The collecting dynamics

Growing up, I always thought my collections would last forever. I'd get more and more things over the years and somehow I had the idea that one day it would be complete and I'd have everything there was to collect on a certain subject (My Little Pony, DVD's, anime and manga) and I'd be happy having it all. Of course, that's not how it ended up working.

As I started collecting things through the internet, the most fun part of collecting was not actually getting new things (while that was fun, too); it was the interaction with other collectors, the trading and making new friends, that made it so addicting. And as much as I enjoyed buying new things, at some point I had so much I began to lose track of what I had and everything went from a fun collection to a cluttered house.
So instead of only buying and trading, I began to sell parts of my collection.

And I loved it. It was awesome to go through my things and select only those that I really wanted to keep and ship off other things to other people, making back some money in the process. I loved seeing my trader feedback grow and I loved using the money I had made selling things to buy new things I enjoyed more.

But lately I haven't been buying much at all; I'm only selling and the size of my collections is shrinking rapidly, and I'm even selling off some things completely. I'm currently in the process of selling my Monster High dolls (all of them) and I'm planning to sell at least 200 ponies because the truth is, I enjoy my stuff more when I only have those things that I really, really want. I used to keep adding things to my collections just for the sake of making them complete, but that just lessened the amount of joy I got from them because they consisted of things I didn't really want.

This doesn't mean I will stop collecting or that I don't enjoy toys or other collections anymore - I most certainly do. I just don't want them to be in every single part of my house and there's so many other things I want to do more lately (writing courses for example). But I am still very much enjoying collecting. Selling, too, is part of the whole collecting experience for me and I love to interact with other collectors on forums and in real life. Besides, I feel like my collections grow stale if I don't go through them every once in a while to make sure I still really want all of it.

And the truth is, I feel like I enjoy everything so much more now - appreciating other people's collections, the few things that I still do buy, the news about upcoming new products; I no longer feel obligated to get it all and I can just be very picky about the things that I add. And it's great to let things go once in a while. Sometimes you just get bored with a toy line or it doesn't evolve in the direction you like and it feels refreshing to say "okay, I'm letting this go and I'll focus on something else", which is how I feel about Monster High now. And sometimes I just feel like selling stuff just so I get to meet new fellow collectors!