While visiting the many toy shops in China Square Central, you’ll realise that the sellers all have their own preferred methods of displaying and storing their toys.  A toy collector can hence draw useful inspirations on toy storage ideas from them. 

Almost every toy shop has at least a wooden display cabinet with many shelves, and with glass doors for easy viewing of the toys for sale.  Some have full glass cabinets.  Those sellers with lots of huge bulky boxed toys sitting in their shops would tend to stack those boxes from the floor, and even up till close to the ceiling!

All the shop owners have foldable tables which they bring out to display a portion of the toys outside their shops.  That creates more walking and browsing space inside the shops.  You should observe the shops before they are opened for business.  They all have loads of boxes, basket trolleys etc. stashed in the cramped shop spaces, with hardly any walking room.

Why am I describing all the above?  Well, if you happen to be new to toy collecting and you have not planned the storage for your toys yet, then your room’s gonna look like the toy shops very soon.  This is especially so if you fall under the“Rapid Growth” stage.

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I went to China Square Central for the 3rd Sunday in a row to help my pony collector pals look out for certain exclusive G3 My Little Ponies there. 

A seller there has a SDCC 2008 ‘Ninja Pony’ and a ‘Blue Art Pony’ for sale.  Too bad upon close inspection, the tail hole of that only piece of ‘Blue Art Pony’ was not positioned centrally enough during production.  As a collector, I’m very particular about ponies with ‘crooked’ tail holes as it’s a glaring sign of imperfection! 

That nameless ’Blue Art Pony’ was going for a hefty SGD 60.00 or USD 45.00 and it’s loose with no box or packaging at all!  I find that it’s a bit overpriced.  You can eventually order a MIB one online from Entertainment Earth, which will be available and start shipping in September 2008.  This pony’s now up for pre-order at USD 14.49 each at Entertainment Earth, compared to HasbroToyShop where it is priced at USD 19.99 but with immediate shipping. 

Updated on 26 July 2008: The ‘Blue Art Pony’ from HasbroToyShop will only be shipped from September 2008, just like for Entertainment Earth.  However there is a HasbroToyShop free shipping coupon code (SUMFS) for orders above USD 50.00, but to US addresses only.

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I renamed my website/blog recently.  The previous title had always been a temporary one until I could come up with a better alternative name. 

I realised that despite this being meant as a blog about collecting toys, at times I do blog about other aspects of life.  Hey I’m also human too and I can’t be thinking about toys every second.  The former website title was “Crazy About Toys”, but I’m really not that obsessed with toys as compared to 10 years ago when I was in the Rapid growth stage.  I’m currently more of a casual collector.  I’m older now and have been through more experiences in life than when I first started collecting toys.

I’ve also got my ups and downs.  I still go through the highs and lows of emotions like everyone else.  It depends on what life throws at me, and whether I am prepared or not to receive, avoid, go round, and overcome them.  Now that I am in the second quarter of my life, there are many things that are already too late for me.  Fortunately in this information age, there are still other available options even if we didn’t get to live the ideal life we had always wanted.  But of course these other options can get a little harder at times because we often have to start from scratch all over again.

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I have 5 Lamborhgini (Murcielago, Gallardo & Reventon) and 1 Audi R8 model cars in my collection.  The Lamborghinis are made by Bburago while the Audi R8 is made by Maisto.  These cars are in the 1:24 scale, which is my preferred size for model cars.  The cars all came attached (by 1 or 2 screws) to a black base which also have a shiny sticker stating their car models. 

The best way to keep these cars would be to display them (together with their respective bases) in a glass cabinet.  If you are displaying the cars on exposed shelves,  you can also look for a clear plastic cover that can encase the whole car and its base.  Such clear plastic covers should be available in model car shops.

Then again, these model cars are not very tall, hence it can be a waste of space to display them in a show case which has a lot of empty spaces on top of them.  If you place the shelves too close together, you can’t view the cars properly.  You need to adjust the height spaces between the shelves to get the best display view.

For me, I have long ran out of display cabinet spaces so I keep all my beloved cars in a shallow drawer.  As the cars have  wheels, they tend to move easily on their own a bit whenever the drawer is being opened or closed.  No matter how slowly I do it, they might move a little at times. 

To minimize the movement of the cars, I place them facing to the sides of the drawer, instead of facing the front or the back of the drawer.  So far, this placement method works fine for me.  If you are still insecure and worry about bumping your cars against the sides of the drawers, you can also secure your cars to their original bases before storing them in the drawer.

These are all I have for today.  Thanks for reading and coming by!

This stunning Lamborghini “Number 5″ is my latest aquisition last month during the Great Singapore Sale.  I got it at 20% off in one of the departmental stores.  It’s such a beauty, of course my other Lamborghinis are just as gorgeous too!

I have a penchant for Lamborghini cars ever since I saw a splendid white Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder make a short appearance during last year’s National Day Parade preview (in June 2007). 

I was fortunate to get tickets to watch that National Day Parade preview on the world’s largest floating stage.  While entering the premises, everyone had to walk past the ‘holding area’ for performers and their vehicles.  That white Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder was parked there within easy photo-taking reach!

