In his book Emergency, Neil Strauss talks briefly about his collection of anti-American propaganda. There’s a couple of pictures of example posters and shirts.
All of sudden, my collection of foreign language bibles doesn’t seem that bad, at all. - The rationale here, is that I could compare the foreign version to the English version and eke out what a few words mean. I’ve got German, Italian [Vatican City], and most recently Greek, from a monastery founded where John received the Revelation [Patmos].
I was preparing to go to Germany, and I wanted to know the German for “King James Version”.
:smack:
If the bible is in German, it of course wouldn’t care what a King of England had to say about an English collection of the same texts.
Yeah. Thankfully, I realized that about 5 minutes later.
I plan to get one in Japanese. - I also want a copy of “Ender’s Game” in Japanese. But, I think that is a tall order.
A few years ago, I noticed three or four small glass objects on a co-worker’s desk. Eventually it occurred to me that they were glass insulators used on electrical power lines. I thought it was kind of a cool thing to collect. Now that I’m posting this, though, I looked on the web and found that there’s at least one website devoted to this hobby.
The only collections I have are of AOL floppy discs (dating from when AOL sent out its software on floppy disc instead of CD-ROM) and promotional refrigerator magnets. Note that I haven’t gone to any trouble to acquire either. Both collections are composed of examples that were sent to me.
I collect beach sand and ping pong balls. I’ve managed to let my toilet paper collection fall by the wayside. I’ve got sand from every continent except for Antarctica. I’ll grab some when I make it there.
I also have collections of less weird things, such as toy air cooled VWs and foreign currency.
During the late 60’s, when Catcher In The Rye was very popular in high school reading classes, I started collecting books that had any reference to Catcher In They Rye on the blurb back cover or inside flap.
I probably had close to sixty books; “As good as Catcher…”, “…written in the style of Catcher…”, “…just like Catcher…” etc. etc.
I even read most of them, and not so surprisingly - none of them were anywhere near the quality of Catcher In The Rye - although I vaguely remember A Separate Peace also needlessly had a “Catcher” reference in the blurb when it came out in paperback, and yes - that book was actually quite good.
Sadly, that collection got lost when I moved to Europe.
I was browsing in a small record store several years ago when a guy came in and started looking for LPs with pictures on their jackets of people wearing cuff links. He explained that he wanted to sell them to the cuff link museum.
I read an article in our school paper written by a girl who collected broken car parts, the kind you find on the road after an accident. There was a photo of her with her car parts.
I have always thought collecting things were kinda silly. Unless one seriously thought they might be worth money someday. I love artwork, personally. Original paintings and metalworking mostly, prints just kinda make me feel like somebody is trying to cheat me.
I know, not weird at all. However, I knew a guy in high school that collected antique bells (pretty sizable ones at that). Pretty weird for a 18 y/o dude (this was years ago).
Not as many as you might think. Even aggressively atheist materialists became reticent when it came time to put their name on the dotted line. In our hearts we are all superstitious cave dwellers, trembling in fear at the sound of thunder.
Okay, that is a cool collection.
OK, now that is funny. When I used work at the newspaper, I used to have a file folder of Letters to the Editor in which people used the phrase “I am (or was) appalled!” It is just astonishing, the things people can find to be appalled about. After 20 years or so, that folder was pretty thick, too.
There’s a difference between ordinary prints and an artist’s prints. An artist’s print is made in only limited numbers by the artist her- or himself, and appreciates in value the same way an original does.
Human skins
Human Fore Skins
My best friend as a child collected MERCURY. Her father worked on heaters and would actually bring home thermostats so she could get the mercury out and they’d have a grand ole time rolling the stuff around on the table and in their hands.
The entire family was a little off already. I’m sure this didn’t help matters.
Also when my oldest was a little girl I discovered a giant used band-aid ball in her closet in addition to dozens of chocolate bunnies she could never bring herself to eat because they were too pretty.
For the record, title to my soul is held by Michael Barrows of Solihull, England.
I have no idea where the Monster(s) In My Pocket I received in exchange are.
Same here. My regret is that I started in my 30s and thus missed sampling dozens of exotic locales I’d visited earlier.
Strangest collection I ever heard of was hair barettes some guy found on the beach. I thought it was a joke until he posted a number of pics. He had hundreds if not thousands, all sorted by color, size, etc. Kooky stuff, man.
There used to be this cool little collector’s show on A&E hosted by John Laroquette (can’t remember the name of it) that showcased unusual collections.
The weirdest one I remember was a guy who collected different designs of carrot bags. The plastic bags that carrots come in. He had thousands of them, stacked up, stapled to the walls, etc. , all of them different.
I know someone who collected semen (his own). I saw the jar.