How Big is a Big Collection? Is 300 a magical number?

[robothunter]

The other morning my wife's girlfriend remarks that my collection has gotten pretty big. I appreciate the kind remark and respond that it's really not and there are much larger collections out there and I hope it continues to grow as my luck improves. "How big?", she asks. "Excuse me?" She goes on to ask just how big are some known collections are out there. I talk about the obvious like John's amazing Robot Hut and Joe's fantastic wonderland of robots in Adamstown.

But my wife's good friend won't let it rest. She wants to know what the average "serious collector's collection' is in terms of size. I love when civilians ask questions and really want to engage in serious conversation regarding my robots. And sometimes I just want to finish my coffee in peace. So I removed from the bookshelf my stack of auction catalogs starting with the Davidson sale and handed them over so she could tackle this cosmic question instead of the crossword puzzle.

But it did make me take notice. Does the number 300 hold mystical power in our world? All the great collections sold off over the years (with the exception of Rosen) float around 300.

Davidson Collection 223

Matt Wyse 255

F.H. Griffith 287

Paul Lipps 340

Robert Lesser 326

Allan Rosen 867

Marc Solondz 441 ( just robots, no character toys)

Enzo Pertoldi 328 (yeah, I know. We're not done with that yet.)

I clearly have nothing better to do here at 2:55 am. LOL

[Morbius]

Well Pat, I suppose due to your influence concerning the combined collections of *Altaira and myself we a hovering right around your magic number at this time. Of course this includes smaller less significant pieces as well. The numbers you're talking about with the major collectors such as yours we must take into account each piece being more of a major player on the shelf. Congrats on your latest achievement I know from speaking to you over the past year or so it wasn't as easy as it appears to do what you've done.

*Altaira and I must thank you immensely for your help and for your time and many conversations where we both learned a lot about the hobby despite my 38 years as a collector and her 15 or so. Gotta tell you it was a thrill for us both to have joined you at Enzo's auction and also to have worked with you over many months to add eclectic pieces to our collections that we never thought possible to have on our shelves, it brought the old collection back to life after many years. A true gentleman collector... I must salute you!!!

You've spoken about the extraordinary Joe's museum (which Kelly and I had a wonderful tour by Joe to actually see most everything in detail over a few hours this past fall...Thank You so much Joe) and John Rigg's magnificent Robot Hut but what about Xris? How many millions of 'bots reside in the Belgium Hut?

Oh, and more than half of Al Rosen's collection WAS actually YOURS a few months before.

[steve]

I've never thought about collections in those terms - yet you seem to have hit upon something. I've always looked at collections in terms of Quality not quantity - but that 300 number in terms of size seems about right in terms of many of the major collections. Interesting......

[SH MIKE]

"E" Once told me he wanted to collect all of

the 300 known robots.

[robothunter]

"Well Pat, ...oh, and more than half of Al Rosen's collection WAS actually YOURS a few months before..."

Yeah. I wish! Truth is that was only about 90 pieces if I remember correctly. Mainly because, believe it or not, it was only after deciding to collect only Robby inspired pieces that my collection went down in size to the smallest amount of tin litho toys I had. It was surprising to see that the single robot that had such an impact on generating the growth of the tin space toy movement that produced thousands of toys only produced a small amount of robots and space toys with that iconic image. And secondly, because that's the most number of toys that would fit in that particular showcase.

[Tinplate6]

Gentlemen, I think this needs to be peeled back somewhat. Collection size is based on available space, you collect what you have room for. However, with that having been said, you would need to divide it further into two distinct parts; a practical collection, and a hoarded one. So, what's the difference? A practical collection is one that has all of it's elements on display; what you see is what they have. A hoarded collection, not only consists of displayed pieces, but the untold number of items packed away in a storage area; be it an attic, various rooms, or a literal storage facility.

I know of a collector who clearly has a hoarded collection; he lives in one house, but he has an additional old Victorian home on his property that is stacked from the basement to the rafters with boxed examples of toys; you can barely maneuver through the hall or rooms.

Personally, I prefer a practical collection, I would rather display the collection as opposed to pursuing the ownership of "everything", yet never being able to see what I had amassed. Which is precisely why I'm selling off so much; I just can't enjoy all those things bagged and boxed away.

[Ultrarobotman]

Yes, Pat, first off, that must have been somewhat awkward when your wife's best friend began questioning you about size and all,especially when you replied that you hope it grows, if your luck improves. No damn wonder some of you guys never respond to my wisecracks, sorry...Anyway, my faithful sidekick, Ultrarobotson, estimates our combined collection, including those to come for Christmas, to total around 230. This would, however, include QUITE a few "cheap " small Chinese wind-ups, not all High-End Bots, and proudly so, like yours, Pat. And, as Tinplte6 stated, it most certainly has forced me to consider future available space. It is quickly becoming a premium I would like to reserve for more vintage Horikawas

[robothunter]

"E" Once told me he wanted to collect all of

the 300 known robots.

