I am considering it. I say this as I thought I was both a collector and player, and I am realizing that having yoyos that are sitting not being played makes little sense to me personally. I believe an exception would be holding on to an investment piece that is likely to increase in value over time.
I suppose it all comes down to personal preference, and what is right for me, might not be right for you, and that the best advice is to go with my gut and stand by whatever decision I make.
With having said that, Iâd still like to open the conversation to see what others have done in this situation, and if it continues to be a decision for them that they in no way regret.
Iâve somewhat similarly changed the way I buy yo-yos recently as well. I donât have a massive collection but up until recently used to just buy whatever was objectively a âgoodâ new release, with the mindset of: if I donât play it, Iâll sell it. Selling it would mean a loss and I realised it didnât make sense to me, so decided to focus on a few specific brands that I really like rather than getting something either because I could or because it was good value.
Previously I would have bought the Invictus, Ditch, Gorge, Exia, etc., but passed on all of them.
I donât regret it. I started by selling off in phases, basically, then kept going. Iâll still probably reduce by 5 or 6 more. Occasionally Iâll see something I used to have that is now selling for some exorbitant price and think âwow I wish I could be selling mine nowâ lol but I donât have any regrets in keeping the count low. If anything itâs been liberating. I hate clutter or any amount of excess âstuffâ that Iâm not using regularly, yo-yos or otherwise, so it made sense for me.
Iâve sold off my collection almost entirely several times but thereâs always a few I keep. At this point my collection is entirely made up of sentimental throws because I try to keep it all to fitting in my case
I donât really see this as a player vs collector argument personally. My collection has never been particularly big, but a few months ago I sold off more than half of it. I had been collecting Unknowns thinking that a lot of it was just cool stuff to display. But really if I wasnât playing it, seeing it on my wall didnât make me appreciate it any more than just looking at a picture of it. I sold off the majority and just kept the ones I regularly threw or had damaged to the point where I donât think people are particularly interested in buying them.
I just donât see the merit of having pride in owning things. If you own things that you like because you use them, thatâs cool. If the things you own are display pieces that you think are cool to actively view and appreciate in real life, thatâs cool. Thatâs the reason why I had been collecting them initially, only to realize I donât personally get much out of just seeing them on my wall. But collecting goods that you rarely use or donât look at (tucked away in cases), just to feel some sense of pride or accomplishment from owning something? I genuinely donât understand that. In a way it almost seems to me like people are just trying to have their ego stroked for only having spent money. âCool, you spent money to accumulate a rare and valuable collection. You did a great job of having exchanged money for goods.â
This isnât to just echo my millennial âno ethical consumption under capitalismâ argument. Yoyo companies are small and run by mostly cool people, so youâre supporting good dudes when youâre buying yoyos. And lots of people end up selling off their rare old stuff when theyâre in financial trouble, so helping them out is nice. But letâs not fool ourselves into thinking that the majority of the time buying yoyos is anything more than jumping at the chance to be able to purchase and own a thing. I think itâs very shallow and honestly kind of harmful to yourself to get obsessed in a consumerist mindset of âI must own this product to be able to appreciate it.â
I think itâs telling that a common occurrence is for people to get a new yoyo they like, and people reply with âOh if you like X, you should go buy Y.â They just purchased a new yoyo, why should they actively start seeking out another instead of playing the thing they just purchased? New yoyos are exciting and fun, and trying new things in general is fun. But thereâs just so much emphasis sometimes on people just buying and consuming yoyos that itâs really weird to me. I think part of that is why people end up with such big collections and struggle to let go of stuff from them. People are often told to consume more, but rarely are people told to just be content with what they have. With the rare exceptions mostly being told to kids or other people who donât have the financial ability to just keep buying more.
Long, maybe kind of tangential post. But itâs something I notice a lot of, and think itâs a primary cause of how these huge collections and attachments to them are formed. Itâs not about being a player or collector. I can think of a handful of amazing yoyo players who have massive collections for these reasons. It takes very little time to buy yoyos, only a few minutes at most. The idea that buying yoyos somehow cuts into potential practice time is weird to me. If youâre just scouring the BSTs all day long, or the majority of your time spent engaging with yoyos is just purchasing them, then yeah. But I really donât think most people are doing that.
âIf youâre just scouring the BSTs all day long, or the majority of your time spent engaging with yoyos is just purchasing them, then yeah. But I really donât think most people are doing that.â
Can confirm, I am that weirdo on occasions regarding scouring the BST all day, lol, but it comes and goes in phases.
And you are right, you have players, you have collectors, and have the various shades of grey in between that come from multiple factors.