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Come to think of it, I still have an ancient HP PC (that is using Windows 98!) that I bought way back in the year 2000 sitting at my work and study area.  I previously used it to edit digital photos of my toys and also to read streaming financial news while trading in the US market.  However, I have now figured out the photo editing function on my laptop and I no longer subscribe to the online streaming news.  I rarely trade these days because of the super volatile market conditions and sentiments. 

Perhaps it’s time to junk the old PC (consisting of the large and bulky 17″ monitor, a CPU, a keyboard, a mouse, plus a box of its accompanying peripherals).  I had waited so long to finally decide to discard this old PC that I doubt I can even sell it now.  It still works for basic Microsoft Office functions and for surfing the web but it can be very slow.  It used to hang abruptly when I was using it before I got my first laptop in 2006.  Back then whenever it hanged, I had to forcefully shut it down by turning off the power.  Hence I figured that it was best not to do more than 2 tasks (or open more than 2 windows) at one time. 

Through my years of using them, I have observed that electrical items can be weird and seem to have a ‘life’ if their own.  They can sometimes ‘throw’ tantrums and ‘refuse’ to work properly for no reason.  Then when their users or owners get fed up and threaten to replace them, those ‘faulty’ electrical items suddenly work fine, though for a while only but a bit better than before. 

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I was watching ”The Suite Life of Zack and Cody” on Disney Channel today and was pleasantly surprised to spot the presence of a G3 My Little Pony in the background during some of the scenes! 

This was an early episode where the twin boys, Zack and Cody (acted by Dylan and Cole Sprouse) were still very ’small’ with their short boyish haircuts.  In this episode, the rich hotel heiress, London Tipton (acted by Brenda Song) lost her vast family fortune overnight because of a failed investment by her ultra rich dad.  Hence London got evicted from her Tipton Hotel suite by the creditors and she had to bunk in with Maddie (acted by Ashley Tisdale), one of the hotel’s female staff. 

Okay we skip to the part where Maddie brings London home to her bedroom for the first time.  Then right there in the background, just beside the window was Pillow Buddy Sweetsong (a large G3 My Little Pony plush, lavendar body and pink hair)!  She was lying very comfortably by the window while the 2 girls went about with their conversations. 

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About 3 weeks ago, I started my first round of room re-organising but after that, I didn’t continue and stopped.  Today, I found some time to clutter clear the excess and unnecessary papers from my drawers.  I couldn’t believe the amount of brochures (from exhibitions and trade shows that I attended more than 10 years ago!), plus letters and envelopes that I do not need anymore, still in my possession!  With a recycling bag and a refuse bag beside me, I sorted the papers and other wastes into the bags accordingly. 

Discarding those wastes was like a form of closure for me as they were mostly about my past interests during the last 10 years of my life.  Those were mainly interests I had used to indulge in.  However I believe I will have little time for them now that I have entered into the next quarter of my life.  It’s really amazing how much emotions and reflections of life can be evoked from a simple act of clutter clearing…

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I was at China Square Central today to check out the latest happenings and toy trends.  After nearly a year of not visiting the toy market there, I find that it’s still being dominated by Transformers toys, except this time, there were more toys from the new Transformers animated toy line.  I don’t collect these so I got kinda bored by the overwhelming Transformers presence there.

The Movie Transformers toys are still widely available at China Square Central but at slashed prices now, because of over supply from the retail stores and also waning collectors’ interest in them.  To think that just last year during the peak of the Transformers Movie hype, Deluxe Bumblebee (Camaro 2008) figure was priced at up to SGD 65.00 at China Square Central but now, the price has plunged like the property prices in the US and here in Singapore.  They are now selling at near their original retail prices in the secondary toy market. 

Last week, I found the popular Deluxe Autobot figures like Bumblebee (Camaro 2008), Barricade and Jazz on sale at a departmental store for only $16.90 a piece!  Both the “All-Sparks” and “Premium” series were selling at that massive discounted price.  Those figures were basically going for a steal but I believe that most collectors had them already, while the kids (and collectors alike) are now more into the in-trend Transformers animated toys.

As I am still short of Transformers Legends mini figure Ratchet (green version), I decided to look for him at China Square Central today but no such luck.  I doubt I’m willing to pay more than the retail price of SGD 8.90 for him, even if he can no longer be found in the departmental stores.  I find that I’m not so interested in my Transformers Legends mini figures collection anymore.  Maybe I’ll put them all up for sale soon.

I’m not a Gundam fan and I know very little about this popular toy line and its cartoon, except that they are robots driven by people inside them.  However, their “larger than life” presence at the Singapore Toy and Comic Convention (STCC) 2008 managed to capture my attention.  Here are the photos that I took of the 3 main characters, who are based on their new “Three Kingdoms” series.

Here we have the first main character, ‘Liu Bei’ wielding his double swords.

Then we have the next main character, “Zhang Fei” with his double-edge spear.

And finally the third main character, “Guan Yu” and his long sabre.