Here’s an interesting article that I came by some time ago and bookmarked for my blogging material reference while wanting to clutter clear my stuff.  Although it’s a very short article, the few comments on the blog page do add further insight to the topic.

So if you are thinking of quitting your toy collecting hobby some day because you finally can’t stand the toys cluttering up your once “showflat” looking home, and also due to severely burnt pockets plus family pressure, you will need a new past time to use up the new free time you will suddenly have because of a new void in your life.

Learning a new skill such as playing a musical instrument (as suggested in the article) is a good idea.  If the new skill you plan to learn can help you to earn another source of income (as suggested in the comments section), that is even better!

Last but not least, if you are really serious about not collecting toys anymore, or rather collect less toys from now on; stay away from all known “poisonous” places that sell and display the toys you used to collect!  The less you get reminded of them, the lesser you are likely to feel the addiction again.

Enjoy your new hobby!

Here’s an interesting article about the do’s and don’ts of toy collecting to share.  Actually I have covered most of the topics mentioned in the blog post, except for toy photography.  I’ve been keeping this in my browser bookmark for some time and here are the links:

“Toy collecting tips and tricks - part 1″

“Toy collecting tips and tricks - part 2″

Happy reading, and don’t go overboard with your toy collecting hobby!

Don’t encourage your friends and loved ones into any sort of collecting hobby.  Haha, that is if you care for them.  If you don’t then I’ve got nothing more to say, LOL!  Collecting hobbies are easy to get into, very addictive, heavy on expenses (mostly money spending and rarely money making), very time consuming; and worst of all, they are usually lifelong for nearly all collectors!  

Most collectors can never ever get out of their hobbies voluntarily (because they have become too emotionally attached to their collections and collecting lifestyle), unless *touch wood* something drastic happens in their lives that makes them quit the hobby for good. 

While some moderate collecting is fun and enjoyable, and even serves as a bonding topic with other people, too much of anything is never good.  The trouble is that most collectors will eventually end up over collecting.  Hence, don’t ever get into collecting anything if you can help it!  For the people who are already collectors like me, we’ve got to live with the choice that we had made and the issues that come with it!

Learn to let live if you can’t get certain toys - Yes, none of them are really worth overpaying and fighting for.  In our lifetime, we don’t actually own anything.  Physical possessions are ours for as long as we live.  We are merely temporary keepers of things until they pass from us through selling, giving or when we finally leave the mortal world.  So focus more on the enjoyment of the hobby rather than on the frustrations of not being to get hold of certain toys.  Like a wise person once said about looking at a piece of clean white paper with a tiny dot on it: Do you focus on the cleanliness and whiteness of the paper, or get distracted by that tiny irritating dot on it?  We can choose our views.  Happy toy collecting! 

Beware that over collecting toys can wreck relationships - Yes, this is true when the toy collecting hobby becomes too overwhelming for other people living with you.  Remember that one person’s treasure isn’t necessary the same for another person who doesn’t share that same passion with you.  To the non-toy collectors, these toy things are not just a waste of money but a waste of precious home space as well. 

Most of us live with somebody who are not toy collectors, hence we tend to get nagged at for bringing back more and more ‘junk’ nearly every time we come home.  It sort of spoils the good mood we have from the so-called ’successful’ toy hunting trip that day.  Then you would think that having a supportive spouse, partner or family members who share your toy hobby is a blessing.  Well it isn’t.  One person in the household being ‘poisoned’ is bad enough, not to mention more members being in the same boat as well! 

Hence overall, I still think that having non-toy collectors in the house nagging at us periodically or frequently, is a kind of check and balance method to ensure that we don’t go overboard in our toy collecting too easily or rapidly.  Hobbies are best done in moderation.  Being sensitive to the feelings of other people you share your abode with is also crucial, especially if you want your toy collecting hobby to always remind you happy things in life!

So when are my LEGO Kingdoms knights in shining new armor coming to me?  The wait for them continues on…

The month of July is finally here!  I have been waiting patiently for the July 2010 release of LEGO Kingdoms sets for the past few months.  While many fans and collectors have bought their sets as early as last weekend, I have to wait for a few days more because the regular toy shop that I patronize hasn’t received their July LEGO stocks yet.  What a downer! 

And so I continue to wait and with each passing day, I feel myself going ‘crazy’ from over anticipation of getting new toys.  The uncomfortable feeling of wanting those toys so badly gets rather intense when I admire online photos of other fans and collectors showing off their toy conquests for the weekend.  And some of them pull no stops when it comes to their most passionate toy collecting hobby - they buy multiple sets!  I envy their deep pockets and toy harvests, while I still have none of them in my nets…

Sometimes I wonder why I go through this agony of waiting for new toys when I know that soon after acquiring them, they will eventually be stored away after a few days or up to a week on display.  Then I will repeat the vicious cycle all over again when online and hardcopy catalogs of new toy sets are released to entice and excite fans and collectors once more.  When I meet non-toy collectors, I tend to advise them not to get into a collecting hobby, because it’s really a bottomless pit that you can’t get out of anymore, not in your lifetime!   