I donât want the stuff I own to end up owning me. So, when the enjoyment of my collection becomes overshadowed by the increasing mental burden of owning it, then Iâve reached an unwelcomed tipping point that needs to be addressed. Owning stuff should not bring about feelings of anxiety.
Pick a yoyo. Sell it. See how it feels. If it was liberating, then continue. If you felt regret, then stop. At the end of the day, itâs all just âstuffâ. Life is way too short to worry about whether or not youâll have regret after selling a yo-yo.
Surely there is more than one reason why someone would go about developing a collection of, well, anything? Personally, it sounds to me that the reason you felt so unfulfilled with your collection was because it was all about being a superficial flex. You envisioned that just having all of these exclusive items would somehow add to long term satisfaction, when in the end you were just chasing a misconception.
Building my yoyo collection started from the main desire to have âone of each type of throw to figure out what you likeâ, as is advice I see thrown out there frequently when people ask what is the best yoyo. As my collection slowly expanded, I did develop a sense of what I like and dislike, but what I like above all that is variety.
Yea, I think FOMO fuels a lot of collector communities and I wont deny it. But at the heart of their design, new yoyos are meant to be a uniquely feeling and playing experience.
Im not fooling myself when I legitimately enjoy opening up my yoyo cases, scanning my eyes over the various throws, and figuring out what I want to vibe with for a yoyo session. Ive heard a lot of people complain about choice paralysis in this kind of situation, but for me it is like being a kid in a candy store, and I know that I will enjoy whatever yoyo I end up selecting to play.
Yea, lol, I donât get this either. âYou just bought a MCMO? Wait till you try a Grailâ. Though admittedly I see a lot of posts like âjust got âxâ, what else should I buy?â, so I guess it is just ingrained in people to just always be seeking the next dopamine rush.
At least in my scenario I wouldnât really say I even felt particularly unfulfilled with my collection. It was never to flex, I bought them because I enjoyed them as both art pieces and as fun things to play with. I had zero sentiment towards them other than thinking they were great design pieces that I just didnât play often enough to justify the monetary cost of. I was never chasing anything other than just buying things I thought were cool, but then feeling guilty about just having too many things I didnât play with unless I forced myself to pick up something I hadnât played with in a while.
That lack of having any real connection with them other than just thinking they looked nice and were fun enough to play made it pretty easy to part with them. I see some people who donât want to sell things for fear that they wonât be able to reacquire them due to rarity.
I know my post is kind of loaded with an apparent distaste for that approach to collecting, of just wanting to accumulate a massive quantity of valuable things. Most of my apparent disdain for that quantity styled approach to collecting mostly comes from retro games though, yoyos donât have it nearly as bad as other hobbies do. Iâm genuinely pretty sick of people buying games for hundreds of dollars that they have zero intention of playing, and then looking to others for validation on their purchase of a thing based purely on its price, all while trying to gatekeep people from just emulating/pirating stuff. Thatâs super unrelated to this topic, but thatâs where my opinion on this matter mostly stems from if it seems like I feel pretty strongly about it. (I do)
Thereâs nothing wrong with owning a lot of yoyos though. If you donât really sell your old stuff and are in the hobby for years while slowly accumulating stuff, thatâs just the inevitable outcome. I think the overall point I just wanted to get across was that some people get far too attached to their material possessions and it makes it very hard for them to part with stuff, even if their attachment is very shallow, just in the value/rarity of it.
That being said if youâre happy with what youâve got, you donât need any extra cash, and youâre not hurting for space, whatâs the reason to sell your yoyos to downsize your collection? There really isnât any. Me just preferring to only own things I regularly use is definitely a personal preference that I donât expect everybody else to feel the same way about.
Hi my name is Rob and Iâm a yo-yo purchasing addict. Itâs been one week since my last purchase.
Iâve recently cut back on buying as well. I donât really want to sell any of them but there are a handful I wouldnât be sad about finding them new homes. I have about 75ish, and I feel I have plenty now. I still want a full Ti but Iâm going to wait until I find the perfect one at the right price. Otherwise I have a pretty solid collection. If something strikes me as new or different from what I already have (shapes or weight?)then I might be interested. My last purchase was the new run of weekender. Weâll see how long this lasts.
I have such mixed feelings on this topic. On one hand, Iâm pretty uncomfortable with celebrating consumerism that way that we do in our culture. On the other hand, I know that those huge yoyo collections help keep the lights on for yoyo companies.
Ive debated liquidating but at this point its too much effort lol. Plus Iâm like a squirrel with shiney things as soon as I see a shiney thing I drop the one im holding and switch. This leads me to playing almost every yoyo I own fairly frequently in regards to the total number of throws I have.
^^^^
