The Great Insect Purge of 2022

[bmathison1972]

Wasn't sure where to put this, so I thought a new thread...

If you saw the last stats update on my daily Museum thread you might have seen a comment that I purged a bunch of insect figures from my collection. As more insects get released (and their quality improves), and as I build the non-arthropod portion of my collection, I determined that it was time to thin the herd. Even now, I probably won't buy an insect from a Japanese manufacturer unless 1) it's a new species, 2) it's very rarely made, or 3) it's a marked improvement on what I already have ('Western' companies will be purchased regardless, as I want to support them in making these taxa).

So, over the last few weeks I removed a lot of primarily scarabaeoid beetles by Japanese manufacturers. Here is what I kept or removed:

SCARABAEOID BEETLES:
I kept everything from Kaiyodo, Bandai, Bandai Spirits, Colorata, Furuta, F-toys, DeAgostini, Re-Ment, Wing Mau, Kitan Club/Ikimon, and Kabaya

I removed all Hayakawa (all insects, not just beetles) and Yell figures (except for one rarely made species), and anything from an 'unknown' manufacturer

I kept some of the following:
1. Takara/Sabuardo: kept only well-made examples, usually in the 1:1 range (I removed most of the B.I.G. Beetles and B.I.G. Insects figures by Takara unless they were particularly good examples)
2. Epoch: Kept the Flying Beetles collection but removed all of the Beetle Battle figures, except for one that is currently a unique species
3. Access Toys: kept only the less commonly-made taka
4. Sega: kept the 'small series' standard and DX and the 'large series' standard and DX; removed most other Mushi King figures (Insect Kingdom, beetles on wood, magnets, shooters, etc etc etc) - most of what I removed is by Sega
5. Others whose names escape me at the moment...

LEPIDOPTERA:
Removed US Toys figures, K&M mini polybag figures (and their Insect Lore counterparts), Rainforest Café figures, most figures by 'unknown' companies, and non-PVC figurines by Steal Street and Land & Sea collectibles

NON-INSECT Inverts:
Removed marine invertebrates that were not synoptic.

In total I probably removed 200-250 figures, and arthropods went from being 57% of my collection to 53%!

[AnimalToyForum]

What did/will you do with the ones you removed from your collection?

[bmathison1972]

What did/will you do with the ones you removed from your collection?

probably donate to charity with other unneeded animal toys