Curating a collection - what to buy?

Curating is something I've mentioned a few times before, and I feel that it's an important part of being a collector.  There was a time when I picked up any and all MLP ponies and merchandise that I found, but soon enough my collection began to outgrow it's space.  At the same time I found that there were certain aspects of the MLP world that I either disliked or simply wasn't interested in.  It meant that I began to pick and choose which MLP items would stay in my collection.

It's an easy thing to say, but it's not always an easy thing to do.  In the G3 era, very little merchandise (school supplies, cosmetics, and the like) came to Canadian stores, and many store exclusive ponies didn't come North at all.  It was frustrating to hear about items that were available in the US but not here, and not always practical to ship them in.  As a result, I was unable to get some of the things that I would have liked.  The G4 era has the opposite problem, in that a great deal of ponies and merchandise available in Canada, sometimes more so than in the USA.

My initial reaction to so many G4 ponies and merch was to cheer and sweep it all into my shopping basket.  However, I soon realized that I was going to be overrun if I didn't start cherrypicking what I was going to purchase.  Since I view the brushable ponies as the main focus of my collection it was easy to choose to limit the amount of merchandise I would add to the collection, but not always easy to leave merchandise items behind in the store.

I also consider carefully which brushable ponies I will add to my collection, particularly when buying G4s.  In the G3 era, I tended to buy nearly every pony available in stores so that I wouldn't "miss out" on anything.  But I found later that I had several ponies that I wasn't overly attached to, couldn't remember the names of, or otherwise didn't care for.  This time around, I am trying to decide that I like the pony enough to keep her before I buy (I am not always successful at this endeavour).

This process helps to limit the amount of stuff that makes it into the Geek Cave.  Next week, I'll deal with the stuff that's already made it in.

Elf