Thoughts on Shmax

As a result of me purchasing insurance for my Transformers Collection (see my previous post) I thought it would be prudent to organize and catalog everything I have in case there is a loss. Enter Shmax. I have been a member of this website for a long time, since only a few months after it was created. I thought it was a great way to keep track of everything I have. However in the past seven months or so I have sold and bought a lot of stuff and there has been a ton of turnover. And unfortunately I hadn't been keeping up on Shmax like I should have been. So I decided to start from scratch again. I wanted to get a fresh start because on Shmax there is an option that lists what condition each of your items is currently in and the default is Sealed. When I first became a member of the site and put all of my information in that wasn't an option, but since I didn't really update all of the items I had already entered, 79% of my collection was now listed as sealed, when in fact it is mostly loose and opened. So I figured I would have to go back through at least 79% of the items anyway, why not start again from the beginning and do it right.

So now I have a completely updated collection on Shmax. In fact I will be putting my own "dynamic signature" on this blog sometime soon. I must caution you though, there is one small drawback (at least for me) to Shmax: it makes you want to amass more and more transformers. The website assigns you a 'rank' based on how many figures you have relative to all the other users on the site. While I was updating everything I found myself thinking I should have kept more of my Armada figures so I could add them to my total and increase my rank. And then I came to my senses, the reason I have sold off so much stuff over the past year is because I am streamlining. I don't want more stuff! My philosophy now is firmly quality over quantity. So beware; you may find yourself trying to find ways to up your figure count to bump up your rank and not even realize you are doing it.

Although I do wonder how many more it will take for me to get inside the top 20...

Thoughts on Insurance

I used to work for an insurance company. In fact, I have actually worked for two different insurance companies in my professional career. Once trying to sell it, once underwriting it. You would think after so much experience in the insurance industry I would be the first person to buy insurance for my transformers collection.

Not so.

I have known I needed to get insurance for a long time. I even went so far as to getting a couple of quotes from different companies; but I never pulled the trigger. Even after my own transformer room was flooded from my water heater exploding I did nothing (everything was fine BTW, minus Pyro who fell off the shelf when I was moving them). I don't know if it was just procrastination or if I just wanted to spend that money on more transformers, or it was just plain stupidity but it just never happened. Then I saw this. And that was all it took. I immediately went out and purchased a separate policy for my figures last week.

It was just something about seeing all of those ruined boxes spread out on the ground that lit a fire under my ass. I could finally visualize what would happen if my room flooded for real. The last 'flooding' was nothing more than water seeping under the wall into the middle of the room. I had to tear up the carpet and use a wet-vac but there was never very much water. But all of my figures are in my basement. Granted it isn't a true basement since one side is walk-out, but it is still a basement.

So now I'm paying a few extra hundred bucks a year for piece of mind. I do feel a lot better about it, but the insurance company told me to keep detailed lists and pictures of everything. Hmmm....I wonder how I should do that....