apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Somehow to me this goes into the realm of obsessive, not just wanting a cool collection. It might be fun to see in a museum, but claustrophobic looking in the photo.

Glad he's not my spouse.

i'm somewhat relieved he lives in the u.k. my first thought, as a san francisco bay area resident, was about cleaning up all that stuff after a quake. at lease all his collections are orderly and organized. but everything seems about the same size and scale, which makes for way too many little things buzzing around, for me.

a friend of mine believes that every person needs 1) something they collect, and 2) a hobby which is NOT collecting. i'd agree with that sentiment. this fellow needs a hobby which is not collecting. perhaps an ebay store? lol.

Man, and I thought my Simpsons collection was out-of-control. I have just been schooled!!!

wow that is pretty crazy, wouldnt want to dust them! Even as a fellow Brit who likes to collect that is immense.

Wow that is a lot of...stuff.

I'm guessing he's single too...lol

On his website Tony says:
"I imagine quite a few of you think I'm nuts ! I'm not - I just have a lot of interests because I like to keep occupied and never waste any time."

Ummmmmm.... all of his collecting and organizing those collection is wasting time. A lot of time.

Some of the collections are nicely exhibited. The glass/bottle items and the key ring collection in particular are artfully arranged. His website made for a fun trip down memory lane. But my last thought was better he than me.
Very interesting...

40 Year Old Virgin.

'nuff said.

Put me in the camp of "no one needs to collect." Once you start collecting, you start amassing things not because you actually like them but merely because they fit into your collection. And other people start giving you things because they fit into your collection. I buy things I like. Sometimes that means I have more than one thing of the same category, but I don't have any actual collections to speak of and never have.

The first thing I noticed was the hideous ceiling.

seriously, wtf is up with grownups collecting toys.

His collections clearly make him happy, and this is not a can't-have-people-over, risk-of-being-crushed-by-tons-of-garbage kind of situation. The collections are very organized and nicely displayed. Based on his website, he seems fairly sane, which is about the most you can say for anybody. So go, collector guy!

I am completely fascinated by how arranged everything is.

Everyone has their thing I suppose - but this is a little frightening.

I see from his site that he says 'I love animals and animals love me'.

ugh, my mum would say "its just lumps of plastic" always puts me off anything kitch and crap.

The shelves themselves are a beautiful architectural detail. If he painted the walls and left the moulding and the shelves white it would be quite stunning.

The toys would look great crammed haphazardly into an acrylic wall as an art piece.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaack!

Some people's collections do raise an eyebrow, but what I think is ultimately nastier are some of the rude, arrogant comments we see about those people. THOSE are the people I want nothing to do with. Seriously.

At what point do you cross the line from collector to hoarder?

This is 100% obsessive. Here is a man who can't get rid of anything and his STUFF means the world to him. I don't care how "tidy" it is, it is still just STUFF and a lot of it!

modernguy: I was wondering the same thing. I guess not until you die and your friends and relatives come in and trash it all.

I would not want to dust those shelves! It would take DAYS!

i hate collecting. from facebook "friends" (can anyone actually know 400 people?) to china figurines to african masks, anything that one starts to amass just for the sake of collecting frightens me.
ah2Bthee made a good point as well - huge collections (unless they happen to be rembrandts or renoirs) become huge burdens on the family members who have to deal with them once the collector dies. my husband and i fear the day we have to deal with his mom's little hobby - elephant figurines and tiny vases. ergh!

Makes me glad I stopped collecting owls after getting three.
As very few of these little toys are really special by themselves, I'm not crazy about seeing them on display over whole walls of a house. Quality over quantity!.
I like the idea of collecting for the value/rarity of the objects, or if they're not very valuable or rare, then only collecting the things you really love and that enhance your life. I think it is just hoarding, otherwise.
Takes all sorts though, people! No need to be so rude about it!
I'd love to see all these displayed by colours, like that trend of people making their bookshelves into rainbows :D

I love it. It is astonishing. It would make really fantastic wallpaper to photograph it all and print it. It would look great with those colored tape stairs, too. (Hey Tony, my mother in law dated Joe Shuster!) Tony's a pop culture curator. Hooray for excess!

Oh wow! I could never live with this...plus cleaning would be a nightmare.

I spy some Buffy comics! SQUEE!

How can anyone not stare at all those little bits and bobs and not be strongly tempted to sweep them all to the ground? Not to be mean, but just 'cause it would probably feel oddly satisfying.

Holy Jesus, mother of God...

That's just sad not to mention bad decor.

the figurines are a little extreme, but i have to say that the brass collection has a nice aesthetic to it.

Lot of negative remarks....not so necessary.

Personally, as a character animator, I could spend hours in this house just looking.

So maybe not for everyone, myself included. But to other persons, I'm sure this is just inspiring.

?

Maybe collecting is a more organized form of hording? In a way, when you collect something you have the perfect excuse never to get rid of anything: after all, it's your collection and not just a bunch of stuff.

no, no, no ..... and after taking a second look... the empty space on the shelves there.... would drive me absolutely out of my mind.

I admit, I'm coveting his bottle collection...

woah. some people need to calm themselves. yes, he has amassed a HUGE collection there. but, you need to take into account that he DOES run a website that involves trading collectibles (for those of you who say he needs another hobby). also, you just have to give it to the people that do things over the top like this. that's COMMITMENT.

What's the difference between shelves of neatly displayed toys and the shelves (and shelves) of books people have? I think it has more to do with the negative stigma of adults that like toys and comics (and all that go with that; sci-fi, fantasy, video games, etc) than the size of a collection. What about all those people that have entire peg board walls in thier kitchens of pots, pans, lids, gadgets? If the argument is that those items serve a pupose, well, I don't cook, so they are just as useless to me as the entire Marvel Legends collection is to someone that doesn't like comics. Personally, I like over the top; do it extreme or don't do it at all. Minimal is not an aesthetic in my design world.

Who are we to judge? And why would we care if he is different than the norm. The norm isn't all that much fun.

I bet if I snooped around in your lives for a bit I could find something about you that might be a bit unusual. In fact, I bet you just thought of what that would be.

It's interesting to look at from the outside, it makes him happy, and it doesn't hurt anyone. What's the big deal?

What a bad analogy. Books and cookware have a function intrinsically. They aren't produced for and purchased by most people just to sit there. Toys do not have a real function. The better comparison would be to another non-functional thing that can still bring aesthetic pleasure to its owner, like art.

This actually made my head start to hurt the instant I looked at it...