The good and bad sides in large and small collections

Once I read a blog written by some American collector who has been in the hobby for a very, very long time. Seeing photos of large collections gave me a strange feeling, which, for some reason, made me think the good and bad sides of having small or large collections.

My Breyers somewhere in 2017... The herd has grown a lot since!

I have a small collection of traditionals, if we compare it to what Americans often have at my age. But I also know what it feels like to have a large collection - I have over 100 Schleichs, and many of them are customs. When combined these to the traditionals and yet my old classic scale toy horses, I can actually have a room full of horses; I can't keep them all visible since there just is no space.

The scale doesn't matter when you have to list all your horses, write their infos, put all this on a blog... And it's a lot easier with a small collection, obviously. Also the way you write the info chart matters, and the simplier it is, the quickier it is to fill and publish.

I have listed my collection several times over the years, first on paper and later digitally on computer. Yes, I've made a physical list of my models in a notebook at some point. That was just the Schleichs, and at the earliest years, when I was a kid, I probably also wrote infos as well or only for my classics (Grand Champions and related).

My yet unlisted ornament mustang which I got from LittleYoungOne.

What are the good sides of a small collection?

Well, one obvious good side is that the models don't take too much space. You can put all of them in one shelf and no one needs to go into storage in a plastic tub. Hmm, I couldn't do that (for Breyers) even if I didn't have space (which is true right now)...

Small collections are also easier to list on paper or computer. You can update their infos easily, if you need to do an overhaul.

If you want your every horse to have personal tack, it's a lot easier to achieve with less models than if you have 10 room-tall shelves filled with all kinds of models. 

What are the bad sides of a small collection?

I constantly crash with the issue that I don't have enough variety in models in general, when it comes to traditionals. For example, I want some chances at times when I photograph a ton of halters, but have only a couple models who truly serve good in that. No, the ones with tucked heads aren't those, believe it or not. But anyone with their noses in or near the horizontal line will be nice for this. 

It gets even worse if you have to do tack for molds you don't have, and the fitting has to go right (of course, when shouldn't it?). Making tack for others is always a little exciting because of that, especially if there is nothing you can compare the description to. My solution to this could of course be buying something similar to my own collection, but it's not so simple really.

Don't mind the doll... But I bought this pony mainly because so many seemed to want halters for theirs!

And what are the good sides of a large collection?

Variety... As said. The more horses I have to choose from, the wider variety of options I have for scene photography, matching horses and riders, then that that I may more potentially own a model which can mannequin for a trade/commission piece of tack. 

I often feel like I have photographed everything. New models are fun because of that. I also enjoy naming (if I'm in a naming mood) my models and building new story-related things (deciding which horse belongs to which doll, and cooking up their stories). I remember how dead this stuff was back when I had only three (THREE!) traditionals, and none of them were very great. 

What are the bad sides of a large collection?

Storage space can be under a rock, or more like under a plastic tub lid. This is what it is for most, but for me, only for my Schleichs. Model horses also take up the shelf space which otherwise could serve for other things, like books, tools and just everything. The shelves even hold the plastic tubs where my Schleichs are... And even worse, I have to keep most tubs piled on the floor because there is no shelf space!

Also, rescuing that army in the case of an emergency could be painfully impossible. And what if you had to move and take them all with you? I have never traveled with these, let alone seriously packed anything for a trip! 

Listing them all up is easy, if I do that slowly over time as the collection grows. But if I had to do a new list for every scale? No way! I mostly focus on traditionals only, anyway, so I just keep listing them. I lost my track of my Schleichs already years ago, as many newer ones were bought just for customising and the ones to be kept as OFs were not worth naming, let alone "registering". 

So, that's the... collection comparison. Or collecting habit comparison. More stuff to come, in case I don't sink back into my "what if I make someone angry with this text?" pit.