Strange collections

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Who here (besides me, I mean) has collections of weird stuff at their house. Looking around me, I can count enough hardware to make FIVE computers, three monitors, four printers, SIX coffee tables, enough tools to damn near rebuild a car ( even though I won’t even change oil any more), three briefcases that I’m really gonna clean out one of these days, yep, a bunch of old Army uniforms that I have absolutely no use for, four 25 foot extension cords - no outdoor appliances to use them with, two BIG boxes of CD-Roms that I haven’t looked through in at least two years, and also, EIGHT HUGE boxes of old 5.25 floppies containing God knows what even though I don’t even have a drive for them!!!

 OOPS! Almost forgot the three boxes  of fanfold paper I bought eight years ago - each has 3000 sheets. One is still banded shut. Do I need a life or what? And this is just what I can see from looking right around me!

Pathetic, I know…

2

Almost forgot. One broken 35 inch television, one broken VCR, one unusable stereo receiver that will only work in Europe and about 50,000 paperbacks. :slight_smile:

3

So which part of the house do you live in ? I thought I was bad with my huge book collection.

I had a girlfriend whose family collected so much useless stuff, they used to store all their food in the bedroom !

4

I’m doing spring cleaning now, and these are some of the odd things I found in my closet:
[ul]
[li]A manual typewriter that I found in my grandma’s attic. The keys stick and I haven’t yet been able to find a ribbon that fits it.[/li]
[li]Sundry board games, all of them missing something absolutely essential for playing the game.[/li]
[li]A broomstick with no broom attached.[/li]
[li]A bunch of my middle-school wood and metal shop projects.[/li]
[li]A disassembled trumpet from my high school band-geek days.[/li]
[li]About fifteen years’ worth of National Geographics.[/li]
[li]Five years of back issues of Guitar World magazine.[/li]
[li]My AP US History notes from high school.[/li]
[li]My dad’s stamp collection, which I ‘inherited’ when my parents split up.[/li][/ul]

5

Actually, I live in the WHOLE house. My wife got pissed about all the boxes of books spread out all over the basement and made me go buy some shelf units. She then repacked all the boxes and had me put them away properly.

Obviously, I have a LARGE basement :slight_smile: That’s just the paperbacks. Doesn’t include the complete Britannica and Great Books series, etc. I spent five grand on in Germany. Those get to stay in bookcases in the livingroom. Probably gonna change though, the wife says she wants more room in there.

6

I have a collection of over 300 CDS of Andrew
Lloyd Webber’s show cast recordings. People
just gape at the amount, how much I pay for
some of them, and what some of them go for on
ebay.

I plan to collect them until ALW dies, then
sell them.

7

I have about 800 different packets of sugar…from many different countries, and so forth.

Studi

8

I have a couple sets of Navy flight gear. One has all the bits that go into it including the .38 S&W revolver, but not the rescue radio which is rather expensive. Another looks complete as long as you don’t open all of the pockets in the survival vest. Plus about a dozen flight jackets, a similar number of flightsuits, a Supermarine Spitfire turn coordinator, life preserver units (LPUs), knee boards, sea dye markers, shark repellent, joy stick, helmets, etc. And an ejection seat from an A-7E Coursair II.

9

That should be Corsair.

Got a bunch of squadron patches, and I’ve framed a complete set of Apollo patches I bought at NASA when I worked at Edwards AFB back in the 80s.

10

Hey Trout, what 'cha gonna do with those old magazines?

11

A friend of mine collects water. I kid you not. She has bottles and jars of water all over her house. Whenever a friend goes on vacation, Laura hands them an empty jar to fill with water from exotic locals. We call her our water retention expert.

Me, I collect books. I have almost every book I have ever owned, including my baby books. I have a large collection of beautiful old crumbly books from the 1800’s. I have old Primers, McGuffy readers, charming Dick & Jane readers, an ancient copy of * Ulysses *, ancient textbooks with notes that the owners scribbled to classmates written inside, and I have a first edition * Gone With the Wind * which is one of my prize possessions.

I once bought a box of old books at a flea market, and in the bottom was a cigar box filled with post cards. They were collected by a minor opera singer in the 1870’s through the 1890’s, and when put in chronological order, make for a very touching story. I think that’s my favorite collection.

12

Embarrassing, but true. My house is filled with random people who never put things away. Never is not an exaggeration here. Over the years I have developed an enabling technique as a result of becoming frustrated at not being able to find certain vital items–scissors, scotch tape, spatulas, nail clippers, hair brushes, chocolate, TV controls. I encourage my family’s behavior by purchasing “extras” until there is always one that can be found easily.

So, for instance, we have at least 20 TV controls–these are ones that work, not the old ones from defunct sets. Of course we collect old non-working ones too. I once bought 10 TV controls when they were on sale, and made everyone sit down and program a couple.

