I think my favorite piece (and believe me, it’s REALLY hard to choose) is a piece I commissioned last year by this guy.
Dean is a local artist and I’ve commissioned a number of pieces from him but the one he did last year is really spectacuar. It’s a quadratic (I have no idea how to say this - like a triptic only with four parts, not three), all hand painted - two of them are on wood and two of them are reverse painted on plexiglass - it’s really fantastic and every time I look at it I see a new little something to look at. In theory I could take a picture, but I’ll have to sort out the camera situation.
Um - if you just want the Virtual Boy to complete your collection, then that makes sense. But I actually owned one for a while - and as a gaming system, it’s not worth any price other than “dirt cheap”. Trust me - the only good game for it was Mario Tennis, and even that one got old fast. Lack of multiplayer doesn’t help it either.
I’m also a cookbook collector. I like the small church / community / county fair books, primarily from the 30’s - 60’s. I find them mostly at rummage sales, but have come across a few that I couldn’t live without at antique shops.
My favorite is from a Ukranian Church that my grandma went to, published in 1940. Pages upon pages of pieroghi recipes, none the same. Seeing her name in it also makes me feel a bit closer.
I also collect the chunky Murano type glass from the 40’s and 50’s. Stuff like this. However, due to having a smaller house, I no longer have the display area like I used to have. All but a few are still boxed up.
AND I collect wicker ware and glasses that I have no idea what they’re called, but they’re from the 50’s - they’re glass covered in a grippy platic with white squiggles all over.
Oddities from my travels. Like potshards from an ancient village in Pakistan, an Uzbek wooden diaper(!), a spinning top bought from a toy vendor at an Indian train station, a beautiful pine cone from Andalucia, etc… Basically stuff that awaken my curiosity, but don’t interest anyone else, I suppose.
Best piece: A blue mosaic tile from the dome of this mosque in Esfahan, Iran. No, I didn’t steal it - they were redoing part of the mosaic on the dome, and the parts they were replacing were just lying in a big pile behind the mosque. I asked a worker if I could have a piece, and he said yes. Yay!
1900-1929 sewing patterns, fashion magazines and sewing books. My favorites include the color plates from La Mode Illustree and La Mode Pratique from the 1910s, which are almost all insanely yummy (I have over a hundred, hard to pick just one) and a 1902 book “Modern designs in jewellry and fans”, with a laid-in silk fan (just the fabric part, not the ribs). A PDF (not from me) is available here.
My computer has been down most of the day, and I am currently on a loaner while they re-build my user profile (or some such re-do typa thing…)
Anyway:
As I have stated in Cafe Society when it was relevant, I have collected first edition books - my favorite pieces that I still have are a first editions of To Kill a Mockingbird, Dune, Native Son, Einstein’s first for-the-people explanation of Relativity (still unintelligible - published in 1920), Cannery Row, Ball Four and a bunch of others, although I have sold some of my other great ones over the past few years…oh, and Tijuana Gold, you mention Watchmen - I have the limited edition hardcover of the collected graphic novel that was issued when the trade paperback GN was first released…
As a guitar player, I have a collection, I suppose, but not in the same way I have first edition books. But I do have a vintage, highly-collectible guitar - a 1957 Gibson Les Paul Special. Very fun and cool - and, if you can believe it, I was able to trade a couple of books to get it…
**lobotomy **- you asked **STG ** about netsukes - my parents are actually antique dealers and collectors and they have a bunch - probably 2 - 3 dozen…very cool.
**lieu ** - what kind of art do you like - any specific styles? For instance, my parents collect California Impressionists - painters from the turn of the 20th century who were painting in that style when it emerged out of Paris in the late 1800’s…
Recordings of Pachelbel’s Canon in D- I love the piece, and it’s been done by so damn many people, there’s a million versions out there to listen to. My favorite is one by a rock group called Zox, with a wonderful electric violin carrying the first violin part and the drummer taking the cello part, where repetitive beats belong.
