Share your biggest regrets for your collection

SUSANNE wrote:

Gosh !  It was a shame that you missed them, - but ( fortunately) nobody can tell the future

Amazing that you can remember both date and place, - you must have been very, very much in love with those models

Thank you for your compliment.

As for my regrets, notice it: I always chose the whales when I was in front of figures to buy. Result: today, when I look at my collection, here is what I see: Larami whales, AAA whales, Safari ltd whales, Playvisions whales, chinawhales...

My biggest regret was thinking that Schleich made the best animal figures when I first started collecting.
Thanks to STS forum, I got introduced to other companies that made far more real "life like" animal figures, like Safari ltd., Papo, Mojo, CollectA etc.

My goal is to replace most of the old Schleich figures I've bought in the early days.
(So, thank you Papo for the new Kangeroo.   )

Bloodrayne wrote:

My biggest regret was thinking that Schleich made the best animal figures when I first started collecting.
Thanks to STS forum, I got introduced to other companies that made far more real "life like" animal figures, like Safari ltd., Papo, Mojo, CollectA etc.

My goal is to replace most of the old Schleich figures I've bought in the early days.
(So, thank you Papo for the new Kangeroo.   )

It was'nt your fault if you did not know...

Bowhead Whale wrote:

My regrets? Mostly pieces I didn't buy when they were available in stores. Here they are:

MONTEREY BAY HUMPBACK WHALE. That was in May 1993, in the Biodôme of Montréal. I had enough money to buy it, but I got "reasonable" and bought the AAA Right Whale instead, which was a lot less expensive. I regreted my choice when, through the years, I saw more opportunities to buy the AAA Right Whale, while the Montereay Bay Humpback was not available anywhere else... No Wonder I jumped on the Monteray Bay Greay Whale and Sperm Whale in 1998 when I saw them!

Are you still looking for MONTEREY BAY HUMPBACK WHALE ?

But of course, I am!!! What would you like for a trade?

Bowhead Whale wrote:

But of course, I am!!! What would you like for a trade?

Perhaps I can help you to get it, send you PM.

My biggest regret was missing a rare killer whale sculpture of Franklin Mint.
I saw it on Ebay's auction, which was ending in 10 minutes, and ran to the cash machine to put money on a card for paying, but my money stucked in cash mashine!
Auction ended, someone lucky bought the orca, and I was without money and without the figure.

And only after a while I found out that on auctions you can pay later after a winning bet and it wasn't necessary to put the money on a card in those moment  

And I'm still looking for this sculpture but no one sells it now.

I have many regrets... one of the more recent that really sticks in my craw and makes me angry with myself happened roughly 5 years ago. I had very little money- perhaps $5?- and my husband was at the time not accepting of my animal collecting. We had gone to a run down fly by night flea market in a rough part of town. A shady place, but cheap. Animal figures there generally run $0.25- 0.50. After I'd been there long enough to want to buy a drink, I walked by a man with the Safari Incredible Creatures Pac-man frog on his table. I stopped to look at it while my husband rolled his eyes. I asked the seller if he'd take $1.50 for it, which would leave me enough for a water. The man went ballistic, screaming at me for being a cheap-@&& #*!%$ for my offer, all the people at the market were cheap-@&& scum and he was over it. His belligerence ticked me off- I may have been wrong to make an offer, but it was only a question asked politely!- and I left without buying it. I thought about that frog though, and went back as soon as I could a few weeks later to get it. The seller wasn't there, and I've never again seen him there or at any other area market. Only later did I learn that it was such a rare model.

If the man hadn't been so hateful though, and just said no his price was firm, I would have after a minute of though and deciding I wasn't really that thirsty bought the frog for his asking price. Since I would'nt have had enough for a drink left, I may even have bought one of the smaller figures he had for the remaining $2. So the blame is sort of 50-50.

Sad story pipsxlch. I'm sure everyone here understand because we all lived this kind of failure.

I think this kind of stories is one of the reasons we are collecting, we don't want to have too much things sticking in our craw.

My biggest regret is to not buying the Safari LTD Malayan tapir in a German online animal figurine shop.
I delayed and delayed the buying of it waiting for the next big bunch of figures for buying for Christmas or my birthday.
But when the date arrived, the tapir was retired from the website, and forever. I wrote them, but they replied that this will not be available again. And none online shop offers it yet. From time to time I find some forum member selling it, but for prohivitibe shipping costs since they came from USA (where the brand is located)

If I had bought it earlier, I would had it for cheap in my collection. Safari LTD Malayan Tapir is in my opinion the best malayan tapir, tough Papo's one is not bad (tough also impossible to get nowadays).

