Do you ever feel overwhelmed by your collection?

[Bronty]

Between my various collections ai do feel a little overwhelmed at times

[lizards2]

I can't even get to a place where I can log in, grade, and get recent SA/BA books into their proper boxes.

 

I'm 40+ years into collecting, and 15-16 years behind on doing anything with the modern pulls, as I've been on hold for child-rearing.

 

Every foray into the comic cavern is a major disappointment in organization and hoarding-syndrome, that turns into a monster clusterf**k. I find stacks of carp I can't remember buying.

 

I think when I counted things 5-6 years ago, I was at 200+ shortboxes. I really don't care to try to update that calculation. But I still do get excited when new packages of HG SA come in!

 

My youngest kid graduates from HS a year from now, and retirement beckons in 2 years, 10 months, so I look for my ability to deal with my collection to improve soon. And then the major league (for me, anyway) sales will begin.

[snowman28]

I had about 5 short boxes I kept when I was in my teens and when I returned to collecting a few months ago I vowed I would never accumulate more than that as I planned to sell some. Fast forward a couple months later and I'm now at 10 short boxes and 1.5 CGC boxes. Returning to the hobby I was completely obsessed, but now I've tamed myself and haven't visited my LCS in about a month plus I'm VERY glad that I've kept everything in an excel spreadsheet, making it easy to sell when the time comes.

[Bill1]

 

Never overwhelmed. And NEVER sell- not one. However, I do have to work on it every week to keep it up. I fill one box at a time, and catalog them in my computer program, so I can look up any issue at any time and see what box it is in. But, I am now 54, no kids at home, and am lucky enough to have the time and room for it all. Many don't yet.

[AnthonyTheAbyss]

I find it relaxing.

 

Close the door, turn on the TV...a room with me and my comics. Nothing stressful/overwhelming about that.

[Mayor006]

I get overwhelmed with it all the time. The problem is it isn't all one thing like comics. I was huge into football cards for years so I have 15 5,000 count boxes of those probably. I have a box of coins and paper money, I have OA, 3 CGC boxes filled with slabs sitting on top, and 8 long boxes. That doesn't include the antique cameras or any of the action figures or programs, or autographed pictures. I've recently started downsizing this and can at least get most of this in one room but it's too much. I think eventually I want to sell everything except for the three CGC boxes, the OA, and one 5,000 count box of football cards and one long box of comics. It will take a couple of years to do it I'm sure....

[rjpb]

When I see some of the books posted in the Golden Age threads I feel underwhelmed by my collection.

[youmechooz]

When i go to the garage and see the 180 or so boxes, i get overwhelmed. The 70 or so boxes in the basement does this also.

[alecholland]

about 10K books, all in built in shelving. I love seeing it everyday!

 

Eventually I would like to have a setup like yours. I think it would help reduce the stress I feel if everything was more organized and in a designated place. Living in a rental that isn't possible right now.

 

 

[Kevin.J]

I am not overwelmed by my collection, I am overwhelmed by the overspill of my collection.

Like some on here, my collection for the most part is organized, at least 1950s - 1980ish in my main comic room in 21 filing cabinets and about 30 or so long boxes

After that its overspill into 2 other rooms the loft and the garage, total disarray, unsure what is there or where it all is, duplicates, triplicates, piles, long-boxes, short-boxes any-boxes etc

 

Gave 25000 comics away the last 2 Christmas to make space to get on top of it all, I worked in one room for about a week and at the end of it, it just looked like it had before I went in

Overwhelming to the point, where I just shut the door and ignore it all.

I got some criticism recently from friends when I bought a set of Hawkeye as I fancied reading it and just couldn't find my own copies

 

Now slabs, they are just a big pile of about 700 in the center of my floor at the moment, don't know here to begin with them

[porcupine48]

I best come over and help.

Can you imagine?!Be a worse mess than ever,what with you digging to show me stuff and me going nutso looking at things and the two of us drinking and reading and the general chaos of it all....good times already!!!

[alecholland]

I can't even get to a place where I can log in, grade, and get recent SA/BA books into their proper boxes.

 

I'm 40+ years into collecting, and 15-16 years behind on doing anything with the modern pulls, as I've been on hold for child-rearing.

 

Every foray into the comic cavern is a major disappointment in organization and hoarding-syndrome, that turns into a monster clusterf**k. I find stacks of carp I can't remember buying.

 

I think when I counted things 5-6 years ago, I was at 200+ shortboxes. I really don't care to try to update that calculation. But I still do get excited when new packages of HG SA come in!

