You may be shocked to hear it, but the majority of my problems in life stem from being a Funko collector. When I started to collect my motto was “I just don’t have the money” but over time it has evolved into “I just don’t have the space.” That is why I’m asking, no begging, all you readers of PopVinyls.com to share with me your secrets to storage success. But first, some background.
It wasn’t always this way. There was a time when I could buy an item, come home, put it on the bookshelf where I could see it every day and call it good. Maybe I had to move my college diploma, but that’s really just a piece of paper with some fancy calligraphy on it. This process was repeated again and again. Funko Pop in, family picture out.
Cut to a few weeks and hundreds of dollars later. The collectibles outnumbered me 100 to 1. My pantry, once full of cereals and other edibles was now full of toys. I started to wonder if maybe I had a problem. I Googled “Collectors Anonymous,” “Funko-fanatics Anonymous,” and other similar-sounding groups to find support for people like me. I found some weird stuff, but nothing helpful.
The trouble continued. My wife was starting to notice that things were getting a little out of hand. I’d been sleeping on the couch for a week already to make room for Funko items when she asked me “what the plan was” for this collecting thing. Since I got a D in my college improv class, I had no trouble fabricating a reasonably intelligent “plan.” But I knew I must change my ways. I knew I had to start hiding my collection.
Over the course of the next few weeks, that’s what I began doing. I saw my house in a whole new light. Every nook and cranny that was big enough, I’d stash part of my collection in. Closets, dresser drawers, medicine cabinets, shoe boxes, they all were commandeered by toys. Luckily for me, my wife’s 5-foot 2-inch stature prevented her from seeing much higher than her eye-line and I was able to store stuff up high.
But now I’ve reached the limit. There is literally no more space to store collectibles. If I can successfully build a small raft then I can store at least two more Pop in the tank of my toilet, but as of now a lot of good figures have died during the tests. Renting out a storage unit is not what I’d like to do because instead of spending money on Funko’s, I’d have to spend it on storing them.
This is where you come in – what creative ways do you store your collection? Is there a simple solution that I’m missing?
Matt Norris