Pardofelis wrote:

If I had bought it earlier, I would had it for cheap in my collection. Safari LTD Malayan Tapir is in my opinion the best malayan tapir, tough Papo's one is not bad (tough also impossible to get nowadays).

Yes yes yes

When Schleich, Papo and Safari Ltd produced their tapir, we had a big discussion here, for me the Sfari Ltd one was the best by far

LeeAnn wrote:

So, what are your regrets about your collection? Something you bought and wish you didn't, or something that you didn't buy when you should have? Is it repainting a figure when you probably shouldn't have? Maybe not buying figures in your youth that you would love to have today. What are your regrets?

One of mine is probably not bringing enough money on a vacation, and a bookstore had a huge display of discontinued figures.    Even today I don't have all the ones at that store. Unfortunately the store is out of business now, or I would be calling to see if they were still there!   

Biggest regrets.... hmmm...
1)  I don't have enough shelves to have all of my huge collection out where I can see it.  
2) I didn't buy those funny-colored Breyers (the Decorators) back when they came out in the 1960s.  (I only wanted models colored like real horses!)  
3) As I'm also a clinky collector, I regret not saving money in order to buy the Hagen Renaker Designer Workshop horses whenever I saw them in stores in the 1960s-1980s.  I could have (and did!) buy several Hartlands or Marx horses for the price of one of the HR DWs.

Jolly Reaper wrote:

My biggest regret was missing a rare killer whale sculpture of Franklin Mint.
I saw it on Ebay's auction, which was ending in 10 minutes, and ran to the cash machine to put money on a card for paying, but my money stucked in cash mashine!
Auction ended, someone lucky bought the orca, and I was without money and without the figure.

And only after a while I found out that on auctions you can pay later after a winning bet and it wasn't necessary to put the money on a card in those moment  

And I'm still looking for this sculpture but no one sells it now.

You must not be looking at ebay right now as there's 1 of the Franklin Mint Killer Whales with a BIN of $199.99. That's half of the original price for the piece!

Well I haven't sold my figures on but I have lost some. In 2008 I was playing in my garden with the Schleich toco toucan (retired) and somehow lost the figure, and also lost the Schleich baby orangutan (retired) in my grandparent's garden in the same year.

Even when I was a toddler I'd look after my figures like a hawk but somehow I lost the odd one. If only you could track your figures and then you'd never lose or misplace them.

My biggest regret is not being able to display my figures and seeing them damage each other in their storage boxes.

I also regretted not buying some retired Schleich models when I found them but I eventually ordered them online so it is not a regret anymore.

I regretted buying some figures because they are too big or too small and do not fit well with my other figures.

Growing up in Ireland we didn't have much in the way of model animals except made in Hong Kong knock offs and some Britains.As the Britains were far better I began collecting them and playing with them and to date I still have some of the models but have collected others as well.Schleich and Bullyland were the first models I started to collect when I began travelling in the Europe(back then Schleich hadn't cornered the market!)I regret not having bought a lot of older Schleich and Bullyland.
When I went to the USA-then it was WOW-Breyer!!! and all those horses and other animals-regret not buying a lot of these models at the time
Also older Safari models again should have gotten more at the time!including the tubes!
Also should have bought more Hagen Renaker dogs and horses when I had the chance and when they were inexpensive!

Also not buying more Playvisions when they were common and also Elastolin.I remember going to a market in Berlin in the 2000s and they were sooooo cheap but I failed to get any

RtasVadumee wrote:

My biggest regret is not being able to display my figures and seeing them damage each other in their storage boxes.

Don't you wrap them, or do they just fight?

They are so many, I don't wrap them as it already takes me 5 hours to put them all into the boxes without wraping them and I would not have enough room to store them if I did.

They do not fight but just taking them in and out of the boxes is enough to damage the painting. That's minor scratches of course but still visible.

Until December I only kept my figures in storage boxes and every week or so they would take over my conservatory see here: http://animaltoyforum.com/index.php?topic=2539.msg22006#msg22006

Regretting something in this hobby is very difficult. Because we regret maybe something, that is very personal or wasn´t a problem when we were young.

Today I regret that some of my figurines are damaged as I played with them, didn´t take care of the storage or build and re-build a zoo and changed the position of every animal each time. But as a kid, it was the greatest pleasure, so on the other part, I can´t regret that I was a kid And the playing with those figurines araised my awarness of nature and made me the collector I´m today...

