When the myth of a collector cracks: a personal reflection on passion, illusion, and the quiet cost of collecting

After twenty-five years of collecting, I find myself looking back—not to glorify a journey, but to question the myth I unknowingly built along the way.
This is not a story about trophies or record prices. It is a reflection on silent frustration, on the distortions created by money and comparison, and on the maturity required to collect differently—more consciously, and with meaning.

Twenty-five years of collecting

I have been collecting for twenty-five years.
It’s a sentence I almost never use as an argument of authority. Because it says nothing about the quality of a collection, nor about the accuracy of one’s perspective.

It only speaks of time. Time spent searching, learning, desiring, and renouncing. Time spent understanding that some images stay with us for a lifetime, even when they never belong to us.

When I started, I had very little: no money, no network, no strategy.

I was a passionate fan. Someone for whom a cel or a douga was not an “object,” but a tangible trace of a universe that had mattered deeply during childhood or adolescence. Physical proof that these works had existed beyond memory.

Very quickly, however, the auction world imposed itself: platforms, timed sales, lots disappearing in seconds.

And with them, names. Often the same ones. Names you don’t really know, but that reappear at decisive moments—when the price tips over, when the object becomes unreachable.

For years, Thierry Fourcassier was one of those names for me. I didn’t truly know him. I rarely exchanged messages with him. I knew almost nothing about his life, his background, or his motivations.

But I saw him win. Again and again. Cels, dougas, major pieces… at prices I couldn’t even consider paying.

The birth of a myth

The birth of a myth is rarely conscious. I believe all collectors create myths—never deliberately. It’s almost mechanical.

When the same people consistently access what escapes us, we begin to attribute special qualities to them:

• a superior understanding of the market
• a decisive head start
• a kind of natural legitimacy

For a long time, I told myself he had been there earlier. Older. Better established. That he had known a time when prices were still accessible. When buying didn’t require sacrificing something else.

And above all, he seemed to have money. That idea served as an explanation. Almost as comfort.

If I couldn’t succeed, it wasn’t due to a lack of passion: it was because I wasn’t born at the right time. Because I didn’t have the right means. Because I wasn’t “from the right world.”

Over the years, fascination turned into something heavier: frustration, sometimes injustice, even shame. Shame at not being able to keep up financially. Shame at feeling excluded from a world I deeply loved, simply because I couldn’t spend thousands (or tens of thousands) of euros on a single piece.

For a while, I hoped. I believed that one day, I too might compete.

Then something broke. That world, where everything was negotiated at absurd sums, began to repel me. I distanced myself. I wondered if it was still for me at all.

Fascination with excess

In hindsight, I can admit it plainly: what fascinated me wasn’t only the beauty of the pieces. It was excess.
Extreme rarity. The idea that a collection could become a kind of private museum: unreachable, almost unreal.

I looked at these accumulations the way one looks at the Louvre: impressed, overwhelmed, and yes, a little envious.

Like many others, I sometimes idealized the object at the expense of its context. At first, price erased almost everything else. It became proof in itself.

That was my blind spot: a lack of distance. A confusion between emotional value and market value.

Between late 2022 and 2025, I took a real break. I needed distance. I needed to remember why I had started.

I needed to escape a logic where every lost auction felt like a personal failure.

A delayed shock

Then, in early 2026, almost by chance, I came across an old Facebook post from 2024.

I read it. Then reread it. Slowly connecting the dots.

Public information. Press articles. Investigations. Documented, accessible, sourced facts.

I was stunned. Not because these facts existed, but because they collided head-on with the image I had constructed for years.

Everything I thought I understood about that world cracked at once.

And gradually, without realizing it, my perspective shifted.

What truly collapsed

Contrary to what one might expect, my first reaction was not anger. Nor sadness.

It was something more unsettling: relief.

As if an invisible weight had lifted. As if I could finally accept that this wasn’t purely a personal failure. That my frustration wasn’t just the sign of a lack or a delay.

What collapsed wasn’t a man : it was a myth. A myth I had built, fed, and maintained without realizing it.

I understood something essential: we never envy a real person. We envy a story we tell ourselves. A narrative that helps explain what we cannot reach.

Another element clarified this blurred area: a public exchange involving Marco Albiero, an Italian illustrator known for his work around Saint Seiya. In this message, he explains that years earlier he produced illustrations at the request of a third party, without any intention to deceive or to pass them off as another artist’s work. He describes his surprise upon discovering that some of these pieces had circulated with incorrect attribution, and the steps he claims to have taken to correct the situation.

Reading this reminded me of something fundamental: in the world of collecting, images often travel faster than their context. And when context is not questioned, misunderstandings can harden into certainties.

A moral responsibility

Over time, one idea became unavoidable: collecting is not a neutral act.

There is a moral responsibility in owning, displaying, buying, and driving prices upward—a responsibility toward the works, the artists, and other enthusiasts.

Those who watch. Who dream. Who compare themselves.

If I were speaking today to a young collector, I would tell them three simple things:

• Stop comparing yourself
• Never buy at any price
• Let passion guide your choices, not profit

Not being able to buy is not always a failure. Sometimes, it is protection.

What disillusionment taught me

I do not regret those years of frustration. They shaped my perspective. They taught me patience, humility, and nuance.

They forced me to understand rather than accumulate.

Today, I collect differently: with more awareness, fewer fantasies, and far more meaning.

Yes, the myth cracked.

But in its place stands something more solid: the maturity of a collector. And perhaps, in the end, that is the real success.

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Sources and context

The information that triggered this reflection comes from public, documented sources:

La Dépêche — Suspected of corruption and money laundering, former mayor of Saint-Jory imprisoned
https://www.ladepeche.fr/2024/02/01/info-la-depeche-suspecte-de-corruption-et-de-blanchiment-lex-maire-de-saint-jory-est-emprisonne-11737410.php

Mediacités — Former mayor of Saint-Jory charged with corruption and placed in pre-trial detention
https://www.mediacites.fr/breve/toulouse/2024/02/02/mis-en-examen-pour-corruption-lex-maire-de-saint-jory-a-ete-place-en-detention-provisoire/

La Dépêche — Former mayor of Saint-Jory released under judicial supervision
https://www.ladepeche.fr/2024/05/24/info-la-depeche-suspecte-de-corruption-et-de-blanchiment-thierry-fourcassier-lancien-maire-de-saint-jory-va-etre-libere-11971480.php

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