
At 63, I see the wisdom in this video. I am a collector of many things and feel overwhelmed that much of it has become a burden. My wife even joked at one point of using a dumpster when I die and I was so taken aback that it became a topic of much discussion. My solution is to make a list of the categories of what I have and where it is located so an antique dealer can come and get it. This is the best I can do at this time.
Look to see if there are toy museums in your area, I managed to find a few that I plan on someday donating most of my stuff to years from now if I can't sell it off. For now, there's no immediate need for me, but I totally understand where you are coming from. May you have many MANY more years enjoying your collection!
I collect WWII rifles which is easy to justify as an adult and I use them a lot. But recently I started to get into something that I really wanted as a kid but never got. The Lego Adventure series from the late 90s and early 2000s. My wife has been having a hard pregnancy so we stopped doing all the active outdoors things we usually do temporarily. She got interested in putting together Lego sets. This reminded me about the ones I wanted so badly as a kid and I started buying them on eBay for us to build together. It felt really good to get them but also hollow. The times of me spending an entire afternoon playing with Legos are gone. Now I have the set and assemble it but then what. The era of my life where I would have played with these for hours and acted out scenarios is gone. They are basically 3D puzzles at this point even if I do spend a few minutes "playing" with a set.
"The era of my life where I would have played with these for hours (...) is gone". Amen to that. I have tons of comics, toys and I know I will never return to times when I as a kid would read, play or talk about it with friends for hours. Those days are gone and it hurts a lot. All I can do is live in an imaginary world where I'd still do it :(
Collecting toys, games, movies is no different than collecting art and music. People hang paintings and listen to music to evoke wide ranges of emotions. Games and toys provide the same feelings and with the bonus of being able to interact with them.
That's like saying appreciating anything is the same as appreciating everything, they are not the same if for no other reason than the fact that the interaction is different, which you fully acknowledge! A phone call is not the same as a greeting in person, no one feels the same closeness from the 2 and those are closer related than everything you listed. Things have their own place, and in some there is no place for them at all, but it is not all the same, and to really dispel the subjectivity, collecting toys is juvenile whether the collector acknowledges it or not, and many do as that is exactly the frame of mind they are trying to recapture!! Nothing like enjoying fine art or appreciating the intricacies of music.
@@Chef_Alpoart and music evoke emotion. Examination of the intricacies of each is the same as the experience of interacting with games and toys. Your surface level criticism of collecting is the same as a layman saying, “it’s just lines and circles” when describing a painting in a gallery. There is much to the appreciation of toys and games. And for some it’s just as simple as enjoying the feeling they evoke without much examination of their creativity and construction. Also, your example of comparing an in-person greeting with a phone call is incorrect. They are both greetings, their mediums are different. They both accomplish the same effect. But, arrive to the point in different ways. People pick and choose the art, music, toys and games to accomplish the same goal. And even in those mediums a variety of different styles.
The only issue with that comparison is: Classic (and post modern) Art and Music is typically universally enjoyable by future generations without the need to be there, or have grown up when the artists had been around. The issue with 'fast-food-pop-culture', and the games and toys that sprung up as a result of it is: they are very specific sentimentality to the generations who grew up with them, and little more with future peoples than clutter and outdated media. My kids do not identify or have a emotional relationship with the VCR, or a NES... or Ninja Turtles the way I do. They have no attachment to physical magazine, or games or the toys I grew up with. They care about the things THEY grew up with (they are teenagers). This means there is little monetary value beyond the secondary markets which are entirely propped up by people who grew up with these things buying and selling them. Even videogames are not spared this. There is no doubt, that like movies and music they will be preserved for future generations to dissect and discuss. That however does not mean the actual games in your attic (or shelf) or old crt and consoles will be the method in which that is done. We have digitalized preservation of much of them (ROMs, ISOs, etc) at this point... and yet we are already encountering the reality that Generation Z and Alpha has no interest in old consoles or physical games (most of them do not even care about ownership)... meaning these old discs and carts are the humble figurines of the future geriatric Millennials and Gen Xers. This goes triple for old Masters of the Universe (He-Man), New Ghostbusters, Ninja Turtles, Beetle-juice, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Street Sharks, Gargoyles, Gi Joe, and etc-etc-etc. They only hold their value so long as there are people from those generations in large enough numbers who want to buy them (a investment is only valuable is people want it). By comparison: The great paintings and art of our civilization are often unique pieces (not mass produced) and they stand a test of time even devoid of context because they are unique and appreciable by the masses because of their expertise in their simplicity. People were painting and making music a thousand years ago, and will nodoubt be doing so if we last another thousand years. No one will be watching He-man, and drinking from a shelf of collectible 80s mugs. No kid will be playing NES cartridge. Your Castle GreySkull, Vintage Morpher, Pizza Mobile, Battle Cat, G1 Megatron..... or even Bucky o Hear and Little Sampson NES Carts are not going to matter to anyone in even 50 years when even the youngest people who grew up with those are in their 80s and 90s (most of them passed on). There will probably be a few of these things in a museum somewhere, but since they were mass produced no one will want your unsealed toys or games. When your collection grows too big, even your grand-kids will not be able to take it. And it will no-doubt end up in a dumpster outside your house as they discard your things on your passing. Otherwise it will be another bunch of clutter left in your decaying house because your family doesn't have time to sort thru all of it. Just a burden you left behind (I've seen this far too many times). In the end, we are talking about sustainable collectibles markets..... not essentially generational fades that die without the people who started, maintained and supported them. There is this great delusion that people are going to retire on these in many decades.... by then, they will have devalued to little more than clutter (especially as every old collector is trying to get rid of them). These things are as valuable now, as they will ever be - and if you are collecting as a investment, you will sell high now if you have any sense. Otherwise, you had better be collecting for your own enjoyment with a backup plan for your family to get rid of these things one day. Because your collections will not be worth anything at that time, unless everything is sealed (and even then it wont be much). We are already seeing this with the first few generations of 'fast-food-pop-culture', where many of these old toys from the 20s-60s are not worth all that much anymore, and there are literally stacks and stacks of old baseball cards, memorabilia and toys no one wants (and people can't get rise of). These are not paintings, gold bars, historically significant records, the instrument that a song played for 600 years was played on, or even priceless historical objects from the founding of a nation or a great campaign... these are toys and games often based on a movie or cartoon from a very specific decade for mass produced children's media.
@@mr.selfimprovement3241Your children lack empathy and emotional intelligence. Your fault for giving them an iPad the moment they popped out of your poor wife’s womb.
I try so hard, although I don't always succeed, to buy only things that will bring me a meaningful experience. I mostly buy comics, video games, and movies. Those are mediums of storytelling, so they have long-term value to me. But sometimes, I give in and buy a transformer for the short-term value of something cool to fiddle with.
This was all very well said! I've also had a strong connection with myself growing up and truly appreciated every step of the way. It always makes me feel a little weird whenever I speak to my parents or siblings about very specific events during our childhood, like they all completely forgot it happened. Usually, they're just impressed that I remember so much! I collect a few different things but my favorite is old tech. I'm endlessly fascinated by how far it has evolved since the 90's and comparing the user interfaces over time is just so fun to me!
I personally collect boots, as my only choice of footwear. At the moment, I own 156 pairs, out of which I wear about 60% of them on constant rotation. Often people ask how can I afford to keep such a hobby, but I do let them know that I tend to find bargains on eBay or thrift shops and that I rarely spend more than $50 on each pair. I enjoy having this collection and showing each pair to my friends when they see me, but recently I've had to slow down on acquiring new pairs. Aside from storage concerns, while browsing I often find that I already have similar pairs in my collection or that I can't justify buying some others with very limited uses. I'll still get a few more pairs every year, but not at the same speed as before.
