Quitting/putting collecting on pause

[joshsquash729]

The great purge begins tonight.

It's time.

I'm ready.

It took me a week or two to really process what I'm willing to part with, what I am not going to miss. I hate listing shit on eBay, and Marketplace, it's quite literally my arduous nightmare.

But, shit's gotta go before I balk.

As has been mentioned, I did get a few things in this week, and yeah...the dopamine ain't hittin' like she used to. On certain things. I open it, I say "Pretty cool". Then it gets set aside. They go.

Others, like these Mety TMNT, I can't put down. They are so much fun, and quite literally, my childhood. They stay.

Wish me luck.

You got this, my friend! I've been in a somewhat similar boat recently- finally getting around to parting with things that I've been neglecting for whatever reason, and honestly, once I start, it gets pretty dang easy from there. I've yet to really regret parting with anything, and the space it clears for some of the things I really do love to finally have room to be displayed is more than enough to make up for whatever temporary sadness I may feel. I really do feel that tiny bit lighter.

Just take it a little bit at a time, and if you need more encouragement- gentle or harsh- you know we got you!

 

[altcunningham]

You can do eet!

 

[Xavion2025]

Invest in a small postage scale if you don’t have one already, and take advantage of eBay’s built in USPS capability. Being able to just drop off packages at the post office rather than standing in line or even using the postage machine will save you so much time and aggravation.

Once you find your groove, you’ll be surprised how easy it is.

 

[joshsquash729]

Invest in a small postage scale if you don’t have one already, and take advantage of eBay’s built in USPS capability. Being able to just drop off packages at the post office rather than standing in line or even using the postage machine will save you so much time and aggravation.

Once you find your groove, you’ll be surprised how easy it is.

I second this. But, worse comes to worse, for folks without a printer like myself, their self-service kiosk is really easy. Made me much more willing to sell things on ebay, knowing I wouldn't have to waste half an hour standing in a line. Not always the case, but there's usually no line at all, and if there is, it's usually much shorter than the regular one. I can just stroll right in, scan the QR code ebay generated to print the label there, and drop it in the window. Easy peasy, booty squeezy.

 

[Xavion2025]

Wow, I didn’t know there was an eBay QR code that you can scan at the kiosk. That’s a really nice feature. Honestly, I think the only time we ever use our printer anymore is to print shipping labels.

 

[joshsquash729]

Wow, I didn’t know there was an eBay QR code that you can scan at the kiosk. That’s a really nice feature. Honestly, I think the only time we ever use our printer anymore is to print shipping labels.

Yeah! Just pick the "print later" option on ebay (or whatever it is now), it'll generate a QR code, and when you're at the kiosk, just hit the "print QR code for label" button on the main screen. Also saves on tape, since it'll print on the sticky paper and you can just slap that baby on the box!

 

[yojoebro82]

The great purge begins tonight.

It's time.

I'm ready.

It took me a week or two to really process what I'm willing to part with, what I am not going to miss. I hate listing shit on eBay, and Marketplace, it's quite literally my arduous nightmare.

But, shit's gotta go before I balk.

As has been mentioned, I did get a few things in this week, and yeah...the dopamine ain't hittin' like she used to. On certain things. I open it, I say "Pretty cool". Then it gets set aside. They go.

Others, like these Mety TMNT, I can't put down. They are so much fun, and quite literally, my childhood. They stay.

Wish me luck.

Take a pic of the stuff you're purging!

 

[SalemCrow]

So we put an offer in on a house on Thursday, and have been getting emails from our agent because today was the first open house, but our offer was accepted this evening, so as long as inspections and a few other things go well, I WILL need to buckle down on thinning shit out.

 

[Damien]

So we put an offer in on a house on Thursday, and have been getting emails from our agent because today was the first open house, but our offer was accepted this evening, so as long as inspections and a few other things go well, I WILL need to buckle down on thinning shit out.

Congrats!

 

[hmmberto]

I second this. But, worse comes to worse, for folks without a printer like myself, their self-service kiosk is really easy. Made me much more willing to sell things on ebay, knowing I wouldn't have to waste half an hour standing in a line. Not always the case, but there's usually no line at all, and if there is, it's usually much shorter than the regular one. I can just stroll right in, scan the QR code ebay generated to print the label there, and drop it in the window. Easy peasy, booty squeezy.