Ha, ha, ha! Man, this take me back! I had just bought my first tin robot at a pop culture & collectibles shop called Alphaville in Greenwich Village. It was a Billiken Robby Robot. The owner said if I was serious about wanting to start collecting robots I needed to get my hands on a magazine called Robot World & Price Guide. I was told it had gone out of print after only about 5 or 6 issues but it covered every tin robot and space toy ever made. My search for this must-have reference guide paid off when I found all six issues at a comic book store also in the Village. The owner of that shop, who also like robots said that RW & PG was good, but THE book to have was called Roboter and was also out of print and written in German. And luckily for me, he had a well worn copy for sale. I had to own it. At that moment I felt like Indiana Jones when he first laid eye on the Holy Grail.

There is was. All laid out before me. Photographs of all 300 hundred robots and space toys known to exist in the universe! How could any one man have actually tracked down and photographed all these treasures in a single life time? And if I was truly lucky and devoted all my time and energy I might also one day own some of these fantastic toys!

[Tinman]

I'm digging what Brady said about the size of a collection being relative to available space. As my collection room comes together I'm already realizing I'm running out of space...and FAST. It’ll be like Christmas morning when I finally get to unbox my collection, seeing things I haven’t seen in years or forgotten I had. At the same time it’ll be bittersweet because I’ll also be looking for items to weed out, simply because I don’t have the room for them. I can also see my space issues dictating what I collect, maybe adding $500-$600 robots and space toys vice numerous inexpensive items. In the end I’ll always collect what I like, but I’ll need to start using some discretion.

[robothunter]

The same girlfriend of my wife who started this whole conversation went and did some digging of her own on the internet. And she came back bragging to me that she was not only serious in her wanting to know more about this hobby, but had that found many collectors on the net with much, much larger collections than just 300 robots. She said she searched around attempting to find the best collectors in the world and came upon this photo which she said was of a man who had the largest collection in the world. She didn't write down his name but did remember that the copy that went along with the photo described him as an oil billionaire from Dubai. Try as we might, we could not find this same link no matter how many times we tried and I think you'll understand how badly I wanted to learn more about this collector from Dubai once you study the man in the photo.

[Tinman]

Yep, looks like your average oil tycoon to me, a resident of Dubai for sure. You can tell when someone's from Dubai...its the beady eyes.

[Goofateer]

I think you have to consider 3 factors when deciding just how BIG a collection is. 1) What's available? 2) How hard is it to find what's available? And 3) How many other people are collecting the same thing?

Take vintage Star Wars for instance. Kenner made something like 107 figures, and 50 or so vehicles. If you have them all, well then by default, you have a big collection. Sure you can have MORE than all of them. You can have 1000 Storm Troopers, and 20 Tie-Fighters, but that's beside the point. In terms of what's out there, you've fulfilled the mission of putting together the entire collection, therefore, you have a big collection.

Now put that next to the 1980's 3 3/4" G.I. Joe line. I can not tell you how many people I've talked to over the years that have said "I had ALL the G.I. Joe figures! Easily over 100" . . . That's NOT much of a G.I. Joe collection. From 1982 to 1994, Hasbro produced right around 700 figures, and 200 or more vehicles. So a big Star Wars collection would pale in comparison to a big G.I. Joe collection. Granted, Hasbro has made about 2000 Star Wars figures since 1995, they've also pumped out another 1600 or so Joe's. But in strictly vintage 1980's terms, G.I. Joe is a MUCH larger collection.

My personal niche is the oddball G.I. Joe items. I really like G.I. Joe Halloween costumes. One would think there wouldn't be more than 10 to 20 G.I. Joe costumes produced from 1964 through 2000. Most collectors that had any interest in tracking them down would be content with 20 costumes, after that they start getting pretty obscure. But after more than a decade of collecting, I now have about 80 different G.I. Joe costumes, and several prototypes. I can tell you that aside from the the 5 or so most common ones, they are not easy to find. And I still need around 15 to complete my collection. I don't have much competition. There are other people who have added several costumes to their collections, but apparently none on the scale that I've reached. So compared to other collections, and what's available, my mere 80 is quite large.

Roger

[Alessandro]

Enzo Pertoldi collection was 1550 pieces to be precise.

[gernot]

Just found this older topic here on the board discussing the magic number of pieces in various collections.

Well, meanwhile I have collected about 300 + / - Puzzle robot key chains .... :-)).

There must be some truth in these numbers!

Xris in the Waterloo mansion, seems to have 300 variations of each single robot !