Rebalancing the hobby and collection

[Norm]

I have spent a couple of months ruthlessly selling, paring back and re-structuring my wargame collection to make it more focussed and better function to me at least.

Cleaning out is a tough task master - but once under way, it is hugely rewarding and hopefully sustainable. I have put up a blog article that discusses it in a bit more depth.

LINK

https://battlefieldswarriors.blogspot.com/2023/11/rebalancing-hobby-collection.html

[Grumpy Gnome]

I hear you, both in pruning some projects and deciding how often to blog. It can be quite challenging but it can also be rewarding.

[Elbows]

I have an obsession with throwing out stuff and organizing...so I endorse this.

With most things, including gaming, I have a rather standard "Have I used this in the past 12 months..." approach.  I have pared down my general hobbying to 5-6 major projects I am content with keeping.  If I consider a new project I do all the math in my head including cost/time/storage space/terrain/mats/dice/etc. that would be needed to run it to the level I enjoy.  That keeps me from starting new random projects.

I sold off many...many 40K miniatures a few years ago and they funded my current projects now.  I thought I would regret selling it, and I don't.  I enjoy funding hobby by selling hobby if I can (i.e. net cost of zero).  Selling one set of seven painted Space Marines gave me enough money to buy several bags of Victrix miniatures to start a new project, etc.  That's a solid trade any day.

It's really nice to have all of my current projects to the playable stage where I simply have all the bins stacked on a shelf in the game garage and I simply add things to them as I feel the desire to hobby.  I enjoy re-doing old stuff I don't think is decent quality, organizing or selling off stuff I don't need, etc.  It's mentally calming to have something sorted, boxed and placed on the shelf ready for use.

[ithoriel]

An interesting read but none of it for me thank you!

I intend to die with a collection of unpainted lead to rival the terracotta army in volume if not value, I play 1 - 3 new board games a week and will never have enough rulebooks to satisfy me.

Fortunately I live alone so there is no one to complain 

 As for blogs ... to busy to write one!

[FifteensAway]

Here is the rub, for me: I know, no doubts on this point, that if I reduce my miniatures collections (no board games to speak off) by a large percentage, then I will get more satisfaction out of what remains.  That is crystal clear.

But!

Getting from here to there remains a misunderstood challenge. Why, having that certainty, do I continue to resist taking the plunge?  A question, to date, for which I have yet to fathom an adequate answer.

I keep telling myself I will finish painting my ACW collection - or at least a big chunk of it - before selling it off.  That would gain me a considerable amount of storage space.  Add in parting with the ACW books and that frees up a a dozen or more linear feet of shelf space.  But why not just part with it as is and have that gain?  Heck if I know. 

Many smaller collections could also be sent "over the transom" to my benefit.

Maybe one day someone will make a comment that propels me into action.

For now, the certainty is that select collections go nowhere: AWI, Old West/Pony Wars, and Slightly Cracked Colonials.

Grrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!   

[joe5mc]

Great blog.  I do believe that better focus often leads to a lot more enjoyment of the hobby.

[Harry Faversham]

Tried it, now binned it, I've so regretted selling some stuff on, I'm now recreating it all over again!

[Norm]

Thanks all, a few days on and my optimism remains high and no regrets at all. It wasn’t an impulsive decision, there was months of (for me) gruelling indecision, but I remain happy with the outcome.

Harry, I did that and then went through this most recent second round of binning (again!). I was right the first time and should have stuck with that hard won victory :-)

Indecision has been my greatest enemy and ruthlessness my greatest friend in this matter.

I think for me, there were elements within the collection, especially amongst scale, that were competing with each other and that has been the basis of streamlining and not just reclaiming storage space.

