Not the Kilcarr kind of creep , but growing beyond what you expected. Have you had it? I sure have. I'm finally done, except for a few things, emptying out my house so I can put it on the market. As I boxed up my collection, I remembered back when I first got back into GI Joe. I'd sold off most of my childhood collection, except some sentimental pieces, back when I turned 18.

Fast-forward to my mid-twenties and I was back at my folks' place, visiting, when they asked if I would get the rest of my stuff out of my old closet so they could have the space. I said sure, and taking the stuff home made me nostalgic. I then regretted having sold off my collection and started looking around for replacements. I'd made a vow to myself and my then-wife that I would only collect figures and no vehicles, and only the 3 3/4" of my childhood, since there was no room in the apartment at the time for much more. This worked well for a while until I saw an auction for a bridge layer, one of my childhood favorites, both for the vehicle and Tollbooth, so I bought it, saying to myself, "Okay, so I want that vehicle, I really enjoyed it as a kid and would like to have a replacement."

Then we moved into the house, and I then had a whole room for nothing buy my collectibles. I've never been a fan of 'rows of figures', so I wanted to have dioramas for displaying my collection. This led to more vehicles and play sets. It also led to army building of figures and vehicles, for display purposes.

And now that I've had to go through and touch every piece of my collection to box it and move it, I've realized my small collection that was supposed to be just figures has grown to include almost as many vehicles as figures and I also have a lot of Joe related items and collectibles that were definitely not part of the initial plan, but kind of organically crept into my collection.

Have you experienced this, and if so, how'd it happen?

In all seriousness, this exact thing happened to me. I moved from an apartment where I had a room for all my stuff to a much smaller place and suddenly, my collection was more of a burden than an enjoyment. I held on to some things but even then, I had way more than I had space for.

And how did it all start? I bought a Snake Eyes v9 and a Storm Shadow v6 two pack at a Big Lots WAY back in the day. Because it struck that nostalgic nerve.

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I find something even sillier. If I see a whole line at something like 2 dollars a figure in a discount store, I end up buying the entire line. (Terminator salvation, Captain America, Wolverine and Tron Legacy come to mind). It's like if I can get a whole collection at once, I really can't resist it.

Worse, I then find that I am missing one or two figures, then end up hunting them down.

Luckily, I have a display setup that lets me indulge in smaller flights of fancy by giving each one a small shelf for display.

Recently, because the deal was "too good to pass up" I bought a 100 figures on the internet just to see what 100 of the same figure looked like.

Turns out it's pretty cool.

- R

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Every time I move I notice it. Unfortunately so does my wife.

I know I had to let go of some of the peripheral items I'd picked up for dios or just thought were cool. A lot of the 21st Century, PTe, and Chap Mei stuff is really cool, but it isn't GI Joe, not visually or otherwise. That stuff was easy. Extra stuff I picked up in lots or on the cheap but were just different versions of the same figure or additional army builders. I thinned the herd. That cut things way down.

Now, I am more selective about what I pick up. I'm also more willing to trade stuff I have for stuff I want. You wouldn't believe how hard that was for me to start thinking like that.

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I'll one up you on the move. I moved an entire family of 5 - including stuff that had once populated two separate houses - by MYSELF - just to keep from the shame of the wife seeing just how out of hand things had gotten. lol. Oh and did I mention I did this TWICE in two months?



My back still hurts.

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The creep is constantly with me, and is really hammered home every couple of years when it rains so much the basement starts to flood. Usually its been a couple of years and I become complacent and let my toy are fill up with unfinished customs and figures "To put on display", so when the water rises I have to do a mad scramble to get everything out of the flood's way and up to higher ground.

I'm in the process of getting stuff together to open a store on line, and getting and organizing inventory for that is an altogether different kind of creep!

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I went through this myself in the past when i noticed several large storage containers of goods. I don't know how the creep happened but it clearly did. I finally made a decision to only keep what i play with . And by "play" i do not mean simply display. I need to fiddle with it every so often.

With that simple decision my collection numbers plummeted and my collecting taste changed drastically. My collection is a wasteland or toy desert but the little odds and ends i do have make me smile when i glance at them like a child.

