Tell us all about your collection.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I collect two very different things, seriously. One shall remain private, but the other is action figures, with an emphasis on kaiju. Many, if not most, of my kaiju figures come directly from Japan. You won’t find these in Walmat, or even on Amazon.

I’ve lined the walls of a spare room with tiered glass shelving on which I display all of my figures in their original packaging. The only exception to the packaging rule is when a figure is not sold in clear presentation packaging. In those instances, the box is carefully opened, and the is figure removed and displayed with the original box.

I keep a spreadsheet wherein I log details of all my figures, purchase date, and the price I paid for each one.

I’ve been collecting these figures for about 8 - 9 years to date, and currently have ~120 - 140ish. I haven’t counted recently. The collector market value of each figure is varied and ranges roughly between $15 - $250.

So that’s my odd interest. I figure most folks collect something, so let’s hear all about your collections… :smiley:

2

In addition to collecting music (over 6000 albums to date), I have the world’s largest collection of Don Novello’s The Blade with 22 copies so far.

3

I collect lego sets and transformers. I have hundreds of each. I am not completist on either, though I am almost completist on the Star Wars subline, owning virtually every set released in the line since it began in 1999. I also own hundreds of sets in other sublines. I also own not-legos and not-transformers made by other companies - in the case of the transformers these companies/products are all flagrantly violating copyright, in that they portray characters owned by Hasbro/Takara.

I keep nothing in the original packaging; these are toys that I buy to play with.

I am not very organized about my collecting. All lego sets are kept in their original boxes, stacked in and on top of bookcases or stored in totes. The ones in the totes are tracked in a database telling me which is where, but most of the things outside of the totes are tracked by memory only. The transformers are even less organized; I barely know where any specific one of them is. Honestly they barely count as a collection; I just keep buying more of them as they appeal to me. I like them for the cleverness of their engineering and how fun they are to fiddle with as much as anything else. (I like legos for much the same reason.)

I haven’t made any homemade transformers, but I have made a few original lego creations, which I design on the computer and then order the individual bricks for online. The latest is a 1:1 scale model of the two-brick duplo alien from the Lego movies made out of regular bricks, which I made because the official builds for it are innaccurate. The most impressive of one I’ve made is a large pile of orange and green bricks that I’ve devised several different ways to make 2-D and 3-D jack-o-lanterns out of (leaving no bricks left over, of course). These get built into their various configurations every halloween. My other lego sets get loosely rotated in no particular pattern; only a tiny fraction of them are built at any one time due to limited flat level surfaces to put them on. The transformers don’t rotate so much as roll on a conveyor - in with the new, tote with the old. Not very smart, really, but the novelty makes fiddling with them more fun. Some of the better/more fancy/more expensive ones keep getting pulled out repeatedly though, to be fiddled with again and again.

4

Very cool, especially the LEGOs (to me anyway).

5

I collect switchblades. When I was a kid and saw movies like “Rebel Without A Cause” and “Blackboard Jungle” I thought having one of those knives that snapped open with the push of a button would be really cool. They were illegal and hard to find when I started collecting but I snagged a couple. Then came the internet and they got easier to get though still illegal. Then my state re-legalized them a few years ago. To be honest that made it a little less fun. I don’t have anything truly vintage or high dollar, I think the most I’ve spent was about $275.00. I probably have 25-30 if you include the cheap, junky ones I started with.

6

Hot Sauces - around 200 bottles right now. Not acquiring any more, they take up too much space. Will soon donate the collection to Johnson & Wales Culinary Arts museum where my wife’s Pez dispenser collection now lives.

Round Things - Generally spherical things in actuality, only about 25 items in the collection because there aren’t that many interesting round things.

Power Tools - Not any kind of organized collection. Just putting away the handheld tools on new shelves in the basement yesterday, more impressive than I thought.

7

As an addendum to this discussion, I’d like to hear folks’ opinion regarding the actual definition of a collection. There can be a fine line between a collection and a hoard or clutter.

