Quality or Quantity?

Wendy · Post by **Wendy** » Mon May 07, 2007 12:29 pm

Or both?

I only just got back to actively collecting cels again after a one year hiatus and I made a discovery about myself.

No, nothing anatomically surprising…I meant a collecting habit discovery.

As you may or may not have noticed from my (several and endless) for sale threads I am currently liquidating many of the shows I used to collect. Not only because I have now shifted my interest to only a few shows, but also because the cels I used to love no longer have the same appeal to me they used to have.

I’ve come to the discovery that I now would rather spend more money on a single cel that has more meaning to me, and is visually much more appealing or from a more significant scene. And I mean a lot more. The prices I drop for cels that catch my eye nowadays are in price ranges I didn’t even consider a couple of years ago.

Naturally, because of those price tags, I will not be owning many cels, I am no millionaire. But it’s not something I mind either.

So tell me, are you a person who would rather have a large collection and spend less on a single cel so you can buy more and more frequent?

Or are you like me now and would rather buy one really good (and suffer with it the unavoidable considerable price tag) cel and be satisfied with owning just a few?

rallihir · Post by **rallihir** » Mon May 07, 2007 12:55 pm

Naturally, I would like to have both a large and quality collection, but recently, I have found myself concentrating on either very specific cel sequences that have significant meaning or on only the best cels that are available. The prices for specific cel sequences can vary greatly as some scenes with particular emotional impact may not be collectible for all, but certainly, concentration on only the best cels leads to extreme pricing and fewer purchases. But I find that I am very satisfied with this type of purchasing schema.

Labinnah · Post by **Labinnah** » Mon May 07, 2007 12:58 pm

Honestly, I'd rather have a smaller but more focused collection.

I too came back from a break not long ago, but I'm having to keep myself from buying everything I come across. I'm still very much in the mindset from 2003 when just seeing a cel was grounds for buying it, regardless of real quality or meaning.

However, I'm trying to slow down and think more about what I actually want in the collection instead of bogging it down with impulse-bought 'filler'. I don't want to have one of those galleries where you wade through three pages of 'eh' to find one or two absolutely golden cels. I want every page to be golden, whether it has one cel or a dozen, no matter how much time or money it takes to put together

aernath · Post by **aernath** » Mon May 07, 2007 1:20 pm

Um.
*cough*
I'm still buying Ichigo.

Sometimes he's cheap, but usually he's expensive.

:

I'd probably sell a lot of my gallery off, if I could bring myself to part with many of them.
I'm insane.

Wendy · Post by **Wendy** » Mon May 07, 2007 1:29 pm

aernath wrote:I'm insane.

Jeez Lee...tell us something we don't know

And thanks for the replies guys

Yes! this is what I mean

It's scary, I'm buying cels now with prices I honestly never thought I would ever even consider.

Ryouko · Post by **Ryouko** » Mon May 07, 2007 2:38 pm

Towards the end of my big spending days in 2003, I sold off around half of my collection. I had decided I only wanted to keep those cels that held really special meaning to me. Many of the ones I have left now were sold to me by dear friends, were gifts, or are from my most favourite scenes/characters.

I won't buy characters I don't like just to have a "complete" collection (ie: Nuriko), either, which was a bad habit of mine back then.

Nowadays I buy a cel only every few months or once a year, and it's usually higher priced. I find that there is a much higher chance though that I'll never let that one go in the end. :)

So yes, quality > quantity for me.

glorff · Post by **glorff** » Mon May 07, 2007 2:45 pm

I have a three tier collection so that I can buy something from tier two or three while waiting for just the right tier one cel to come along without feeling like I quit collecting in the interim

Gotta love non popular series for collecting

Gonzai · Post by **Gonzai** » Mon May 07, 2007 3:05 pm

Without even opening this thread, the first thought
that popped into my head was quality all the way.
Then I realized you were talking about cels..........

But, I still gotta say - Quality!!

Keropi · Post by **Keropi** » Mon May 07, 2007 3:43 pm

That's a difficult question for me to answer. I know I wouldn't want to own only a few cels that I liked the most because I know I wouldn't LOVE my top favorite cels WAY, WAY more than others. My bell curve on "cel loving" is probably much flatter than most collectors.

So I wouldn't get much enjoyment out of only owning the top favorite cels I could ever hope for RELATIVE to owning a couple hundred above medium quality cels showing my favorite characters from several shows.

When the price of the cel reaches a certain height relative to how much I want it, it makes me think too much about the price I paid for it. This high price distracts my enjoyment of owning the cel (for me anyway).

So...in my case, owning two to four dozen of my top favorite wish cels of all time would not be enjoyable compared to having the cels I have now.

Sketches are a different breed however.

Wendy · Post by **Wendy** » Mon May 07, 2007 3:45 pm

Gonzai wrote:Without even opening this thread ->
Then I realized you were talking about cels....

Oh my Nida...of course I was talking about cels..

What else would I be talking about...I mean, honestly

Don't make me discipline you woman...

HotIce · Post by **HotIce** » Mon May 07, 2007 3:46 pm

i try to aim for both... I'd like a semi decent sized gallery of quality cels... but I'm well aware that looking at my gallery the the majority of cels are lacking in the quality department. When I first started collecting I pretty much just grabbed everything that I liked at inital looking at... but now I"m finding myself passing on cels of favorite characters just b/c I didn't think the quality was there. I have a set group of cels in mind from say Outlaw Star that I want, and I"m fidning I"m passing now on cels I may have purchased back then b/c I don't -really- want them. However the pickier I get, the more expensive the cels I want are, and I'm still unable to bring myself to pay certain prices for cels no matter how badly I love/want it. Lately though I've found myself becoming quite discontent with a good majority of my gallery, and it has brought about feelings of wanting to put all my favorite/meaningful cels into one cel book and sell off the rest. I really have no idea where this puts me in the quality/quanity debate.

samiamew · Post by **samiamew** » Mon May 07, 2007 4:09 pm

For me -- it depends

Inuyasha?? ANYTHING goes

... I've got a cel of just his hand drawing out Tessaiga -- and I love it!! Truly my first and last love in cels (my only for the first 2 years of collecting).

All my other series -- I'm learning to be much more discerning since it's obvious $$ away from Inu-baby

...ESPECIALLY Sailor Moon => which can tend to be $$ anyway @@

....But, overall, I've learned to value Quality over Quantity -- or I've just become more insane in the $$ I'll fork-over for a cel

.......the $$s sure have increased in recent years compared to what I ever thought I'd be willing to pay 2 years ago

...so I don't know if I'd call that an 'advancement', Wendy -- you could just be giving into to the INSANITY

No, nothing anatomically surprising…I meant a collecting habit discovery.

...Well, that could've been interesting, too.

Cloud · Post by **Cloud** » Mon May 07, 2007 4:10 pm

How many do you have?

Captain Haddock · Post by **Captain Haddock** » Mon May 07, 2007 5:02 pm

I do try to go for quality now more then anything, particually after I trimmed back some of the older stuff I bought when I first started collecting. Now that I've found my feet more and know what is and isn't a good price for things as well as being more discerning in general my collection doesn't grow as fast or as sporadically as it used to.

So I am on the quality side, but only when I can afford it, particually when it comes to NS.

syan · Post by **syan** » Mon May 07, 2007 7:06 pm

I've tried my darnedest to buy quality over quantity lately. I just have a hard time letting go of old purchases or extra cels in a lot, so they go up in the gallery too.

Gah, that's just a reminder to clean out my books.