Menu
Close
I was the kid who kept the box.
I have always been a collector. I grew up enjoying video games, action figures, LEGO, trading cards and plenty of other toys from the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s.
Unlike many people, I rarely threw things away when I moved on to the next game or toy. I looked after them, kept the boxes wherever possible and carefully stored them. Even now, I can remember when many of the items entered my collection, where they came from and what they meant to me at the time.
Everything has a story.
After many years, more and more of the collection had ended up carefully packed away in boxes. I still loved the items, but rarely had the opportunity or space to see and enjoy them.
In 2023, I began photographing parts of the collection and sharing them on Instagram. The idea was simple: if I created good photographs of everything, I could always look back and remember what I had, even if I eventually decided to let certain items go.
That small personal archive became Nerd Cave.
The collection includes games and hardware from Nintendo, Sega and PlayStation systems, along with action figures, LEGO sets, Pokémon cards, Warhammer and many other toys and collectables.
Some pieces have been with me since I was a child. Others are things I admired when I was younger, rediscovered later or simply found too interesting to leave behind.
Although the characters, consoles and themes vary, they all share something important: they capture a small part of the excitement of discovering a new toy, opening a game for the first time or becoming completely absorbed in another world.
Nerd Cave is not currently a standalone shop or full-time toy business. It is a personal project through which I share my collection, preserve its memories and gradually find new homes for selected items that I can no longer realistically keep.
Some items are available to buy from a small display cabinet inside Market Deeping Antiques & Craft Centre. As items sell, I gradually add more from my personal collection, depending on what I have sorted, photographed and feel ready to pass on.
Other items may occasionally become available online, but many of the things shown on Nerd Cave are simply being shared because I enjoy them and hope they bring back memories for somebody else too.
Letting go of something that has been part of a collection for decades is not always easy. These are not anonymous products to me. They are reminders of particular times, places and people.
That is why I prefer to think of Nerd Cave as a way of carefully passing things on rather than simply clearing them out. Photographing each item allows me to preserve part of its story, while somebody else gets the opportunity to enjoy, display or play with it next.
My aim is not to dispose of everything as quickly as possible. It is to gradually create a smaller, more carefully curated collection that I have the space and time to appreciate.
A selection of items from my personal collection is available to buy in Unit 6 inside Market Deeping Antiques & Craft Centre. As items sell, new ones are gradually added.