It is As like in that One liner used by Denzel's Character in the remakeish Movie The Taking of Pelham 1 23 says , " You Cant Take It With you......Thats why You Never See A Hearse With A U Haul Attached Behind it. "
Tbh I collected Japanese comics, (translated of course) I think what really made me come to terms with collecting is when I tried to resell it. You can’t really resell Manga, it’s too niche unless you have a series that can carry its own hype. I gotten to find it more emotionally reassuring to give the books away, because it’s hard to value mangas on the American market because of the niche genres and interests, and I would rather someone else enjoy them than try to extract some monetary value out of them for my own personal gain. My own regret with collecting came when I sold my Star Wars “X-Wing” novel collection and I was kicking myself afterwards when I saw the re-prints with the “legends” gold band they like to put on those re-prints. I sold those novels in order for someone else to enjoy them but now I think I should have held on to them because those are definetly a cover variant.
With my collections, I buy the things that speak to me in some way. I don't try to complete sets or anything. I just buy the stuff I like. I take the Marie Kondo approach to my collections: I go for what sparks joy and if it no longer sparks joy it's on eBay/Etsy. But I tend to get joy out of the things I collect. As for certain items like vintage cameras, I feel like they are best enjoyed when used and maintained as functional cameras. Yes, they eventually will break. Yes, using them increases the likelihood that they'll break in my lifetime. But when you load and shoot an old 1950s Graflex with paper-backed film, focus with the ground glass and switch to the roll film back, be sure to set the aperture and speed based on your best guess and a janky light meter app on your phone, and you create a beautiful picture, it's a whole new joy. It's the joy of creating new memories with something older than yourself. A shared connection to parents and grandparents (and even great-grandparents).
I used to collect comic strip treasuries (FoxTrot, Calvin & Hobbes, Garfield, Baby Blues, etc). When COVID hit, I went through a lot of personal BS and came to the conclusion I can't enjoy certain comics like I used to; last summer, I donated a few to my library and I honestly don't miss them, but I still have fond memories of reading them years ago 😅
If I ever get any money together - enough to spend of frivolities such as nostalgia collecting - there are three things I would like to collect: 1964/65 NY World's Fair memorabilia, antique and vintage Pez dispensers, and [restored] pinball back-glass art [from roughly between the years 1960-1977]. I'm also interested in store display standees, but not nearly as much. It's been a pipe dream for years, but I never seem to have anything more than survival money [especially these days].
I was a big collector of video games, comics and toys up until I was about 23. I spent a great deal of time thinking about why I did it, and it really came down to a combination of nostalgia, buying stuff I couldn't get as a kid (FOMO I supoose), and a feeling of "pride" in having cool things, but ultimately I think I was filling a void and trying to replace human connections with a mountain of things. Once I left home and started interacting with people and putting more effort into things like learning languages, making new friends etc. then I think I was finally able to move on, though admittedly I'll buy the odd thing I find cool every now and then, but it's very infrequent now. In myself and in others, I see unchecked collecting of various different things as a coping mechanism or some kind of substitute for other things in life. Ultimately I now put more value into experiences than in objects, but I'm not a total minimalist
I don't really collect much for Nostalgia (though I'm fairly young), my biggest collection is my Type Moon figures (the same series my PFP is from, Say Type Moon as there's a few Tsuki ones there too), love these things though it's not Nostalgia, I got into it a few years back and collect the stuff due to really liking the franchise. I have some Mega Halo stuff which could be more compared to nostalgia, still have my old ones somewhere, but even then I just think they're cool lol.
I collect Masters of the Universe (currently collecting the Origins 5.5” line & Masterverse New Eternia 7” Subline), anything EPCOT Center (retro) and Doctor Who (action figures and blu-rays). I’m also a digital hoarder with a NAS Server chock full of tv shows, movies, and videos of theatrical productions (plays/musicals).
I only had hobbies when my grandmother was alive after she passed away almost six years ago I lost all interest in everything I just recently started cleaning out my storage unit because I don't estimate I'll ever live in a house again and I'll never be able to display my collections because as long as I live with other relatives (not a choice mind you) they don't approve of my childhood memories my grandmother was the only one that understood because we collected the same things mainly 60s-90's nostalgia and pop culture ❤❤
I collect vintage toys, it's simply a hobby. When I die, it'll go to my family and they can sell it or throw it away, I won't care on account of me being dead. I don't even care what it's worth as I never sell anything, let my family worry about that!Humans are creatures made of memory and sometimes the best memories are those you can see and touch in the present; without the things that they have, humans are nothing more than clever animals. Perhaps we ARE nothing more than clever animals, but we can be clever animals and also have fun just being that! 😁
I've always been good at browsing or 'window shopping'. I'd like to attribute it to having been poor much of my life, though that's clearly not true for everyone. Still, I'll get a small dose of happiness from just seeing stuff at a collectibles fair, much as you might at a gallery or museum. I also enjoy imagining small collections that are 'well rounded' rather than remotely complete. Is this odd at all, or odd within nerdy circles? Guess I'm just lucky.
The collecting markets that always tend to be strong are usually diecast vehicles and other model vehicles. Here in the UK model railway's (railroads) are becoming popular again and its been a hobby that has had its highs and lows and its age limit is open to all as you have those who collect and model modern image and those who model and collect trains and rolling stock from the past. Or those who collect and model different railway models from different parts of the globe. I have heard that in the USA that the hobby is sort of in limbo as it sadly is still seen as uncool to younger generations, but I think due to influences from our side of the pond there have been reports that the USA is starting to see small increases in model railway collecting.
In trying to downsize, I made some decisions that I regret. I got rid of a lot of comic books but in doing so, I realized that I inadvertently got rid of three issues that I really want to keep. It was regrettable so I had to Re-buy them.
I will be turning 50 this year, and about 10 years ago, I started really looking at my life and the things I own. I ended up building a art studio in my home for my freelance work and have the majority of my my childhood collection of toys, games, and other items in progress becoming a small museum like set up for myself, and to ultimately share on my channel and social media with some future plans involving it all as well. All that to say, I've found myself slowing down on collecting, and aiming to display and enjoy what I have. I see all the corporate releases of artificial rarities and the weird way that nostalgia has made me feel, both bad and good over the last 20 years. I think my attack of common sense came when I was at a toy show some 2 years ago attempting to purchase a Starriors parts bag and the guy selling it even admitted he didn't know what it was. With no price on the bag of items, he offered it to me for $50. All of it fairly common parts, but he didn't know, so he just wanted to make money. On something that had been a fairly limited toyline, with few fans compared to bigger IPs, because it was old. That single handedly made me take stock of the fact that I'd rather collect what I want when the price is right, and if I never get it, that's fine. I can live without all of it, but I really do appreciate what I do own. This is a great video man, I'm subscribing to check out what else you have on here!
Ouch! This video hits home for me! I have a modest collection of the small British Fleetway Picture Library & Commando b&w war comics that had their heyday back in the 60s & 70s. I tell myself that I collect them for their cultural value, preserving the skilled work of the talented illustrators. But deep down, I know I'm trying to recapture my childhood and the happy memories of many leisurely hours spent in musty-smelling second-hand bookstores. The comics are ageing, fragile, slowly browning and will probably fall apart in another 20 years or so yet I have devoted many hours of hunting online and at swap meets to secure the copies I want.
