What do you collect? And what pieces would you like to add to made the collection wonderful?
I have a Pinball thread going on. I have three machines, and am about to add a fourth. I have The Lost World (the Bally 1977 one, not the one with the movie tie-in), Star Trek, and The Black Knight. I am looking at buying one of five more, but for the ideal collection, I’d add all five, plus an old mechanical one called Card Whiz, one called Gilligan’s Island, and one called Pinbot. Then I would have the most awesome pinball machine collection in the world.
I also have a coin collection. Right now, I am working on sets of seated dimes, and 3-cent pieces, both silver and nickel. I would like to finish both of those, plus my set of Standing Liberty quarters, and get the two very expensive half-cents I need to finish my half-cent collection. Then I’d buy a St. Gaudens $20 gold piece. Year doesn’t matter, only condition, because I just want one. Eventually I would find something else to collect, like half-dimes, or shield nickels, and I’d wish I could wish to finish those, but really, in coin collecting, the fun is in the hunting, not the having. (Although the having is nice too.)
I have GAS (Guitar Acquisition Syndrome)
I’ve been upgrading from low end to higher quality guitars.
I have a nice Gibson SG Standard electric
Add to that the Taylor workhorse (814CE) electric/acoustic and a Taylor acoustic 12 string.(150E)
My Composite Acoustics carbon fiber Cargo is my take-anywhere favorite.
I have some cheap bass guitars, a nicely modded Squire Fat Strat and a host of other cheaper guitars like a resonator, a banjitar, a couple of weird Fernandes Nomad guitars.
My recent Taylor acquisitions have turned my attention to this brand so I’m hoping to pick up a GS-Mini Bass and then maybe a GS mini standard in my near future.
This compulsion is particularly ironic when you consider the fact that my acoustic talents are moderate at best and my electric sound is somewhat like a the sound of a cat sitting on a push lawnmower as it goes through a thorn bush.
Mausers. Lots and lots of Mausers. The End Goal is to possess a shooting sample from every country/every caliber issued. By my count that’s close to 100 different rifles.
I collect travel ephemera – postcards, guidebooks, national park brochures, magnets, stickers, etc. I don’t have dream collection per se, but iI do have an impossible dream of getting them all into an online database.
I wouldn’t mind having a complete collection of every available 5.1 rock music SACD/DVD. (As long as I could get them for the original price.)
I have 17 copies currently and am pretty sure that I am the sole reason that the price of copies has gone from about $25 to $60 (and some sell for upwards of $150 right now). AFAIK there were only 5000 copies printed back in 1984, so I doubt there are all that many copies in good shape left but by Og I’ll never be without one again.
Meteorites: the most difficult one because there are so many choices for types and individual specimens. Might as well go big and say Willamette. No, not a specimen from it, the whole thing.
Fossils: another similarly tough category. Possibly an intact Terataspis trilobite, which nobody has–there are only bits and pieces known.
Oh, and it occurs to me that this thread isn’t particularly arts-related (some collectibles might be artwork, but plenty aren’t), and so this thread might be a better fit for IMHO.
I have two collections. First, I collect vintage barware. I like mid-century modern glasses, cocktail shakers, seltzer bottles, etc. I’m running out of room, so I haven’t been adding to it as much as I used to. The piece I’d love to have? This amazing Philco Radio Bar. My husband collects vintage radios (and particularly loves Philcos), and this piece would be the perfect blending of our collections. But there’s no way in Hell I’d spend 30k on a freaking radio bar.
Second collection is snowflake decor. During the winter, it looks like a blizzard in my house. Snowflake lights, large snowflakes hanging on the walls and from the ceiling, snowflake candle holders, snowflake table cloths, etc. I can’t pinpoint any one thing that would make my collection complete, but I’m always looking for cool snowflake decor.
I collect legos (especially but not exclusively Star Wars themed) and transformers. My collections are ever-growing but at all times basically complete as far as I need them to be, so aside from brand-new and upcoming ones I haven’t acquired yet there’s nothing that I feel I’m especially lacking.
I’d love to have an antique vehicle collection comprised of vehicles of personal significance. For example:
A first generation ('61 - '67) Ford van, Dad owned a green one when I was born. Quite likely the first vehicle I ever rode in.
An Opel GT. I have fond memories of my eldest sister driving the two of us up to the Indiana Dunes to give mom a break for the day.
A Buick Centurion convertible. Another sister’s boyfriend, now husband, had a LeSabre sedan from the same period for a long time. Similar styling but I like the Centurion better.
Also G.A.S. Now that there is youtube, I’ve actually gotten somewhat better at playing them. I also have a couple of banjos and a dulcimer. Unlike BubbaDog, it turned out that the more expensive “better” guitar I bought turned out to be my least favorite. I ended up trading for a cheap one.
My main collection is of Royals baseball cards, and my collection is currently complete, but I also have a smattering of Royals non-card memorabilia. A dream artifact to add to the collection would be a World Series champions ring belonging to one of the players on either Royals WS winning team. A slightly more attainable dream (though I really don’t know for sure) is to get a game-used jersey of Brad Keller, a player on my favorite team with my own last name.
I have a lesser collection of a baseball card or picture of every (non-Mexican or winter League) minor league player whose last name began with “X”. A dream artifact to add to that would be a card/picture of the first major league player whose name begins with “X”, but who knows when, if ever, that will occur.
I collect small figurines of local religious icons when I travel. So far I have a bronze Thor from the Viking Museum in Stockholm, a replica of the Pieta from Rome, a small cross from the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris, a Chac Mool from Mexico, a voodoo statue from New Orleans, a Kokopelli from Arizona, statues of Fu, Shu, and Lu (the three Chinese gods of long life, success, and happiness) from Shanghai, and a replica of the Holy Grail from the cathedral in Valencia.
I collect souvenir pencil sharpeners, like the ones at this site:
I’ve been collecting for over 50 years and have several hundred little sharpeners. My first one was Christ of the Ozarks; it is extremely rare and would probably bring at least $100 on ebay.
After two near-death experiences, I lost interest in this hobby. It seemed like I was spending money on junk my family would have to deal with after my death. Just now, thanks to this thread, I’m about to lay down several hundred dollars to get caught up on the latest things.
I used to belong to an international organization for pencil sharpener collectors called Puntgaaf (“perfect point”). It seems to have disappeared.
My dream collection would be souvenirs buildings, but I’d be starting from scratch, and they are rather expensive.