I’m trying to get a handle on the purpose of collecting things. The best examples of this are stamps and coins, of course, but also (for example) collecting certain editions of books, or being a completist when collecting CDs or record albums. There are many other examples where the monetary value of an item far exceeds what it would be worth if it were not a collectible (remember the beanie baby boom?).
I can understand collecting certain things; art, for example, since it’s there to be appreciated. Wine, assuming you’re going to drink it. Any other thing that has a function.
But most collectible stamps and coins are not particularly attractive to look at (and even the ones that are, pictures of them are just as good), and they have no other function.
So what’s the appeal of trying to obtain a complete set of something?
Gosh - why does anyone do anything? I’d imagine there are countless reasons why folk collect various things, but I’ll offer that if creates a context for other activity, gives people a “purpose”, and potentially creates a community.
You don’t have to constantly ask “What shall we do today?”, if we know when the next stamp/coin/car/toaster show is coming through town. And when we plan where to travel, we can narrow down locations by checking out where the best ceramic figurine stores are. And when we get there, we know we will find someone with whom we share interests. We can acquire expertise, even if it is about discontinued Hummel figurines. If we wish, we can specialize in certain historical periods/geographical areas/subject matters - allowing our collection to be the axis for our greater area of interest.
Also, “collecting” is really a form of many other activities. What do gardeners do other than collect plants? Travellers collect experiences. Many birders collect life lists…
I don’t get it either, but that doesn’t mean I don’t get why other people like it. It’s just appealing to own all of that stuff. It fulfills something in them. I don’t collect anything and will toss things left and right if they don’t fulfill a purpose, and that act of tossing things makes me feel good, which probably collectors don’t fully understand.
As an appraiser of fine and decorative art and collectibles, let me say people do collect anything and everything: license plates, old movie programs, old dental equipment, hymnals, anything. Before modern entertainments, it was a hobby, away to get away from it all. You worked all day, your family had demands, there were endless chores, but then, just for a little while, you had this one section of time, however brief, that you could spend in idle fascination. Stamps and coins were relatively easy to come by, and became the big areas of collection. People with OCD wanted it all, wanted it arranged just so, would talk with others who arranged it differently and disputed the best way. With the advent of modern entertainments, we have an advertising-enforced push for materialism. Here it is! You want it! Look, it’s a duck on a plate! You want a complete set! There’s money to be made. For some people, it’s part of what defines them. For some, it’s a nostalgic connection to the past. For some people, it’s a form of snobbery (Oh, you have a 1957 reprint of the Gone With The Wind poster? I have an older one!). One man’s trash is another man’s treasure, as the old saying goes.
I think I can bring a POV to this: my parents were antique dealers, which emerged from them being collectors of a variety of things - dolls, pocket knives, art, silver, Native American beadwork, etc.
I collected First Edition books for years and had a great collection but have not been active for a while. What I enjoyed -
Envisioning what a “cool collection” would look like. I had some ideas about what books I wanted represented, only to find out that I was willing to trade ones and hold onto others I couldn’t’ve predicted.
The Hunt - scouting, networking with the Usual Suspects in my area and online who traffic in cool, old books.
The Haggle - figuring out how to make the deal work. If I paid full retail, or wasn’t able to flip a book of mine for greater value on the way to getting the newer book, then I failed. And when I get a deal to happen - it is a great feeling.
The Collection - it is fun to regard my collection as a statement of my literary preferences and as a history of my collecting - every book, as I take it off the shelf to look at it and flip through it, tells a story. About my reading it and loving it or acquiring the book.
Now, a while ago, I began selling my books and shifting my interest to guitars. That is a different situation - the guitars have collectible value, but are tools that I play. Adding that dimension changes things. The guitar has to appeal to me as a player first - it has to pass the “good tool” test. In this case, my experience with collecting has helped because I focus on guitars that I know will retain their value so if I ever need to flip them down the road, I get good value. That has been great because I haven’t lost money while upgrading my set of guitars to have some really, really great ones. Yay.
*Stuart: Okay, if you’re gonna question the importance of an actor’s signature on a plastic helmet from a movie based on a comic book, then all of our lives have no meaning! *
I think collecting could be rewarding if you had time, money and space. Without the proper resources collecting can take away from our quality of life, as it is at some point I felt like I have become a slave to nearly every hobby I have taken up. Experience has taught me 1 is good but two is not always better.
I’ve had a variety of collections. The appeal to me is just the collecting. I like to see the collection grow. My collections have not been extraordinary. Currently I have a collection of over 200 hot sauces. I collect those for the bottles, though I’m too lazy to empty them and fill them with colored water as others do. I also have a collection of round things right now. Sperical is a more apt descriptions, they must be generally spherical and have some ancillary non-spherical function such as a Magic Eight Ball, several of those lightning jar things, spinning lights and the sort. Best collection was a family project, collecting Pez dispensers. We donated that to a museum a few years back, now on display.
But back to the motivation, for me it’s just an excuse to pick up trinkets and doodads as I encounter them watch the collection grow. I collected stamps, coins, and comic books as a kid, and none of those were as satisfying as the less specific categories of things I’ve collected since then. When you have a coin collection you will always be missing some that you can’t afford to complete the set. With my current collections there is no completion, there are no specific holes to fill, it’s just about finding one more random piece to add to the set.
To some extent. I can understand collecting the guitars (even though I don’t play) because each can have its own sound or feel, or (if you perform) a certain look that you’re going for.
But the first editions, well, I can see how the hunt would be an interesting challenge. But once you start talking about selling them, it becomes more of an investment strategy rather than a collection. And as far as it being a statement of your literary preferences, wouldn’t that apply just a much if you had current printings? It seems to me that there’s an inherent pleasure in saying or knowing “I own n of these rare things that few or no other people have”. That last bit’s the part that I just don’t grok.