I gave up all my Star Wars toys collecting in the late 2000’s. I bought my holy grail which I thought would make me happy. I ended up feeling more empty than before. I was collecting trying to fill a void in myself from a unhappy childhood.
@@BM-979Oh man I'm 55 and I had the AT-AT Walker when I was 11. I believe my mom paid like $22 for it in the store back then. Nowadays it's probably like $1000.
I collect comics and graphic novels of all sorts. I never really got to indulge in em as a kid too much so being able to buy and enjoy cartoons as an adult was very fulfilling. I am a cartoonist as well so I tend to gravitate towards cartoony art I might add.
You know, there is a lot of baggage I definitely would like to unload to define my current state and previous stories regarding collecting. For one part, I don't really want to stop collecting figures because I still like them if not it also depends on what they're based on that immediately draws my attention, for instance there was a time that I would be a bit hyped for some Marvel Legends figures, notably the MCU ones, I often would get the ones I like and I would get some non-mcu figures here and there, though over time the superhero burnout, or rather the MCU burnout got to me to where I grew less interested on buying more Marvel figures, even both comic versions and the most wanted ones among the community, I had my share of figures I wanted that everyone wanted like the WandaVision Scarlet witch for instance. When I stopped collecting Marvel Legends, I wanted to get two other toylines that while they're still ongoing in the states, not at all for Mexico since I live there and it may be easy said to buy online than done as I have my fears of buying online that I rather not go for it even if someone would tell me that I should give it a chance in a nice way. The two lines I fell in love with and wished I could keep collecting are the G.I. Joe classified line and the Masters of the universe Masterverse line, both which have detailed figures with good articulation, good detail and a decent amount of accessories, the problem was that since those 2 lines aren't popular/recognizable in mexico they fell victim to clearance and would no longer in shelves, which sucks because I would had gladly walked to a store or even take a transport to get to one and would buy one or some. Since then in some ways I still feel sad that I couldn't get more figures from those two lines and I felt a bad case of fomo that is much worse than just hoping to get a certain figure in time, I hoped badly that maybe one day they'll come and that I wouldn't rely on buying online (which I still refuse to do so as I prefer to toy hunt), but as you can imagine that's just a sad if not even pathetic way of wishful thinking. In time I am still growing out of that pain, bit by bit, as I keep looking into old figures I still have and buy some or less figures that peak my interest, but it's alright as at least it helps me not spend a certain amount of money per full month, which is funny enough I would gladly just buy 1 figure per month rather than by every 1 or 2 weeks and most often I often did my best to choose the one I wanted the most, some were most sought after and others weren't as much. Despite it being an unlikely ever to happen wishful thinking, I do hope that maybe someday I could get a chance to get the G.I. Joe classified and Masterverse figures I never got to buy due to the stores no longer putting them on sale, but for now I'm best with just doing other stuff that make me feel better like drawing stuff or just interacting with more people, I still love to talk about action figures when I can, for now I'm doing good with not thinking too much about wishing I could keep on collecting a line that stopped selling in my local stores, for that only time will tell for the best.
I'm 43, and have a sizable amount of toys, books, games, etc from when I was younger. I consider myself lucky that I don't have to go back and "re-buy my collection". At this point though, since I've had them my whole life, it's very difficult to let any of it go. I still like collecting and buying things that I didn't have as a kid, but those items don't have the same emotional attachment as my original items.
I used to actually rue the day when I would stop enjoying my toys (I was only ten years old). I kept telling myself that I wouldn’t care, but I didn’t buy it at the time. This may be why I’m obsessed with metaphysics now 😅
I MOSTLY manage to hold off buying for nostalgia of my own youth. Just a He-Man figure here, an Optimus Prime there... But I DO go all-in on nostalgias for things I was not alive for. My user name is itself a reference to the Boomer generation that grew up on the mid-century monster kitsch of Shock Theatre, Famous Monsters of Filmland, and Aurora monster model kits. That dovetails with retro-20's/30's cinema and aesthetics, and before that I was into retro-Victorian/Edwardian aesthetics. I like sci-fi and horror, but only retro sci-fi and horror. My biggest collection at present is King Kong, and I convince myself it's okay because some day I'll donate it to the little museum in the little town south of me where Fay Wray was born. Hopefully, when I'm done with it, that collection will have some kind of permanence beyond me. But my Universal Monster and Godzilla action figures? These things are really about the dopamine hit I get in the present when I buy them and set them up in little dioramas on my shelf. And it did all start with Covid, the anxiety and boredom, and watching toy review videos on UA-cam all day 😐
As a Gen Xer, I'm pretty sure the only valuable things would be my LEGO bricks. Old Star Wars and GI Joe don't necessarily excite the younger crowd. So as time marches on, when we all start keeling over, I think in 50 years we'll see thrift stores with buckets of action figures, or worse yet, dumped in the trash.
I'm not even sure if I'm a 'collector' really. I enjoy toys and I buy ones that make me smile. I play with them for a few years then send them on their way to a new home. I did have a period where I was looking at rebuying things I missed out on in childhood but those things are all so old now they don't look as I remember them. Their playtime has ceased and they are looking for a retirement home I guess lol.
I think it is just like the part in the movie the labyrinth. Where Sarah is in the garbage land of past memories and she is just looking for her baby brother. But that goblin women keep handing her stuff and putting in on her back to take her time away. Until she say I don't need any of this stuff it is all garbage. I have to save Toby. I know that some vintage video games toy's sports cards and so on can be worth a small fortune but we only have a little bit of time on earth 🌎
Games for the playstation systems, physical films (mostly just bluray & DVD. Got off of VHS & never got onto 4K in the first place) & CDs, but always only stuff I'm personally interested in. I never go all in to try to have a "complete set" of everything I collect. Thay's why I can proudly say I'm done collecting for PS3, at least.
its gonna be interesting when I take my retro game collection out of storage once I buy a house
3 місяці тому+1
I collect what i think are cool toys ,i dont have nostalgia for anything . I didnt have toys as a kid, never watched gi joe or tmnt so i am immune to the nostalgia greed of the companies who keep selling the same old stuff . I cant imagine a house full of turtles or paying $300 for a airplane
19 “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust[a] destroy and where thieves break in and steal, 20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
I'm a D&D nerd and I lost my collection of original books to the "Satanic Panic" back in the 80's lately I have found myself replacing not only what I lost but adding things I always wanted and never got when they were new and let me tell you after 40-50 years some of this stuff is EXPENCEIVE!
Aye, there's a reason the modern OSR games are a thing, that era is cool, I myself bough the book for a game called MYFAROG which takes quite a bit from it, the good thing though is if you want to play the classics in this day and age PDFs exist thankfully.
I collect DVDs. I have a whole library full of them. Some aren't even opened and are still in the plastic wrap. I have the Special Editions of all three of Perer Jackson's Lord of the Rings films and every Star Wars film except the sequel trilogy because I hate it.
i've tried to get away from the endless cycle of desire and gratification. i live close to the bone and prefer not to fuck with too many self-inflicted complications. my running shoes, my guitar, a computer to watch youtube and play games; i'm good.
If you grow attached to stuff you will become a stuffy person. I’ve had friends I couldn’t be with because their lives revolved around stuff. I had a friend with a hoarding problem once. He could not articulate why he was attached to so many objects, and he wanted me to take a lot of the stuff he was trying to get rid of. Like as if I still had it he wasn’t truly braking his attachment. Some of it was filed by nostalgia, some was fueled by novelty. I only allow myself to collect my mother’s art, birthday cards signed by friends and family, and photos on my phone and in physical albums.
OR. . . .people collect things they like. Everyone is different, people like what they like no matter how old they are. The idea of "letting it go" or "leaving it behind" is a very narrow minded point of view.