I regret also the fact, that my collection is so diversed when we talk about size. In the past, rare figurines weren´t available from the modern companies like Bullyland or Schleich. So it were Elastolin, Britains, Playvisions or China-marked figurines, that didn´t fit in size with my figurines from the modern brands. Nowadays, it would be much easier to built a synoptic collection and I recognized, that the discussions and threads about size become more often in the last months. So, it would be easy to replace the ancient figurines.
But, this hobby isn´t quite cheap when we talk about the modern brands and then, I will spend my money in new species instead of replacing old ones. And some of those species (in my case the NewRay Wildlife Animals) have a special place in my heart. I´m very nostalgic and can´t replace so easy an figurine with memories and a "past".

As I mentionned, money is always a problem. And maybe I´m also a little bit stingy (instead of buying easily toobs that are available, I search only for the figurine I want). So today, I regret not buying more old Schleich or Bullyland (I think of the birds of prey by Schleich or the Topi by Bullyand). But on the other hand: I was a kid, I didn´t have money and a lot of the animals were gifts from my parents. And then, we have the recap of the figurines with memory.

So, maybe I regret buying some figurines, that I surely will replace some day. I think on some small brands that were cheaper than the figurines from the modern brands...but I can´t display them in any way.

I regret not being patient enough and that I bought the Mojo clouded leopard or Safari Anhinga in their first variations. One year later, they appeared in a much more realistic and beautiful shape.

And I regret that collecting animals was a big secret of mine when I was a teenager. I always thought, I was the only one who collected animals. As kid, it was a toy. But as teen, it become more and more a collection and passion, but until today, it´s a little secret and a lot of my friends don´t know it. But this forum gave me more self-confidence and I learned: "I am not alone"

My two biggest regrets involve Replica Toy Fish figures.
The first of which is not buying the Shovelnose Sturgeon 6” figure from Acorn Naturalists when it was available not too long ago. I think it was in the $3-$5 range, and now my only hope is to attempt a high-stakes trade involving custom fish figures.
The other large regret is not buying a lot of Replica Toy Fish figures from Toy Fish Factory itself on eBay. They were available for the longest time and contained the Cutthtoat Trouts and the Golden Trout. Now I need to find someone who bought several of these lots.

My biggest regrets are always the models I didn't get, due to seller error or outright scam!

The ones you've seen, decided to splash out on, bought and paid for, then don't ever own after all. Every time I see one, I think 'I should have that', and it's not my fault I don't.

There's two Breyer models which come to mind as irritating and disappointing regrets.
Kodi, a pinto special run, which I didn't get because the seller turned out to be a scammer, having 'sold' a lot of models then not posted a single one of them. Because I'd been strung along with excuses about why it couldn't be posted yet, I was beyond ebay's 45 day money back guarantee limit, and had to open a case with paypal's own investigation team to get a refund.
The second one was Rocket, a Breyerfest special run, which I bought Buy-It-Now and paid for instantly, only to be messaged three or four days later saying they didn't have the model any more and would refund me (a friend who's on Facebook tipped me off that the seller had sold it to someone on there instead!)

I love this topic- I can definitely feel the frustrations each of you must have felt but it's still interesting to read!
I've had two huge regrets involving the Schleich super beagle- recently one came up for sale on Ebay.de (I couldn't believe my eyes, I thought that they were pretty much all in the hands of collectors now!), for more than I could afford but I hoped that no one would bid on it and it would be relisted for a smaller price. Luckily it ended without any bids so I waited all week checking whether it would be relisted, until I found out that someone had contacted the seller after it ended and privately agreed on a price to sell it!
And then a couple of weeks ago, I spotted the Schleich super beagle AGAIN for sale, in absolutely perfect condition on Ebay Kleinanzeigan for a fraction of the price it usually is- I was amazed that something so rare could come up again, and in such perfect condition! I had been checking this site almost every day, but I missed a couple of days before finding this beagle, and so unfortunately when I contacted the seller apparently it had just been sold a few minutes earlier! If only I had checked sooner! That last one was definitely my biggest regret!
Anyway, as a result I am now hunting for the super beagle and super St. Bernard with even more determination than before!

when I was young and we were moving I gave half my precious collection to a good friend. Years later when we met again, I asked where all the animals were that I'd given him (I was hoping to get them back), and he said he'd given them away. I learned a valuable lesson, never to give away what I truly loved to someone who didn't have the same passion as me, and I never did that again.
Now my collection is growing nicely and I cherish every single little being in it. It fills my life with joy!
I have always collected things my whole life, so these animals are just one of a few different things I adore and keep an eye out for. I love them so much that I know the ones I am wanting will make their way to me - how could they not ? they are coming to a home that will shower them with love and appreciation:):) every day is like xmas here