I often wonder to myself, am I a pack rat?
Sure I am not a hoarder and hope to never be one, but there was always a little part of me that never wanted to throw things out. Things that I have collected over the years can quickly start to take up space or just end up in the dark reaches of my basement sealed in a box. There is only so much one can display in a Man Cave and usually its what ever you are currently into.
The one debate I usually have with myself is… do I keep is the nice packaging the product came in?. Its natural to think that the only purpose for the packaging is to look pretty, so the first thing you do when you get home from the store is rip it open and discard the box.
Some packaging can be very plain and boring on its own so it doesn’t really matter! But toys and games on the other hand, usually have artwork and graphics on the package that can sometimes look better then the actual product inside. You might think at first about the reason to keep such a package and maybe it might make sense for storage reasons, but in most cases it just goes straight to the bin. This is the reason why collectables are far more valuable in its original box, I mean come on what kid cared about the box on Christmas morning?
So a while back I was doing my spring cleaning and I came across a few boxes of my old video games, mostly Intellivision, Atari, Nintendo and Sega. I asked myself, why am I keeping these Nintendo boxes? and after a few minutes of thought… TOSS!
Yes I did it, I threw them away.
There was one exception… I did not throw away a single Intellivision or Sega box, Why you ask?
I think the main reason (or my thought process) was the way the box was designed. The Intellivision box opens nicely like a book and has slots on the side that holds the game manual and overlays (for those not familiar, the Intellivison controller uses plastic overlays for the buttons). It was as simple as that… sure the artwork is cool too but there is a actual reason to keep the box. Sega game boxes are hard plastic and contain area that tightly holds the cartridge in place, they designed the box in a way that says “Here, keep this box to hold your game!”
And this is probably why most Nintendo games you find in thrift stores are loose, but most Intellivision and Sega are perfectly kept in their box.
That being said I did not throw away all my Nintendo boxes, there were a few I simply could not part with. I kept my favourite titles like The Legend of Zelda (the best game I think for the NES) and Back to the Future (my favourite movie), I just can’t bring myself to throw away anything with a DeLorean on the cover!
Ya, I am still hitting myself for throwing those boxes away, but at the same time I do have lots of stuff!
Sometimes its good to filter out the clutter in your life, just keep in mind that you never know what is going to be valuable in the future. And until I can get a flux capacitor for my DeLorean, I will just have to really think twice before doing the big TOSS!
Brian Pudden