I was convinced to buy a thermal label printer last year after a recommendation from a fellow ATer and it is a game changer for me. Easily worth the ~$60 I spent on it. That plus the scale are now must-haves for any sales adventures I embark on.

 

[RicksNerdLife]

So we put an offer in on a house on Thursday, and have been getting emails from our agent because today was the first open house, but our offer was accepted this evening, so as long as inspections and a few other things go well, I WILL need to buckle down on thinning shit out.

Be there with you soon! Congratulations!

 

[altcunningham]

So we put an offer in on a house on Thursday, and have been getting emails from our agent because today was the first open house, but our offer was accepted this evening, so as long as inspections and a few other things go well, I WILL need to buckle down on thinning shit out.

Awesome, congratulations!

 

[mrboshek]

I just thought of one of the mistakes I made as a seller. For the first five years or so as a frequent seller, any money coming in was going back out toward new toys. It's only been in the last three or four years where I've seen an appreciable decrease in the amount I have, mostly by pulling back on the Hasbro product. Seems like it would be an easy concept to grasp, but like I said, it took me at least five years.

Selling and cutting back seems to be the in thing. I just heard Dan Larson mention it in passing when he said his 50th was coming up. Right now I'm listening to guys talk about "curating" their Hot Toys.

 

[altcunningham]

I just thought of one of the mistakes I made as a seller. For the first five years or so as a frequent seller, any money coming in was going back out toward new toys. It's only been in the last three or four years where I've seen an appreciable decrease in the amount I have, mostly by pulling back on the Hasbro product. Seems like it would be an easy concept to grasp, but like I said, it took me at least five years.

Selling and cutting back seems to be the in thing. I just heard Dan Larson mention it in passing when he said his 50th was coming up. Right now I'm listening to guys talk about "curating" their Hot Toys.

It's cool if you want to find your toys like that. I also called it keeping a fluid collection.

But yeah, if you're trying to cut back, it's an easy mind trick to fall into

I was just out a toy show today and only picked up two figures that had been wants, I'd just never seen.

This was the first toy show since I want to cut back, and it was pretty easy to just not even look at certain lines. Doubly easy when you see the prices people want some of this stuff to go for. $250 CAD for the Sauron three pack, when I can actually hold the box and look at the figures inside and see that's not a value. $55 for recent wave stuff that isn't easy to source but I POed at a discount a month ago.

Felt like beating a checkpoint leaving with most of my cash and two figures, when before I'd have had a bag full and reloaded at the ATM.

 

[gpmartin414]

Reading through this thread has been very interesting. Personally, I’m at a point in my collecting where I’m thinking through what I want my collection to look like long term

For the first time in my life, I finally have a dedicated collection room now that I have a house. (It’s technically my office since I mainly work from home.) Prior to last summer, my collection lived in two places — I had three full and one half Billy shelves in my small NYC apartment, and the rest of my collection was in storage at my parents’ house. It didn’t feel great knowing so much of my collection wasn’t being enjoyed.

I’ve been mailing stuff back when I decided it was time to make room for something else. So I’ve effectively been using my childhood bedroom as a storage unit for 15 years. The last five it’s actually looked like a storage unit.

Over the last six months, I’ve been setting up the room with what’s ended up being about three times the amount of shelving and moving stuff from my parents’ one car trip at a time.

At this point, I’ve filled about 90% of the available space — and I’ve been getting super creative about fitting in more shelves and ways to display.

The issue is that my old room is still full of boxes. A lot of the space taken up will be made smaller as I take out packing material from shipping and consolidate items, but it’s still going to be a lot of extra stuff.

I have a basement but don’t want to have it be over-taken (and my wife won’t let me). So once everything is moved over, I’ll have to do a major purge. I’m always selling stuff on eBay but it’s been about five years since I sold like hundreds of listings and/or giant lots.

On one hand I’m looking forward to unburdening myself of this stuff and making money, but I know how much work it takes so also dreading it.

On a related note, once I’m like 95% done in a few months, I’ll have to take lots of good pictures of my collection room. It actually has felt really great to get stuff on display. I used to get a ton of anxiety thinking about having all this stuff just exist in storage.

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