Do you ever feel like you're the 'evil' collector?

[star-phoenix]

I might have had maybe 5-6 negative experiences since I started collecting cels 14 years ago. I have never had what I would call a 'negative' experience through Rubberslug, although I get a lot of e-mails from people making offers or asking me about information, etc. In fact, I have received some of the nicest e-mails from people through Rubberslug, and I even met some of the nicest people from all over the world, through the Rubberslug feedback.

[tex-chan]

RS feedback is definitely a mixed bag, although my guess is that the same could be said for feedback from any public website. I think that RS makes collectors and galleries more easily accessible, since all the sites are grouped together. And they are all easily searchable by show title, too.

I've had lots of positive, nice feedback emails through RS. On the flip side, though, I've also had a lot of mean and nasty feedback emails, too. Of course, all of these emails could have been from just one or two people, who made it their "mission" to spam me with negative, mean emails for whatever reason. I don't know, since they were either anonymous or from screen-names that I didn't recognize. It ended up getting so tedious dealing with the "bad" part that I closed my gallery for several months and changed the URL when I decided to take things public again. Closing down and changing my URL seems to have worked wonders, because I haven't gotten mean RS emails since then. (Of course, I may have just tempted Fate or the Interweb gods or whatever by typing that out loud. )

[JWR]

Starts typing feedback to Tex-chan.

[tex-chan]

Starts typing feedback to Tex-chan.

Ha!! Just make sure it's a "nice" one. Or I might go into hermit-hiding mode again. (Although ... that might make some folks pretty happy, too. )

[sugarcels]

That's a tough comment to answer. It's true that for some series there was a "glory day" when a lot of inventory came onto the market and went relatively cheaply, and a good collection could be put together on a shoestring. (But A+ stuff, even for CCS, always went high.) And it's true that the supply has gotten notably thinner, and with more people collecting, competition has picked up. For my most desired series, I now routinely expect a battle, and lose more often than I win.

On the other hand, patience is getting to be more and more an asset. The nice thing about losing an auction is that you get to keep all your money, and you force the other bidder to pay your whole bid plus two bits. (Yeah but I know --- ) It's part of the hunt, and if you lose an auction you still live and keep all your weapons to bid again.

And I've always said that the first thing a collector needs to acquire is good taste. If that's the motivation for what you go after, and not just snapping up second- and third-rate images just to have something from "that" series, then your collection may be small, but you can be proud of everything you own. Golly, you've got Hitomi Kato's roughs from the "kissy" part of the Tennimon OP sequence! and some great Pokémon cels like this one. And I know how competitive Poké-llectors can be at auction time.

I'd say keep the faith, and if no opportunity to spend your budget comes this week (or if drat it you lose the auction again) then put that sum into your bidwar ammo box and add next week's budget to it. You still won't be filthy rich (heck, I never have been or ever will be) but your power level will keep rising while your lucky opponent's will sink. And if you're canny and patient, you'll catch Mr. Gautroques napping some week and add one very nice prize to your gallery. And if you do this slowly but surely, your collection will stay modest, focused, and very high in quality. (And don't ignore the chances that gallery offers provide!)

You will grow in evil power and be proud of that too!

This is a reallly late rely, I'm sorry But I just wanted to thank you for your kind words It really means a lot!

Truthfully I never buy a cel just to have a cel from a certain series. Well, maybe I did a few times in the past, but certainly not now. When I see a cel from a series I like, I ask myself if I would keep the cel or if I'd be trying to sell it a year from now. If I can't see myself keeping it I don't buy the cel. Probably why I haven't bought a cel from Hime-chan no Ribbon or Akazakin Cha Cha in a good 6 years, LOL.

[Kasi]

My collection is rather low-profile so I don't have *tons* of competition or much fuss over my own gallery.
I'll always only buy pieces I intend on keeping, and I guess it helps that I am rather picky. I also try and help and share out links for other collectors (particularly of the Ginga series), the last thing I really want is people getting upset with me really, it takes the fun out of the hobby sometimes.

[Captain Haddock]

In this hobby like any hobby that involves competition you are gonna get certain folkes who'll have a temper and chuck toys out of prams if they don't win. Looking back over my life it's actually amazing how many people I've met who just don't get how to behave on a basic level that isn't in some way offensive and that will of course apply online to. Am I one of those people? I have my moments like I think we all do where we get the tone wrong or just mess up, but no on the whole I think I'm a pretty straight up kind of guy.

I've not had too many negative experiences but that said I've had the odd email asking after X-cel and could tell they were dodgy some how. Then again I collect stuff that isn't massively popular so I don't think I get as much attention as other sites.