What type of collector are you?

[MrBrownstone]

I was wondering what type of collectors we had on here, so I thought - poll!!!

[MrBrownstone]

All my cars are to open and play with. I'm currently using them as a reward with my son for good behaviour (i.e. when he fills up his star chart) and will probably use them for potty trainign too. He also gets them as presents... He gets to chose which one he gets next. Thankfully he hasn't asked for Lizzie / Bessie / etc yet as I want to keep those for later just incase we don't get that far as I know lots of people want these and I could sell them on for a decent price...

[cac1959]

Great poll topic, MrBrownstone...

I might be obsessive compulsive when it comes to Cars... it depends on the Cars item... Some items I buy just one of and it's to be kept carded... Some items I buy just one of and it's opened for display... Some items I buy multiples of and they are kept carded, opened for display, and opened to play with.

For example, I bought 2 of the Target 4 pack with Ronnie, the UK Blue Mini-Cooper... I opened one set to put Ronnie in the display case and put the other 3, which I already had multiples of, in the set to play with... For awhile, I was giving Cars to my grandchildren (opened or carded) so they could take them home and play with them... but now that they've outgrown Cars, I'm not buying as many... that and the fact that there haven't been new Cars to purchase.

As another example, I was only buying 1 each of the Cars Pit Race-off launchers and it was for display purposes... I'd bought a second of a few of them for trade purposes or for a second display... I helped several friends with launchers who wanted the Car only... so a couple months ago when I checked I had 20 extra launchers that were duplicates of launchers I already had... I was able to help out GotFrank with something he needed, and I asked him if he would be willing and able to help me out with customs of the unreleased launchers... as you've seen from my recent posts, he did... the complete set of 36 launchers is one of my favorite parts of my collection.

It also depends on the character... If I like it, I may buy multiples of it... there are also a few Cars2 boxed sets I refused to buy due to the fact that it was all repeats but 1... I've bought every Bessie I've ever seen at retail (I refuse to pay $85 at the flea market for it) and every Lizzie I've seen that was $10 or less (remaining flea market ones are $30)... there are also Cars I've never seen in stores, so depending on how much it cost, I may only buy the one.

I do need to downsize a little... my wife says I'm going to be featured on the new show called "Mattel Cars Hoarders", and the way she talks, that's not a good thing... When you can't even see the loveseat in the room because there are boxes of Cars on top of it and in front of it, that could be a sign...

[carscrazy]

Ours are on display on bookcases but the little one can play with them if he wants..he tends to just stand there gazing at them more then anything.

We do have odd few that wont be opened tho as im afraid they may get damaged eg brian park motors, heavy metal mater etc

[bobbyjack]

We just look for one car. We play with it and display it. When we first started collecting these, I taught my son to put his cars away when he was done playing with them so they wouldn't get lost. Putting them away meant up on a ledge to keep them out of his baby sister's reach. Eventually it turned into a display and in 2 years, we had enough to fill two big display cases. Mostly we just play with the Cars 2 cars now and the Cars 1 cars are in the display case.

[boogity]

just the one, to put on display
however the display can be opened or put on the carded wall display

today we got another addition to the family circle, a new nephew called jake, so no doubt we,ll be collecting for him too!

[carscrazy]

Congrats on the new nephew boogity

[Bumper Save]

One loose for display and maybe once and a while I will keep something carded if it's rare and I already have it loose.

But of course my dream is to have everything in all forms someday (keep dreaming)