To me, a collection should consist of items obtained and kept in a state or condition such as to retain or increase their market value. I also believe that a significant characterization of a true collection is that it’s displayed for appreciation, rather than stored away in boxes.

Like to hear others’ thoughts on this.

8

About six months ago I decided to refresh my ability to use a slide rule, and that has sort of morphed into getting a small (but growing) collection. The deeper I get into this the more impressed I become with the ingenuity and precision of those old slide rules (actually, referred to as “analog mechanical computers”). I’m refinding out that in many cases, a slide rule can solve a problem as fast or even faster than an electronic calculator. Anyway I’m having a lot of fun with this, and only occasionally having to fight off a wifely comment about “…just how many slide rules do you need.?”

9

I have a modest collection of about 20 watches. Most around $100-$200, some in the $300-$500 range and one around $1,500. So nothing really cool. No Rolex or TAG or anything in that world but I still really like my collection. I bought each one for a specific quality I really like.

10

Oh, never mind…

11

Human skulls.
Skull tattoos, a key chain, a skully bank, a small skeleton hanging by a noose from the rearview mirror in my car, lidded ash trays etc.

No Halloween decor, but my niece has a nifty “Day of The Dead” decoration i wouldn’t mind owning.

Don’t have a genuine skull, yet.
My collection is small. I haven’t
spent any great sums of money. I’m not particularly obsessive about it, it’s just what I collect.

12

First edition books, autographed by the author where possible. It’s not always possible, but I do have first edition books autographed by Buzz Aldrin, Sir Edmund Hillary, and Paul Gallico in my collection. But I’ll look for just about any first edition, and am working on filling out my collection of first edition James Bond hardbacks.

The prize in my collection is a first edition of Dorothy Parker’s Death and Taxes, a poetry collection from 1931, autographed by the author, and with marginalia by her (“I like this one!”).

13

I have three narrow vases on my window sill and in them about 30 gemstone eggs. Similar to these ones. My favourite are my pyrite one, and the ones made of ocean jasper, calcite, bismuth, and pietersite. I occasionally take them out and show them to visitors, and point out the minutia of color, pattern, sometimes organic origin (like the petrified wood ones, and the pyrite and strombolite one) and the lustre/shine/structure. They are works of art, I feel.

14

I collect rubber duckies. It’s as stupid as it sounds. They make me smile, though.

15

Those are decent criteria but I don’t think they need to be limiting in what a collection is. So a jar full of pennies may not be considered a collection but if you just sort them by date and store them that way it would be a penny collection. It doesn’t have to be displayed for appreciation but it could be. Some collections have a finite set of possible members and the effort to complete the set makes it a collection.

I’d say any deliberate effort to keep the items and obtain more up to some reasonable amount is sufficient to make it a collection. I knew someone who had a drawer full of matchbooks from different restaurants and other establishments, no organization, totally random, but he kept collecting them over the years. Maybe still does if he can find one anymore.

Sometimes one man’s hoard is another man’s collection.

16

I’ve got a lot of LEGO sets, but I don’t really consider it a “collection”; I’ll keep the big, really expensive ones like Voltron or The Simpsons house the Apollo Saturn V rocket for display, but smaller ones I’ll put together and then just give to my nephews. It’s mostly just the building that I like.

I’ve got a lot of pocket knives, but I don’t consider that a “collection” either; I have a lot because I like to always have one within reach, so they’re just stashed all over the house for when I need one.

My wife and I have a collection of tiny glass animals just like these. There’s a big craft fair at the fairgrounds a couple of times a year and we always go. There’s always at least one glass vendor with a table full of tiny glass animals, 3 for $10, so we buy 3 different ones every time. For a while we were just lining them up on the mantel, but my MIL gave us a backlit cabinet to hang on the wall and they all live in there now.

