The end of an era . . .

[shmokes]

Just kidding . . .  but as some of the long-timers here may remember, I have a pez collection. When I was 16 or 17 (about 15 years ago), whenever the Pez episode of Seinfeld came out, two of my friends and I bought Pez dispensers as a joke and started "Pezzing" people at school (the first Pez dispenser I bought was the Tweety Bird featured in that episode). Then some more of our friends started doing it and it became this kind of hilarious thing that went on for a few weeks where if someone pezzed you, you had to take the Pez and eat it. Even though, of course, Pez candy is gross. Because to do otherwise would just be impolite.

Anyway, during that time I bought more pez dispensers to mix things up, and by the time the whole thing had worn off I had like 8 or 9 pez dispensers sitting on the dresser in my room. And a few weeks later I looked at them and I suddenly decided that it looked sort of like the start of a collection. I was only ever a casual collector. I never once purchased a pez dispenser anywhere other than retail (though I did seek out European-only ones on a couple of trips overseas). I never bought any antique Pez on Ebay or anything like that. But over the years whenever I passed Pez dispensers in the stores, I'd look to see if there were any I didn't have, and if so I'd pick them up. After I got married my wife began doing the same.

But a few years ago I realized that I was bored of it and had been for a long time. Over the last few years I stopped even paying attention. My wife did all the checking of dispensers in stores and I frequently didn't know off the top of my head anymore which ones I had and which I didn't. When we moved into our new place in D.C. last October I didn't even unbox them, and I finally told my wife I had lost interest long ago but hadn't said anything because she still seemed into it. She laughed her ass off and was like, "Why didn't you say something earlier? I only bought them because I thought you wanted them."

I hope that long story was at least somewhat interesting, cos long-story short is, I'm ditching the collection. I'll put it on Ebay and see if I can pick up a couple hundred bucks or something. But in order to do that I had to finally pull out my boxes (yeah . . . plural) of Pez dispensers, set them up, catalog them and photograph them. The collection is pretty big--more than 500 unique dispensers. A quick search on Ebay shows a few "huge" collections, but I didn't see anything over about 150. Unfortunately it doesn't look like there's much demand for Pez collections, though, so I don't expect to get much. I'd maybe get more selling it piecemeal, but I don't know. That seems like a PITA. I suppose I'd just end up selling all the ones that have any significant value but I'd still have a huge Pez collection--just slightly less huge. I'd rather just be rid of it altogether in one fell swoop.

Photo attached.

Anyway, here's what it looks like.

[Howard_Casto]

Man that's a huge collection.   It might be worth it (if you are glutton for punishment) to setup a marketplace.  It could take a couple of years to sell them all, but you would probably get more for individual pez than the whole collection.  Bad economy you know. 


But what's this about PEZ being gross?    PEZ are great!  I used to buy those crazy refill packs sans dispensor (where you get like 10 packs) and go through em in a day.  What did you guys do, only buy lemon?

[shmokes]

Lemon, in my opinion, are the only ones that could remotely be considered almost tolerable, lol. I actually took a ton of pictures. Individual pictures for each set, e.g., a pic of just the Marvel heroes, a pic of just the Hello Kitty characters. I'll set up a gallery on my website. When it's done I'll post a link here for anyone who's curious.

[Le Chuck]

Oh man, I wouldn't sell.  When they are all set up like that they are really visually stunning. 

I'm not a Pez fan, candy or otherwise, but I think that multiple rows of narrow three tier shelves would give you an effect of all these colorful little heads poking out.  Doesn't have to be all, maybe pick out your 200 favorite or something. 

Hope you sale goes well either way.   

[shmokes]

Oh man, I wouldn't sell.  When they are all set up like that they are really visually stunning. 

Maybe you should buy it.   

