A few months ago, blogging comrade Blowfish asked me about how well has my figure collection aged through the years. I promised him I would look into it because I just so happen to have a pair of identical figures that remained unopened for the past 6 years or so. I am sorry Blowfish >.<; I kept pushing this out and out and out and now I realized that I pushed it out for 4 months! But today, I am going to make good on my promise and do what I said I was going to do 4 months ago! Here I present to you the pair of Pia Carrot 3 Hasegawa Akemi Floral Mint Type made by Kotobukiya back in January 2004. The figure on the your right hand has been opened since the day it arrived at my house but it has been under the protection of my dust shield since there; on the other hand, the figure on your left has stayed in the box during this entire time, no accidental exposure to Ultraviolet light, minimum contact with air, etc.
I have always considered Ultraviolet light and oxygen the two biggest enemies to my figure collection, so I have made it a point to never expose my figure collection under direct sunlight for an extended period of time since it can cause chemical reactions to the PVC or painted surfaces of the figure. Oxygen on the other hand, is an extreme active agent that can react with just about anything, including but not limited to paint, plastic, metal given enough time. Obviously, I cannot eliminate oxygen since I do not have a vacuum sealed display cabinet, but I have taken steps to slow down the oxidation process by restricting airflow to my figure collection through my Dust Shield +1.
So, after 6 years, how well have these Pia Carrot 3 figure aged? Let’s take a closer look here. In order to fully inspect the differences between the two figures, I will have to finally open the figure to the left….
One final look before we open it up!
Ta la! I honestly think that the two figures looked about the same other than the fact that the figure to the right have leaned a little bit…
Taking a good look at the back side view where we got a enough flat surfaces to look at. I honestly don’t detect any discoloration, even if there is, it appear to be fairly minimum.
And finally another close up view to the front side!
Since I have no reference point as to how these figure actually look back in 2004, so these will become my reference point in the future. The figure on the left have already gone back into the box to minimize the exposure to oxygen, the figure on the right will remain inside my Dust Shield +1. This will be the first part to a life cycle study on how this pair of figures will age through time. Let’s come back and review this in one year!
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that’s great you happened to have the figures to perform this comparison ^^ i’ve also worried from time to time about how my collection will age… but on the other hand i’m already doing pretty much as much as I’m willing in terms of protecting them, so i guess it’s kind of moot ^^;;
good to see the test subjects held up quite nicely as my collection is still quite young in comparison.
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Yeah I was suppose to do this test 4 months ago! But I was too occupied by hunting down Dollfie Dream to worry about anything else. It’s a worth while effort to protect your figures from unintended exposure to dust, and especially ultraviolet light.
I plan on revisiting this topic in about a year to keep track of yearly progress.
Hey, that’s good news ^^
I really don’t see a difference between the figures. The dress color of the one on the right looks very slightly different but that’s probably just lighting.
Most of my figures are only 1 or 2 years old so it looks like I’ve got a while before I need to worry about aging ^^
.-= anonymous_object´s last blog ..Kagami Goes Out =-.
Given proper care, it looks like figures can be kept as fresh as they could be as if they were still in a box. Since I don’t really have a benchmark before this, these photos will become my benchmark for future comparison.
the powers of the Dust Shield are impressive, way to protect your investments. she looks just like new! great job with taking care of your collection ^^
my figures are constantly exposed to air and dust as the only place i have to display them is on my desk T_T maybe i can improvise a mini portable dust shield lol
For figures that are important to you, probably should come up with a way to keep them fresh so they can last a long time!
Typing this again as captcha-chan decided to give me an error…
Good to see that figures survive for a long time. Can’t spot a difference in those pics.
My collection is constantly exposed to air/dust but I can’t see any discolouration or leaning and such so far. My oldest figure is only from 2007 though.
.-= hikky´s last blog ..The DX11 era is here – new graphics card get! =-.
Ah gonna be an annual checkup, eh? LoL. Right now I have my blinds closed all the time since the sun gets in… plus I can’t reach the blinds all the time with my stuff on the bed…
wow 6 years in a box XD Interesting how very little has changed, I know if I did it with a Figma or two it’d be recognizable, but mostly because I don’t have this dust shield thing going on. Sunlight hasn’t been able to harm my figures so far, but Summer is coming soon enough so we’ll see if I can keep them from overheating.