When is to much, to much

[The Crusader]

I didn't really know where to post this, but I am taking a look at my collection...and have been asking myself:

1. Do i have enough crownies? Do I really need more?
2. How many Black Falcons do I need?
3. How many forestmen so I need?

and so on with all the factions I have collected over the years.

What are some of you fellow collectors cut off points? Are you collecting to have the largest armies on the web?

I have bought a few sets this past year, just for the pieces, because I wanted to build something. But know since I have become a free lance web developer, I havent had the time.

If I was to have a war between the Crownies and the Lion Knights...I think the crownies outnumber the Lion 3 to 1 at this point...

[Bruce N H]

What you need depends on what you want to do with your armies. If your plan is to build a full scale castle and fully man it, or to stage large battles at public displays, you're going to need a lot. If you want to build vignettes, you need about 3. If your dream is to have the largest army collection out there and set them up in little rows on your kitchen floor and take photos to post on Brickshelf, well, a) you probably need some sort of professional help* and b) there's always someone out there with more than you. Personally, I build things that I'm going to photograph and put online, and about 20 of a given faction is enough for me. For instance, in these two pics:

you see pretty much my full complements of a couple of those factions. If you pull the camera back, it's a tiny army, but with the camera close in you imagine that the marching column of soldiers extends in each direction.

As to how much is too much, I suppose that comes down to how much money you want to invest and how much space you have to store them. And, of course, at what point your wife puts her foot down and says "that's quite enough, dear."

Bruce

*Jk to all of our army-building friends. I've just never seen the point to some of those photos you see (and I imagine my daughter coming through and knocking down all of those rows that took so long to set up).

[puddleglum]

And, of course, at what point your wife puts her foot down and says "that's quite enough, dear."

This is a critical metric that should not be ignored.

[Aliencat]

And, of course, at what point your wife puts her foot down and says "that's quite enough, dear."

I think that's been my wife's characteristic catchphrase ever since I came out of my dark age
Also telling her that for every boot she buys I can buy 3 sets, so each pair of boots she gets, I can get 6 Lego sets, oddly makes her even less tolerant of my buying more and more and more Lego

[Duckingham]

Space is a factor. If you have a 17-bedroom house and are only using 3 bedrooms, then by all means fill the rest with LEGO.

But for the rest of us...try not to buy anything you won't use. Or if you buy a set for some specific parts, Bricklink the rest. Or just offer up the remaining pieces here in the buy/sell/trade part of the forum ... of course, if you bought a city set just for some of the pieces, you might have trouble trying to get rid of it here on the castle forum.

In addition to the wife comments, I would add: kids. My 6 and 4 year old boys are always after "daddy's LEGOs." So sometimes they have some of my stuff. On the other hand, when I'm building a MOC, a minifig or two has been known to disappear from their room.

And, on another hand, since I've found myself getting back into castle MOCs, I've discovered that what I considered to be a decent-size collection of minifigs, is really woefully inadequate for my creative mind, so, Crusader, perhaps I'm not quite to the situation you find yourself in.

[davee123]

The first time I was seriously encumbered with this question was at a special Lego sale-- they had full palettes of sets at about 85% off. I knew I wanted (for example) Dobby's Release which was around $1 per set. So I started piling them on until I realized I could seriously purchase just about as many as my heart desired. 20 copies? 50? 100? Sure, I could do that-- but would I use them?

At a certain point, having a lot becomes more of a burden. That point is different for everyone, but when you get close to your limit, you'll probably notice a deep loathing starting to emerge when you go and look for particular things, and realize you have to do a lot of searching or moving around in order to get what you want as you wade through your gigantic collection.

It's different for everyone, and it depends on how you keep your collection as well. A well sorted collection with lots of free space is obviously going to have a higher "too much" limit. For me, I found I had "enough" around 400k pieces, and "too much" once I tried putting 500K+ into a *smaller* Lego room.

Minifigs are a different story. I'm a firm believer that if you're an army builder, you won't likely ever think "gee, this is too much". You might get satisfied with an army's size, but you probably won't ever get to the point where you're saying "wow, I don't even WANT more". I expect that would happen maybe in the 1000+ ballpark (per subtheme that is) for myself, since assembling that many minifigures is a thankless chore.

But other army builders have proven that even 1000+ minifigures in a particular subtheme isn't enough, and they're still anxious to have tens of thousands. In general, though, you'll more likely be prevented from achieving such a massive army thanks to the size of your wallet, or the availability of such figs en masse.

DaveE

[ffilz]

In one sense, you can almost always have too much. The first time my LEGO collection didn't fit in a tub, having "too much" started to be an issue.

In another sense, you can never have enough. You can probably always dream of a project that isn't doable with your current size collection.

I have reached the "too much" for the fact that I have a wife, hope to have kids. and already have half the garage plus a spare room devoted to LEGO. My collection is somewhere between 800k and 1 million pieces.

