Earthbound Goods: A Collector’s Dilemma

These Earthbound goods are torturing me…

For the 30th anniversary of the Mother series, Itoi Shigesato and his notebook company Hobonichi have been releasing tons and tons of merchandise! I use Hobonichi Planners every year already, so when it was time to order a new one for the new (Japanese) year on April 1st, I couldn’t help myself… I bought a bunch of merchandise!

There’s just so much of it. Some of it’s stationery-related, like calendars and paper presses and stuff:

But the rest of the Earthbound goods go way beyond stationery!

Like these posters:

Or a sticker pack:

Or a buncha keychains:

Or, this comic collection Pollyanna that has tons of short comics. (I actually bought this last year, but it’s too cool not to show off):

There’s even a full script book for all three Mother games, complete with a fake USPS box to hold it:

All of these Earthbound goods are amazing, but these are also valuable collector’s items. So my dilemma becomes: Should I just store these away and keep them pristine? Should I actually use them?

I hadn’t even considered it until it all arrived, but almost all of this is sure to be limited-time. A year from now, they probably won’t be selling any of it; you’ll have to find it on Ebay or elsewhere. I imagine some of this, especially the script books, will end up very expensive in the far future!

But it feels a bit lame to buy a bunch of cool products and hide them away forever. A whole book of stickers, and I can’t even put them on my laptop? A friggin’ Master Belch keychain and I can’t even put it on my work bag? I already tore off the first months on the calendar by accident, so I guess I’ve decided to use that one.

Honestly, I can’t decide which to do with the Earthbound goods. Keep them as collector’s items, or use them to show off my fandom?

(There’s a third option, which is just buy second copies of everything, but that’s more like a good way to waste a couple hundred bucks lol.)

What should I do? I crave guidance.

(Also, Nintendo, where the heck is Mother 3?!)