I know what you mean. When I moved here in October I finally had all of my belongings shipped to me, which had been in storage since I left Miami a year prior. Once I had them all set up like that I was sort of like, "Jesus Christ . . . that's something else." And of course, the first thought was, "Should I really be getting rid of this? This was a long time in the making and . . . well . . . look at it." But, you know . . . that's sort of nostalgia playing tricks on me. Because during the entire time I lived in Miami they were displayed in a really cool combination of glass cases and shelves that showed them off very well. But I just didn't care about them at all. I wasn't impressed by them. I wasn't inclined to add to the collection. And if I were to turn around now and decide to keep them I know the same thing would happen. The novelty will just wear off and I'll have this big albatross I need to either make space for or just, like, keep boxed up which makes even less sense.

Honestly . . . I suspect that more than growing bored of it, 30 year old me just doesn't think a Pez collection is nearly as interesting or fun as 20 year old me did.

[Ed_McCarron]

Damn.  I've got something in common with shmokes?  Just got the LOTR set for Christmas.  It's the Walmart "exlcusive" with the eye of Sauron dispenser.

One does not simply walk into Walmart.

[fallacy]

Insult to the pez community!

[Gray_Area]

I never saw the sense in collecting PEZ heads. Action figures....maybe.......

[shmokes]

I never saw the sense in collecting PEZ heads. Action figures....maybe.......

Seeing as I'm getting rid of my collection, I'm probably not in the best position to make a convincing argument to the contrary. But aside from collecting something as an investment, collecting Pez is like collecting anything else. It's an entertaining diversion. You derive a sense of accomplishment and pride for having done something that not many people have done. You have something to display that fascinates a lot of people (though of course many collections, including Pez might not cause the kind of fascination from some people that you'd probably prefer). There's a bit of elation in finally coming across an obscure one that completes a series you've been working on. Collecting action figures makes no more sense (unless they're a better investment which may be the case). You aren't just buying the characters you love and admire. If you're collecting ya gotta catch them all. That's the same as Pez collecting. It makes no sense except for all the reasons I mentioned above.

Edit: Unless . . . I completely misread your point and you would collect action figures because you would play with them. Admittedly, playing make believe with the disembodied Pez Wolverine wouldn't be as fun as fighting bad guys with the action figure. 

[Howard_Casto]

Honestly . . . I suspect that more than growing bored of it, 30 year old me just doesn't think a Pez collection is nearly as interesting or fun as 20 year old me did.

I hear ya on that one.  I'm currently setting in a room full of Star Wars memorabilia.  The funny thing is, I'm not really into star wars that much.  But you've got to understand, I bought all of this stuff in the late 90's when the digitally enhanced trilogy was being released and and prequels were about to come out (you know, before we knew they sucked).  I picked up a bunch of stuff because I honestly got excited about the new films about to come out and I thought that some original trilogy merch might be worth money some day.  Little did I know that Lucas would spend the next 12-15 years leeching the franchise dry by making more merch than ever before.  

Meanwhile my Star Trek, stuff.... which I kind of do like, sits in a drawer somewhere.  I can't get it out to display because of all the SW crap.  

So yeah sometimes you just need to get rid of stuff if you don't like it anymore, for no other reason than to give yourself more space for other cool stuff to collect.

**edit**

No need to defend collecting pez.... I've seen people collect far stupider things.  The important thing is that you enjoy collecting it.

[ark_ader]

They are still selling Pez at my local market.

Don't know how old they are.

[lilshawn]

Insult to the pez community!

I don't know a whole lot about pez dispensers, but I know a guy whose an expert on pez dispensers...let me call him up...

[Grasshopper]

Honestly . . . I suspect that more than growing bored of it, 30 year old me just doesn't think a Pez collection is nearly as interesting or fun as 20 year old me did.

Maybe. But it's possible that the 40 year old version of yourself will think they're cool again.

Unless you have absolutely no choice due to either lack of space, or money to pay for storage, I'd urge you to pause and reconsider. I've got rid of loads of random crap from my childhood and adolescence over the years. Getting rid of clutter feels great in the short term and the extra space is always useful, but I've often come to regret it, sometimes only many years later.