I should correct my earlier post…I don’t really collect gargoyles. As many of you probably know, a true gargoyle was designed to be a waterspout (and we get the term “gargle” from that). Mine are really grotesques.
British Royal Family commemoratives. They are mostly china pieces featuring the older royals. I’ve done displays at local libraries, guest lectured and written about them for our local newspaper.
My newest collection is kitschy travel plates from the 50’s. Oh…and “Coffee Hound” coffee mugs from the 50’s/60’s. Love 'em.
I love to knit & crochet, so I collect yarns & threads of various types. I also collect patterns, but they have to have a purpose (sorry, I don’t do knick-knacks) I have kids & grandkids, so I collect clothing patterns.
I also like to be warm, so I collect afghan patterns. There’s a reason for this. Once, back during my hippy-dippy days, I passed through a town & called at the home of someone I’d known, hoping to spend the night. I’m female, the friend was male, and his latest “old lady” wasn’t happy to see me, but understood that she couldn’t exactly turn me out. So she had me spend the night in an unheated room (in the middle of winter), claiming that she only had a couple of baby blankets to help me keep warm. I thanked her graciously for her hospitality & spent the next night elsewhere. Since then, I’ve always sworn that anyone in my house (family or guests) would be warm. So I make afghans.
I also collect folk angels. I’ve always believed in angels, & I know that I’ve been blessed by many people who didn’t exactly look like Raphael’s painted celestial beings. I love to collect angels as painted by Raphael, Titan, & other classical painters (as my younger daughter is a wonderful red-head, I’ve always loved Titan’s angels), but I also love angels as imagined by lesser mortals.
My husband collects mugs. My daughters know this, so his most recent acquistions have pictures of his grandkids on them. He cherishes them as he cherishes the models.
Books. It’s actually a bunch of sub-collections, come to think of it. I collect Czech literature, I have some nice editions, such as a first print of Milan Kundera’s The Joke and of Čapek’s War with the Newts. I also sort of collect grammars. I have a 80 year old grammar of Old-Church Slavonic and some older grammars of ‘Bohemian’ (Czech) and ‘Small-Russian’ Ruthenian. Another item I like in my collection is a copy of Lady Chatterley’s Lover illegally printed in Holland during the war, which is actually quite rare. Other favorites include some 100 year old travel guides (Baedeker’s and others) to some European cities, some communist propaganda (a book celebrating 20 years of the People’s Republic of China, with huge foldout pictures of about a meter in length).
I call my Hot Wheels cars more of an accumulation than a collection… I keep some in their packages, but I probably have a couple thousand loose in drawers and baskets. Some of my favorites are the '49 Mercuries I bought at the Petersen Automotive Museum, the 1:18 scale chrome Volkswagen Bus, and the Pontiac Firebirds.
I also read comic books. My hardcover Eddy Current is precious to me, as are my Hard Boileds and Miraclemans
I collect Motorola commercial and public safety two-way radios. My collection is sitting pretty with //\ XTS5000 Model 3 (ahem…qty 3) and a sweet late model Micom HF mil-spec-with-ALE rig.
I also have a dope Hutch BMX bike and an excellent Fender Rhodes electric piano that I’m pretty proud of.
Pink flamingos (this was started by accident, but I’ve grown fond of them)
I have lots of china ones that are very nice, and a print of the Audonbon drawing. I have every imaginable variation on a lawn flamingo (AND I put them on the front lawn).
My favorites are the vulture carved from pink jasper, and the black heron etched on pink agate.
Key chains. Lots of keys chains, most on a large key chain that looks like on brass diaper pin on steroids.
The first was a little harmonica that I used to play to my infant niece when she got cranky. I have Colorforms and an Etch-a-Sketch; a flash light, measuring tape and screwdriver set; an M&Ms dispenser, a deck of play cards, and a bottle opener. I have countless tourist-memorabilia and advertising ones (everyone I know gives me any they get). I even have an itty-bitty six-shooter from the Jesse James museum. If I were stranded on a desert island, I would have all the tools and entertainment I would need if I had my key-chains. But I wouldn’t; they must weigh ten pounds.
