Saturday, September 9, 2017

Pondering Irma

Last month Hurricane Harvey devastated parts of the Texas and the Gulf coast, dropping record amounts of rain and causing massive flooding. Now Hurricane Irma is bearing down on Florida and is expected to make landfall very soon. A good portion of the state has been ordered to evacuate and it's been about the only thing people seem to be talking about.

Thankfully my family is safe and I doubt we'll feel much of the effects of Irma here in the upstate of South Carolina, however I know (via Facebook) a few fellow collectors that have left their homes in Florida and it got me thinking...what what you do if you lost your collection?


For a lot of us, we have spent countless hours and money on our collections. From searching for items, money spent on acquiring said items and for some of us, money spent on upgrading the way we display our collections. Many of us know that there are far more important things in our lives than our hobbies and the collections we've built up, but put yourself for just a moment in the shoes of some of the people in the path of Irma.

Now if you lost everything you owned, your home, your car(s), every possession you had, then obviously losing a collection of toys or video games is small potatoes. However let's just say for arguments sake that you lost your toy collection to a natural disaster. What do you do? Do you try to rebuild it in some capacity? Or do you just walk away?

I've been giving this a lot of thought over the last few days as I've watched the weather forecasts and watched Hurricane Irma grow in size and intensity. If you follow this blog, then you've probably noticed the other blogs on the sidebar. I have many hobbies and thus have many collections. Toys, video games, comic books, trading cards...if it's collectible I probably have collected it at some point. While these earthly possessions are prized and important, they aren't my life. That said if something took them all away, like a natural disaster, I think I'd be done.


I love my hobbies and I find a lot of enjoyment and peace in what I do. However if faced with what some will be faced with, I don't think I could see myself taking the time and money to rebuild my collections. Most likely I'd have other more important things to focus on for one, but two I just think the massive loss would just kill the desire to collect again. I could see myself re-buying perhaps one of my modern video game consoles, but rebuilding my G1 Transformers collection...sadly no.

What would you do if you were faced with a potential devastating storm rolling through your home? Rebuild the collection or walk away? I'd love to hear your comments.

14 comments:

  1. Id probably be done myself , as I wouldn't know where to start again after this long.

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  2. For me honestly, I'd probably give it up. Spend time with family and people you love. If you do buy toys enjoy them, play with them, do something with them. As long as you enjoyed them that's great. But in reality they're just toys. Whether we like it or not death will come. And we won't be taking these things with us wherever we go. I'm a Christian, so I know I won't be taking my toys with me when I die, but I'm thankful that I got to play with them in my childhood...hope this helps (I too am planning to sell all my transformers toys. I'll just be keeping my GI Joes)

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    1. You and me sound like we have a lot in common David. Thanks for reading the post and commenting.

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  3. It's a tough question. I don't think I'd fully try to rebuild my collection, but would likely keep on picking up what I like, and maybe a few lost favorites. But yeah, it's really a "cross that bridge..." question. Hopefully I'll die peacefully in my sleep years from now with an incredible collection and never have to make that call.

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    1. I'd like to think I'd try to rebuild something, perhaps in smaller quantities...but it's hard to say. Hopefully I'm never put in that situation.

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  4. For the sake of normalcy, I'd rebuild my collection as I would rebuild everything else. I've collected art supplies over the years and I couldn't give that up because it's a part of me. Toys are the same. Toys, comics, video games all have inspired me to be an artist so I could not see letting it go. I'd only stop if the interest fades.

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  5. I don't think I would try to replicate my collection piece for piece, but I would still collect something. I am a collector at heart, so I couldn't give it up entirely. It's likely that I would attempt to rebuild certain parts of my previous collection(s).

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  6. There's nothing in my little display case that I can't live without. I'd walk away. It's just stuff.

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  7. I think I'd probably rebuild as well, though certainly smaller (and more focused). I think I'd go back to LEGO before I went back to baseball cards though, if I only could choose one hobby to continue.

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    1. Funny you mention that about LEGO. If I had to start over, I'd probably just focus one home of my hobbies and let everything else go. Now picking that one hobby would be tough!

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  8. I'd be done, too, if something happened to my collection.

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  9. I'd probably be finished, since financially I'd need to focus on my home. But when I was back on my feet, I'd consider returning to the hobby.

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  10. It is hard to keep a good collector down!

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  11. I think I would probably be done. A large part of my collection is the memories it brought me- I still can remember playing with my toys as a kid, and I still have all my originals. I can remember writing it into my storyline when my original Zap's thumb broke off, that was when I was probably 7 years old. A new figure, a replacement, wouldn't have that memory attached.

    Further, I wouldn't be able to look at any replacements without seeing in my head the lost examples, and the pain that it caused me to lose them. I lost some of my card collection to a flood in 2015 and though I have replaced some of the cards, every time I see the replacement it makes me relive the pain of losing them in the first place...it's pretty much poisoned them for me.

    But, being a collector, I would find something to collect. I'd probably chase something I don't collect now, or sort of collect but put on the backburner because I enjoy cards more, like coins. Or I'd save up everything I could and finally get a classic car, something I've been dreaming about since before I was in grade school...or I would use it to travel.

    I can tell you though that I would not deal well with it. Everything I have, it all is tied to some memory, and I'm very much attached to things...most people would consider it a character flaw. It's just who I am.

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