Also, they might be worth a bit in a few years time. If you need a justification for keeping your collection, then just consider it an (admittedly fairly speculative) investment.

[nitz]

Shmokes, cool story and collection. Heh, that clappy face is really reminding me of Jerry Seinfeld making the Tweety Bird Pez dispenser clap right now.

I also disagree though on Pez candy being bad. I've always loved Pez and I've always wondered why everyone else seems to hate it.

Honestly . . . I suspect that more than growing bored of it, 30 year old me just doesn't think a Pez collection is nearly as interesting or fun as 20 year old me did.

Maybe. But it's possible that the 40 year old version of yourself will think they're cool again.

Unless you have absolutely no choice due to either lack of space, or money to pay for storage, I'd urge you to pause and reconsider. I've got rid of loads of random crap from my childhood and adolescence over the years. Getting rid of clutter feels great in the short term and the extra space is always useful, but I've often come to regret it, sometimes only many years later.

Also, they might be worth a bit in a few years time. If you need a justification for keeping your collection, then just consider it an (admittedly fairly speculative) investment.

+1 on this. It does sound like you're ready to move on and you very well could be, but please be absolutely 100% sure before you pull the trigger on selling these. I had a pretty decent collection of NES games once. Although fairly modest in number, there were a few semi-rare games in there, most were near mint condition, and most had the original boxes and manuals also in near mint condtion. I stupidly sold them and then regretted it a few years later. I actually ended up rebuying most of them a few years after that, but it's not the same - few of them could be called mint, and none have the original packaging or manuals. And I don't feel I can justify spending the money to get a mint "cart in box" collection.

I'm in the midst of slowly decluttering now - I have stuff that I haven't looked at in ages and I'm running short on space. In fact, I'm actually considering getting rid of some of those NES games I rebought since it was just never the same anyway. But I'm taking my time, and thinking hard about each individual item and whether or not I would be ok with never having it again. I've been able to get rid of some stuff and really feel good about it, but other stuff I just need to hold onto for a bit longer.

Anyway, good luck with wherever this goes.

[EightBySix]

Why not kill 2 birds with one stone and make a showcase cabinet / mame cab or juke, that dispenses pez candy when you beat a high score (or when you don't, depending on whether you like it or not...)

The original candy cab?
Pez Popcade?

[shmokes]

Because Pez is gross. I thought we already covered this. 

[Howard_Casto]

I also disagree though on Pez candy being bad. I've always loved Pez and I've always wondered why everyone else seems to hate it.

Maybe PEZ is like WWF attitude... some people just don't "get it".   

[paigeoliver]

Just sell it all in one lot and be rid of it. The additional labor required to try to get top dollar out of them probably wouldn't be worth your time, particularly since doing so would require you to really educate yourself about pez values and such.

[DCsegaDH]

I collect horror action figures, the tall 18 inch ones. I stop collecting them because they are too expensive and I kinda ran out of room.




Anyway, nice Pez collection.

[Ed_McCarron]

They are still selling Pez at my local market.

Don't know how old they are.

If they have 'feet' they aren't worth the plastic they're made from, typically.  The footless ones are the older ones.  By the time they had feet, mass production pretty much guaranteed they wouldn't be worth much.

[Donkey_Kong]

Nice collection!

[Vigo]

My thought is that you should not ebay them...I've gotten into funks where I have gotten rid of things and only regretted it a few years later when interest sparked up again. IMO, you should just shove them in a box and forget them for a few years.

If after a few years, no interest comes back, then make some kids day with them....I don't know if you have or plan to have kids, or have nieces or nephews, but give a small piece of your collection to one of them. Then if they keep that interest, give them more valuable and significant pieces to them each year for their birthday or something. Kids are often surprisingly receptive to gifts with some personal significance to them. Plus, I think it would bring a little bit of closure to you collection to pass the torch on it rather than ditching it completely.

