# What are the most unusual thing(s) you've ever heard of anyone collecting? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 28, 2009, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-most-unusual-thing-s-youve-ever-heard-of-anyone-collecting/501218 "2009-06-28T00:10:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2009, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-most-unusual-thing-s-youve-ever-heard-of-anyone-collecting/501218/81 "2009-06-30T21:26:03Z")
> [@Meeko](#): > > Didn’t you use to have a signature that posted a link to your collection, Mangetout? 🙂 > > Yeah. Then one day, you stopped including your signature. I think I just forgot. ---
**Author:** ![Meeko](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e495f1/32.png) [@Meeko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meeko)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2009, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-most-unusual-thing-s-youve-ever-heard-of-anyone-collecting/501218/82 "2009-06-30T21:53:44Z")
> [@dwc1970](#): > > If she was from England she might have offered to show you her collection of _rubbers_. 😃 There was a Russian foreign exchange student that lived in the same dorm I did in college. He asked me for a rubber, and in context, I deduced what he was asking for. I handed him a new, non-sharpened pencil and told him he could keep it. [I had a ton of them on hand] Thankfully, that was exactly what he wanted. ---
**Author:** ![Patch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a183cd/32.png) [@Patch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patch)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2009, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-most-unusual-thing-s-youve-ever-heard-of-anyone-collecting/501218/83 "2009-07-02T02:55:03Z")
> [@Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](#): > > A girl in college took me back to her room. Over her roommate’s bed was some weird looking art collection on construction paper. I asked what it was. Apparently, the roommate loved her boyfriend so much that she would pick his boogers for him, and save them for eternity. It was quite a collection. Huh. I guess Carlin was wrong. ---
**Author:** ![FlyingRamenMonster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@FlyingRamenMonster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlyingRamenMonster)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2009, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-most-unusual-thing-s-youve-ever-heard-of-anyone-collecting/501218/84 "2009-07-03T06:26:31Z")
> [@Anaamika](#): > > I know someone who collected semen (his own). I saw the jar. Heh, that reminds me. I was with some friends in their university queer room and felt like a drink, so I opened the fridge and found… a shrivelled cabbage and a bottle of Crisco. Ah, college. I pointed out the Crisco to my friends and we all had a laugh. A har har har, Crisco. The next time I was there I went to check if it was still there, and the bottle was filled with… dear god :eek: And that is why I no longer touch anything in the queer room. ---
**Author:** ![chowder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/977dab/32.png) [@chowder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chowder)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2009, 7:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-most-unusual-thing-s-youve-ever-heard-of-anyone-collecting/501218/85 "2009-07-03T07:15:44Z")
Promotional/advertising cigarette lighters. I have dozens of them, in frames, behind glass. ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2009, 7:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-most-unusual-thing-s-youve-ever-heard-of-anyone-collecting/501218/86 "2009-07-03T07:54:40Z")
I collect people with a certain first name. I have probably forty or more by now. Many are deceased. A few are diseased. I’ve never had them all together at once – not even the ones that are still living. I think I had five together in the same room about eight years ago. All of these people were or are related to me in some way. Maybe I should make a photo album. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2009, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-most-unusual-thing-s-youve-ever-heard-of-anyone-collecting/501218/87 "2009-07-03T15:30:52Z")
> [@Linty\_Fresh](#): > > On the history channel, I saw a guy whose passion was collecting antique toasters. > > Bravo, toaster guy, for giving the stamp collectors someone to laugh at. > > I still can’t believe it. Saw something on History or Discovery about a ~12 year old kid who collected vacuum cleaners. He had about 80. His parents seemed ordinary and they weren’t collectors of anything. Seems to me that encouraging, or at least tolerating, that degree of collector nuttiness at a young age is pretty much assuring the kid turns into a real fruitcake by the time he’s 60. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2009, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-most-unusual-thing-s-youve-ever-heard-of-anyone-collecting/501218/88 "2009-07-03T19:30:04Z")
While there are lots of collections relating to human oddities–everything from malformed babies to tumors and gallstones and the like, I think collections of animal bacula, including walking canes or petrified ones, is still one of the oddest ordinary collections to have. Oosik envy, probably, on my part. [http://www.maineantiquedigest.com/stories/index.html?id=348](http://www.maineantiquedigest.com/stories/index.html?id=348) ---
**Author:** ![supergoose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@supergoose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/supergoose)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2009, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-most-unusual-thing-s-youve-ever-heard-of-anyone-collecting/501218/89 "2009-07-03T20:17:02Z")
> [@Zoe](#): > > I collect people with a certain first name. I have probably forty or more by now. Many are deceased. A few are diseased. I’ve never had them all together at once – not even the ones that are still living. I think I had five together in the same room about eight years ago. All of these people were or are related to me in some way. > > Maybe I should make a photo album. No maybe about it. And then you should post it here. ---
**Author:** ![Ronald\_C.Semone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/cc9497/32.png) [@Ronald\_C.Semone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ronald_C.Semone)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2009, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-most-unusual-thing-s-youve-ever-heard-of-anyone-collecting/501218/90 "2009-07-03T21:34:04Z")
Beach sand? Why not collect the beach? I have travelled all over the world and I have a little bottle of water from just about every place I’ve been: the River Nile, the Sea of Japan, the English Channel, the Indus River, Lake Eire, a mountain stream in Bulgaria, etc. , about 80 in all. The only time I was thwarted was when I visited the Kizul Kum Desert in Uzbekistan; there is no water there so I had to settle for a bottle of sand. The only time I was a little bit anxious about my collecting was about 25 years ago when I was in Moscow and I climbed over a low wall near the Kremlin and walked down an enbankment to get a bit of the Moscow River. I didn’t think the KGB would believe why I was doing what I was doing. I was afraid they would think I was putting something into the river. But noone bothered me. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-most-unusual-thing-s-youve-ever-heard-of-anyone-collecting/501218.md?page=4)