Hi,
I am on a quite big pile of stuff. It wasn't there from one day on the other. It took years. I started this because I wanted proper stuff and price point was good. Initially it hadn't much to do with the 'vintage-thing'.
I am rarely searching for a particular part. By far most parts I acquired when I encountered them and perceived them as interesting. This could be because of various reasons, for example price/quality or uniqueness.
So ended up with a lot parts. I use my creativity with the parts laying around. Sometimes I get a eureka moment or I encounter a nice bit that triggers a whole new project combined with the stuff already laying around. Not much later a new bike is born
Result of my mainly using stuff laying around is that several of my bikes feature a quirky but functional XT/XCPro/Euclid mix ...or that my 'Herbold replica' has a Marzocchi DH3 fork and RaceFace Ti stem instead of Judy and Zooka
My preserving/storing habit implies that I rarely sell stuff I haven't multiple items from. The sale helps compensating for the spendings. A neutral result would be cool of course
What remains is of course a huge input of time. All quality time of course, so no complaints on that
