There is a lot about diecast collecting that makes it a lot less attractive than comic book collecting. I haven't quite lost my resolve to continue with this new hobby (considering I've picked up a few more items today, undoubtedly over the objection of my wife and probably my wallet down the line), but there are some hard lessons I'm continuing to learn about this thing. Allow me to enumerate some of my frustrations:
1. There is a lot less predictability in collecting these things. It's not as though one can plunk down x pesos and say "I want to subscribe to the next dozen really cool hot wheels cars." One can check out the latest releases on the web site, but it's not as if any of the stores that carry these things will reserve a chunk of cars that I like for me. Pre-ordering doesn't seem to be part of diecast merchants' culture. And it's not like I can write Mattel (though I am writing the smaller company whose cars I have bought, which I happen to consider the crown jewels of my growing collection). So I still have to go trawling, which, while it can be fun, isn't something I can do all the time.
2. Because I don't really know the ratio of distribution of certain items, I don't really know what's "rare" or not other than by how hard a time I am finding something. At least with comic books, they're more up front. I hate getting suckered in by the alleged "collectibility" factor. I bought a couple of Hot Wheels toys today because they boasted the "Faster Than Ever" copper-colored wheels as opposed to the normal silver-spoked wheels. They were nowhere on my priority list (which after several days of searching is nowhere close to being checked off), but because I knew that "Faster Than Evers" were supposedly "hard to find," I bought them both. Sure, I feel smug about paying the normal rate for supposedly "rare" cars and sure I felt smug about glancing on eBay and finding out how much these things go for, but the truth is that I wasn't in the market for them in the first place and now I just feel like an idiotic speculator. I shouldn't deviate from the rule: buy only what I really want, not what I think I can eventually sell for more, or something like that. My comics collecting streamlined after I junked that line of thinking (and I have yet to sell any of my comics, despite a couple of ad postings I've done over the years). This early, I've already succumbed to the temptation to collect for the sake of it, and not for the love of the cars. Well, no more, not if I can help it.
3. I hate walking into a collectibles store early in my search, finding nothing, and then searching the rest of the mall/emporium only to find that I have already searched the only collectible store around. Today I walked into Makati Cinema Square thinking I had found the new Virra Mall, namely a firetrap of dimly-lit, nook-and-cranny stores brimming with hard-to-find gems (a title the real Virra Mall lost when it went all clean and commercial looking), only to learn that only gun fanatics would feel that way about the place. There was only one collectibles store in there and while their stash was impressive, they still didn't have what I was and am STILL looking for.
Ultimately...
4. I HATE NOT BEING ABLE TO FIND WHAT I'M LOOKING FOR!!! My holy grail eludes me still, after several days of trawling nearly a dozen department, toy, and collectibles stores. For a collector, most of the thrill is in the chase, and should I ever find this item without paying a fortune for it on eBay (which I pray to God never to have to do), I will truly be gratified. Finding this item may even trump the twin Shelby GR-1 discovery I made last Christmas day.
Still, this hobby is proving increasingly involving; while the easiest response to the "what makes this better than comics" question may be to call them apples and oranges, I will say that there's something about collecting three-dimensional works of art, which is what a lot of the cars in my collection are, albeit diecast and mass-produced, that's really special. All things considered though, I never really want to go into a "diecast trumps comics" diatribe or anything like that. Comics will always be special to me, whether or not I'm buying them on a regular basis.
I guess this love-hate relationship I'm developing with my new hobby goes to show I'm in pretty deep...
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