Anthony Frandsen, who lives in Pottsville, PA (home of Yeungling Beer), has added his growing collection of Nerf shooters, weapons, whatever you call them to the hobbyDB database. Blasters is the preferred term to the Nerfing Community,” he says. And yes, you also just learned that “Nerfing” is a thing. Besides his Nerf Collection, XyberDAWG, as he is known on hobbyDB, has close to 500 items in his hobbyDB Showcase and counting.

The Showcase is a relatively new feature on hobbyDB. In the past, collectors could add items to the database even if they didn’t actually own a particular item. Then they could mark items they actually do have in their collections. But with the Showcase, it’s possible to publicly display your collection without having to dust your shelves every now and then.

In the interest of providing soft-serve spongy toys for relatively harmless fun, the earliest Nerf blasters were usually single-shot, air-powered devices to launch foam projectiles with either suction cup or rounded rubber tips. Like all the kids, Frandsen prefers the newer models with their rapid-fire action. “My collection’s main focus is the clip-fed ones, actually magazines, but Nerf calls them Clips,” he said. “Along with attachments (scopes, Shoulder Stocks, barrel extensions, etc.)… of course, I have a passion for the Star Wars related Nerf Items as I am a huge Star Wars geek.”

If you’ve been to a kid’s birthday party over the last decade or so, there’s a good chance a Nerf battle may have erupted. Heck, it’s likely attendees were asked to bring their own blasters as the main theme.

Frandsen enjoyed playing with Nerf toys as a kid but didn’t really consider himself a collector.  “As a boy, I loved them, but didn’t have many, just one or two at a time,” he said. “But it’s something my boys like as much as I do. So about a year ago, I started building a collection for my sons.”

Some of his inventory predates that one year period, though. “My Rapid Fire 20 is the oldest item,” he said, “but the gun I have owned the longest is my yellow Switch Shot EX3 I purchased with the Wii Game Nerf N-Strike, I bought that 10 years ago before I even thought of collecting.”

He currently doesn’t have any interest in thinning out his collection, but might someday. “ I tend to not sell, I’m a hoarder,” he laughed. Nonetheless, he decided to add his collection to hobbyDB and set up a Showcase. “I wanted to find a suitable place to build an online collection of my Nerf Collection as I couldn’t find anyplace already set up, short of a text list on the Nerf Wiki. The Showcase is a great way to do all that.”

Of course, Frandsen doesn’t limit his interests to one area. He also dabbles in movies, music CDs, video games (and yes Nerf video games exist!), comics, books, Skylanders, and Lego sets. “As I’ve been adding to the database I spill over into many other areas,” he said. “Then I find myself cleaning up and correcting items unrelated because the way the database is so interconnected as you are fixing one thing, it’s easy to just follow the crumbs and clean up other areas.”

The Showcase is automatically created when you set up a profile on hobbyDB… you can go there and add a cover image, then add to your collection and watch it grow. And of course, if you have an item that we don’t have in our database, as always, please add it!

Interested in joining forces with hobbyDB to take charge of our collectible destiny? Learn more at our Wefunder profile.