I used to have a fairly impressive guitar collection, in volume at least, if not quality, but I had to get rid of almost everything about 10 years ago when I fell on hard times, and I’ve not rebuilt the collection. I don’t really even play anymore, so it’s a wash I guess.

Other than that, I’ve got an impressive Steam game collection, well over 50% of which I’ve never played or even installed once, the joke being, “I don’t buy games to play, I just buy them to own.”

17

Dude! So do I! I probably have a hundred or so…some older classic ones and a lot of newer ones. The variation in their mechanisms is really fascinating. I am totally pissed off that all those 50s movies made everyone think that they are in the same category as concealable, fully automatic weapons. Oddly, some states will allow you to carry them but prohibit carrying a butterfly knife.

18

I’m not a hoarder. I’m a collector!

I have a ‘collection’ of Zippo lighters. A couple belonged to dad, one that is in the display case is a duplicate of one of dad’s (the one that belonged to him is in a shadow box with some of his artifacts), there are a couple that I bought in the '80s or '90s – and an empty space for one that’s lost somewhere in the house. I have lighters from USS Enterprise, VF-1, VF-2, and VA-196 to represent the patches given to me by the ordnance officer who was a friend of the family, a couple of NASA, one with a T-34 on it, and others. And that’s not counting the one we have by the fireplace, or a few others lying about. There are 20 lighters in my (cased) collection, including the missing one, plus four others and a Ronson.

I’ve accumulated quite a collection of firearms over the years. I think I have around 60. YIKES! A LIBERAL WITH GUNS! :eek: Actually, I need to start selling them off. They’re not on display, and I haven’t been to the range in over a decade.

On my mind now is my collection of cameras. I have two super-16 Aaton LTRs, an Arriflex 16.S and Arri tripod, an Éclair NPR, an ultra-16 Beaulieu R16 Automatic, an ultra-16 Cannon Scoopic, a Bolex H16 M5 with a reflex lens and Tobin crystal motor, a Bolex H16 Rex 1 with a Tobin crystal motor and Bolex tripod, at least two other H16s, a couple of Krasnagorsk K-3s (one not working) a couple of super-8 Beaulieu 4008 ZM IIs, a couple of super-8 Elmo 1000.Ss, plus lighting, tripods, high hat, western dolly, skateboard dolly, etc. I’m going to start selling a lot of it off. I want to keep one Aaton, the Arri, the Rex 1, and one of the 4008s.

Then there are the 35 mm cameras. I have an Olympus OM-1, a Pentax K-1000, an Olympus OM-4, a Nikon FM3a, a Nikon FM2, a Canon AE-1 Program, a Nikonos IV, a Nikonos V, and an Argus C4. For non-35 mm film cameras, I have a Minolta 110 Pocket Autopak and a Brownie Hawkeye.

Of course, no [del]hoarder[/del] collector is worthy of the name without hundreds of DVDs, books, and music. :wink:

19

Fair enough… makes sense. :slight_smile:

20

My collections are fairly small. I have five floor lamps, dating from the '30s to the '70s. I have a few more, but those aren’t in use.

I have a collection of five car 8-track players. Two are in-dash AM/FM units, one is an under dash FM unit, and two are plain under dash tape only units. I also have a couple of cassette adapters and a few cleaner cartridges.

I always wanted a tiny portable TV set when I was a kid. Now I have seven of them. Two are pocket LED types and one of those is digital, so it’s still useful. The other pocket one is pretty useless now since it was made just before the changeover. The other five are 5" screen CRT types. One is a color model, the rest are B&W. All have radios and all work. I use them as decorations on my mantel.

I guess the largest collection I have is my tools. I used to work on cars a lot, but my financial situation improved over the years and now I buy new cars instead of beaters, so I don’t have to use them as much any more. I probably have close to 300 sockets. I still enjoy finding tool bargains at yard sales. Last summer I got over $100 worth of Snap-On tools (brake spring pliers and brake spoon) for 90 cents. A pair of real Vise-Grip pliers was included.