Are You A Completist? (And If So, Don't You Ever Get Disappointed?)

I noticed that Griffin's acquisitions for the day had the word "meh" as his basic summary and it got me wondering.

For Transfans who are completists in any way, (whether it be almost all-encompassing like Griffin's collection or a focussed completism [like... I think maybe Kyle collects Optimus Primes for example] or even just people who collect everything from a single line like ROTF toys) - don't you get disappointed? Do you ever get to the point after buying the umpteenth badly-designed/badly-quality-controlled/just-plain-bad toy where you think you should stop buying things just because they fit a certain completist criteria you once set yourself? Or are you blissfully happy to keep running over these potholes in order to keep yourself on the road to completeness? Or are you seriously never disappointed by any Transformers toy?

Personally I understand G1 completism a bit more than I understand devoutly collecting modern lines - in my life (with a few exceptions) I have rarely been underwhelmed by G1 designs or toys, as long as they're in good condition. Similarly, I think the first year or two of Beast Wars was fantastic and I can understand people wanting to complete a great toyline like Beast Wars Neo. On the other hand, I find the Transformers of the 2000s disappoint me constantly and as a result I've stopped buying them completely at this point.

Thus, I was just thinking I was interested in knowing how other people feel regarding this topic. :)

Great topic Sky Shadow. Touched on lots of stuff I have been wondering myself.

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Originally Posted by Sky Shadow

For Transfans who are completists in any way, (whether it be almost all-encompassing like Griffin's collection or a focussed completism [like... I think maybe Kyle collects Optimus Primes for example] or even just people who collect everything from a single line like ROTF toys)

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I guess I fall into the 'focused completism' category.

I'm mostly only interested in G1 but sometimes marginally interested in some later line of Transformers. I think the Binaltechs and Masterpieces are great toys and have completed collecting them up to date. Once in a while there would be something from a line that catches my fancy for example Galaxy Force Starscream (which was based on the DW War Within designs).

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Originally Posted by Sky Shadow

- don't you get disappointed? Do you ever get to the point after buying the umpteenth badly-designed/badly-quality-controlled/just-plain-bad toy where you think you should stop buying things just because they fit a certain completist criteria you once set yourself? Or are you blissfully happy to keep running over these potholes in order to keep yourself on the road to completeness? Or are you seriously never disappointed by any Transformers toy?

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I do get disappointed, and at times seriously pissed off. To be honest, Hasbro's toy quality is getting from bad to worse - paint apps are shoddy, plastic quality is cheap, packaging design is horrendous and unnecessarily complex.

I have in my time bought various toys from Armada, Galaxy Force, Energon, Transformers Movie (1st one), and have been disappointed and appalled time after time after time. For example, I think that the Deluxe Brawl toy from the first movie is one of the worst designed and put together Transformer toys in recent memory. And then there's the sorry Titanium series, man, they suck.

There may be others. But I'm not aware. Because I'm so sick of the bad quality and the constant 'repaints' that I'm just not buying anymore.

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Originally Posted by Sky Shadow

Personally I understand G1 completism a bit more than I understand devoutly collecting modern lines - in my life (with a few exceptions) I have rarely been underwhelmed by G1 designs or toys, as long as they're in good condition.

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Completely agree with you there. No matter how simple the toy may be, G1 toys just has the class and elegance that the later lines can only aspire to.

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Originally Posted by Sky Shadow

On the other hand, I find the Transformers of the 2000s disappoint me constantly and as a result I've stopped buying them completely at this point.

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Yup. Like I said above, I'm not buying into your crass anymore Hasbro.

Admittedly, I have difficulty understanding the need to 'complete a line' just for the sake of completing it, or buying Transformers 'just because they are official Transformers products'. Why spend good money on bad products, I'd ask. So what if its an 'official Transformers product' if it sucks all the same?

I don't rule out that there could be good reasons, that are subjectively valid from any buyers' point of view though.

I consider myself a selective completist, but I have a lot of exceptions that can get me out of buying really awful toys if I don't want to. Having said that, I often do anyway. :o For example, this time with the movie, I am not buying the Robot Heroes, FABs, Gravity Bots, or most Legends. I'm only getting the "main line" figures. And I rarely if ever buy repaints.

I manage to justify this, if only to myself, that awful toys serve to remind one how good the good toys are. If everything was Teh Awesome™, we'd get spoiled. :D

Im selective completionist.

The first toyline I actually started collecting is the Kaiyodo Revoltech Series.

I have most of them. I would love to see more G1 Transformers made for this line as rampagesss revoltech customs are pretty awesome.

anyway back to point, I buy the revoltechs I really like and buy the others if they're super reduced at hlj.com. I didn't buy all the revisions from the Neon Genesis Evangelion line cause thats just pointless.

With Transformers I've bought some MPs but am mostly interested in completing the Henkei line. There's no point in me collecting G1 - thats too much of a financial burden, but i do fondly remember them from childhood.

Not anymore.
Been down that road and it failed .. Was spending to much on crap.

