Changing Gears

Just a quick post today, as once again I'm taking a break in-between organising my display.  This has with it as many challenges as collecting itself.  How does one arrange their collection?  Year of release?  Thematically (works with books)?  Character by character?

Wish I could write the profiles for these guys.

I originally had hoped to arrange them character by character, but despite having a bigger display room than I have ever had before it is already full before I have everything out.  I have had to make a few concessions, my Masterpieces are now in my display cabinet in the lounge / front room / sitting room / room where all the furniture points at the big television.  I imagine these Masterpieces will live in the display cabinet, destroying any hope of rotating the collection every month or so into a different themed display.  This is a double-edge sword, because as much as I was looking forward to having an Optimus Prime display, or a black-only display, or a holy fuck how many e-hobby's? display.  I am more than happy to stare at Masterpieces all day long, especially with the I-Gear Coneheads courtesy of the genius behind Calloway Customs, Nick.  Besides, MP's are a pain in the ass to dust, more so than most.  There is also enough space in the cabinet for the forthcoming I-Gear releases* not-Ironhide and not-Ratchet, because although no-one ever asks what size they are I'm fairly confident they will display well next to Faith Leader, MP Grimlock and MP Starscream, who all look fairly god-damn regal with their crowns and capes.  

All Transformers should have crown and capes so they would all look special and unique.

*I'm planning on spending time talking about these and other third parties in my next article/opinion piece which is already half-written.

So back to my collection and how to display it.  The first question a lot of people struggle with is whether to display boxed or loose.  I would love to display all my figures loose, but some are just worth too much to display and worry about dust, unless I could have all my collection behing glass I would not consider this.  Plus, some stuff just displays damn well in boxes.  Both Maximuses (Brave and Fortress) look damn impressive just from the box.  Also, if I display everything loose, where the hell do I put the boxes?  Wah!  I have too many plastic Transforming robots for my lovely house.  Definitely a first world problem.

Eventually, I have decided to arrange the collection in groups. All G1 and G2 molds from '84-'93 (including Gigastorm and God Neptune as they don't fit on the following shelf), all Beast Wars characters together whether originals, Classics, Robot Masters, Neo, BW2 or the very occasional piece from Beast Machines (most of which will be gracing my trade table at AA '12).  Animated toys deserve their very own shelf, because of their unique aesthetic and just how good the show was, I have the fondest memories of going to the Cartoon Network offices in LA, and having thank giving dinner with some of the guys, remind me to tell you about it sometime).  This leaves one entire wall for EVERYTHING else, Classics / Generations, Unicron trilogy, movie, RiD, Titanium, WFC and god knows what else I'm forgetting.

This is how my collection breaks down:  G1 is half and half by the time you take all the e-hobby's and takara reissues into account.  Beast Wars is 90% loose, Animated 100% loose, as are the Classics.  Movie toys, RiD, WFC and Unicron trilogy will not account for much of the display and will be considered on a piece by piece basis on their own merits, I have a few good memories of Armada / Energon and a few of the Cybertron toys are awesome, but most of the purging of my collection over the last couple of years has come from  this area, as I was fortunate stupid enough to buy all of the Japanese releases as soon as they came out and, thanks to the packaging which is generally of a much, much higher quality than Hasbro, these still fetch good money at Auto Assembly.

The priority of all of these pieces is the Classics, (or CHUG) as that is an ever-expanding collection incorporating Universe, lots of Botcon toys and the occasional piece that I put in just to piss off the fan-dumb (Movie style Seapsray in with Classics,commence mental breakdown now).  My G1 is as done as I want it to be with the exception of grail pieces such as Grandus, Galaxy Shuttle and Overlord.  Classics will hopefully keep on keeping on, and as the shelves get fuller I expect the movie and Unicron toys will get relegated to bottom shelves, then boxes, then sold.

Still, the move has gone well, and so far only a few pieces have been found damaged and most of these are fixable (Omega Supreme small leg clips, original laser Prime sword hilt), everything else seems accounted for, although there was a genuine moment of matriarchal panic when I couldn't find Landmines helmet (not an innuendo either Freud!).   The best thing though, even more so than the space has been the fun I've had, it's given me a chance to look at pieces I haven't looked at for years that I'd forgotten about, such as this:

No idea how much this goes for after the Toys R Us reissue, but still shit the bed rare in this packaging.  I've not seen one in three Botcons.

So let's go and finish organising it, just the final EVERYTHING ELSE wall to go and that's going to be a real squeeze, my Macross and Binaltechs have already invaded the adjoining room which was supposed to be the library, and I've no idea where my un-bought Thundercats and MOTU (2002) will go but I should just about get everything out that I want to.
If I stop writing blogs, I should get it done in the next few days.



But then, where the fuck will I put the TF:  Prime toys?