[SJWi]

Interesting thread and I found the post by Elbows quite salutary. That said I have adopted a "have I/we used this in the last 10 years" rule rather then 12 months. As well as disposing of unwanted projects ( see the Bazaar of Obscurities) I am also trying to refresh long dormant projects/periods rather than start something new. Usually this involves having found a new set of rules.  For 2024 I plan to revisit 16th century Border Reivers and 3 Musketeers, both of which might have been dormant for nearly 20 years, and also dust off my Sudan Anglo-Egyptian army complete with paddle steamer.   

[Fred Mills]

An interesting thread, indeed. My divestments, regardless of scale or quantity, have always been a bit more targeted, and generally for free to friends I know, or friends my friends know, who are working in periods or on collections that I feel I won't get to.

The deaccessions have included a substantial collection of 1/35 scale SWW armour, heaps of 15mm Minifigs in various eras, and older board games with tiny counters whose numbers I can no longer read. Lots of 1/72 scale plastics too, including a few pro bono shipments to members of LAF.

This makes me very happy, knowing that other people are enjoying the toys, and it also often repays itself with incoming stuff these people know I do like and continue to paint, sometimes arriving many months after I initially made a disposal.

At yard sales and such, of course, I always have a weather eye out for things I know my closest mates will like, and they do the same. It isn't barter, really, but just one of the best aspects of the hobby: good folks with similar interests supporting one another's addictions, including people we'll never play against or club around with. I'm mostly a solo player (like, 98% solo), but I do love the banter and exchange and occasional smack talk of the hobby, and so stoking others' collections when I can is a great privilege.

[Easy E]

I went through a period where I was barely holding onto the hobby due to finances and time constraints.  Therefore, the idea of getting rid of anything that I painted and spilled time and effort on is anathema to me.  I keep it all and I find a use for it all! 

There was also a period where I was lucky to get in a game once a year, much less have I used something in the last 12 months!  If I followed a rule like that I would have no hobby left. 

Therefore, due to those rough year I probably have an unhealthy obsession with holding onto stuff.  That said, I do have a backlog of nearly 0, as I finish a project before going onto the next one.  I also can not spend more money on the hobby than I manage to make.  I have a very small unpainted pile due to these two rules.

[syrinx0]

That was last year for me.  Two years before 30+ years of collecting returned to my house when our gaming group shut down. That added to the contents of my daughters apartment pretty much filled the basement. When we moved her stuff out again with a surge of post retirement energy, I purged all unnecessary stuff from every room in the house. I made so many trips to the donation centers... After that I started in on my hobby collection. Sold off multiple stalled projects (1300 unpainted figures) and one small painted army.  My painted 40K IG, WFB Skaven, Warlord Dacian and British Zulu forces probably will be sold soon as the rare gaming I get to now is all skirmish based. I still have about 1500 figures to paint so I don't feel like I sold too much.

[Vis Bellica]

I recently began using Neil Thomas's Rules for Wargaming the 19th Century using figures that hadn't been on the tabletop for 23 years!

So pleased I didn't sell them off: felt really good to use them again.

[SJWi]

Very nice. I did the same with SYW about 18 months ago. I dusted off my old Freikorps figures bought in the early 1990s, replaced the broken flags with some lovely GMB Designs ones, added some few figures to fit the new rules ORBATs and I'm off to the races. I'm even now building a new Anglo-Hanoverian army.

[tikitang]

I am well accustomed to this process.

I never seem to be able to keep any project going for long before I feel like I've got "in too deep" and feel an uncontrollable urge to purge.

This used to be worse; I'm hoping I'm getting better, but I'm not sure. In any case, I never usually take on more than one project at a time, and usually a skirmish game, so my collection of wargaming material is mercifully light whenever the inexorable cloud of DOOM hits!

the idea of getting rid of anything that I painted and spilled time and effort on is anathema to me.  I keep it all and I find a use for it all!

I'm the opposite; the time or money spent doesn't really matter to me once it's gone; whenever the cloud of doom forms over whatever project I'm working on, it is often accompanied by a wave of intense depression which makes me want to get rid of everything associated with the project, no matter the cost.