Since sold most of the un-wanted items,

Selective completist. I buy one toy for each character who appears in TFA and the Bayverse movies. I try not to buy more than one toy of the same character, and if I do it's only because a nicer toy has come along to replace the old one (looks like Leader Screamer will be a good example of this). One exception to this rule is I've also bought Legends Class toys for each character in the Bayverse movies.

I also collect various G1 and classics/Henkei, and once again would have bought one of each character from the latter if Takara didn't make the coneheads/seekers so freaking expensive. Vintage toys deserve those kind of prices, not new ones that are in no way technically superior to the comparatably modest priced classics/henkei Ramjet.

Don't really have much interest in any other series so I stick to these ones. :)

I'm only completist towards certain groups of Transformers that catch my eye. The two cases here are the Animated Dinobots and the Universe Beast Wars deluxes.

I'm not a completist because I don't want to spend money on crap toys for the sake of having them all.

Completist? I can't even complete my own sentan

But enough joking. I'm no completist, and I don't really understand it to well either. yes sometimes I fall into completing a sub group or team of figures because its nice to have them together, but I wont go out of my way usually.

In the end I collect transformers based on the combined value of ingenuity, design, nostalgia and sometimes originality.

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Originally Posted by Sky Shadow

Personally I understand G1 completism a bit more than I understand devoutly collecting modern lines - in my life (with a few exceptions) I have rarely been underwhelmed by G1 designs or toys, as long as they're in good condition. Similarly, I think the first year or two of Beast Wars was fantastic and I can understand people wanting to complete a great toyline like Beast Wars Neo. On the other hand, I find the Transformers of the 2000s disappoint me constantly and as a result I've stopped buying them completely at this point.

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I don't understand devoulty collecting either modern or classic. While I like the first 2 Microman years of G1 I find later years fail to impress me a lot of the time, it feels like they went backwards. While I appreciate the value of Nostalgia it will only take me so far with some toys. As such I sold of a lot of my G1's and tend to just have sample figures from the various era's a sample Deception Target Master, A sample Brainmaster etc etc. I have no real desire to ever complete G1 or in fact any of my TF collections.

And to be honest most of my favourite TF toys come from the 2000's now, be they Masterpieces or Binaltechs, even Henkeis. While of course these do not form the majority of modern TF lines I still have to personally disagree with the idea that modern Transformers are somehow less than there forebears, for me they are often more (but I do like to see where it all began).

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Originally Posted by SofaMan

I manage to justify this, if only to myself, that awful toys serve to remind one how good the good toys are. If everything was Teh Awesome™, we'd get spoiled. :D

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I personally try and avoid toys that don't appeal to me, but what you have said makes me want to ask another question about collecting And this is for everyone.

When we do get an awesome toy that really knocks our socks of it's great, but as we get more similar but equally awesome toys do you ever find that the impact of each new toy is lessened? Or does acquiring each toy excite you more and more as you get nearer to collecting the whole set? For me it is the former and that's probably why I'm such an anti-completest. I buy into a fancy new toy line (or and old one) and then keep going until I'm no longer impressed. Of course if most toys Impress me I can go for quite some time. I guess that's why a lot of my collections are more like sampling’s than complete sets.

I try to but seems its going to be a very expensive thing to be one. Although yeah G1 Im trying to complete- though my version of "complete" may not be another collectors version....All the other lines I just get what I like and what hits my fancy at the moment. For Beast Wars - Im only trying to complete the series cast and in their Transmetal version at that, so a little more specific selective completism I guess... thats about it. the Unicron Trilogy... meh. G2 ,well, why not ...meh not so complete, there's a few there I dont really like... but then so is in G1 but, that Im trying to complete.. at least the US released ones.

I'd probably be classed in the selective completionist category but have made exceptions.

I came from the G1 era and so I got back into Transformers when Hasbro brought out the Commemmorative reissues and Takara gave us the TFC collection. My aim was to get back the G1 figures I lost in my youth and the ones I didn't have.

I wasn't interested in vintage G1 due to the expensive prices and the difficulty in getting a decent condition figure. However, I've made an exception when this year I bought Sludge as he was one of my favourites as a kid as I don't forsee a legit reissue coming out.

I have to admit, I felt a great sense of joy and satisfaction when I managed to complete both the Hasbro and Takara collections MISB. I also have got all the Classics and Universe figures as well and I admit I do enjoy playing and displaying these a bit more. I'm not strict completionist whereby I have to collect the same moulds e.g. Stormcloud, Darkwing.

However, recently I've become less motivated in collecting as I have quite a bit already. More to the point of this topic, I have a great collection of four toyline releases so I'm not really interested in trying to start something I can't complete.

For this reason and personal finances, I haven't collected Alternators, Binaltech, Alternity, or due to personal tastes e.g. I don't like the Animated toyline (but I did buy all the Dinobots).

Also I've given up collecting the superior Henkei range as due to the number of variants and high priced hard to get figures. I've done my risk-cost-benefit-analysis and can't stand having half of them and it costing me and arm & a leg to get the rest.

Besides any new Universe and Encore releases, I think this may be it for me TF collecting wise.

But to contradict myself, I've been collecting DC Universe Classics figures knowing full well, I'm not going to complete each wave. I just buy them for the characters I love reading about and their homage to the old Superpowers toyline.