How do you collect?

In before someone says "I buy what I like"

I have been collecting since Elite series 39. I have every Elite since, except Erick Rowan. I only collect Elites.

I try and collect at least one figure of each person. There are exceptions. People who I really like, such and Balor, Savage, and taker I will buy pretty much all their figures. Lately I've been buying less basics and more elites. I also will buy character changes. For example Cody Rhodes and Stardust. But for some like Cena, I don't really care to have all his different attires.

Early on I was pretty picky, strictly elite, no repeats. I rarely ordered online, except for older stuff, and was fairly blind, as I haven't found this place yet.

Now, I still lean toward the elite spectrum, but will go into basic territory when the need arises, as well as battle packs.

I have a million different things I collect when it comes to figures.

I collect mainly wrestlers I like. Occasionally I'll pick up ones for guys I'm not that fond of if Mattel did a great job with them. I buy less basics and more battle packs it's seems.

I was getting to the point where I bought everything but that's started to calm down.

Some wrestlers I try and collect all figures they release like Macho Man. I also collect Warriors, and a few others here and there.

Here's how I collected and after typing it out, I'm glad I've stopped.

I collected from 1989 when Hasbro's were first introduced until series 5 of Jakks BCA figures. With the exception of a few rare things like the mail-aways and protos, I had all but maybe 3 Hasbro figures and I had everything Jakks released in its timeline of their first five series. I do remember having my Dad call the company in 1992/1993? when we saw the ad that featured Rhythm & Blues and asked how we can get the Greg Valentine figure, surprise surprise we were told its a prototype that's not available.

- Around 2013 I checked the isles and saw Daniel Bryan and said "Hey, I'll buy this one figure it will look neat on my shelf."
- This turned into me saying to myself that I'll collect every Daniel Bryan MOC and have a neat looking shelf of just his figures.
- This turned into me collecting every Daniel Bryan and every CM Punk figure MOC.
- This turned into me sort of blurring the lines and I began picking up a few things I would see and also start looking for MOC Legends.
- This turned into me picking up entire waves, right around E25 I began to pick up entire waves of Elite, Basic, Battle Pack and all store exclusives which was mostly Wal-Mart's t-shirt series & K-Marts repacks.
- This turned into me becoming a loose collector and I opened up about 100+ figures and placed them into baggies and plastic tubs.
- This turned into me become a completist and I went back and collected as much as I could prior to the E25 waves and EVERYTHING going forward. And I had rules that if I ordered a /1000 belt figure the number had to be less than 100 and of the 15 I had none had numbers higher than 75, lowest was 2.
- This turned into me ordering unopened cases of Elite figures and also complete waves.
- This turned into me at my peak having collected over 450+ figures. One day I looked at it all and said "what am I gonna do with all of these?"
- This turned into me liquidating large lots on eBay, I kept the figures I liked.
- This turned into me deciding that I'd only collect Legends & Flashbacks with the figures I liked, and as a result I had to re-purchased a lot of figures I recently sold.
- This turned into me bringing my collection back up to over 125+ figures. And had another moment when I looked at them all and repeated "what am I gonna do with all of these?"
- This turned into me selling all the figures except for the guys I liked like Daniel Bryan, CM Punk, Finn Balor, AJ Styles.
- This turned into me selling the remainder of the figures so I don't have a desire to start again. I currently have the final three figures I have left for sale on my Classifieds page.

I now just like to look at the photos of the upcoming figures and look at the collections around here. I had similar types of collections for movies and books. Movies went from about 800+, including 400+ titles alone from the Criterion Collection, all down to about 20. Books I have about 50 and once I finish one I mail it to a friend or donate it so it's not lingering. And PlayStation games I have about 20 PS3 and 40 PS4 games, and once I fully Platinum or 100% a game I save it in a pile and take it to a trade-in store and convert them to a new game. Thankfully it's not a 1:1 trade so every three games might get me one newer game so I won't have a huge mass of games in the near future (hopefully.) I like to think that me trying to collect all the trophies in a game is just the same as collecting a tangible item, this way I can obsess over something without having to actually acquire and store something.

The way I collect is very apparent that it's based on a psychological disorder, a real obsession, especially if they're based on series or numbered series.

I collect based on the years I really loved to watch wrestling and have the most nostalgia for. From around 1990 - 1997. My collection is all about the Hasbro line and the guys that were on the roster around that time (a little before and a little after). That's why the new Retros are appealing to me, also.

Thanks for being so open. My obsession doesn't quite stretch to the same extent, but a lot of this sounds similar to me. I just purchased a DM Bret Hart loose from eBay for over $100 USD.... Because I'm a completionist, too. I don't know why I needed it. I have the WrestleMania 30 flashback Bret, elite Hart foundation Bret, and recently picked-up RSC Bret.

Due to being a student and money obviously being kinda tight, I only buy one or two figures from each set that really catch my eye. I've limited myself to only buying figures I plan on using for my Pic Fed or the odd Flashback to display on my shelf. I stopped collecting basics about a year or two ago and only pick them up if I plan on converting them to Elites which in the future, I won't be able to do due to the change in articulation.
I try to only get one figure of each guy unless they've had a very definitive change in appearance, for example I haven't updated my E32 Big E as he still wears that same sort of singlet. That said, I do collect multiple figures of guys that I really like such as CM Punk, AJ Styles, Shawn Michaels and Undertaker.
I've tried collecting MOC before but it just takes up too much space and I end up opening them. I did consider keeping the NXT Aries Elite MOC though as the packaging on those figures is just beautiful.
I'll probably slow down even more on collecting once I go to University next month as I don't want to have to buy an extra suitcase just to bring figures back to Belfast from Manchester haha.