[leapinlew]

If after a few years, no interest comes back, then make some kids day with them...

Isn't that what he's done?

The people telling you to hold on to them are giving you good advice. I can think of a couple things in my life that I got rid of only to scramble to get it back later when the interest came back. However, I've had many many more things I got rid of and never looked back. Back in the early 90's, I was into Magic the Gathering. I had a impressive set of beta-3rd edition hard to find cards. After a year or two, I sold off all my cards in fear of a falling values. I kept lots of fun to play with rare cards and put them in a box with all my other cards. After about a year of non-playing I sold the whole box. Fast forward a few years later and I ran into some people still playing and I really wanted my cards back so I acquired a bunch of cards. Those sat in a box for about 10 years before I sold them just this last year. I'll never play again and I'm over it like I'm over playing with my tricycle.

[Vigo]

If after a few years, no interest comes back, then make some kids day with them...

Isn't that what he's done?

If I understood right, they were boxed up since October. It personally takes me a couple years to build back interest on a lot of things. In fact, I think I dissappeared off of these forums for about 2 years. 

[shmokes]

Boxed up since October 2010, though I only had the opportunity to unbox it in October 2011 when I moved into a new permanent location so had all my belongings shipped to me from Miami where they'd been sitting in storage.

But for 3 or 4 years before boxing them up when I was moving away from Miami, although they were on display I had utterly no interest in them. So for years I've had no interest, and for a year they were boxed up in another state, but when I finally had all my belongings shipped to myself, after not having them for an entire year, I unpacked all my things, but still just had no interest whatsoever in unpacking and displaying my Pez. I'm pretty sure I'm just done.

I could, like, pass them onto my daughter but I'm not sure I like that idea. For one thing, I'm not sure how meaningful it is to pass something onto your child that isn't meaningful to you. I mean, she wouldn't be getting some cherished possession of mine handed down. She'd be getting something that I had sitting in a box because I didn't care about it. Also, I've actually been moving toward the belief that collecting in general is maybe not that great a thing maybe sometimes a bad thing. Or sometimes the bad outweighs the good but it's invisible and you don't even know it's there. I mean to have things not because you want them or like them or they have any other intrinsic value to you, but only because they are just one more thing that shares some characteristic with another thing you have.

[shmokes]

When I really started giving this thought was around the time I was signing up to take the bar. My intention all along was to take the New York Bar and move away from Miami after law school (hopefully to Paris, but NY or DC alternatively). But as law school was winding down, and I was going to register for the bar, there was a serious temptation to just take the Florida bar. And I realized that I felt this way largely because the thought of packing up all this stuff I had and moving it was so unpleasant.

I have all this stuff. And I value it, my stuff. I value it a lot, but why do I value it? The only thing that made 99% of my stuff special is that it was mine. And here I was, reconsidering whether I should go out and continue pursuing my dreams and gaining rich new experiences from around the country, hopefully around the world, because carrying all this stuff with me would be such a nuisance.

We decided to sell almost everything we owned. My book collection was huge. I had an enormous library of books, among which were about 30-40 Easton Press editions which are extremely nice books with the following characteristics (copied from Wikipedia):

    bound in fine genuine leather
    22kt gold-stamped spine accents
    distinctive raised spine hubs
    intricate gilt stamped cover designs
    specially milled acid-neutral paper
    Smyth-sewn pages
    gilded page edges
    endsheets of moiré silk
    permanent satin ribbon page-marker

They're beautiful. And I loved my books, beautiful and ugly, for their contents. But . . . once I'd read them, I just owned them. That's the only thing I did with them. I owned them. And maybe there is some intrinsic value to ownership, in and of itself. But maybe all the things you have and collect pile up around you and make you unable to even see some of the potentially more valuable things out there.  

