Action Figures are art. Some people collect big bronze or marble statues. I can't afford those, so I collect small plastic ones. I have way more statues than they ever will, it costs me less, and they always look the way I want them to.

CCC.

i love and i mean love going around charity shops(thrift) and raking through the big plastic bins of toys getting weird looks from parents as their kids cant get at the bins ha ha and then at the bottom you come across an old spiderman or something and are like sweeeeet MINE!

Ok so you do see a problem with people who don't collect the way you do, got it. Just wondering where everyone in the thread stood.

Im quite surprised at this thread i find it very interesting and never realised there was such strong and differing views on collecting displaying or playing and who defines it in what way

very good!

I don't care, I'm simply stating reality. The reality is that most serious collectors do not play with their collections. It's neither good nor bad, it is what it is.

cephus
how can anyone actually define how action figures should be collected?
its slightly unfair to say that serious collectors do not play with their figures.

buying 1 figure is fine opening or not then you buy more then open or dont once you have 10 then 20 and so on i think regardless if they are all opened or sealed its still a collection
and im sure theres lots of collectors who open figures and love buying and finding and adding them to their collection surely they take that serious as well?

you cant really say that your not serious collector unless you keep them all in the box ive seen lots of huge collections on youtube all opened and displayed and these guys spend hundreds of pounds a month on figures and display so to me they are taking it serious also.

everyone should just buy 2 of their fave figures open one and keep other MOC best of both worlds that way!

You can justify it any way you like, doesn't make it true, only true to you. Fact is many people do not share your point of view.

Clearly you do care or you wouldn't have tried to justify it in the first place.

I'm still trying to figure out why the hell this is even an issue. What's the purpose of putting finite definitions on what is or isn't a collector? Who cares?

And many, many do, but of course, most of those don't hang out on Internet forums, so that's neither here nor there.

Exactly! It is soooo much fun! It's one of my favorite hobbies, haha. I think the most looks I ever got was when I found a Leonardo figure that was from the live action movies. One of the "Movie Star" Turtles that was "Real-Feel". I was celebrating so much that everyone in the store stopped to look but I was too happy to be embarrassed, haha!

So you are trying to say there is a secret society of "like minded" individuals who don't use the internet?

Sorry that's funny.

Amen.

We collect things becuse they amuse us. They fill a void of some sort we are either aware of or not.Collectors even play with their collections on occassion. The term 'play' is relative. Art collectors sit and admire their paintings. Bike collectors take a bike out for a drive once in a while. On other forms toy collectors take mock up realistic photos of their toys in action. Some Transformer collectors transform their pieces so dust doesn't collect on them. Some collect for their children, allowing them to play with the toys as long as they take care of them. One guy on a Doctor Who site, has everything ever produced packaged but yet has it on display. He constantly takes pictures and sites and admires what he has collected. He simply enjoys it that way.

There is no defintion of a... 'real' collector. That is so relative and subjective.

People can collect how they want. Even if that includes buying pieces and packing them away in a closet for no other reason then they don't care. It's one thing to not have the space or you need to be compact for whatever reason. That happens and yet we still have the desire to see these things on display. These 'horders' can collect how they want, they aren't hurting anyone but I certainly do pity them if anything else.

True. But I've seen a lot of people "collect" toys for the sole purpose of reselling them. To me, these people cannot and should not even be categorized as collectors.

There's no way I can read all the posts here but I read the first and I'm a bit saddens that I think I agree with you. I hope you're wrong but the trend seems to be heading the way you described. I think what's needed is a paradigm shift in the toy industry. The old standard was that toys were accompanied by cartoon shows and other marketing tools but today that doesn't seem to do the trick. I think if toy makers get together with videogame publishers and developers to put out a good product along with a toyline things could be successful. Halo did an awesome job at that. Imagine if Marvel Ultimate Alliance games were released with a toyline as well I think the toys would be more popular amongst the young ones.
As far as price goes, I think that's a product of corporate greed, but that's another story for another forum.

Well they're speculators. They have their own category. Every area has them from realestate to automobiles and even comics and toys.