What to do with a Game Collection?

[fcgamer]

I am sure most of you guys saw my thread a few weeks back about wanting to sell my whole game collection.  While I am not sure that I want to sell my whole collection, at the same time I also am starting to feel that things are getting too unruly for me. 

I remember when I first moved to my new apartment back in July, and my girlfriend and I had to carry over 50 boxes up for flights of stairs, all containing gaming-related items.  I am only about 30 games shy of owning every (licensed) Famicom game (sans promos and stuff like that), about another 40 games shy of owning all of the unlicensed games (sans the massive piles of stuff from companies such as Waixing and Nanjing).  I even have over half of a set of Famicom disks, 1/5 of a Famicom licensed set (with bootleg carts), etc.  And then there is also a large collection of CIB   unlicensed Game Boy stuff, among other oddities.

My question is, anyone have any ideas of what to do with such a collection?  I thought start a museum, but here in Taiwan there just wouldn't be such a demand, I think.  Other ideas?  Some of the stuff definitely belongs in a museum, more so than just private collection, imo.  But if / when I move apartments maybe next year around Autumn, just not sure I want to take all this stuff with me either.  Viable ideas for preservation, archival, etc other than just a museum, or just selling off? 

[famifan]

50 boxes  that might be a tons of stuff. unbelievable!

i don't think that any other board member has the collection which can compete with your.

i can recall that you was going to prepare a book. just for the sake of preserving the history that no one else never ever knew better than you.

so, you'll be the first and probably the only one who can do that almost perfectly.

the book should and will have the greater and bigger audience that your collection or even museum could get.

if only you could fit all the greatest stuff and oddities inside of the book ....  it will be my favorite book. i will definitely order 2 pcs of printed copies.

[P]

Well there should be some members that have a collection in similar propotions to yours but I think they can be counted on one or maybe two hands.

Anyway it sounds like the collecting is starting to get out of hands, so maybe you should at least aim to reduce it a little if you feel that will help.

A real good game museum or library that documents all licensed (and many unlicensed) games thoroughly would be like a dream coming true. I'd like to one day see a library where you can not only play the game, but also see all the boxart, the full instruction booklet and any extra stuff that came with the game. And also technical info about the board (like bootgod's homepage) including the full source code of the game for programmers and technically interested people to take part of. Videogames are still too young for this kind of library to be very widespread. But I believe one day in the future, videogames will no longer belong in the popular culture category but in the fine culture category and when that time comes it will also be a common subject of research (just like movies, music and theatre is today).

Maybe there is a museum in some other country that you could donate games too?

But also since you are in quite an unique position, and are aiming to write this book using the knowledge you aquired, maybe you should keep the collection until you have completed that at least, unless it gets too out of your hand for your life.

[GreenKoopa]

Perhaps you can find an interested museum overseas and give them the collection on long term loan. That way, it is out of the way and the general public get to enjoy it.  Also, being a loan you get to control what happens with the collection.  If the museum takes it off display and put it in storage, you can get it moved to another one. 

[Kiddo]

There is a Retro Gaming Museum in the works here in Iceland. It's still in it's infant stage and hasn't opened for the public yet, but they are accepting donations. When they open I'm sure they would host your items on a loan, especially considering that pirated Famicom stuff was very widespread here in Iceland back in the 90's.

If you decide to go down that route I can get you in contact with the manager, but I urge you to hold onto your collection if you at all can. You might regret it later.

http://www.retrogamingmuseum.com/
https://www.facebook.com/TheRetroGamingMuseum/

And sign me up for a copy or two of that book when it prints 

[Kiddo]

It's not mine, and as far as I know the collection they have is much bigger than what is actually displayed on their website.
So far it's mostly run by one guy with a passion for everything related to Retro Computing, and they operate wholly on donations from the public. I've just donated a Binatone console + a few games to them recently.
But I don't want to derail this thread any further, just thought I'd mention it since there was a talk of finding a museum.