Interesting video. Work on your verbal delivery. Needs to flow better. Try avoid mispronouncing words like "temporal" and "scarcity". Will be checking out your other videos. Keep going!
I have found UA-cam to be very therapeutic for my own personal nostalgia. Just about every cool toy I ever had is on multiple YT channels run by collectors. And I enjoy supporting them🙂
Same here. I come on here occasionally to reminisce about toys, videogames and cartoons that were all the rage back then. Some that I used to own, and others I wish I had but never acquired. The cartoons and TV shows were a huge deal for me as it was for most kids... stuff from the '80s and '90s, I'll even look up commercials from that time as well.
I find it comforting in an odd sense, considering how it makes you feel happy and depressed at the same time.
Occasionally I'll get these waves of absolute regret over long-gone comic books and toys I owned when I was a kid. I'll look them up on online and see the insane money they go for now and I just have to accept that it's out of my price range. The only thing that keeps me level is the realization no amount of money will bring back the actual exact thing I lost -- only a different copy of it. The one I owned, the one I cherished, is gone forever.
This feels relatable on a deep level. There are plenty of toys and such I look back on fondly, but I eventually came to accept that some of them are just not there anymore, and even if I did replace them, what am I gonna do with them? I played with them as a kid, but I won’t want to play with them the same way as an adult, and in the end all they’d do is take up space and remind me of a thing I can never really go back to. It’s a type of joy that just isn’t there anymore. I’ve finally come to accept that it’s best to move on from them, both with the ones that are long gone from being lost or sold in garage sales, and even with the ones I still have stashed away in storage crates on a shelf somewhere. I’m slowly going through the ones I still have and giving away most of them, keeping only a scant few that hold a strong specific significance to me, not just because I like them.
I’ve begun channeling that same urge to collect and that fascination with toys into other avenues instead in a way that gives me the same satisfaction without wallowing in the nostalgia that I’ve come to see as an urge towards stagnation. Mostly Gundam models that fill that love of miniature replicas and figures, but in a way that requires me to craft them myself and use them as a form of self-expression and meditative creativity and not just a piece of plastic that comes out of a box and then lives on a shelf as some vain attempt to recapture my childhood,and through LEGOs, which I do as a combination of decorative elements around my home (their art and botanical lines are excellent for this), as well as making my own creations as part of a local club where we do displays and events for the local community. I’ve even recycled elements left over from when I was a child for the latter, so instead of trying to preserve them as they were, I use them to help make something new all the time that others can enjoy.
I've been a collector since I was 12 years old, starting with comic books. I was never one who collected them in the hopes of getting rich one day, but because I liked the artwork and thought the stories were fun. I discovered that the Omnibus existed a few years ago, so I gave my comic collection to my daughter and I 've started yet another one!
When toymakers finally started making toys look more like the characters, I started collecting them as well. Especially Build-A-Figures! (I have 35 of them. Including Pitt & Timmy, Fin Fang Foom, the 14" Apocalypse, and Galactus.)
I never intended to collect a bunch of Simpsons stuff, but since I'm a huge Simpsons fan, my brother got me a Playmates Bart figure for my birthday, but I liked Homer the most, so I went and got him. Then I wanted the whole family because what's the point of having just the two of them? After that, it became "How many can I get?", and now I basically have an entire wall dedicated to The Simpsons!
I even have an extensive collection of movies on DVD & BD. Over 1,000 altogether.
I told my family that when I die, let everyone come and grab the things they want. The rest, I want placed in the coffin with me so that only my face shows (like E.T. in the closet). Whatever can't fit, they can just throw on top of the coffin after it's lowered instead of flowers. I want to be buried with my treasures, like the pharaohs of old.
My buddy sold his Transformer's collection for land. It was beautiful.
Now THAT is a investment... as long as it's not in Florida or Louisiana (rising water).
Now he’s sitting alone on an empty acre of land doing shrooms and pooping himself.
oh the life I love the wilderness and pooping and mushrooms.
@@mr.selfimprovement3241 LOL waters rising 1/8 of an inch every 100 years Global warming is real!! Run and hide 😂
Hobby Collecting: To those who understand, no explanation is necessary. To those who don't understand, no explanation will do. 🎤👋
Yup. Pseudo intellectual shit like this is just...so tiring.
"Oh you're just obsessed with ephemera from the past that can never be recaptured it is finite and only meant to -"
Shush.
For one, on a purely pragmatic, real-world level - No, it's not ephemeral. It's all made out of plastic and rubber and electronic bits and bobs and will just lay in heaps of trash not decomposing for hundreds of years, lol.
Better a fraction of it be collected and enjoyed and displayed by people who like it than wasting away in a landfill adding to the death of our planet due to climate change, lol.
And while I don't want to ignore that, like ANY interest, collecting can become an issue for people who don't know how to regulate...a lot of collectors see themselves as curators, too. As people who retain a piece of our culture. Some may scoff at that...thinking some old toys from 30 years ago as "part of culture" is an indictment in of itself. But like, however cynical you wanna be...it IS our culture. And it's culture that made and still makes people happy.
Collectors don't just hermetically seal their childhoods behind display cases. They often pass it down and spread the interest to other generations. A kid seeing your old Star Wars toys can ignite their imagination and get THEM into Star Wars, for example.
Others my look down on you for collecting TMNT as an adult child who needs to grow up. But fuck them. We're happy, and they aren't. Don't presume to tell me who am because you think enjoying old toys is some sign of arrested development.
When your paradigm revolves around consumption, overconsumption is a virtue.
Yeah go buy a plastic doll. I will go out dancing and drinking , get laid
@@smokinnplatez1426 wow you're so cool and badass
my collecting is things I was never allowed to have growing up so I'm not really reliving anything, just more developmentally arrested by bad luck and shit parents
The Heavy Price Of Nostalgia To Me at 54 Years old is the overall can be huge amounts of Storage for Such Stuff things and objects and such.
Collecting dust is the best hobby it is cheep and easy to start and maintain. What really sucks about collecting is when you decide to sell with high hopes for a big pay out and it is virtually worthless. collect for your own enjoyment and collect what you can afford.
When my grandmother died, I went to her house the next morning to help with her stuff. I'll never forget pulling up to the house and seeing a dumpster in the driveway. Inside the dumpster were trinkets from her travels, photos, paintings, clothes, dishes, and a bunch of other stuff that nobody wanted. One of the paintings was one that I commented on when I was a kid. She thought it was cute and said she would save it for me and I could have it when she was gone. Over the years, any time she caught me looking at it, she would tell me it's going to be mine someday. Now, there it was, sitting in the dumpster. I could have rescued it and taken it home, but it was rather large and in a gaudy gold frame. Ultimately, I thought, where am I going to put that so I let it go. It made me realize that 90% of the things you have and cherish now are going to be thrown out one day. The rest will either be sold or kept by family members.
I bet your grandmother is looking down on you with the deepest shame. She thought the painting would make you happy and just made excuses to leave it in a dumpster?
Hopefully she didn't leave you anything of monitory value.
So sad that you had such disrespect.
It's the times you had and memories you made with her that truly matter.
😑💯
the weirdoes scolding you in response are totally missing the point lol. even if you had taken that item it would have ended up in the dumpster eventually. your kid or your grandkid or greatgrandkid would have done the same thing eventually. EVERYTHING is ephemeral. everything. including sentimental value
Try being a historian! The passing of time is always with you. I started studying history at the college level in 1970's. Think how much farther in the past World War 1 is now than when I first taught college lessons about it in 1984!
