The
story of my Star Wars collection, and the start of The Prides of Nexu Museum
[June 1983-1992]
My
Star Wars collection was started sometime in mid-1983. I was three and a half
years old when Return of the Jedi hit theaters that year, and it was the first
movie I saw on the big screen. That's all it took to convert me into a
life-long Star Wars fan. It's impossible to say what my first Star Wars piece
was or when I acquired it, although my best guess is sometime in June of '83.
Obvious early memories are of Kenner 3-3/4" action figures and vehicles.
And of course the staples of 80's kids products; books, weapons, coloring
books, pajamas, puzzles, t-shirts, and school supplies. Everything I received
early on was opened and played with, used, or worn. However I did have the
foresight to save certain things like action figure cardbacks and instruction
booklets. Because I was just a kid my collection was at the mercy of Christmas
and birthday presents, special occasions, and the traditional trip to Toys R Us
every time my Grandma was in town. Thus, through age eleven I accumulated
anything and everything I could. By the later elementary school years I was
mowing lawns, so money from that helped as well. Sadly though, between
childhood usage, and three out of state moves, not everything survived.
However, roughly 75% of the pieces from that time period are in my collection
today. And in my adult years I've replaced a few of the pieces that were
lost.
[1993-April
2005]
Age
three was when I fell in love with Star Wars, but also when I formed life-long
relationships with sports and music, followed a few years later by Hip Hop. The
"off years" of my Star Wars collecting covered middle school, high
school, college, and my early twenties. My Star Wars fandom during this time
period never wavered, but collecting definitely took a back seat. Expendable
income during this time, especially the high school and college years, went to
the typical teenage spending list (i.e. gas, clothes, CDs, alcohol, weed,
partying, girls, eating out, travel, etc.). And in the early years of my music
career, before we were making good money performing, expenses such as studio
time, merch, CD pressing, etc., were all out of pocket. However, I still
managed to add a few pieces to the collection most years. It was never anything
major, just a figure here, a book there type of deal. So the collection grew,
but not by much. And everything in the collection (from childhood and this time
period), was stored away in boxes.
[May 2005-2018]
I
had been watching a ton of Star Wars (movies and Clone Wars micro series), in
preparation for the release of Revenge of the Sith in May of 2005. Shortly
after the movie hit theaters I was in a store and came across a shelf display
of Master Replicas Force FX Lightsabers. I almost lost my mind. I had never
before seen such a realistic and movie accurate-looking lightsaber. It was the
type of lightsaber I always wanted and wished someone made when I was a kid. So
I bought two, a Vader and an Anakin. Because I had never really dove into the
modern collecting world, I had no idea there were products like this on the
market. But it got me thinking about what else was out there? I was inspired. I
began doing a ton of research and exploring, learning and absorbing as much as
I could about Star Wars collecting, and familiarizing myself with brands,
products, and trends. And I pulled out the boxes of what I had accumulated
during childhood to see exactly what I had. So while my collection technically
started in June of 1983, it really didn’t start in earnest until May of 2005.
By this point in life I was in my
first corporate office job, and the music was pretty self-sustaining, so I was
able to begin hardcover collecting. And collect I did. While the collection had
a strong focus on Hasbro 3-3/4” lines, I collected a little bit of everything.
I always gravitated towards Vader/Anakin, Stormtroopers, and Clone Troopers,
but generally speaking the collection was unfocused. The system I used to
catalog my collection, as well as my hunt lists, were both rather rudimentary. But
I did catalog by “as packaged pieces” and “individual pieces” in terms of how I
tracked my piece count. I wanted both sets of numbers, but always felt that
using the total overall pieces was like cheating. If I bought a figure pack
with six figures in it, that would be one “as packaged” piece, but six
individual pieces. In early November of 2007 my collection reached 1,000 “as
packaged” pieces. The house my then fiancée (now wife), and I lived in was
rather small, so at that point I moved the collection to my parent’s house. My
old room was just sitting empty so I was able to store everything there, and
even display some of it, for a few months in 2008. When my parents decided it
was time to sell their house and downsize, I moved the entire collection to a
secure, climate controlled storage unit facility. Sadly, that would be the
collection's home for the next eleven years.
