Why do we collect?

[Miss Chicken]

We often have threads on what we collect, but I don't remember a thread asking 'why do we collect'.

I have been reading "Collections of Nothing" by William Davies King. King collects things like labels from tuna fish cans, empty Cheez-It boxes etc. In the book King's look at his emotional problems that lead to him collecting.

I didn't really collect as a child. I did have a swap card collection (as did my sisters) but it was my mother who bought the cards and we put them in our albums. We swapped cards with other girls at school but that was a school activity that nearly every girl took part in. When I left primary school I put the swap card collection away for years. When I had small children of my own I picked up my albums and showed my children my cards which covered many topics (birds, wild animals, fairy stories, dogs, cats, horses etc). However, when I realised that my cards were worth quite a bit on eBay I started to sell them because I wasn't really emotionally attached to them.

I look at what I collect now and I find I am questioning 'why are you collecting that'?

1) My collection of children books that are illustrated by Libico Maraja.

This is the easiest one to find a reason for. When I was a child my sister got a copy of "The Wizard of Oz" which was illustrated by Maraja. I was so jealous that this book belonged to her. The pictures were so beautiful that I really loved looking at the book. I eventually was able to buy a reprint of the book as well as several other books by Maraja (I also collect other illustrated versions of the Wizard of Oz - so long as they are from the 1960s or earlier)

2) Rubber ducks - started collecting them about three years ago. I only had a couple of ducks before then because my bathroom in my old house was very small. Once I had a larger bathroom I decided the ducks would brighten it up. I have 109 ducks and plan to stop around the 200 mark.

3) Glass figurines - no idea why I started.
4) Rocking horse figurines - no idea why I started.
5) Soft toys (mainly monkeys) - I bought my best friend a monkey for a present about six months before she died. After her death her daughter offered the monkey back to me. I bought a couple of monkeys to 'keep him company' and my family and friends decided I was collecting monkeys and started to buy them for my as birthday and Xmas present. I added a few lemurs to the collection (because lemurs are so cool). When I was at about 50 I asked people to stop buying them as I had 'no more room'.

I don't consider my books and DVDs as 'collections', at least not in the same way as the other things I collect.

so I am asking people here - why do you collect? Are any of your collections connected to your childhood? Or to someone you love/d? etc etc. Do you purposely limit your collections, or stop them after a certain amount? Are you collecting something that is a finite number of things in the collection, or are your collections open-ended?

 

[iguana_tonante]

I don't really collect anything, except headaches and sleepless nights.

I have a few "souvenir mugs" from places I've been, but mostly because they are cheap as souvenirs and you can stuff then in a backpack without much hassle. I collected a couple of comic series, but then I lost interest and now they are in boxes in my basement.

I am apparently physically unable to give my old textbooks away, but I'm not really "collecting" them, I just keep them around.

 

[Miss Chicken]

This book has really made me think.

I didn't collect as a child because I really was unable to ask for anything. At Christmas time my two older sisters and myself got exactly the same presents and my mother, I believe, would ask my sisters what they wanted and I just got the same as what they asked for. This was true whether the presents were under the tree from my parents or from Father Christmas.

I remember when I was around 11 my younger brother decided he wanted tennis lessons. Because someone was needed to go with my brother during his lessons I got tennis lessons as well. I really enjoyed myself and wanted to continue with the lessons the following summer, but my brother didn't, so I asked for lessons for a Christmas present. My mother said NO and I pleaded with her. She said "You will never be good enough" and I didn't get the lessons. I was deeply hurt and it was the last time I asked for anything. Even when she did ask me what I wanted when I was a teen I would answer 'whatever you want to get me".

I think I like to collect because of this. Once I could buy what I liked I could collect for pleasure and I think this is why I can keep my collections small. I am not collecting because of any real obsession only for the fun of it. I also like the hunt especially for those things that a little harder to fine such as black cat, spider and rocking horse figurines.

 

[captcalhoun]

i used to collect badges, largely as souvenirs. then i got into collecting trading cards - mostly superhero ones. that was just a completeist thing really cuz i got some free adn tried to get the sets.

my GI Joe and Action Force collections is basically a case of not letting go of my youth and using my disposable income as an adult to buy stuff i didn't have as a kid.

 

[sojourner]

I don't collect, but I do keep books. So I can reference them again. I actually keep very few personal items. I think it comes from a bit of advice on moving that I heard when younger.

When you move into a new home only unpack things as you need them. After a year anything still in boxes aren't needed. Get rid of them.

Keeps clutter from accumulating in my life.

 

[C. Cole-Chakotay]

I keep 99% of the books I buy. I will go back years later and re-read them. I enjoy them just as much the second time around as I did the first. I also collect Barbie dolls. I have the Holiday ones and others that I just liked. I have some Princess Diana dolls on order. I also collect stuffed animals when I see something I like that is reasonably priced.

I don't know why I collect things, but I enjoy having them.

