Peaked.

I've hit a new stage in my whole collector-of-toy-cars phase: the sudden and insatiable desire to unload a big fat chunk of my collection on eBay.

Yes, the pile of over one dozen blister-pack sealed cars sitting in the top shelf of my wardrobe seems to practically be begging me to put it online and eventually into the hands of better owners whose ardor for them won't cool into indifference as quickly as mine has.

It really was all about the hunt, when I think about it; after I'd put them away in my closet and forgotten about them, there wasn't much else to say or do, especially considering I couldn't take them out of their blister packs and play with them.

There were a number of things that have brought about this feeling, but I think the first one is that I feel lately that I hit a different level last month when I picked up a couple of considerably pricier cars; I ventured into 1/43 territory, and with it acrylic cases, stunning details, and somewhat eyebrow raising prices that come with it.

I could put these cars, one red Mercedes Benz SLR McLaren and one silver Porsche Carrera GT, beside each other on the headboard of my bed and stare at them until I'd literally pass out. They kept me company when I was home sick all of this week and everyone was out. The other two cars that I "hung out with" were two of my four 1:18 scale cars: a silver Ferrari F430 and a silver SLR McLaren.

Looking at them, I eventually got to thinking "there are so few of these, but I get so much more satisfaction out of them than out of the dozens and dozens of little cars I've accumulated like lint in the last ten months or so. They cost a little more, but I enjoy them so much more, from the details, to the acrylic cases, to the way they just capture the essence of the cars after which they were modeled."

The perfect analogy, I believe, is a gastronomical one. A rib eye steak with potatoes and vegetables on the side definitely costs more than a small bag of nachos, but on the other hand it is so...much...more... filling, so much more satisfying.

Those little cars in their huge plastic casings have been my small bags of chips, which I'd buy on a whim, not really thinking much about them once they were stowed away. Now they're stacked in a pile, and all I can see of them is their packaging unless I make the effort to extract them from their hiding place. It was thus that I also came to realize that my new 1/43 cars, with their no-nonsense, rectangular, sturdy acrylic display cases, were much easier to store than those cumbersome Jada 1/64 Shelby Cobras and Ford GTs, with their preposterous blister packaging which, in true American tradition, occupies five times the space the actual car does. I realized that eighty percent of the ridiculous things is packaging.

My first impulse was to think: I'll hawk these 1/64s on eBay or at my forum and then use the money to buy a couple more 1/43s!

But then sobriety prevailed, and I wasn't about to just go out and spend the equivalent of thirty to sixty dollars on one or two cars, not when there are other immediate uses for the money.

The idea of selling the 1/64s has still stuck, though, and as soon as I reinstall the software that enables me to upload pictures from my camera, the toy pushing begins.

The nice thing about those 1/43s is that, near as I can tell anyway, the folks at the stores that carry them maintain a fairly generous stock, and because they're kind of pricey they aren't sold out in a hurry. So for the first time in a while, since I started collecting, I feel I can take my time, something I haven't felt since I first missed out on buying that silver Shelby Cobra so many months ago.

In short, I've made a resolution to swap quantity...for quality.

(I'm still hanging onto my garden-variety Matchboxes and Hot Wheels, though; they're pretty easy to stack and stow).