I used to collect Star Wars merchandise, basically the toys and anything that looks cool, posters, keychains, etc... but mainly the toys. But I've given it all up. Why?

1) Money. I'm not exactly what you would call rich. Collecting is an expensive hobby, I have more important things to spend my money on. I look at my collection now, I can't make a good estimate on how much I spent on it, and when I ask myself if it was worth it, I think no, that the money I spent should have been better spent on other types of stuff, or deposited into my bank account.

2) Space. I live in an apartment, the dreadfully boring type, not to mention small as well. Worst is that I share the room with my brother. (I can't wait to move out to a place of my own). A small corner of the room is devoted to my SW collection, I arrange it very nicely, but there just isn't any more space for it anymore.

3) What's the point? I realize that of all the hobbies that I have, collecting was the one which benefitted me the least. I get nothing much from it, except memories of getting particular items, and they aren't what I consider to be the fondest of memories. My memories of watching the SW movies are at least a million times better than all the memories of building my collection put together.

4) I've matured. No, I'm not saying that collecting is immature or anything like that. I'm saying that my personality has changed into one which is not nearly as materialistic as before. (Click here for more on that: http://blogs.starwars.com/Rayten/41 ) I used to buy lots and lots of stuff, never saving much money, and I would hold onto everything from receipts to bus tickets to price tags, but not any more.

5) Time. I don't have to time to spend buying stuff to add to my collection and maintaining it. I have a thousand and one better things to do than that.

6) Quality. I noticed that the toys are not very good in quality, especially in terms of sculpting. These are the type of things which should get better as time goes on, but some of the toys, I notice are actually getting worst and worst.

While I may have given up 100% on getting new stuff for my collection, I'm not selling (or worst, throwing) my collection away, I'm keeping them for a long time to come. (click here for my top 5 favorite items in my collection: http://blogs.starwars.com/Rayten/11 )

On a final note, I still collect Star Wars Insider, buy Star Wars books which are related only to the movies, and the making of the movies; as they build on my knowledge of the movies and the making of them and also, I don't consider such stuff to be part of SW merchandise. Maybe your definition of SW merchandise is different from mine, so don't talk to me about that.