 

[thestrangequark]

I am another who has difficulty understanding collecting. I am very uncomfortable owning things. All my possessions, including furniture and bicycle, could fit in one tiny moving van, and I still feel I have too much. I often fantasizing about throwing everything I own (with the exception of my computer and cello) into a massive heap and burning it. I especially hate useless things, especially paraphernalia, tchotchke, etc. I do have a large collection of books, but as others in this thread do, I reference or reread them often, so in my mind they don't really fit into the "collection" category. I suppose the closest I come to having collections is in my mugs, hats, and plants. However, all these things have uses, so, again, I have trouble categorizing them really as collections.

 

[Miss Chicken]

I have been doing a little research and come up with 6 reasons why people collect

1) Nostalgic reasons. Connections to the past and memories. In this I would include people who collect things that they wanted but couldn't have as children. (my Maraja collection falls in here)

2) Personal aesthetics - which several of the things I collect can be put under this reason. I had a mantlepiece and I though black cats would look good on it. It is the only place my black cats go.

3) To show individualism. This is why some people collect unusual or weird things.

4) The need to complete. This isn't the primary reason for any of my collection though I suppose my Maraja collection could fall in here. I wouldn't mind collecting a copy of every book Maraja illustrated but I am not obsessive about it .

5) Accidental collecting. Like my monkeys. I bought a couple and when I did other people decided that I wanted to collect them and therefore added to my 'collection'.

6) For money and profit. I never collect for this reason. Are people who collect for profit really collectors or are they really dealers?

 

[Sakrysta]

I collect DVDs because I want to have them. *wrings hands and grins evily* Seriously, growing up I would tape all kinds of stuff so I could watch it over and over again, and I did watch tapes a lot. I worked really hard for years to get all the modern Trek episodes on tape, and then put them all in order and dubbed out the commercials.

Then DVDs came. *headdesk* All that time and effort rendered unnecessary by those lovely boxes. But I was SO HAPPY. No more cutting out commercials, no more color coded tape labels, etc. TV on DVD is one of the best innovations of our generation. It'll only be surpassed when we can finally watch whatever we want whenever we want via the internet. We're getting close, but there are still some old shows that I would LOVE to see again but are still not available anywhere but on my old VHS tapes.

Some books I collect, others I just accumulate. I guess I see the difference between buying books because I know I'll like them, or buying them because I like the author/series and need to complete it (Trek falls in this category). Collecting books is something I find enormously fun. It's like a treasure hunt, digging through used bookstores looking for that one book in the series that refuses to come across your path. Some things I could find online, but I save that for the really rare books, and only after I've looked for them for a REALLY long time. It's so easy to find most things online now, even the rare stuff, that it kinda takes the fun out of the hunt.

I collect turtles because when I was younger I got to watch a sea turtle hatching and have found them fascinating ever since. I collect songbirds because I think they're pretty. I collect CDs because I LOVE music, and I love the liner notes and covers too much to just download most things.

I think that's all I really "collect." Oh, I guess I collect Trek and Wars paraphrenalia of all kinds, but again that's more accumulation than directed collecting. I see something, it's cheap, I like it, I buy it.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I collect these things, for these reasons:

- Baseball games on DVD. I like to watch baseball, I have a DVD player. No part of this logical progression should be vague.

- I also collect payment farecards from various transit systems around the world. I do this because I love trains. I am a mass transit junkie. I will quite happily do nothing for an hour or more *but* ride the subway system in any large city I come to. That's usually the first thing I do after I check into my hotel.

 

[WillsBabe]

I've never really been into collecting things. In some respects collecting frightens me. I am a completist and a perfectionist. To start collecting something and not have it all would drive me mad. I'd never rest until I had everthing in the collection, everything there was. Then I'd be frightened there would be other things that I would want to collect, if only I knew about them. Oh, no, that way, madness lies. In another thread I said that I collect icon/avatar art, but to be fair that's less collecting and more right-click-and-saving something that catches my eye.

 

[Jetfire]

I have an emotional attachment to certain objects.

 

[thestrangequark]

I have an emotional attachment to certain objects.

This is something I have immense difficulty understanding. Bear in mind I'm not judging it, I just don't get it. Even objects to which I ought to be very emotionally attached don't inspire that kind of connection for me. I have a few items I keep out of habit, so few I can easily list them: a postcard of a bottle nosed dolphin with the Latin name and scientific facts about the species that I used to pin up as a kid in whatever apartment or shelter I was living in at the time, a wooden parrot that hangs from the ceiling -- the only completely useless thing I own aside from pictures on the wall -- that my mom brought me from the resort town where she went to rehab when I was ten, and the tag from my cat's collar that I've kept since he died a few years ago. These things do provoke some emotion in me, I suppose, but I could easily be rid of them. It sounds so callous, but I just don't need them. I really do just keep them out of habit.

 

[Yeoman Randi]

I collect a lot of things.
Vintage Barbie dolls: i started collecting in 2003, right after my dad died. My dad was my best friend and his death was pretty devastating for me. Looking back, i think i started collecting Barbie as a means of therapy. The dolls remind me of my childhood, which wasn't necessarily a good one, but i find the dolls very comforting and a great way to relieve stress.

Vintage pottery and tablecloths: I think i must have been alive during the 40s. I really connect with this era and things from it.

Vintage prints for pretty much the same reason as above.

