At what point did you scale back purchases and trades to get the vault you wanted, that is if you scaled back at all. I don’t think this pertains to you @JAWS . 
I’m in awe of your collection.
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As with most things in life it goes in waves.
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I’ve always got my eyes open for something special. But I have a toolbox of great breeding stock so now I mostly grow my own stuff, my friends’ stuff, and make my own crosses.
But like I said, eyes always open.
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I told myself i cant buy anymore seeds until i finish my triple goddess f2 and granola funk f2 and maybe a few other projects ive been brainstorming. At least with trades, my collection doesnt grow out of control haha
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Amen I stopped buying beans just because I’m in the same kinda boat.
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For me, it was when I realized that if I dropped 25 seeds every week, it would take me about 5 1/2 years to plant them all. 
Those are just the seeds I’ve bought/traded for/were given to me.
That said, I still trade seeds/cuttings, and I’ll sign up for a Co-Op run if It’s something I really want. I’m probably gonna buy some more of McCormick’s stuff at agseedco. Specifically, the Original Haze, and Purest Indica. And maybe that NL #2… 
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I have a bit of a collection but a very forgiving wife so all good. I rarely buy anything these days but still manage to accumulate a seed or two here or there. 
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Honestly idk if I’ve bought any genetics since joining the forum. There’s still things in my wish list but I’m definitely completely fine putting my trust in the OG’ers and what they have in order to find what I’m looking for cuz it’s just as likely to be in an OG pack as a F1 breeder pack unless they’re being shady.
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Every grow is a massive battle with wife, I’ve got enough seeds for a few lifetimes the way things are goin. I wish I could keep a perpetual grow space somewhere with a few tents; grow a few varieties and also run some projects. We’ll see how things go legal/society wise as things advance. We’re in a legal state but the stigma is still super real especially amongst other parents.
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Parents are the worst man, like idk maybe you should be parenting your children? All problems start at home
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I didn’t even catch what you’re referring to @Sodapop, although I agree with your statement.
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Howdy @Gmoney, I mostly started collecting massively about 5 -10 years ago. Before that it was just buy a couple packs here or there to search for some keepers and keep them around for a while.
Then I started to realize there were so many varieties that I had become interested in that just weren’t around or available anymore when I was looking for something new to try. Breeders not working the lines I was interested in anymore, some stopped breeding all together, and coupled with seed shops running out of stock and things like that I started to collect as a means of preserving their availability for myself should I feel the want or urge in the future to explore genetics I had become interested in that were no longer available or otherwise very difficult to obtain. It really felt like helping steward the seeds to help save them from being lost to time, so I have invested a lot of time money and energy in building a rather extensive seed collection over the past 5-10 years.
The point I started scaling back was upon realization a few months ago that I’ve got so many seeds that it’s unrealistic for me as in individual to respectfully steward all that I have collected. Sure, they’re stored well so they could prove useful to others in the future but in terms of me actually respecting the inherent viability of the seeds I have collected which are living organisms, it’s realistically impossible for me to work them all and keep them pure. Heck, I couldn’t even realistically start them all and work them into random hybrids in a disorganized and less than desirable manner, and frankly, I don’t even want to. It would be an absolute massive amount of work that would require more than I’m willing to do. So a few months ago I started scaling back my collecting big time to the point I removed myself from the recent Co-Op signup lists that have been completed for the upcoming box but haven’t gone out yet. There are still a handful of varieties I would like to purchase or otherwise acquire, but that list is very small now and my mindset about wanting or needing them has changed. Sure it would be nice to have them but it’s not required and I don’t feel like I need them for my collection. Mostly just a few nostalgic names and seed lines that I’ve wanted for so long that I’m still trying to let go of that nostalgic idea of having access to them. A few rare hard to finds and a few that I’ve always been intrigued with but for whatever reason still haven’t added them to the collection. Cannabiogen Durban for example, and I already have some F2’s, but had wanted “originals” for a while. Writing it out has me realizing how borderline absurd continually adding to an already large collection is.
A big factor while contemplating with the reality of how to steward these living organisms with integrity and respect, in my opinion, is that to do so requires one to make more seeds (or to a lesser extent keep cuttings indefinitely which isn’t very realistic either) and to select and work them in ways that progress the genetics and contribute towards improving population fitness. So to steward the seeds respectfully just ends up adding more seeds to steward. It’s basically neverending. Even if I stop collecting this instant, to adequately preserve what I’ve collected already would increase my seed stocks by a significant magnitude. Just preserving and stewarding one pure line would require, in my opinion, a breeding strategy that would include an open pollination along with many select one to one pairings. Ideally each possible one to one mating preserved. I tend to collect at least 30 seeds of a given variety that I’m interested in as to at minimum start with population sizes of n=30. So for one variety, that’s an open pollination and then mating all the females individually one to one with all the males individually and saved separately. So for just one variety, to ideally preserve, improve, and work it creates thousands and thousands more seeds that also need preserving and respectful stewardship.