Changes in the collecting and retail
worlds, and the sale of Lucasfilm to Disney, between 2012 and 2014 prompted me
to re-evaluate how and what I collected. In 2014 I devised a 3-tier collecting
system. What I hunted was now character focused, or specific item/collection
focused, and prioritized into three tiers. Since her debut in 2008, I had
started a rather large Ahsoka Tano collection. By April of 2015 I had
completely filled the storage unit and had to begin storing new additions to
the collection in bins in my basement. In July of 2015 I developed an insanely
detailed spreadsheet for cataloging my collection. The master catalog tab
consisted of over fifteen data point fields, assigned unique collection, piece,
and category numbers to each item, then fed the data to an itemized piece-count
tab and multiple category tabs. The initial crossover was extremely labor
intensive and time consuming. But new additions going forward would be a
breeze, and I now had a ton of collection data that could easily be filtered
and sorted. I knew this cataloging system would also serve me well once the
time came to have the collection appraised and insured. To have a collection
insured it has to be appraised, and to have it appraised it has to be
displayed. So until my collection could be moved out of storage my hands were
tied on that front.
[2019]
In
January of 2019 my wife and I sold our house, put 99% of our possessions in a
POD, and moved into an apartment until we could find a new house. One of the
main criteria for the new house was a designated Star Wars room for the
collection. While we were house hunting I put a lot of thought into how I
wanted to eventually display the collection. Although the collection would only
be in one room, I envisioned it sectioned off into galleries, like a museum. Then
one day in June I had the idea to name and brand the collection, like a museum,
instead of simply always having to refer to it as “my collection”, or “Mike’s
collection”. The name/brand would then represent both the collection itself and
the space it was housed in. Obviously the only person who would really care
would be me, but it sounded fun. And hey, what’s like without whimsy? I wanted
a Star Wars-themed name that was unique and hadn’t/wasn’t being used anywhere
else. I decided to name it The Prides of Nexu Museum. I thought the name
sounded dope, and not only was the Nexu one of my favorite Star Wars creatures,
but it would make for a great logo and theme. I then created a Prides of Nexu
Museum logo, started a Twitter account, and converted my Dr. Mickel’s Archives Instagram
account (an account I had started in 2018 to share photos from all my current
and past collections), into the Prides of Nexu account. I was close to being
able to share photos and pieces from my collection with other Star Wars collectors.
We
closed on our new house in late September, and by mid-October both the POD and
the storage unit had been moved in. It was the first time since childhood that
my entire collection and I were living under the same roof. It was a great
feeling! I’d spent years amassing and cataloging this collection which I’d
never been able to display or enjoy. It was the reality of the situation, but
it always stung to acquire new pieces just to put them in a bin and drive them
over to the storage unit. I longed for the day when I could view and enjoy my
collection. However, because my collection had never been displayed I had
absolutely nothing to display it on. Because this was a house my wife and I
planned to stay in for at least a decade, and because I really wanted the
museum look and feel, I didn’t want to just run out and buy a bunch of cheap
plastic shelving units. I wanted a planned out and uniform set of display
furniture, even though I knew that would push the time table back. But I’d
waited so many decades to display it, what was another handful of months? At my
wife’s suggestion I unpacked everything to see exactly what I had in order to
gauge how to best display all of it, and what type of display furniture to
purchase. I then took measurements, selected furniture, and designed a
blueprint of what The Prides of Nexu Museum will eventually look like. To make
this happen I understood fully well that in the coming months the majority of the
collecting budget would have to go towards display furniture and display accessories
instead of adding new pieces. That thought prompted me to re-evaluate my 3-Tier
collecting system. Not only was I facing the budget shift, but in recent months
I realized I would often purchase items of lesser priority simply because I ran
across them at a store or swap meet. So in December I switched over to a “Top
100” collecting system. I made a list of the hundred pieces I wanted most and
began only hunting off of that list. Not only would it curb impulse purchases,
but every new piece I acquired would be one I truly wanted and/or needed to
complete a specific collection or series. In December I also started a complete
re-cataloging of the entire collection. Not only did I make some minor updates
to my cataloging system, but since the initial one was done over time, there
were some inconsistencies that were bugging me. I’m quite anal when it comes to
organization, and I wanted everything listed and formatted identically.
[2020]
My
Star Wars collection began when I was three and a half years old. My hardcover
collecting days started when I was twenty five. And in 2020, at age forty, for the
first time ever my entire collection will be completely cataloged and permanently
on full display. It’s been a long journey to this point. But shit, we here! As
I write this today I’m currently 80% of the way through the re-cataloging
process, have acquired six of the seventeen pieces of display furniture needed,
and have purchased the first handful of display accessories. The collection itself stands at over 3,000 "as packaged" pieces, and over 5,000 individual pieces. Once all has been
completed I’d like to do one of those collection tour videos to showcase the
collection and display as a whole. It will be dope! Stay tuned.
The
Prides of Nexu Museum
Twitter:
@PridesOfNexu
Instagram:
@pridesofnexu
