Aspiration Figures

The Reaping

When it comes to selling off parts of any collection, the collector is as ready to cut off a limb as to sell a beloved piece in their collection. Due to future and current concerns over space I decided to rid myself of my DC Universe Classics collection. I had been agonizing over this for awhile, but when it came right down to it I had to embrace a philosophy that I abandoned a few years ago. That is; treasure the art of toys, not the toys themselves.

Part of my issue was that I had invested a tremendous amount of energy into obtaining my DCU collection. So much so that it felt like abandoning the work I had devoted so much effort to when I even considered divesting myself of my figures. Anyone who collected DCU understands that various issues contributed towards this being a very difficult line to find at times. This rang true especially in the first few years of the line when retailer exclusives took over and drove the fanbase insane. I can't tell you how many out of the way trips I made to Wal-Marts to try and find Wave 5 which included the Atom and the Riddler among others. Then Mattel decided to sell the wave online at Mattycollector.com after so many of us had plunked down scalper prices to obtain it. Frustration is a kind word to describe my state of mind at the time of that discovery.

As you get older and your priorities change, so does the view of collecting in general. There is truly nothing like the well being of children to make you question every single life choice you have made. I know sitting in my basement looking over the stacks of boxes, I came to some serious realizations about  how I had spent my money but with few answers as to why. Anyone with an addictive personality should probably avoid a hobby like this, but one might argue that the two go hand in hand.  Ultimately I had come back around to a place in my mind I had left a few years ago when I had determined my collection would be a curated one instead of an explosion of plastic upon shelving.

I think that in the last few years I have seen various other's acquisitions displayed online and I repeatedly came away feeling that the best ones were never the ones overstuffed with hundreds if not thousands of figures and trinkets adorning shelves, but the smaller collections that displayed a sense of emotional connection and a fastidiousness in regards to the appearance of said collection. Shelf porn is always best when dressed to impress.

So here I am once again taking a hard look at my collection and asking which of the pieces best represent the connection I feel to any of these properties, and which best represent the art of this industry and the reason why so many of us flock to it.