On numbers of minifigs. I thought I had a pretty good size collection of pirates until I ran a huge game of Evil Stevie's Pirate Game. My shoebox of approximately 400 striped sailors was nearly empty after people crewed their starting ships and I placed some marooned pirates. I also started to run out of weapons, my blue suited sailors are armed with revolvers. My spare cutlasses number about 20.

On the other hand, I have a baggie of Wolfpack torsos that I haven't turned into ready to use minifigs because the 50 or so I have already ready to use is really plenty.

And how many kings do you need?

Frank

[ffilz]

I should also add that I've heard other people comment about their collection becoming overwhelming at 400k-500k pieces. I certainly hit that point, yet I kept buying in huge quantities.

This year, I'm on a buying moratorium. It's going to hurt as some cool sets slip by, but I need to gain control of my collection.

Frank

[davee123]

I should also add that I've heard other people comment about their collection becoming overwhelming at 400k-500k pieces. I certainly hit that point, yet I kept buying in huge quantities.

Huh-- is that in regards to my prior post, or are there other people who have voiced a similar "limit"?

However, I must note that the buying habits are the interesting tidbit. I changed my buying habits around late 2004 or 2005 (thanks to the color change, I toned down), but if it weren't for that, I probably would've kept buying just about *every* set that came out, often in multiples-- and that would've probably put me in the 700k ballpark. I'm not sure if I would've stopped if my collection had simply started getting unwieldy.

DaveE

[ffilz]

I seem to recall Larry Pieniazek commenting about the pain of dealing with 400k-500k pieces.

And certainly, hitting that limit and realizing the problems it was starting to cause me didn't make me change my habits. I did slow down in 2002 when I realized my budget was out of whack. It took getting married to make me really change my habits, and then several weeks ago, realizing how much time I was spending just sorting pieces and otherwise dealing with the raw collection, and not doing something creative with it.

Frank

[Munchy]

I feel your pain. Really.

My collection has grown considerably since I came out of the Dark Ages in '03. From one little bucket I have literally filled a room. Major toy chains in my area going out of business in '03-'04 didn't help. I mean, who can pass on Final Duel II for 69 cents? I think I bought 300 of those sets.

Eventually you're going to realize that unless you plan to go into the secondary market selling LEGO, you won't buy every set or even the sets that look good. You'll only buy the amazing sets and the really, really cheap ones. For everything else, there's Bricklink.

[Legoist]

What are some of you fellow collectors cut off points?

42

[Legoist]

Also telling her that for every boot she buys I can buy 3 sets, so each pair of boots she gets, I can get 6 Lego sets, oddly makes her even less tolerant of my buying more and more and more Lego

The problem with wives is that they are very good at making all their purchase count as "essential costs of living".

They buy loads of shoes, dresses, make-up cosmetics, soaps/shampoos/conditioners/bubblestuff/perfumes and it all ends up counting as "health expenses". So do the yoga courses and the sport outfits. Even some jewelry ends up counting as part of the dressing expenses.

We guys don't have those expenses. Some of us are even like Mickey Mouse and fellow comics heroes, wearing the same old pair of trousers all our lives. Marinating our feet in ONE pair of shoes (one of my favourite series' quote: "why do women have so many shoes? do they have extra feet we don't know about?").

So unless we're smokers or drinkers, we can be much cheaper creatures than our girlies. Let us spend freely on silly pieces of plastic for God's sake! We promise to quit smoking, quit drinking, perhaps even quit eating. But please don't mock at our little hobby... we're doing it mostly because a good guy once said "you shall become like children to go to heaven". That's pretty essential and a good investment if you ask me

[stuifzand]

First, the post above this one ^^ made me laugh, man I hope your wife reads this....

I should also add that I've heard other people comment about their collection becoming overwhelming at 400k-500k pieces. I certainly hit that point, yet I kept buying in huge quantities.

I know the feeling
I have so many parts, and I only use so few of them. And I have a craving for new sets that is unstoppable. I don't need them but I want them.

So, I try not to buy, but I now have problems not to buy the farm set. I want it just because it has the cows.
If I don't buy it, I"m afraid I'll be sorry later. I could bricklink the cows, but they're so expensive I'd better buy the set they come in.
It's not only the cows, I also want the power miners, just because "the little monsters are so cute".
Man, do I have problems....

But, I buy less then a few years back.

[The_Hun]

As for armies, I like having 12 identical soldiers + 1 sergeant. So it's up to how many distinctly different figures (in multiples of 13) I can make up for each colour scheme / faction. This depends largely on available torsos. But I can't picture myself having more than 200 figures in any single faction, and I'm limiting myself to about 5 to 6 factions.

As for bricks, I'm quite far from having the "too much" problem. I'm planning to have enough bricks to be able to build about 24 to 30 large green baseplates-worth of terrain for displays. I can't tell how much that'll be, but surely nowhere near 400k pieces.