I'm fairly happy with the decision.

I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who worries about the wife seeing how much i have.

Sent from my C771 using Tapatalk 2

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Heh, it's funny to hear how similarly it starts for us. I've been lucky in that I had the luxury of moving my stuff casually to the new place, but I've realized the house has been acting for the past 2 years now as a really expensive storage unit, so I've hit it with increased vigor to empty and sell. Luckily, my fiancee is awesome and not only tolerates my collection, but likes it and appreciates it. Her son is just spellbound by my collection, and her daughter teases me about it occasionally. (funny story: I was carrying in boxes yesterday and he said, "You probably have more GI Joes than anybody!" I said, "No, actually, my collection is pretty small compared to a lot of guys, and it's made up of more common figures and vehicles." He replied, "No way! You have to have the most! Look at it!" "No, I assure you, there are collectors out there who would laugh at calling what I have a collection. They'd say it was a good start." "Those guys... Those guys must be rich!" Those kid perspectives on things always make me smile.)

Anyway, thanks to her understanding, and an unfinished basement she let me use as a blank slate to finish out, I actually have a larger room now than I did at the house to display it, but I've decided I probably need to pare down some. Once it's all unpacked and displayed, I might decide not to. I just hope I don't outgrow the room. I ain't packing it all up again.

I started out with "I'll just get the Marines, SEALs and a few others and that's it" which turned into, "it'd be kind of cool to repaint a dragonfly to look like a Marine Corps Cobra helicopter, and maybe a couple other small vehicles so that these figures have something to ride around in," then I decided to make my own small dio-story, so then it turned into "I'll just get the figures in vehicles I need for the story," and now about three and a half maybe four years later, "I think I want all the figures & vehicles from 1982 to 1986" and essentially it boils down to "hey that figure or vehicle looks really cool I want it." and that expanded slightly into Star Wars and Marvel Universe. So my decision to get only the Marines and SEALs is now over 5,000 figures and almost 300 the vehicles. My only regret is having sold off some figures that I later wanted.

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I haven't ever moved so you can imagine the amount of stuff I haven't even laid hands on in years. I am at a point of wanting to thin things out, but not at a point I want to just throw it in the trash. Mostly to allow myself the ability to enjoy what I have and want to keep.

I do still enjoy my stuff though. I guess if I found myself moving a lot like some of you guys seem to I would begin to really hate everything including my furniture. I don't have any plans of going anywhere in the immediate future so as long as I can at least thin things down enough to enjoy it all again, I will be happy.

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Yeah, I enjoy my stuff, and this move has been kind of fun, because I found stuff that I'd forgotten about. At the same time, I don't want to do it again for a looooong time, if ever. Plus, as this stuff gets older, it becomes so much more fragile. I took extra care to bubble wrap all my vehicles, and all my boxes were full of packing peanuts, but I've still suffered some losses - so far just my Water Moccasin, but I'm sure there will be more. I pulled the WM out of the box, carefully unwrapped it, and one of the blades fell off the fan, and the cross bar connecting the two vanes was snapped in two.

Yeah that's where I am I guess. Wanting to pass on much of the older items. Things I don't even touch, or want to. I know a good portion of all of my old Transformers need to go. Once I can get to the cabinet they have been sitting in for 10 years now untouched, they're gone. I know if I were to ever move, I wouldn't even bother to unpack a lot of the stuff. I'd go straight to an auction house or something to get rid of it. It would take probably several months to get everything out.

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I'm in one of those periodic funks where I'm looking at it all and thinking that I'm almost ready to literally just bag it all up and put it out on the curb for the neighborhood dumpster divers to run off with it. I love my toys, but I have realized that I have an entire room in my house that I cannot use a storage unit that I'm paying too much for (climate controlled) that the money could be used in a more constructive way.

That sucks that it has you in a funk like that. This hobby, or any hobby, is supposed to help you relax, not stress you out. If it is stressing you, maybe you could pare back some?

My collection has done the opposite for me. Needing a place to put it motivated us to finish out the basement, giving the kids a rec room and her a craft room, in addition to my collection room. Without the collection as motivation, the basement would have been such a low priority that it would still be an unfinished storage area for years to come.