How many of us are openers?

[jjreason]

I'm with JabbaJohnL and Stilla on this one. The only things I have boxed or carded right now are my Xmas sets, a few ships I haven't figured out where to display yet, the silver figures, and Jorg Sacul. Opening is fun, the only problem is sometimes the figure isn't as good as it looked in the package or online.

[sith_killer_99]

Top reason for keeping 'em carded.

1. Cool conversation piece. "Yes, my collection is worth $100,000,000,000 grovel at my feet!" or "Yes, I have carded figures from the US, Canada, Mexico, Germany, Italy, Japan and China." hehehe see the little "made in china" logo. hehehe

2. No need to buy wall paper.

3. Perfect excuse to buy more figures. "Yes honey, I do have a POTF2 Sandtrooper on Orange Card and Green Card, but I don't have the Freeze Frame version!

JK, of course I have a carded Freeze Frame Sandtrooper in my collection.

[Darth Mina]

Impresive, very impresive, we the openers are outnumbering the MOC I used to think that it was the other way arround

[Kidhuman]

We are a dying breed.

[IMFETTUP]

Great thread and question Mina! I've been collecting since 95 and just recently started opening some of my figures. I only open those that I have doubles or triples of, however. What really swayed my decision was the addition of unleashed figures. You just can't appreciate these unless they are out of the box and set up. The Boba Fett is an example. I also opened up some silver clone troopers I had. The other reason I will open up a figure is when it is on a terrible, beat up card. I would much rather have a mint figure than a mint figure on a card that looks like it was trampled on. Come to think of it, I opened up some cantina band members (12 inch) that I recently found at a collectables store for 9.99. Great figure, terrible box.

[Droid]

I have always opened everything, but I also kept the packaging. Finally, I just couldn't store everything anymore and threw all of the packaging away. It cut the space by two thirds at least. I have a few items in the package still that turned out to be very rare by the time I found them: a spare Ephant Mon, a tri-logo clean biker scout, a Watto's Box cinema scene, Jar Jar with fish, and R2 with holographic Leia, silver R2, a few other things. Other than that I open everything.

[JediTricks]

Wow, I like that! I never thought of it that way, but that's exactly what they are, oversized trading cards (expensive too)

Thanks, that description just came to me the other day while discussing with someone on the figures.com forums the various facets of SW collecting. I'm not sure if the analogy holds true for every carded collector, but it sure seems like that's what it is for a lot of 'em.

The biggest problem I had with displaying my loose figures was the domino effect of one falling over and knocking over a dozen or more other figures. Especially with the ridiculous stances some of them have to be positioned in to stand. I was tempted to have a limbo game diorama with some of them. At my new digs I'm planning on building shelves with step-like elevation on them as well as dowel pegs for the feet holes, so that i don't have to worry about them falling over. I've also taken to leaving the invisible rubber bands on a few of them to get around the weapon drops.

The domino effect has always been the thing that bugged me most about displaying my figures. Oftentimes, it'd only take out like 3 figures but my standing them back up would take out another 4 or 5. I was a real stickler for the figures being able to stand on their own for a long time, but eventually gave up and got an Ultarama stand and some regular disk stands - the cool thing about Ultarama is that the pegs are in no danger of breaking off in the feet (something that occasionally happens with older traditional stands). Even though I live in an earthquake area, I haven't had a lot of falling figures caused by shaking or anything, mostly I accidentally cause the falls by trying to get a figure that's further back. I'm usually also just as stubborn about clear-bands holding the weapons in place as I am about no-stands, I think I've only broken my no-bands rule 2 or 3 times so far.

I have always opened everything, but I also kept the packaging. Finally, I just couldn't store everything anymore and threw all of the packaging away.

I also do this, and for a while it was the same problem you describe, but once I straightened up, put the cardbacks into the boxes, threw out the bubbles and trays (I didn't keep most of these to begin with, but even the few I did keep took up a lot of space), and flattened the other boxes, the packaging took up only minimal amounts of space. The nesting technique, putting smaller packaging in the larger boxes, really paid off for my 3.75" collecting. Also, to speed up the harvest I have stopped cutting the bubbles off the cards (except for rare circumstances) and generally just rip the bubbles off the cards, making sure to start at the Hasbro logo. POTJ with its generic cards broke me of that habit... in fact, I only kept the UPCs on most of my POTJ cards.

[stillakid]

I still hang onto most of the packaging, though I'm not sure why. It's just part of that sickness which makes me buy this stuff in the first place I suppose. Maybe it's because I only have a scant few of the vintage cardbacks left from days of olde so I'm over compensating or something.

[sith_killer_99]

Impresive, very impresive, we the openers are outnumbering the MOC I used to think that it was the other way arround

It seems to be about half and half here, I pretty much consider myself a carded collector, though I probably have close to the same number of loose as I do carded (Army Builders really add up).

If you want the real hard core MOMC collecting crowd head over to www.POTF2.com those guys take it to the max!!! It's also one of my favorite hangouts!

I also do this, and for a while it was the same problem you describe, but once I straightened up, put the cardbacks into the boxes, threw out the bubbles and trays (I didn't keep most of these to begin with, but even the few I did keep took up a lot of space), and flattened the other boxes, the packaging took up only minimal amounts of space.

Yeah, I cut off the trays and put the cards (and inserts from Saga) into Comic bags with backers. It's a throw back to my old comic collecting days! POTJ was pretty easy, only a dozen or so total card variations.

[vadersvette]

Gonna have to be a huge dang coffin for you.

LOL, they'll have to use a house-sized coffin--I know they will for me!
I also do what Droid does and keep the packaging. Except some of my vehicles' boxes from '95 are gone But I have a huge stack of figure cards in my drawer!