I think about time similarly: it's a melancholy way to preserve the concepts in your mind... but also fascinating. And in studying history, I find it makes past materials more relatable to me - it also humanizes people and events when trying to put them in perspective of just how short our general conception of a decade or a century is in the grand scheme of things.
It's also amazing how as we age, the breadth of time for each day, year and decade.... s-l-o-w-l-y contracts more and more - often making material that we once engaged with as young people that seemed so distant, seem much less so. And this is in the face of the reality, that since you first encountered those concepts as youth, there is a MUCH greater distance from the events and your present.
Just think that between 2024 and 1984, the same amount of years have transpired (40 to be exact) since you began teaching about the post war-era - as was the time transpired when the post-war era began and you started teaching about it! And while in both scenarios 40 years has passed: the time between now and 1984 is just a living memory (recent and familiar), while the same amount of years before that time, feel like a detached history that you only remember the parts that you personally present for as a teenager and child.
It's amazing how our brains categorize emotion and feeling to time that we experienced, versus that which predate us. Something that occurred only a few years before your birth may 'feel' like a different era entirely to you - while an period that happened almost 25 year ago (like the new millennium), is familiar and not so distant. 🙂
Maybe I feel a bit targeted by the thumbnail and the video using old TMNT as an example (cuz I collect vintage TMNT toys)...but I digress.
There is definitely a problem with nostalgia obsession in our culture. But not everyone who indulges in it is some state of arrested development and sadly clinging to the past.
Engaging in nostalgia does not automatically equate to being a slave to it.
Some of us are perfectly capable of indulging in hobbies and still being adults and know how to compartmentalize these things. And we're still capable of expanding our interests. I don't JUST collect toys. I'm a cinema buff. And I go out of my way to explore as much varied cinema as I can.
Same with novels, etc.
And I'm not JUST my hobbies. I'm a adult. With a job. With bills. With a social life.
Maybe the problem with capitalism crushing our very beings that's the real issue...not people who have fun collecting stuff they like.
As far as collecting, I only collect what I have room to display. Nothing is ever in boxes. I collect fossils, video game consoles (but not rare games), and Roman coins, but only a limited number of each category, and I never collect anything that is expensive.
I also collect fossils and the unique problem I have with that is just space. It doesn't directly cost anything to go fossil hunting (just gas money really), so I come back with a backpack full of fossils and now I have no room for the 76th identical brachiopod. But I can't just LEAVE IT to be destroyed by nature!!1! 😆
@@MonsterKidCoryI will frequently take them to give to people. I also got into selling fossils to support my collecting habit as well.
I'm 49 and I had to come to terms with the fact that around 99.6% of the stuff I want / wanted to read, listen to, watch, and play... I'll never experience in my entire life.
Has helped me control my spending and collecting.
One day in about 1996 I was at Target with my buddy and his girlfriend. I was checking out the awesome new LEGOs with my buddy while his girlfriend went and shopped. When she came back to get us, we realized we wouldn't be going home with any of those sets, and would probably never build them. He said "some day when we're younger." That always stuck with me. It's sad. It's wistful. But it's reality.
EDIT: one other thing I realized a while back is that there are really only two things I love in this world: dopamine and serotonin. It's all the same brain chemicals that let you enjoy life. Be happy with what you're doing at the time (in your leisure time), because life's too short to be worrying about missing out on something else -- remember, that something else produces the same chemicals as the thing you're doing now.
I'm almost 49, so we're basically in the same age range. There was a time when I really wanted some old GI Joe items that my mom couldn't afford for me when I was a kid. Then I started collecting LEGO, and it's probably one of the most valuable collectibles out there! I was pretty selective, as most LEGO sets are pricey, not even counting the huge UCS sets. I also collect sixth scale figures, which is fun, and not something I collected as a kid. But oh is it expensive sometimes!
@@T_Black_Lodge I believe the point flew right over your head.
"Some day when we're younger". Beautiful. Sometimes when I walk places I have fond memories with I think what would it been if I get these items I have now when I was a kid. A place where my friend lived and we were playing gi joes. A place with other friend where we were reading and talking about comics. A place where is a school library and I was lending comics. A place where me and other kids in kindergarten were talking about transformers etc.... Now I would take my toys and comics and go there and show my old kiddie friends "look what I have!!!"but...there's no one there and even if there was....no one would even care.
@@adriantrela no doubt about it, the old saying “you can’t go home again” holds true. I left the USA to work overseas, and when I came home years later, I was a different person, and all of my friends disappeared. Such is life?
I really loved this video man, put a lot of things into words that I've struggled with. Thanks for making it
I'm an older gen x. I've collected several different things in my lifetime. I got rid of most of my collections but kept a little bit from each collection and have it displayed because it truly does make me happy to look at. I only kept a few items which bring me the most joy.
At 63, I see the wisdom in this video. I am a collector of many things and feel overwhelmed that much of it has become a burden. My wife even joked at one point of using a dumpster when I die and I was so taken aback that it became a topic of much discussion. My solution is to make a list of the categories of what I have and where it is located so an antique dealer can come and get it. This is the best I can do at this time.
Look to see if there are toy museums in your area, I managed to find a few that I plan on someday donating most of my stuff to years from now if I can't sell it off. For now, there's no immediate need for me, but I totally understand where you are coming from. May you have many MANY more years enjoying your collection!
I collect WWII rifles which is easy to justify as an adult and I use them a lot. But recently I started to get into something that I really wanted as a kid but never got. The Lego Adventure series from the late 90s and early 2000s. My wife has been having a hard pregnancy so we stopped doing all the active outdoors things we usually do temporarily. She got interested in putting together Lego sets. This reminded me about the ones I wanted so badly as a kid and I started buying them on eBay for us to build together. It felt really good to get them but also hollow. The times of me spending an entire afternoon playing with Legos are gone. Now I have the set and assemble it but then what. The era of my life where I would have played with these for hours and acted out scenarios is gone. They are basically 3D puzzles at this point even if I do spend a few minutes "playing" with a set.
"The era of my life where I would have played with these for hours (...) is gone".
Amen to that. I have tons of comics, toys and I know I will never return to times when I as a kid would read, play or talk about it with friends for hours. Those days are gone and it hurts a lot. All I can do is live in an imaginary world where I'd still do it :(
Collecting toys, games, movies is no different than collecting art and music. People hang paintings and listen to music to evoke wide ranges of emotions. Games and toys provide the same feelings and with the bonus of being able to interact with them.
That's like saying appreciating anything is the same as appreciating everything, they are not the same if for no other reason than the fact that the interaction is different, which you fully acknowledge! A phone call is not the same as a greeting in person, no one feels the same closeness from the 2 and those are closer related than everything you listed.
Things have their own place, and in some there is no place for them at all, but it is not all the same, and to really dispel the subjectivity, collecting toys is juvenile whether the collector acknowledges it or not, and many do as that is exactly the frame of mind they are trying to recapture!! Nothing like enjoying fine art or appreciating the intricacies of music.
@@Chef_Alpoart and music evoke emotion. Examination of the intricacies of each is the same as the experience of interacting with games and toys. Your surface level criticism of collecting is the same as a layman saying, “it’s just lines and circles” when describing a painting in a gallery. There is much to the appreciation of toys and games. And for some it’s just as simple as enjoying the feeling they evoke without much examination of their creativity and construction.
Also, your example of comparing an in-person greeting with a phone call is incorrect. They are both greetings, their mediums are different. They both accomplish the same effect. But, arrive to the point in different ways. People pick and choose the art, music, toys and games to accomplish the same goal. And even in those mediums a variety of different styles.
