TF Views

Are you are completist or a pick & choose type of TF toy buyer?

When I say completist,I am not referring to owning every single TF toy from 1984 all the way thru 2011. I am referring to being a completist of a entire yearly TF toy line worth of toys. examples: Animated,energon,cybertron,botcon,movie verse,etc...

Personally,I don't like buying stuff I hate/loate just out of being a completist.

I prefer to be very picky & pick & choose what TF toys I buy. based off my unique taste & preferences.

As things come out, I pick the guys I think look interesting or fun, or are new toys of characters I like. Or, well, really any old Awesome Old Character will do. I really have no personal attachment to Jazz, but I want his new toy because...he's Jazz.

That said, one day I would like to own the entire toyline--at least the ones that were all released at stateside retail. That, and I actually am close to completing a few lines--RID in particular.

I'm not really a completionist. I'm OCD enough to want to be but too broke to actually do it. I did manage to do with Playmates Star Trek 9" line but unfortunately I had nowhere to display them and had to sell them all. The other thing I find prohibitive to being a completionist is the exclusive and expensive nature of some of the releases.

Similar to Shockwave, I am not a completist. Space is also an issue for me. I might be a completist for odd/idiosyncratic sub-sets, (character types or such), but nothing that is meaningfully official.

I completely agree that being a completist can lead to buying lousy toys out of a sense of obligation rather than fun.

Dom
-tried being a completist with RiD....

I tried being a completist with the Animated line, because I simply liked it that much. But then, Takara launched their own versions, with exclusives and all. And then the Botcon Animated Stunticons came along which were compeletely out of my reach, so.... meh...

I'd like to say that I simply don't wish to bother with all the hassle that comes with being a completist, but, the truth is, too little storage space and too much empty space in my wallet compels me to be selective. A lot more so now than before.

I'm not a completist either. In general I just get figures I think I'll like, or certain favorite characters.

I was a completist up until the movies began, nowadays who the hell can afford to be? There were so few Transformers coming out when I started my "adult" collecting phase (G2 era) that I was buying up Gundams, Voltron, and whatever other robot toys looked cool just to get my fix. Now I'm lucky to be able to grab everything from whatever line I'm really interested in ("Classics" or whatever) and some items of interest from the more plentiful movie stuff. Of course, I also have a lot more bills and what-not, so that doesn't help...

The quicker turn-around on figures now does not help. In all seriousness, even discounting tail end figures, how many waves do stores barely order, if at all? It is not just a question of finding and buying the figures, you have to be able to buy them all when you see them.....

I've been finding the later Generations waves in increasing quantities lately, specifically the Blurr wave. But, look how long it took from the time Blurr started being seen at retail until now for us to see this wave in decent numbers. It's like 4 months. Ridiculous. This is why I'm really just sick of the hunt.

Pick and Choose.

It amazes me to see some of these gigantic collections that fans amass, while mine is teeny tiny. I only ever feel compelled to buy my favorite characters, and with a lot of the shows, that makes it easy to keep it down to 2 or 3 per show. However, funds are kind of an issue too. As much as I loved Animated, I couldn't afford the entire line.