Well, yes. There is an inherent pleasure in that. To me, it’s akin to the appeal of seeing rare things at a museum or other tourist attraction. It’s cool to know that I’ve seen the only one (or one of the very few) of something in existence. And if I possess that thing, I get to experience that feeling all the time.
ETA: To be clear, for me, it’s not about “I have it and you don’t; nyah-nyah.” It’s more “There’s only ONE of these in the whole world, and it’s right here!”
To you maybe, but to me 99% of art leaves me just flat. I can’t think of any major painting that does anything for me.
As for why people collect things, they like to look at them as much as people like to look at art. That was the reason I’ve started getting rid of my collections of stuff, I never look at it and it sits in boxes.
Everything you are saying makes sense. And sure, I could have a normal paperback or e-book - ultimately, as I decided to upgrade the guitars I was playing, that is why guitars ended up winning out over books.
“Wanting to own these rare things that others don’t” - hmm; can’t say no, but it wasn’t a focus. I just love pulling a book down, flipping to cool passages, thinking about how that was the first appearance (usually) of the story and what the world and author’s life was like at that point. The books were totems that held within them stories I thought were cool - about the story, about the author, about how I acquired it, about my relationship with reading and stories and what they meant in my life. And so my collection, when I would review it, would remind me of all that.
ETA: oh, and as for thinking about investment/value - well, I want my interest to be as self-funding as possible, and if I bought something, but learned over time that it didn’t fit my collection for some reason or another, that I could use it as trade-bait later on. The more “liquid” the item is, the more you can tune your collection as you learn more about what is important to you. Gosh, when it comes to guitars, that has been essential. You never know what you are going to like unless /until you live with it for a while…
Further musing: You are commenting on replace-ability, or some inherent value. A First Edition’s content can be acquired for a fraction; so the value of the First is based on some consensus agreement. Yep - that’s how it works. But the…stability of the value of the collected thing can often be tied to the inherent value of the thing. The inherent value would be tied to things like scarcity, cultural/historical importance, fragility, ability to use or display it, etc. When a collectible’s trading value strays too far above any ties to its inherent value, you see bubbles and bursts.
First Editions have a few things going for them: scarcity (typically; not for big books); cultural/historical importance (depending on your focus); condition issues (worn pages, torn/missing dust jacket, etc.) and they look great on the shelf. What’s not to love?
Well for me, because a great old guitar has all of those factors, and can be a great tool whose sound cannot be replicated by a cheaper alternative*, I transitioned to old guitars and haven’t looked back. Well, once or twice
*you don’t have to personally agree that great vintage guitars sound different and better; the point is that there is a significant market of customers who do believe this.
I collect coins and sort of collect some firearms. Reasons?
a) Profit. Got a nice 1909 S VDB back when I wanted one for around a hundred bucks and sold it a few years later for just under $600. Bought a S&W model 10 back in my 20s for like $189 new. I’ve used it over the years and enjoyed it and right now it would probably bring $300. That kind of stuff is just fun.
b) Having something few others do. I have a 10 kopek that’s an overstrike of an overstrike that is basically one of three confirmed. Other than me and Samclems few people would appreciate it but its mine mine mine. I also made a volley gun like the one used in the old John Wayne version of The Alamo. When I pull that out at Fort Niagara on the 4th -------------
c) The hunt. I’ve tried to get a couple “matching sets” of working firearms and motorcycles. The BSA pair was easy; the CZ pair not too hard. I’ve been trying to find a restoreable Ivers Johnson cycle for like 30 years. Bicycles I’ve had - just can’t get one of those beasts with a motor that I can afford. Its a fun way to kill time though.
While it may give you joy to collect things, remember that after you are gone, someone else is going to have to deal with it. When my father passed away a few years ago, all his stuff fell to me. He told me which things he thought were “valuable” amongst his collections of cast-iron banks, colored depression glass, coins, stamps, and old stock certificates. His imparting the value of such things makes it hard for me to dispose of them easily.
My in-laws have massive collections of Coca-Cola stuff, a lot of which is displayed in a museum-like room at their home. When they are gone, who is going to get to sort thru it all and spend time getting rid of it? Fortunately, there are clubs that can come and claim this stuff, since we have no use for it at all.
Collecting, at its best, is all about community. You can share your collections and experiences with others of like mind (or even unlike mind - I enjoy hearing people talk about their obsessions).
The best forms of collecting are catch and release, like birding. There are no things to weigh you down (except perhaps the binoculars). There is only the experience.
The hunt! It’s a kind of “detective game.” Where might my suspect be found? He was last seen in an antiques shop in Denver… Nope! Got away! But I’ll get him, oh yes I will!
My late husband was collector. It killed to me sell at half or less the cost or throw away his things. I decided then that I will never ever put anyone I care for through that.
I go to estate sales and see someone’s lovely collection of teacups, thimbles, Hummels etc, and I just weep for the person who collected them, and the people who have to dispose of it with all the pain therein.
This. It was awesome when I completed my collection of Galaxy’s by finding the last one in a used book store. And most of the pleasure of going to a used book store is finding stuff on my want list. I’ve got plenty of books backed up to read, so that isn’t it.
I could probably fill in holes in my collection through EBay - but where is the fun in doing that? When I was a kid we collected baseball cards. When I was an adult I knew people who bought the entire set in a box - which I though of as totally pointless since it was not collecting, just spending money.
We are not alone - Don Wollheim numbered first editions of DAW books starting with 1 especially to appeal to collectors - Elsie Wollheim confirmed this to me directly. So it clearly is a common thing.
