500 colored pencils - to admire or use?

Back when I was little girl in elementary school, my oldest sister, Julie, gave me a little pack of mini colored pencils in a Hello Kitty pouch. I remember how cute and tiny they were, and how much I loved them. I brought them with me to school to put in my desk. I would take out the colored pencils to admire them and then put them back in their respective places in the pouch (rainbow order, of course). But, they were so pretty that I never used them, because I wanted to keep the tips perfectly sharpened and keep all of the pencils perfectly even. Basically, I enjoyed them more as a piece of art vs. actually drawing with them.

Now, 20 years later, I received an email from my friend, Erica, saying that her friend sent her a link to 500 pencils, and she thought of me. Thanks, Erica! Instead of a magazine subscription or flower of the month subscription, this is an amazing colored pencil subscription. Social Designer sends you a beautiful set of 25 pencils, for 20 months. In the end, you have a massive collection of 500 pencils. You can also subscribe to unique display cases so your collection can hang on the wall, flare out like flower stems, or curve against each other in flowing shapes.

photos from Social Designer

Aren't they just gorgeous? Now, the issue is that I think that with these beauties, I would be back to my habits of childhood where I would just roll them under my fingers and then put them back on display. I technically already do have a set of around 50 colored pencils that I use today, so really... these 500 pencils would probably just be for looks. Because of that, I most likely won't be subscribing, but maybe this post has inspired someone to take the plunge to get the 500 pencil collection? Let me know so I can have colored pencil envy =)

~Emilie