I just counted nine spatulas in various kitchen drawers, plus one in the sandbox, and one being used to scrape something scarey off a dresser in the garage, but I’m sure there are more.

One time my kids needed scissors for a craft night at scouts–I was able to find 32 pairs, one of which was labeled “MOM’S SCISSORS PUT ME DOWN.” This one was in my son’s backpack in a zipper pouch.

What do I collect intentionally–those too-cutsie little troll dolls with the bright colored hair. I don’t feed them, though.

13

It’s not exactly strange, but I collect the Kinder Surprise toys and plastic eggs. Well, maybe the egg part is a bit strange

14

I collect bottlecaps. For a while, I was really obsessive about it and would pick up any bottlecap I found. As a result, I have over three hundred Budweiser caps. Nowadays, I just pick up interesting ones. Every once in a while, I’ll get them out and see how many of each type I have. When I was little, I had a leaf collection. At some point, I lost it. Much later, when I was cleaning my room, I found it buried under some stuff. In the interim, my leaf collection had turned into a mulch collection. I was devastated, and never collected leaves again. Thank goodness.

15

I collect playing cards.

It’s mostly a practical collection, since I do card tricks as a hobby and wear them out quickly. I never throw away the old ones, though, since I might need them for duplicates or to practice things like Torn and Restored Card. Since I’m also a fairly avid gambler, and just about every casino sells its used cards in the gift shop, I’ll usually pick one up as a cheap souvenir.

I’ve got a shoe box in the closet with probably fifty or sixty decks in it, along with one on my desk, one in the living room, and two unopened decks in the desk drawer.

By the way–if you’re buying a deck of cards, Bee is the way to go. Bicycles are OK, but Bee cards hold up at least twice as long, in my experience. Gemaco cards are hard to find and lousy for card tricks, but if you’re just a casual card player, they’ll last much longer than you will.

Dr. J

16

Ice picks. With wooden handles. With advertising on the handle. But I only have two. Not much of a collection --they’re hard to find.

Actually, I just clicked in here thinking that maybe I would find out who has the rest of them.

A friend collects those glass insulator thingies from power poles.

My late husband collected glass doorknobs.

17

Apparently, unconsciously, magazines. If you really want to know what PC Magazine had to say about the first 10 MHz 286s I might be able to dig it up.

It’s changed over time though. I did go through my junked/wrecked hot rod collection period (quite) a few years ago. And I do have quite a few unused percussion instruments laying about.

But my Mom is the champ, with (once again) books. If it ever gets down to street combat, I’m heading to her place - it’s at least as bulletproof as anything you could do with sandbags. Old ones, new ones, valuable 200-year-olds and last week’s whodunnits. I’m concerned about the structural integrity of her home. Ah well, if it goes, I guess she’d probably like to be buried with her books.

18

I have a thing for magazines, too. Particularly video game magazines. I have been a fairly avid gamer since the dawn of the Atari era, and as soon as my hobby began being covered by the press, I started collecting.

What possible value these magazines have, I’ve no idea whatsoever. It really is a kick, though to look back through them.

19

I collect lighters. Not even Zippos - just ordinary Bics and Crickets. Most of them don’t even work. I have over 50, most of them in a box under my bed(yeah, if my house burns, I will never get out alive), but at least 2 or 3 in any and every room of my house.
Funny, I don’t even smoke often, or light candles alot. I just like fire. Also, when I do occasionally buy a pack of cigarettes, I never have a lighter on me (murphey’s law), and have to buy a new one. My latest - a Clark On the Go Bic - Made in the USA.

20

Oh my gawsh. Don’t even get me started on all the stuff I have.

Nearly complete Far Side books collection

Nearly complete Calvin & Hobbes books collection

Dozens of Beetle Bailey, Hagar, etc. books

Nearly complete Garfield books collection

Hundreds of other books

Every single comic printed between 1994 and 1997 that has, or mentions, or alludes to, Superman in it.

Dozens of old Wizard magazines

Almost every single PC Gamer ever printed

Dozens of Motor Trends

Dozens of Wireds

Quite a few Scientific Americans

Hundreds of Christian mags (Christian reader, Guideposts, etc.)

Hundreds of Reader’s Digests

Umm… clothes I haven’t worn in years…

Probably every single computer game made, ever.

Old, old, old copies of Big Blue Disc (some of the text adventures are still DAMN good)

THOUSANDS of games on 5 1/4 (which I can’t even read anymore) and on 3 1/2 (thinking about taking it out)

Hundreds of sundry cables

Every type of automotive tool you could imagine

Mom’s nearly got the completed works of Louis La’mour

Shit. I could go on for hours.

–Tim