The 7 Most Impressive (And Depressing) Geek Collections
It's no surprise that some people spend retarded amounts of money on their hobbies, and who are we to judge? Maybe video games are more fun on a 108-inch TV.
But then there are the obsessive collectors who, due to some compulsion and/or desire to take their minds off how their lives turned out, spend their lives collecting shit that is both pointless and, worse, no fun.
Boxed Transformer Collection
Once Cracked is elected President (and it's only a matter of time) we will pass a law: "Transformers shall be confiscated from anyone who keeps them in sealed boxes and given to kids who'll actually play with them." It's because of you Scrooges that we still can't afford a Devastator, despite having carefully maintained our immature impulses all the way through growing up (at considerable personal cost).
Someday...
A classic example of the soon-to-be-felony is a Mr. Lindgren's eighty grand testament to miserliness, an entire wasted childhood of over 270 prime Transformer toys kept in an attic in dust-proof packing.
Mr. Lindgren unfortunately passed away and his late wife displayed her care and respect for the most important things in his life by auctioning them on eBay. It had apparently sold for a million dollars, and she and her boyfriend (half her age) were already celebrating before a phone call to the "buyer" confirmed that people won't actually pay Bond villian-levels of money for an attic full of plastic. Unless they're five-years old, which the "buyer" was. And like most five-year olds, he didn't even know what a "million dollars" actually was. That's karma, friends.
"Yes, I would like to buy all the transformers."
The couple re-listed the collection on eBay, rather optimistically including a "Buy It Now" option for $1 million - presumably in the hopes that the next five-year old to visit the site would have a bigger allowance.
Every Super Soaker Ever
Every Super Soaker ever made, over two hundred of them, make this man the envy of all the water-pistol collectors in the world, a group who meet every morning in his bathroom mirror because he's the only one.
No Guinness world record attempt, no underground market on which to sell the things for outrageous prices. Just one guy who looked at his life, realized the best thing in it was that had he owned more cheap liquid-projecting plastics than the average human being, and decided to run with it.
Many of the soakers are still boxed, and if there's anything in the world so tragically unfun as an untouched water pistol, we don't know of it (okay, maybe cancer).
But cancer is much less embarrassing.
Sure, it appears to be a horrific waste of time and effort. But maybe he's stockpiling watery weapons in case the aliens from Signs take another shot at us.
Pikachu
Belle, aka "Pika BelleChu" to her friends (or handlers, most likely) collected over eight thousand Pokemons. And while we know the whole "collect 'em all" aspect is the point of Pokemon, Belle kind of missed it: they're all the same one.
Yes, she has eight thousand Pikachus (Pikachii?). While we can't legally say that overexposure to Pokemon drives people insane, she did change her name to Pika BelleChu and start dressing up as an electric yellow rat in public.
She also dresses up as "PokeWomon Princesses", fusions of Disney characters and Pokecrap meaning that, holy shit, this person has actually turned herself into fanfiction.
She also owns an official Pikachu car and turns up at childrens' events, which we guess works if you're a girl. If a dude with a house full of toys dressed up as Pokemon and turned up at childrens' birthday parties with his "special car," we're thinking the cops would be tackling his ass within seconds.
Many, Many Dice
The largest collection of dice in the world is the work of Kevin Cook, a man who apparently needs to generate a random integer for every citizen of the Virgin Islands at a moment's notice. His collection is exactly twenty-five thousand one hundred and sixty six dice but growing fast - over two hundred have been added since we started writing this article, meaning that he collects new dice faster than we can come up with jokes about them and possibly locking us in a mocker/mockee arms race until we run out of gags or he rolls a natural one. His website is also constantly updated despite appearing to be frozen in time in the late 90s (aka "The Spinning .gif Era").
He's spent over five years photographing the collection for Guinness World Records, which he appears to be stalking. He archives every letter he sends them with detailed logs of how long it took them to respond. For god's sake guys, let him in! He's one dice-related head-injury away from becoming a Batman villain. So if you don't want to feel the wrong end of his DiceCannon while he crows "Looks like you should have rolled for Initiative!" from the top of this D20-mobile, give him the record already.
"So long, Batman, have a dice day."
Non-Videogame Videogame Crap
What's better than collecting video games? Why, collecting all the crap video companies pump out that you can't even play! Brett Martin has collected over ten thousand pieces of cheap tie-in merchandise, despite being (at the time of interview) unemployed. A career would only take time away from his dozens of Legend of Zelda thermoses, dammit!
He is hoping to get a video game testing position, though we worry that he may think this involves scooting plush Mario dolls around a table. He also has set up a website to sell his collection, which we suspect translates as, "The wife says I have to move out of my parents' house and get a job, which totally sucks."
You may wish to look around the Video Game Memorabilia Museum to either be amazed or poke fun, but be warned: a man who's paid money to permanently archive the Donkey Kong Crystal Coconut is not to be trifled with.
A Barbie Collection Worth More Than Your House
If there's one thing the internet proves, it's that men will pay to look at women. Even six-inch high fake women with featureless plastic instead of genitals - hell, that's probably a fetish by now - and in 2006 people from around the world gathered to spend over 170,000 dollars on a vast collection of them.
The collection was carefully assembled over 40 years by a Dutch fashion designer "for her daughter." The daughter's wonderful doll collection was then sealed in a series of plastic cases where the girl could presumably never touch them without fear of severe and swift retribution.
"Does this look like a toy to you?"
During the Christies auction, one anonymous bidder spent five thousand dollars on a Barbie in a zebra-skin bikini - and you can bet if we spent the price of two flights around the world on hundred grams of polyurethane, we'd want to remain anonymous too.
Insanely Huge Star Wars Collection
Rob Foster has more Storm Troopers than the actual Empire did, as well as every other Force-related chunk of plastic every pumped out to profit from the (once) good name of the trilogy.
The collection has almost three thousand original Star Wars models - his favorite is the scantily clad fat Gargan slave girl. Only 25 were ever made, and when you see it, you'll know why.
The collection lives in the bedroom used by him and his girlfriend, which is both an impressive level of understanding in a modern couple and possible proof that she doesn't exist. If she does, it can't be easy for him. Keeping your end up in bed under the judging gaze of a dozen Hutts can't be easy. Unless he's thinking of that Gargan.
For movies that are depressing check out 5 Awesome Movies Ruined By Last-Minute Changes.