In hindsight, the legal market is so bad that I probably would have been better off taking the Florida bar, getting a good job in Miami, which would have been much easier, and trying to break into the type of law I really want to practice (international arbitration) a few years down the road when the economy improves. But that's another conversation for another time, lol.

This whole thing makes me think of the brilliant speech from Up IN The Air. Brilliantly written and delivered, I mean. The message of the speech is too extreme probably bad advice in the long term, at least for most people. But there is at least a grain of truth to it.

Link to video - Embed doesn't work

[nitz]

Boxed up since October 2010, though I only had the opportunity to unbox it in October 2011 when I moved into a new permanent location so had all my belongings shipped to me from Miami where they'd been sitting in storage.

But for 3 or 4 years before boxing them up when I was moving away from Miami, although they were on display I had utterly no interest in them. So for years I've had no interest, and for a year they were boxed up in another state, but when I finally had all my belongings shipped to myself, after not having them for an entire year, I unpacked all my things, but still just had no interest whatsoever in unpacking and displaying my Pez. I'm pretty sure I'm just done.

You know, you really are sounding like someone who's done with it and knows it. I'll suggest at least keeping the Tweety Bird one and maybe some of the other early ones you got - those are part of your past and would have some memories associated with them I would think. You may be sorry if you get rid of them. They could go in a little box in a closet and you could just forget about them unless you wanted to look at them. The stuff that you bought just to collect would be less special...sell 'em.

Also, I've actually been moving toward the belief that collecting in general is maybe not that great a thing maybe sometimes a bad thing. Or sometimes the bad outweighs the good but it's invisible and you don't even know it's there. I mean to have things not because you want them or like them or they have any other intrinsic value to you, but only because they are just one more thing that shares some characteristic with another thing you have.

I have all this stuff. And I value it, my stuff. I value it a lot, but why do I value it? The only thing that made 99% of my stuff special is that it was mine.

Well said man, well said. I'm 30 as well, and over the last couple of years, I've really been cluing in to the fact that stuff can just kind of weigh you down and burden you. I never got hardcore into collecting anything (I'm kinda OCD, so if I got into something like that, it would probably take over my life), but I have way more stuff than I feel I really need - yet I struggle to part with most of it and it causes me a bit of anxiety. I don't even really have what most people would consider a lot of stuff. I'm a blue collar guy, I do ok money and stuff wise, but certainly nothing that most people would get excited about.

For right now, I'm just not acquiring more stuff for the most part...when I'm thinking of buying something, I always ask myself, "Do I really want this? Am I ok with adding this to the pile and having it taking up space long-term?" Occasionally the answer is yes, but usually it is no. And I am working on slowly getting rid of a lot of my stuff. There is some stuff I know I'll never wanna get rid of, but I'm really moving towards just letting go of most of it. I think it'll make me calmer and happier. Less is more.

Again, best of luck with this.

[leapinlew]

You know, you really are sounding like someone who's done with it and knows it. I'll suggest at least keeping the Tweety Bird one and maybe some of the other early ones you got - those are part of your past and would have some memories associated with them I would think.

Good idea. Keep a couple and put'em on a bookshelf. They don't take up much space.

[shmokes]

I put a gallery together with individual pics of each set. The simplest way to see the pictures is click on one of the thumbnails and then just use your keyboard's arrow keys to scroll through images.

pez.jakemoses.com

By the way, I added a link to the video of of the Up In The Air speech a couple posts up. The embed doesn't seem to work, at least not on my computer.

[leapinlew]

Nice pic with your daughter. What does she think of this?

[shmokes]

If I asked her outright whether I should sell or keep them, she would say keep them. However, if I asked her whether I should keep or throw away the scraps after cutting shapes from colored paper, she would absolutely be in favor of keeping the scraps.

She's not attached to them and has never been involved in, or taken an interest in buying new Pez at the store. Even when they were on display she was explicitly disallowed from interacting with them (think: dominoes). And, frankly, at this age memories are short. She's five and a half now and for the last fifteen months they've been in storage.