@@Chef_Alpooh please I understand art and music are important but so are toys stop making everything a competition
The only issue with that comparison is:
Classic (and post modern) Art and Music is typically universally enjoyable by future generations without the need to be there, or have grown up when the artists had been around. The issue with 'fast-food-pop-culture', and the games and toys that sprung up as a result of it is: they are very specific sentimentality to the generations who grew up with them, and little more with future peoples than clutter and outdated media.
My kids do not identify or have a emotional relationship with the VCR, or a NES... or Ninja Turtles the way I do. They have no attachment to physical magazine, or games or the toys I grew up with. They care about the things THEY grew up with (they are teenagers). This means there is little monetary value beyond the secondary markets which are entirely propped up by people who grew up with these things buying and selling them.
Even videogames are not spared this. There is no doubt, that like movies and music they will be preserved for future generations to dissect and discuss. That however does not mean the actual games in your attic (or shelf) or old crt and consoles will be the method in which that is done. We have digitalized preservation of much of them (ROMs, ISOs, etc) at this point... and yet we are already encountering the reality that Generation Z and Alpha has no interest in old consoles or physical games (most of them do not even care about ownership)... meaning these old discs and carts are the humble figurines of the future geriatric Millennials and Gen Xers.
This goes triple for old Masters of the Universe (He-Man), New Ghostbusters, Ninja Turtles, Beetle-juice, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Street Sharks, Gargoyles, Gi Joe, and etc-etc-etc. They only hold their value so long as there are people from those generations in large enough numbers who want to buy them (a investment is only valuable is people want it).
By comparison: The great paintings and art of our civilization are often unique pieces (not mass produced) and they stand a test of time even devoid of context because they are unique and appreciable by the masses because of their expertise in their simplicity. People were painting and making music a thousand years ago, and will nodoubt be doing so if we last another thousand years.
No one will be watching He-man, and drinking from a shelf of collectible 80s mugs. No kid will be playing NES cartridge.
Your Castle GreySkull, Vintage Morpher, Pizza Mobile, Battle Cat, G1 Megatron..... or even Bucky o Hear and Little Sampson NES Carts are not going to matter to anyone in even 50 years when even the youngest people who grew up with those are in their 80s and 90s (most of them passed on). There will probably be a few of these things in a museum somewhere, but since they were mass produced no one will want your unsealed toys or games.
When your collection grows too big, even your grand-kids will not be able to take it. And it will no-doubt end up in a dumpster outside your house as they discard your things on your passing. Otherwise it will be another bunch of clutter left in your decaying house because your family doesn't have time to sort thru all of it. Just a burden you left behind (I've seen this far too many times).
In the end, we are talking about sustainable collectibles markets..... not essentially generational fades that die without the people who started, maintained and supported them. There is this great delusion that people are going to retire on these in many decades.... by then, they will have devalued to little more than clutter (especially as every old collector is trying to get rid of them). These things are as valuable now, as they will ever be - and if you are collecting as a investment, you will sell high now if you have any sense.
Otherwise, you had better be collecting for your own enjoyment with a backup plan for your family to get rid of these things one day. Because your collections will not be worth anything at that time, unless everything is sealed (and even then it wont be much). We are already seeing this with the first few generations of 'fast-food-pop-culture', where many of these old toys from the 20s-60s are not worth all that much anymore, and there are literally stacks and stacks of old baseball cards, memorabilia and toys no one wants (and people can't get rise of).
These are not paintings, gold bars, historically significant records, the instrument that a song played for 600 years was played on, or even priceless historical objects from the founding of a nation or a great campaign... these are toys and games often based on a movie or cartoon from a very specific decade for mass produced children's media.
@@mr.selfimprovement3241Your children lack empathy and emotional intelligence. Your fault for giving them an iPad the moment they popped out of your poor wife’s womb.
I try so hard, although I don't always succeed, to buy only things that will bring me a meaningful experience. I mostly buy comics, video games, and movies. Those are mediums of storytelling, so they have long-term value to me. But sometimes, I give in and buy a transformer for the short-term value of something cool to fiddle with.
This was all very well said! I've also had a strong connection with myself growing up and truly appreciated every step of the way. It always makes me feel a little weird whenever I speak to my parents or siblings about very specific events during our childhood, like they all completely forgot it happened. Usually, they're just impressed that I remember so much! I collect a few different things but my favorite is old tech. I'm endlessly fascinated by how far it has evolved since the 90's and comparing the user interfaces over time is just so fun to me!
I personally collect boots, as my only choice of footwear. At the moment, I own 156 pairs, out of which I wear about 60% of them on constant rotation. Often people ask how can I afford to keep such a hobby, but I do let them know that I tend to find bargains on eBay or thrift shops and that I rarely spend more than $50 on each pair. I enjoy having this collection and showing each pair to my friends when they see me, but recently I've had to slow down on acquiring new pairs. Aside from storage concerns, while browsing I often find that I already have similar pairs in my collection or that I can't justify buying some others with very limited uses. I'll still get a few more pairs every year, but not at the same speed as before.
It is As like in that One liner used by Denzel's Character in the remakeish Movie The Taking of Pelham 1 23 says , " You Cant Take It With you......Thats why You Never See A Hearse With A U Haul Attached Behind it. "
Tbh I collected Japanese comics, (translated of course) I think what really made me come to terms with collecting is when I tried to resell it.
You can’t really resell Manga, it’s too niche unless you have a series that can carry its own hype.
I gotten to find it more emotionally reassuring to give the books away, because it’s hard to value mangas on the American market because of the niche genres and interests, and I would rather someone else enjoy them than try to extract some monetary value out of them for my own personal gain.
My own regret with collecting came when I sold my Star Wars “X-Wing” novel collection and I was kicking myself afterwards when I saw the re-prints with the “legends” gold band they like to put on those re-prints. I sold those novels in order for someone else to enjoy them but now I think I should have held on to them because those are definetly a cover variant.
With my collections, I buy the things that speak to me in some way. I don't try to complete sets or anything. I just buy the stuff I like. I take the Marie Kondo approach to my collections: I go for what sparks joy and if it no longer sparks joy it's on eBay/Etsy. But I tend to get joy out of the things I collect. As for certain items like vintage cameras, I feel like they are best enjoyed when used and maintained as functional cameras. Yes, they eventually will break. Yes, using them increases the likelihood that they'll break in my lifetime. But when you load and shoot an old 1950s Graflex with paper-backed film, focus with the ground glass and switch to the roll film back, be sure to set the aperture and speed based on your best guess and a janky light meter app on your phone, and you create a beautiful picture, it's a whole new joy. It's the joy of creating new memories with something older than yourself. A shared connection to parents and grandparents (and even great-grandparents).
I used to collect comic strip treasuries (FoxTrot, Calvin & Hobbes, Garfield, Baby Blues, etc). When COVID hit, I went through
a lot of personal BS and came to the conclusion I can't enjoy certain comics like I used to; last summer,
I donated a few to my library and I honestly don't miss them, but I still have fond memories of reading them years ago 😅
That opening part made me cry, straight up existential crisis haha. Nice video! My precious things will last forever and ever shhhhhh.
If I ever get any money together - enough to spend of frivolities such as nostalgia collecting - there are three things I would like to collect: 1964/65 NY World's Fair memorabilia, antique and vintage Pez dispensers, and [restored] pinball back-glass art [from roughly between the years 1960-1977]. I'm also interested in store display standees, but not nearly as much. It's been a pipe dream for years, but I never seem to have anything more than survival money [especially these days].