 

My youngest kid graduates from HS a year from now, and retirement beckons in 2 years, 10 months, so I look for my ability to deal with my collection to improve soon. And then the major league (for me, anyway) sales will begin.

 

I found several boxes of stuff I didn't remember buying. Every time I opened another box it was kind of like Christmas for a moment, then I was like, "why did I buy this?" I've got books from every genre and every era with very little focus. A lot of the books I buy fall into the "good deals" category.

 

In fact, just a couple weeks ago a comic shop near me had a bunch of 20 cent Fantastic Four books for sale at $5 each. Not one book was less than VF, so I bought them all. They also had the same deal on some dollar World's Finest books. Most of those were in the VF/NM or better range, so I bought all of those too. One more short box full of books in about 30 minutes.

[Kevin.J]

I best come over and help.

Can you imagine?!Be a worse mess than ever,what with you digging to show me stuff and me going nutso looking at things and the two of us drinking and reading and the general chaos of it all....good times already!!!

 

Thats just it Jimmers, I can show you anything from my main room in seconds, whats in the other rooms is a mystery to me also.

I think I have shown you almost everything anyway

 

We would just end up totalled and nothing would change

[bighairjer]

Not overwhelmed. I limit my collection to two short boxes and one box of cgc books. Additionally, my collecting has to be cost neutral as I promised my wifey that I wouldnt allocate any of our monetary resources to it.

[Tom473]

A couple years ago, I was up to about 2400 comics, Faced with a move across the country, that amount of comics suddenly became overwhelming to think about protecting in transit. About the same time, I started collecting graded books. Knowing that my job was likely going to keep me moving every few years, I decided to downsize. I sold about 1500 raw comics in lots on eBay and a few short boxes at garage sales. Today, I have narrowed my focus to just a few titles that I really loved from my childhood and am collecting them slabbed. For reading I have started collecting TPBs, hardbound collected editions (omnibuses), and I have totally fallen in love with the IDW artisit's editions. Still bulky to move, but easier for me to protect along the way.

[Vikingreed]

I haven't organized my books in over 10 years.

 

It's gonna be awful...

[Green]

When I first got back into collecting comics around a dozen years ago or so, I thought to myself, "I'm just going to buy a few of the books that I had when I was young." I figured it would only be a couple short boxes or so, as I really didn't have much more than that as a kid.

 

Yesterday I spent most of the day trying to organize a collection of 38 short boxes and one long box and I have to say, it was totally overwhelming. It's been a couple years since I organized it last, and I hadn't realized how much more I had accumulated in that time. In my mind, I haven't really been collecting much. Turns out, not collecting much equals 11 more short boxes of comics over the last 3 years or so.

 

At any rate, I just wondered if anyone else has had this feeling. I kind of don't want to be responsible for all these comics. I feel like if they are in my possession, I am in a sense, their caretaker.

 

 

 

 

So overwhelmed i dont even know where to start half the time.

[Treco]

I'm in the process of organizing my books now. I am overhauling my office to accommodate a good portion of my books. I'm going to make it the room I always wished I had. It has proven to be a much bigger task than I thought it would be.

 

My collection is probably around 3-4k books. So it is not near as large as some of the others here....but between work, wife and kids, it's taking a lot of my spare time to gain any ground.

 

In the end it will be worth it. I'll post pics when I'm finished!

[Waylander]

I am not overwelmed by my collection, I am overwhelmed by the overspill of my collection.

Like some on here, my collection for the most part is organized, at least 1950s - 1980ish in my main comic room in 21 filing cabinets and about 30 or so long boxes

After that its overspill into 2 other rooms the loft and the garage, total disarray, unsure what is there or where it all is, duplicates, triplicates, piles, long-boxes, short-boxes any-boxes etc

 

Gave 25000 comics away the last 2 Christmas to make space to get on top of it all, I worked in one room for about a week and at the end of it, it just looked like it had before I went in

Overwhelming to the point, where I just shut the door and ignore it all.

I got some criticism recently from friends when I bought a set of Hawkeye as I fancied reading it and just couldn't find my own copies

 

Now slabs, they are just a big pile of about 700 in the center of my floor at the moment, don't know here to begin with them

 

After I visit - your troubles will be over

[Mayor006]

Not overwhelmed. I limit my collection to two short boxes and one box of cgc books. Additionally, my collecting has to be cost neutral as I promised my wifey that I wouldnt allocate any of our monetary resources to it.

 

This is the hard part and congratulations if you have the will power to do it. I do photography on the side so I at least throw that money at my hobbies when I'm not reinvesting in equipment, but I try not to spend any of our family income on my hobbies either.