Figured I should get a photo with her in it, though, so like, "That's me when I was five and my dad had a ridiculously large Pez collection."


edit: Oh yeah . . . and thanks.  

[yotsuya]

I struggle with similar feelings, Shmokes. I'm a pack rat by nature, so every few years I go though my stuff and try to clear out things I haven't touched in between cleanings. More often than not, though, I find myself holding on to things I should just let go.

Good luck with this.

[shmokes]

Thanks. I admit, I'm sometimes putting on a brave face. I definitely look at this and say, "Jesus . . . look at this collection . . . should I really be doing this?" But there are, and always will be, a million things that I will look back on and think, "Had I done that differently . . . ." Attempting to anticipate my future attitudes is probably a mostly useless exercise. I try to keep myself from being too timid, and from trying to play everything too safe. If the best reason I can come up with for keeping the collection is that someday I might wish I had, I think I probably haven't identified a powerful reason for keeping it. And while sometimes I'll make the wrong choice, in general I think that kind of thinking weighs you down . . . keeps you from moving forward and gaining newer richer experiences.

And so on . . .

[shmokes]

No turning back now. The auction is listed. 

[HaRuMaN]

Link?

[shmokes]

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=320858073975

The narrative in my Ebay description is a bit different than the one I gave here. It's silly overthinking, since a non-interested person isn't going to be looking at auctions for pez collections to begin with, plus not every personality is like mine, but I figured that if I'm trying to convince someone to buy something I shouldn't emphasize how boring/uninteresting the thing becomes over time.

[Rando]

When I was younger, maybe in my teens, I was poking around in my grandparents basement and found a small box containing some of my Dad's old Baseball cards from the 50's.  There were also a couple old metal toy trucks and some other neat stuff.  For the next few years I searched every inch of that house for any other intesting piece's from my Dad's past that I could find.  I currently have no interestt in Baseball, and I don't plan on selling those cards.  But I like just holding onto them so one day my kids or a grandkid can stumble onto them so I can say "You want them?  They're yours".

If I were a kid and stumbled on a box of freaking Pez dispensers in my Granpa's attic, dude, I would freak out!  And if there was some candy in there that doesn't go bad and tastes the same after 25 years... so much the better!

Luck with the sale!

[Gray_Area]

Just sell it all in one lot and be rid of it. The additional labor required to try to get top dollar out of them probably wouldn't be worth your time, particularly since doing so would require you to really educate yourself about pez values and such.

It's possible you (shmokes) may suffer a re-lapse - but I'm a supporter of the above. Oh, I see you've put them up. Good lad.

Yeah, if I still wanted to play with action figures, that's why I'd collect them, which means I wouldn't collect all of them, and actually would get only the ones I thought were way cool. Sorta like arcade machines, or even roms. If I really don't like the game, I can it.

[Vigo]

6 bids already....best of luck! 

[shmokes]

6 bids already....best of luck! 

So there are. That's promising. I still don't expect it to go very high based on the closing bids on other lots. Maybe $200-$300. I wouldn't think more than that. I'd be disappointed, but not super surprised if it did't even quite break $200.

Those six initial bids were at first a little alarming. They come from three users, each of whose usernames consist of a single letter, followed by four asterisks, and then another letter. Like o****o. Or maybe it's three asterisks. Anyway, they all follow the same convention. Which obviously can't be a coincidence. And anything that's not a coincidence is pretty much for sure a scam. But the users have high possitive feedback scores, one with like 600 transactions. Then it occured to me that maybe I'm just not a hardcore collector, cos serious collectors all creat a username that is the equivalent of a Pez dispenser emoticon. Like, first initial is the head, asterisks the body, and your last initial the feet. Anyway, hopefully that's it and I have nothing to worry about. The guy's 600 transactions seem to be exclusively buying and selling Pez, so it's probably all legit.