I was a big collector of video games, comics and toys up until I was about 23. I spent a great deal of time thinking about why I did it, and it really came down to a combination of nostalgia, buying stuff I couldn't get as a kid (FOMO I supoose), and a feeling of "pride" in having cool things, but ultimately I think I was filling a void and trying to replace human connections with a mountain of things. Once I left home and started interacting with people and putting more effort into things like learning languages, making new friends etc. then I think I was finally able to move on, though admittedly I'll buy the odd thing I find cool every now and then, but it's very infrequent now.
In myself and in others, I see unchecked collecting of various different things as a coping mechanism or some kind of substitute for other things in life. Ultimately I now put more value into experiences than in objects, but I'm not a total minimalist
What language did you learn?
You’ll find out soon enough that people are mostly 💩 and you were a shallow fool for giving away your collection
I don't really collect much for Nostalgia (though I'm fairly young), my biggest collection is my Type Moon figures (the same series my PFP is from, Say Type Moon as there's a few Tsuki ones there too), love these things though it's not Nostalgia, I got into it a few years back and collect the stuff due to really liking the franchise. I have some Mega Halo stuff which could be more compared to nostalgia, still have my old ones somewhere, but even then I just think they're cool lol.
I collect Masters of the Universe (currently collecting the Origins 5.5” line & Masterverse New Eternia 7” Subline), anything EPCOT Center (retro) and Doctor Who (action figures and blu-rays). I’m also a digital hoarder with a NAS Server chock full of tv shows, movies, and videos of theatrical productions (plays/musicals).
I only had hobbies when my grandmother was alive after she passed away almost six years ago I lost all interest in everything I just recently started cleaning out my storage unit because I don't estimate I'll ever live in a house again and I'll never be able to display my collections because as long as I live with other relatives (not a choice mind you) they don't approve of my childhood memories my grandmother was the only one that understood because we collected the same things mainly 60s-90's nostalgia and pop culture ❤❤
I collect vintage toys, it's simply a hobby. When I die, it'll go to my family and they can sell it or throw it away, I won't care on account of me being dead. I don't even care what it's worth as I never sell anything, let my family worry about that!Humans are creatures made of memory and sometimes the best memories are those you can see and touch in the present; without the things that they have, humans are nothing more than clever animals. Perhaps we ARE nothing more than clever animals, but we can be clever animals and also have fun just being that! 😁
I've always been good at browsing or 'window shopping'. I'd like to attribute it to having been poor much of my life, though that's clearly not true for everyone. Still, I'll get a small dose of happiness from just seeing stuff at a collectibles fair, much as you might at a gallery or museum. I also enjoy imagining small collections that are 'well rounded' rather than remotely complete. Is this odd at all, or odd within nerdy circles? Guess I'm just lucky.
The collecting markets that always tend to be strong are usually diecast vehicles and other model vehicles. Here in the UK model railway's (railroads) are becoming popular again and its been a hobby that has had its highs and lows and its age limit is open to all as you have those who collect and model modern image and those who model and collect trains and rolling stock from the past. Or those who collect and model different railway models from different parts of the globe.
I have heard that in the USA that the hobby is sort of in limbo as it sadly is still seen as uncool to younger generations, but I think due to influences from our side of the pond there have been reports that the USA is starting to see small increases in model railway collecting.
In trying to downsize, I made some decisions that I regret. I got rid of a lot of comic books but in doing so, I realized that I inadvertently got rid of three issues that I really want to keep. It was regrettable so I had to Re-buy them.
As the old saying goes, 'Enjoy It While You Can' almost everything is a fad they just come and go.
I will be turning 50 this year, and about 10 years ago, I started really looking at my life and the things I own. I ended up building a art studio in my home for my freelance work and have the majority of my my childhood collection of toys, games, and other items in progress becoming a small museum like set up for myself, and to ultimately share on my channel and social media with some future plans involving it all as well. All that to say, I've found myself slowing down on collecting, and aiming to display and enjoy what I have. I see all the corporate releases of artificial rarities and the weird way that nostalgia has made me feel, both bad and good over the last 20 years. I think my attack of common sense came when I was at a toy show some 2 years ago attempting to purchase a Starriors parts bag and the guy selling it even admitted he didn't know what it was. With no price on the bag of items, he offered it to me for $50. All of it fairly common parts, but he didn't know, so he just wanted to make money. On something that had been a fairly limited toyline, with few fans compared to bigger IPs, because it was old. That single handedly made me take stock of the fact that I'd rather collect what I want when the price is right, and if I never get it, that's fine. I can live without all of it, but I really do appreciate what I do own.
This is a great video man, I'm subscribing to check out what else you have on here!
Man I had that turtle sewer set when I was a kid!
Loved that damn thing
Ouch! This video hits home for me! I have a modest collection of the small British Fleetway Picture Library & Commando b&w war comics that had their heyday back in the 60s & 70s. I tell myself that I collect them for their cultural value, preserving the skilled work of the talented illustrators. But deep down, I know I'm trying to recapture my childhood and the happy memories of many leisurely hours spent in musty-smelling second-hand bookstores. The comics are ageing, fragile, slowly browning and will probably fall apart in another 20 years or so yet I have devoted many hours of hunting online and at swap meets to secure the copies I want.
I gave up all my Star Wars toys collecting in the late 2000’s. I bought my holy grail which I thought would make me happy. I ended up feeling more empty than before. I was collecting trying to fill a void in myself from a unhappy childhood.
What was the grail?
@@gofindfun AT-AT walker
@@BM-979Oh man I'm 55 and I had the AT-AT Walker when I was 11. I believe my mom paid like $22 for it in the store back then. Nowadays it's probably like $1000.
I collect comics and graphic novels of all sorts. I never really got to indulge in em as a kid too much so being able to buy and enjoy cartoons as an adult was very fulfilling. I am a cartoonist as well so I tend to gravitate towards cartoony art I might add.
You know, there is a lot of baggage I definitely would like to unload to define my current state and previous stories regarding collecting.
For one part, I don't really want to stop collecting figures because I still like them if not it also depends on what they're based on that immediately draws my attention, for instance there was a time that I would be a bit hyped for some Marvel Legends figures, notably the MCU ones, I often would get the ones I like and I would get some non-mcu figures here and there, though over time the superhero burnout, or rather the MCU burnout got to me to where I grew less interested on buying more Marvel figures, even both comic versions and the most wanted ones among the community, I had my share of figures I wanted that everyone wanted like the WandaVision Scarlet witch for instance.
When I stopped collecting Marvel Legends, I wanted to get two other toylines that while they're still ongoing in the states, not at all for Mexico since I live there and it may be easy said to buy online than done as I have my fears of buying online that I rather not go for it even if someone would tell me that I should give it a chance in a nice way.
The two lines I fell in love with and wished I could keep collecting are the G.I. Joe classified line and the Masters of the universe Masterverse line, both which have detailed figures with good articulation, good detail and a decent amount of accessories, the problem was that since those 2 lines aren't popular/recognizable in mexico they fell victim to clearance and would no longer in shelves, which sucks because I would had gladly walked to a store or even take a transport to get to one and would buy one or some.
Since then in some ways I still feel sad that I couldn't get more figures from those two lines and I felt a bad case of fomo that is much worse than just hoping to get a certain figure in time, I hoped badly that maybe one day they'll come and that I wouldn't rely on buying online (which I still refuse to do so as I prefer to toy hunt), but as you can imagine that's just a sad if not even pathetic way of wishful thinking.