Sure, there are some seeds I’ve collected that aren’t necessarily saved for that type of meticulous preservation. For example, fems from elite selections like Chem D S1’s or something like that. The point for those to me is to search and select for keepers and to, keep them as they are or work them into hybrids. Even still, that’s a lot of work and resources needed.
Once I realized that I have more seeds than I can respectfully preserve or respect their inherent viability was when I stopped collecting so much. Sure there are often seeds I see that I think oh wow I would really like some of those. For example I saw some Vietnamese Black x Tom Hills Haze offered up in a recent Take Seeds Leave Seeds thread, but I don’t really need them. I have some Tom Hills Haze already and some Vietnamese Black, but I don’t have them hybridized together. So there’s a part of me that thinks, oh that would be great to have already worked together to pair nicely with the pure lines I have that makeup the hybrid, but really it would be more of a waste for them to be added to my collection than they would be helpful for me to respectfully steward what I already have.
I think it came down to being realistic with what I’ve already collected paired with what resources, time, and energy I can offer them. The seeds deserve that. And I’m not the type to just haphazardly reproduce something just to reproduce it in name only. I feel that a genuine mindfulness and heartfelt selection and methodical breeding strategy should be implemented when actually working to preserve and/or improve something, otherwise it’s just watering down that nostalgia that originally drew me to a given variety.
So yeah, a couple months ago I realized I have more seeds than I can feasibly work in the ways I would like, and that’s when I started to not just scale back purchases but also scale back trading and even receiving seeds for free as gifts, to scale back collecting in general. There are still a few that I would like to add to the collection, as mentioned before, but more and more each day I’m realizing that those seeds that I haven’t added to the collection yet that I’ve wanted in the past don’t matter to me as much anymore. I could probably take 5-10 packs from the hundreds if not thousands that I’ve collected already and make a lifetime worth of work out of just 5-10 packs without feeling like I’m missing out on anything other than some nostalgia tied to a name. It’s a powerful feeling to let the collecting mindset go. If anything, the large collection is more stressful and less enjoyable than when I was just buying a pack or two here or there and just looking for some enjoyable keepers. There’s something wonderful in the fleeting beauty of something. I used to keep hundreds of mothers at a time at some points during my collecting, thinking the best way to preserve something is to germinate it and keep it alive. Now I know the best way to preserve something is to work it and improve population fitness. To make the seeds to be as good or better than the plants they come from. Keeping fitness in the populations being produced is the true way, and that takes a massive amount of work and dedication.
So now, I’ve dialed back the collecting and look forward to working a few lines methodically while letting other work have their fleeting beauty experience and then letting them get lost to time, although they’ll probably still get hit with some type of pollen just because, but I won’t feel the obsessive need to preserve them pure. It’s just too much work considering all I’ve collected so far, and I’m realizing that it’s not my responsibility to save all these genetics. At some point, I see the waste of time it would become and has become.
So I’m just going to enjoy what I’ve collected so far. And realistically I’ll have a lot of seeds that I won’t ever even get a chance to enjoy. It’s almost like the box of baseball cards I have from my youth. Those cards are literally just in a box that just gets stored in the closet. They don’t get utilized, they were just part of a collection phase in my youth. Seeds are a bit different but many seeds in my large collection are basically like those cards because they’re just being stored for some time in the future when I may decide to play with them but probably won’t. Many blessings and much love
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I havnt brought any beans for a while but my collection has grown to a size that even if do 2 of 6 flavours each run I’m not getting throu them all this year 
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I doubt I’ll ever be done buying seeds, seems there always something interesting I need & I have a bad habit of just going and looking at what seeds are for sale. Currently I have about 210+ one or two with 71 of that being Autoflower strains.
Here Recently in the last year or two I’ve been able to tell myself “you already have something similar” plus I want to get into breeding myself and that has tamed my seed problem just a bit.
Not gonna lie tho, that new bodhi drop at glg had me spend a few $ but well worth it!
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I have recently started collecting. I enjoy the hunt and search greatly but I realize that I need to let some of it come to me. I can only grow out so much in a year. I am still collecting for my toolbox but I have a fair amount of it assembled. I have a few things in my collection for the fiance/wife.
I have most of the indica I want to look through. Though I say that with little conviction. 
I will always have eyes out for Trainwreck. She turns my head every time. I want to get into everything TW. I get a little irrational about the wreck. Its like asking a dog if they want a treat or a walk. Same energy.
My next goal is collecting more psychoactive and warm/bright Sativa strains with the Soul shine effects. I’m not in any rush as this next couple years worth of stuff is in vault and I need to get hitched, move, move in my elderly mother. Then greenhouse, tents while juggling surgeries.
I’m looking forward to getting set back up and being able to share back to the community here.
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Great post @Strikingviking. We have a similar mindset. Nowadays, I don’t intentionally buy fems because I want to add to my toolbox for retirement projects. Seed buying has been an evolution for me. Initially I went for hype and got cup winners from places like BF and others until I learned a bit on here. Now I show a bit more constraint, ignore flashy names, and have a look under the hood. I have a soft spot for the WIFI and would love to find some pollen. The auction knocked me a bit out of my game but CSI seeds should be great smoke.
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