A Collector's Take: The mentality of collecting

12:00 PM on 08.29.2010   |   Call Niero

The topic for this post was originally supposed to be on budgeting, but after seeing a screening of The Vinyl Frontier last night, I had something weighting heavily on my mind that was very much relevant to the topic I picked for my stint on A Collector's Take. If you missed it you can go check out my first one, which goes over the basics of being a multi-collector.

If you collect from a lot of different areas you probably have a very different perspective from a person who collects in one area. From my experience, many if not most of the vinyl collectors tend to just collect vinyl, and they have a drastically different viewpoint on what collecting should be about than, say, an action figure or PVC collector. This leads us to my discussion for today. What constitutes "real" collectible items, what makes something not valuable or a "sell out", and how do we label our figures and hobby? 

I am not overly concerned with the rarity of my figures. I do indeed have some very rare figures, but I bought them because I like how they look, not because of how few of them there were. For example, I have the Halloween Edition Pandara, which was a run of just 3. When I first saw him I knew I had to have him. And it was not because I saw that he was limited and suddenly decided that he was worth buying. He was adorable and spooky, and if anything the limited run number made me hesitant. With anything limited, there is the inevitable fear of not getting one.

However, the perspective of most of the artists and collectors in The Vinyl Frontier was the exact opposite. They liked limited. In fact, many explicitly stated that they wanted limited figures. Some even said that larger run numbers would upset them. This simply baffles me. I understand the appeal of having a rare figure, but I can't imagine being upset because a figure was not limited. That would be akin to not buying Momohime or Seena because there were "too many" of them.

However, this is a viewpoint that most of the vinyl community shares. There are of course exceptions, and probably many of them, but the overall mentality seems to be that limited = better.  As many of you know, I started out collecting vinyl exclusively, but I never shared this mindset. In fact, by the time I was really aware of it I had started collecting so many other things that it did not apply to me at all. Looking back, I think that this mentality was one of the reasons that I actually strayed away from vinyl a bit. After seeing people complain that an 8" Dunny run of 1500 was "too many" and that there should be a hundred because that would make it "more collectible" I was a bit fed up. 

Because my interactions with the vinyl community have become more limited, I had almost forgotten about what a real problem this is for the hobby. Because it is based on limited/exclusive merchandise, people are afraid to get into vinyl collecting because they feel that they won't be able to get things that they like. 

While I usually find this mentality annoying but easy to ignore, there was one moment in the film that really startled me into realizing how damaging this really is. They were talking about commercial toys that are produced in huge runs, and the image was of one of the Mattel MOTU figures. Which are limited figures. It's incredibly hard to get one the day it goes up. But to vinyl, there are still too many of them. They are not "valuable" or art because there are so many. Now I own a few figures from this line, and I find the judgment placed upon them to be incredibly arbitrary and strange. Vinyl as a community tends to think it is better than other collectibles (especially PVC and action figures) simply because they are more limited. 

For example, the dragon that Scareglow is riding in the above image cost me $10. To a lot of people that would make him not a "real collectible" because he was 1) cheap and 2) mass-produced (although almost every figure is mass-produced to a degree). I generally feel that collecting should be an accepting hobby. After all, we're all here because we love figures. And you have every right to like your toys better than other ones, but to simply pass judgment based on run numbers? That seems absurd. 

Now you might think that this is all fine and dandy because it is just what they think, but this mentality is stifling the industry. Look at what happened when Good Smile Company "re-released" Kaito in limited numbers. People were not happy because Kaito was limited, they were furious that they lost the opportunity to own this awesome figure. Even though I managed to get one, I was upset that so many people could not. Collectors deserve a chance to get figures that they want, and that chance should last longer than the 10 minutes that figures like Kaito (or most vinyl products) sell out in.

In vinyl, this is what people want. Some companies like Super7 have been going the other direction and are slowly increasing run numbers, but most companies are very much stuck in the limited = better mindset. And because of this, it is harder to expand. If you continue to make 200 of x product, you are only going to sell 200. Open runs are unheard of in vinyl, and I think that this is going to continue for a long, long time. Some figures, like Andrew Bell's red O-No Sushi, are made for years, which is commendable, but most sadly fall into the category of "produced one time and 200 made." 

In all honestly, I love a lot of vinyl figures. Vinyl makes up about half of my collection, and it has some incredible designs. But I also love PVC and plushes and many other areas of figure collecting. And while I (for the most part) love the communities for each of these, it is saddening to see an entire medium stifled by this drive for limited merchandise. And I find myself buying less and less vinyl as time goes on because it is just easier to obtain other figures. And not just new ones, but old figures too. You can find old, rare and unopened PVC for retail or less if you look hard enough, but good luck finding one of the rarer older 8" Dunnys for less than double retail. 

None of this means that The Vinyl Frontier was not a good movie. In fact it was a wonderful representation of the community and had some really interesting people in it (Jermaine Rogers is the shit, by the way), but the entire mentality runs throughout the film. It is generally accepted that vinyl is limited and rare, and I doubt any amount of arguing will change this. However, I would love to see some changes made, if not directly to the figures then to the mentality of collecting. While this may sound naive, I wish collectors could just be happy that other people get to share in the hobby and not resentful of increased run sizes or less rare items. Because to me, one of the best things about the hobby is the sharing and the community. There are few things more fun than opening a case of Dunnys with a group of people at a release party or writing a review of an amazing PVC figure. This shared aspect of collecting is a huge part of what makes it so addictive, and to see a community tear apart people just because they don't view toys the same way is a real shame. 

I am sure that many collectors, both of vinyl and other mediums, either feel the same way or have an entirely different opinion. So please let us know in the comments what your personal collecting mentality is!