Buying Flawed Robots

[robothunter]

The whole box/no box debate is a real problem for me as well. When I first started collecting I didn't care at all about boxes and just wanted the robots. Especially since as a kid, like a lot of us out there, the box was the first thing to go. So I had all these great memories of robots I wanted to own again but didn't really care about boxes. Then that first beautiful box comes along, usually with a robot you really want and can't get the seller to break them up, so you pony on up and buy that boxed robot. Then the obbession starts and before you know it, you're looking to have every robot you own paired up with a box. At first it was good reproduction boxes. Then one day I looked at my glass showcase filled with all original robots and decided that nothing reproduction should be in there. Repro boxes were only for repro robots. So out went the repro boxes and I started buying loose boxes whenever I could or trading up loose robots for boxed examples. Now I worry about the safekeeping of these stupid boxes than the robots! Exposure to light, humidity, air. How delicate the paper is. Color fading. All the reasons I would never have entertained collecting comic books or paper collectibles now haunt my robot collecting thoughts. Sometimes I wish I had never gotten into the whole box thing. They're cool to look at, but nothing compares to a great peice of tin! And the amount of money & space they take up is a killer.

[Robotnut]

If we in the west complain about space for boxes,

think about our friends in Tokyo. I think that it was

mentioned a while back that many collectors in

Japan remove the staples, flatten their boxes and

store them in portfolios. I remember this cool roller

press that can take a metal object up to 6 inches

thick and flatten it to 1/4 inch. If this ever catches

on, we could also store all our tin robots and space

toys in portfolios as well... :P

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