In time I am still growing out of that pain, bit by bit, as I keep looking into old figures I still have and buy some or less figures that peak my interest, but it's alright as at least it helps me not spend a certain amount of money per full month, which is funny enough I would gladly just buy 1 figure per month rather than by every 1 or 2 weeks and most often I often did my best to choose the one I wanted the most, some were most sought after and others weren't as much.
Despite it being an unlikely ever to happen wishful thinking, I do hope that maybe someday I could get a chance to get the G.I. Joe classified and Masterverse figures I never got to buy due to the stores no longer putting them on sale, but for now I'm best with just doing other stuff that make me feel better like drawing stuff or just interacting with more people, I still love to talk about action figures when I can, for now I'm doing good with not thinking too much about wishing I could keep on collecting a line that stopped selling in my local stores, for that only time will tell for the best.
I'm 43, and have a sizable amount of toys, books, games, etc from when I was younger. I consider myself lucky that I don't have to go back and "re-buy my collection". At this point though, since I've had them my whole life, it's very difficult to let any of it go. I still like collecting and buying things that I didn't have as a kid, but those items don't have the same emotional attachment as my original items.
I used to actually rue the day when I would stop enjoying my toys (I was only ten years old). I kept telling myself that I wouldn’t care, but I didn’t buy it at the time. This may be why I’m obsessed with metaphysics now 😅
To quote the Vision "A thing isn't beautiful because it lasts." Just enjoy what you collect while you're here.
Re-watched that recently. Great little scene.
I MOSTLY manage to hold off buying for nostalgia of my own youth. Just a He-Man figure here, an Optimus Prime there... But I DO go all-in on nostalgias for things I was not alive for. My user name is itself a reference to the Boomer generation that grew up on the mid-century monster kitsch of Shock Theatre, Famous Monsters of Filmland, and Aurora monster model kits. That dovetails with retro-20's/30's cinema and aesthetics, and before that I was into retro-Victorian/Edwardian aesthetics. I like sci-fi and horror, but only retro sci-fi and horror. My biggest collection at present is King Kong, and I convince myself it's okay because some day I'll donate it to the little museum in the little town south of me where Fay Wray was born. Hopefully, when I'm done with it, that collection will have some kind of permanence beyond me. But my Universal Monster and Godzilla action figures? These things are really about the dopamine hit I get in the present when I buy them and set them up in little dioramas on my shelf. And it did all start with Covid, the anxiety and boredom, and watching toy review videos on UA-cam all day 😐
That's cool that the lives of others and maybe imagining yourself in their position is a driver of your non-personal nostalgia.
As a Gen Xer, I'm pretty sure the only valuable things would be my LEGO bricks. Old Star Wars and GI Joe don't necessarily excite the younger crowd. So as time marches on, when we all start keeling over, I think in 50 years we'll see thrift stores with buckets of action figures, or worse yet, dumped in the trash.
This video is giving me more nostalgia.
I'm not even sure if I'm a 'collector' really. I enjoy toys and I buy ones that make me smile. I play with them for a few years then send them on their way to a new home. I did have a period where I was looking at rebuying things I missed out on in childhood but those things are all so old now they don't look as I remember them. Their playtime has ceased and they are looking for a retirement home I guess lol.
Wish I could send a few pics of my collection
I think it is just like the part in the movie the labyrinth. Where Sarah is in the garbage land of past memories and she is just looking for her baby brother. But that goblin women keep handing her stuff and putting in on her back to take her time away. Until she say I don't need any of this stuff it is all garbage. I have to save Toby.
I know that some vintage video games toy's sports cards and so on can be worth a small fortune but we only have a little bit of time on earth 🌎
The message of that same is on point. And yes, I've always found the junk yard house looked somehow... cozy...
Games for the playstation systems, physical films (mostly just bluray & DVD. Got off of VHS & never got onto 4K in the first place) & CDs, but always only stuff I'm personally interested in. I never go all in to try to have a "complete set" of everything I collect. Thay's why I can proudly say I'm done collecting for PS3, at least.
its gonna be interesting when I take my retro game collection out of storage once I buy a house
I collect what i think are cool toys ,i dont have nostalgia for anything . I didnt have toys as a kid, never watched gi joe or tmnt so i am immune to the nostalgia greed of the companies who keep selling the same old stuff . I cant imagine a house full of turtles or paying $300 for a airplane
19 “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust[a] destroy and where thieves break in and steal, 20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
First step is admitting that you have an addiction. The next step is to embrace it.
I'm a D&D nerd and I lost my collection of original books to the "Satanic Panic" back in the 80's lately I have found myself replacing not only what I lost but adding things I always wanted and never got when they were new and let me tell you after 40-50 years some of this stuff is EXPENCEIVE!
Aye, there's a reason the modern OSR games are a thing, that era is cool, I myself bough the book for a game called MYFAROG which takes quite a bit from it, the good thing though is if you want to play the classics in this day and age PDFs exist thankfully.
@@WitchHunterSiegfriedWasn't expecting to see Vargs game getting mentioned, cool
@@putridabomination It's a nice OSR game, isn't pozzed, and is quite affordable, what's not to love.
Ads during this video are nostalgia products. Lol.
I been fighting FOMO so I can use that money for experiences with my daughter.
When I found out that video games cannot be preserved, I started selling my video games that I was done with
So interesting.
the kid in the photo in the thumbnail is me.
lol
jk I had this toy he's playing with though. I don't remember it being so big but I remember that thing
I used to put the green tube's on on arms and around the elbows lol
Great Video j
I collect DVDs. I have a whole library full of them. Some aren't even opened and are still in the plastic wrap. I have the Special Editions of all three of Perer Jackson's Lord of the Rings films and every Star Wars film except the sequel trilogy because I hate it.
All structures are unstable
If you knew then, what you know now...
No matter how much crap you collect, it will never fill the emptiness inside you.
i've tried to get away from the endless cycle of desire and gratification. i live close to the bone and prefer not to fuck with too many self-inflicted complications. my running shoes, my guitar, a computer to watch youtube and play games; i'm good.
If you grow attached to stuff you will become a stuffy person. I’ve had friends I couldn’t be with because their lives revolved around stuff. I had a friend with a hoarding problem once. He could not articulate why he was attached to so many objects, and he wanted me to take a lot of the stuff he was trying to get rid of. Like as if I still had it he wasn’t truly braking his attachment. Some of it was filed by nostalgia, some was fueled by novelty.
I only allow myself to collect my mother’s art, birthday cards signed by friends and family, and photos on my phone and in physical albums.
Nostalgia just ain't what it use to be.
Yes there is more mass production but there is more pressure to have your own small business
But Warhammer is Forever i have Minis 60 years old an still useable and in good conditions no Toy stuff i dont have a conection to that.
Why eat that juicy steak??you're just gonna shit it out anyway!!
OR. . . .people collect things they like. Everyone is different, people like what they like no matter how old they are. The idea of "letting it go" or "leaving it behind" is a very narrow minded point of view.
What in the hell is "FOMO"? Lol
Fear of missing out
@@mista414 That's nothing special, that's been human nature since day one lol
It sounds like a slur. lol
@@caucasoidape8838 Sounds like Chomo if anything lol
I dont get the mor0ns who pay money for old toys and video games. Who wants that trash? its cool for about 3 minutes then i never have to see it again
Interesting video. Work on your verbal delivery. Needs to flow better. Try avoid mispronouncing words like "temporal" and "scarcity". Will be checking out your other videos. Keep going!
Get over yourself
Facts. Keep it real out there.
VERY WELL PUT!! THANK YOU!!!!!❤😂🎉🦹🦸♂️🦸🦹♂️❤️🦹♀️🤣✌️🫶🙏🤎😂👍