Many people think toy collectors don’t break a sweat; that all one has to do is have enough money to buy any random toy, and that would already be enough. This is actually untrue. Not everyone can be a toy collector, and believe it or not, it costs so much more than just money to become one. One has to possess special skills and traits; ones that are not just useful in toy collecting, but also in real life.
Toy collectors are very much undermined by people. This is probably because toys are commonly associated with kids. Many see collectors as immature, failing to move on from their childhood, and dwelling on juvenile things. However, not many people know how complicated it is to collect toys. Toy collecting can take a lot from you, if you do not know what to expect from it. True toy collecting doesn’t just take a few dollars from you. It doesn’t just take a little of your time. You really have to be dedicated to succeed.
As mentioned above, toy collectors need to have and be a lot of things in order to be successful in their hobby. Here are some of the traits each collector needs to have:
• Financial capacity; a collector, more than anything, needs to have a good base of funds before he or she can have a respectable collection. Collectibles are not cheap, especially rare ones. One has to be ready to dish out lots of money in order to succeed as a collector.
• Patience; one virtue that is very important when it comes to collecting toys is patience. Sometimes, the act of collecting will test you. You have to be able to weather frustration as a collector, as it will be a very frequent visitor when it comes to toy collecting.
• Resourcefulness; as a collector, you need to know where and what to find in order to complete your collection. Money won’t do you any good if you don’t know what to find or where to find your collectibles. You have to be very smart when looking for what to collect and where to collect them.
• Sociability; contrary to popular belief, collectors of toys are not pompous; no collector can be successful that way. Collectors need to be friendly and sociable, because being so can lead to more connections that in turn, can help build and complete collections.
These are the four most important traits that all toy collectors need to possess. Not everyone can be financially capable or patient or resourceful or social; this is why it is hard to be a collector of toys. You need to have all these traits in order to complete your collections. You need to have a day job to fund your hobby. You need to develop your social skills to have a good network of contacts. You have to learn patience and resourcefulness to get what you need.
Many people describe toy collectors as geeks. This can’t be any farther from the truth, though. Toy collecting is a very mature activity. It is so mature, that toy collectors can actually earn money from this hobby. As long as you know a lot about the hobby, you can make money from it. This is something not a lot of people know about collectors of toys. Oh, and if you haven’t noticed yet, a lot of these “geeks” are today’s richest in the world.