Little vintage stuffed animals. I just love them!

There are other things as well, but these are my favorite.

 

[Mary Ann]

I'm not so much a collector as one of nature's pack rats. I used to save every card, every letter, every hotel shower cap, and so forth, until I had so much junk that I had to start culling stuff about 20 years ago. It was hard at first, but I've become much better with practice, and now save hardly anything for sentimental reasons (which was the main reason I held on to stuff). My husband was even worse with this, but he's become a lot better as well. We still have a lot of stuff in the house, and you could say we collect books, but we only keep the books we like or that we haven't read yet. We're lucky in that we get a lot of charity bags through the letter box so we always have a bag on the go with stuff we no longer want. I could never live in a minimalist environment though; that's just the way I am. I need to be surrounded by books, pictures, and knitting yarn.

 

[RJDiogenes]

I collect books, DVDs, CDs, certain computer files et cetera because the Arts & Sciences are my life.

You could also say I collect personal artifacts from my life-- I don't like throwing things away-- because I'm nostalgic by nature and I am the arch-enemy of entropy.

 

[Itisnotlogical]

I collect bones and shells. Not only are they interesting in and of themselves, but it's kind of thought provoking, to think of all the things that led to the bones sitting on my shelf or hanging from my wall. What did the poor owner go through in life? How did they meet their end, does it have something to do with why the specimen is so broken and shattered? What would the shell have "seen", if it were able to, as it drifted through the sea, washed up in the beach, and eventually got cleaned off and put on my wall?

Deep stuff.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I could never live in a minimalist environment though; that's just the way I am.

I am exactly the opposite. I am the king of minimalism. Apart from the things I mentioned that I collect (transit payment cards, DVDs), I save very little of anything. I will freely and blatantly throw things away if I can't find a use for them.

Even my house itself is minimalist. No wallpaper, no hanging pictures, no paint other than white. I don't even have furniture that I don't use actively. (I would be very happy if I could have furniture that folded back into the walls and was otherwise invisible. )

Except for my basement of course. Being a child of the 70's I had to go for the bright red carpet and the pool table.

 

[Velocity]

it all goes back to our hunter/gatherer past. Collecting is just a modern version. We are driven hunt for certain things (usually not food, unlike our ancestors) and then we gather them together (collect them). It's probably hard-wired in us.

 

[PKTrekGirl]

This is an interesting question, and I have been thinking about the answer for a couple of days. I am a collector of a few things...and I kind of had to read some of the comments and think about why I do what I do.

Almost always, I start collecting something by accident. I like something, buy it, then see something else that is similar and buy that. However, at a certain point, the 'completionist' in me might kick in...and that's when things can get sticky.

Like many in this thread, I 'collect' books, DVDs and CDs. But those are still by-in-large 'accidental' collections as, with a few exceptions, the completionist angle has not surfaced. I can buy a book about gardening, for example, and don't feel the need to locate and obtain EVERY book about gardening. Or I can buy a CD by a current band I enjoy without feeling the need to buy EVERY CD by that band. The areas where the completionist in me has kicked in are:

Books about mountaineering on Everest: Mostly because I find the whole topic fascinating. Being an 'envelope presser' myself, I like to read about the most extreme envelope pressers on earth. This collection might come under the heading of 'self validation' or something. Don't know...

I also have a small collection of classic film-related 1st editions. But I don't feel completionist about them so I'm safe there. I rule them 'not a collection'. Just 'a bunch of books gathered for a purpose'.

Scifi TV show DVDs: season sets of my favorite scifi shows. Don't think I need to 'splain this one to this audience. I collect them because I watch them.

Seattle Grunge Band CDs: Seattle Grunge in general, and Pearl Jam in particular...which is a much larger task than one might imagine if one is not familiar with Pearl Jam's official bootleg catalog. Soundgarden, Alice In Chains, Nirvana, Screaming Trees, Mudhoney, The Gits, all the supergroups...they all have pretty obtainable discographies, which I own (with a couple of small exceptions) - a large chunk of them obtained when they were first released in the early 90's. But chasing Pearl Jam's discography is, at this point, more a 'life goal' than a trip to Amazon.com. I'll likely never get it all, and I'm okay with that. I collect grunge because I loved (and still love) these bands, their music, and what they meant to me back in the early 90's. That was a good time for me...and these bands were a part of that. So part of it is a completionist thing...but part of it is aesthetics and part of it is nostalgia-related. I listen a lot to this music, have parts of it on my iPod for running, etc...so this is a good 'working collection'. Probably the most 'useful' of all the collections I own.

Other collections I own almost all started accidentally. I have a nice collection of signed/numbered Bev Doolittle prints...started accidentally with one. Liked the next one that came out, and then I had two. Then I had three. Stopped after a while, but that was an accidental/aesthetics driven collection. I think I have 6.

Russian Lacquer boxes. Started while I lived in Russia, because I could get them incredibly cheap at the source. I think I have about a dozen. These are beautiful boxes - this collection was aesthetics driven, but also with an eye toward 'get 'em while they're cheap' while living in Russia for a year. So maybe a little of that 'investment' motivation, I guess.