Happy waiting to everyone for their new toys!

Our local news scene was recently hit by an unexpected and unprecedented island wide breakdown of NETS and credit card network.  This undoubtedly caused great inconvenience to countless customers of that bank involved when people realised that they could not withdraw cash at the ATMs, log on to their online bank accounts, and use their credit cards etc., during those harrowing 7 hours of breakdown.

For me, I was one of those who were affected as I wanted to buy something at a supermarket on that morning.  Fortunately I had enough cash with me then.  That was when I first became aware that such a thing happened that day, before hearing the media report it on tv or radio. 

The upside is that the inconvenience period happened from 3am to around 10am on the same day, whereby many retailers were not opened for business yet.  The repercussions could had been far worse.  Anyway to cut a long story short, the network was restored by noon on that day.  The bank had apologised and would report the findings of their investigations soon.

The above incident led me to think - If I were at a departmental store or at a toy shop where I wanted to buy some toys but I could not use my NETS or credit cards to pay for them, that would have been such a terrible downer for me!  It would especially be so if I had wanted to get those toys for the longest time and that they were on sale or rather hard to come by for me.  I don’t know how else I would react, other than being very sorely disappointed.

How about you?  If you were put in that inconvenient position when you have some very coveted toys to buy, what would your reaction be?  Give up buying the toys, or ask the store to reserve for you till the network is restored or till you come back with the cash etc.,?  Do share your comments here! 

Recently there was an article which I read with interest.  It was about the growing local trends of more and more people renting secure and air-conditioned self storage space for reasonable sums per month, to store their excess possessions that could not fit into their homes.

The original use for such space rental facilities was mainly for people to store their furniture etc., while their homes were being renovated, and while they stayed at smaller and temporary premises elsewhere.  Gradually when people started home based businesses and needed more space to store their goods and equipment, this storage solution worked well with them too. 

Then over the years as hobbies that involve collecting physical items became more widespread, people even rented space to house and store their precious collectible items!  This is also compounded by the lack of land in Singapore to build bigger average homes for all of us. 

It has indeed become a growing trend, though I first heard of this kind of external storage method for collectibles more than 10 years.  Back then a toy collector that I knew was already using a similar concept storage service, but the ‘warehouse’ back then wasn’t as sophisticated as the ones we have today.

Although I don’t use the above kind of self storage service for my toys collection, I do however treat my rental toy lockers at Toy Outpost as a kind of external storage facility for my toys that I don’t mind selling away.  In a way it’s better than keeping them at home where they are not seen and do nothing useful for me.

While the self storage may seem to be the solution for collectors in general, it ultimately does not address the root causes of such phenomena.  And that is, people are basically buying too many things for them to store at home.  Perhaps it’s true that our homes in Singapore are getting smaller, so some people feel that it’s out of their control.  Like it or not, land scarcity in Singapore is here to stay.  We can’t further expand our territories by a lot more.

However, our minds and how we manage our shopaholic emotions are flexible and not as rigid as physical space.  Hence, there is a pressing need for hardcore toy collectors to be focused in their toy collecting hobbies, instead of collecting nearly every fad toyline that comes along every year, collecting every toy in a toyline so as to “complete the sets”.  

We need to be aware of that modern media is throwing all kinds marketing tactics at us everyday, to entice us to part with our hard earned income more readily and buy things that we may and may not really need.  Be especially aware of “addiction” products and services, such as collectible toys and gaming.  “Addiction” businesses thrive on our addiction to what they offer. 

Older generations tend to save up much more than the younger ones do because there were much lesser entertainment and addiction distractions in the old days.  Today many people like to visit shopping malls when they are bored.  There is even a term called “shopping therapy” to relieve stress!

So the next time you decide to make your next purchase of anything, do be more aware of what factors are  influencing you to spend, and to consider very carefully whether you really need to.  We need take charge of our spending habits as early in our lives as possible.  Using self storage may seem like a solution, but if our uncontrolled spending and collecting habits persist, we’ll just end up renting more space to ’solve’ a space constraint problem that isn’t really getting solved.

But we don’t have to totally give up our toys collecting hobby.  Collecting in moderation and culling periodically will help to keep our toys population in check and manageable for us to enjoy the hobby.  I hope that you find this article useful.  Happy toys collecting!

Yup, the post title says it all! 

For toy collectors who build armies of the repeated or similar (usually) soldier toys, do you have a target on how big your toy soldier armies are going to be?  If not, you will just keep pumping in more money to buy the same soldier character toys over and over again. 

In a way, won’t it become like a sort of extreme obsession?  Some collectors have army toys that are more than enough to cover the entire floor of their bedrooms! 

What about you?  Are you an army builder toy collector too?  How do you manage your rapidly expanding army toys, in terms of storage or display space, money and your emotions etc.?  Do feel free to share your thoughts, comments and suggestions here!