The Collector's Dilemma

by Crazy Ivan

I've written about this phenomenon before and I've gone through it plenty in my near-decade as a Myachi Master, but that doesn't make it any easier.  The question that I'm asking myself now is one that many a Myachi collector has asked themselves over and over again.  To jam or not to jam?

The subjects of this question right now are two brand new belts, one black and one green.  One of the advantages to being married to the woman who controls the Myachi vault is that I get all the newest releases on the day of their release.  I should mention here that as awesome a person as Pinky is, this is only one of an unfathomably large number of advantages to being married to her.  But that's kind of off subject...

So back to these two pristine Belts that are sitting on my coffee table.  They're in little plastic baggies that protect them from all the harmful elements in the room (mostly my cats) and have been for about a couple of weeks.  I've taken them out a couple of times to get a feel for the fabric and I jammed with the green belt for a few seconds to get a taste of the fabric, but with those exceptions, they haven't been outside their baggies.

In a sense, that seems criminal.  By now I could have both of them nice and yummy and well on their way to SUMPOY.  I've jammed with two of the new Black Belts that were completely broken in and they were as delicious as any Pakisack I've ever jammed with, so I know what the potential is here.  But despite that, I still haven't jammed with them.

The reason is obvious to any collector.  These Myachis are mad rare.  We made fewer than 100 of each so I'm not going to get a chance to get any more.  I still have mint condition samples of all three of the old Belts in my collection (along with a mint Golden Nugget) and when I add in these two, I will probably have the only collection of all 5 Belts in mint condition anywhere in the world.  So how could I jam with them?

I should admit that for me, this question isn't as pressing as it is for some.  I've got hundreds and hundreds of Myachis in my collection so I've got plenty of other really broken-in sacks to jam with whenever I want.  I even have a second old-school Black Belt that is yummy beyond belief.  So there's no real need to break these in, despite the temptations to the contrary.  But I know that many others with smaller but still respectable collections are currently dealing with this same issue.  And for them there isn't an option to just jam with their other broken in Black Belt.

To a certain degree, every Myachi collector deals with this every time they add a new Myachi to their collection.  Ideally, my collection would consist of two of everything so I could keep one in mint condition and have another one that was insanely yummy.  But even a Myachi Master can't realistically pull that off.

In the end, I'll be keeping my Belts in their bags and as criminal as it seems to keep such incredible potential locked up, it's easy for me to justify.  I remember when the old Belts were the new Belts.  Back then I was faced with this same dilemma and I chose not to break in my set.  I did get a hold of another Black Belt along the way, but even if I hadn't, I wouldn't regret the decision.  Not many people in the game today have ever seen a mint condition White Belt unless they've seen mine.