# Eccentric Collectors



## la reine victoria

I've just seen an item on the BBC news about turning the clocks back one hour this weekend.

They showed the home of a lady who collects clocks.  She has a total of 3,500  .  They are all in working order and it takes her 3 whole days to alter them all.  

The din when her strikers and chimers ring out must be deafening.  

Are you an eccentric collector?  Do you know someone who is?

Please make your replies as informative as possible.  How did you become interested in the things you collect?  Has it been a lifetime passion?  How about storage/display facilities? etc. etc.

This could be an interesting discussion - and deeply revealing.


Thanks,
LRV


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## .   1

I am basically a gypsie.
I have moved home so many times in my adult life that I have collected almost nothing.
I have two very small wooden boxes about as large as a loaf of bread that contain small trinkets of significance to me but they would mean nothing to anyone else.  All of these items remind me of a highly charged incident that I was a part of but they are not a collection as such.  I do not know any collectors.

.,,


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## Cereth

yes a friend of mine collects "anime" (japanese animation ) He has more than 1000 I think ...the worst thing is that he hasn´t seen all of them  because he is busy most of time, and the collection is increasing but in their original envelops..

Well..I don´t have a collection indeed but I used to have many cat figures and plush toys...until my cat came to my life and broke some of them and uses my Garfield plushies as toys!!


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## whattheflock

I collect song recordings. Originally, they were a few 8-track and LP's and 45's (and ONE 78, just picture that). Then they became cassette tapes. Later on, my collection became CD's and mini-discs. And finally, it has all been compiled into a big bunch of music that takes all of TWELVE Gigabytes of hard-drive memory. Hooray for computers. Now I can create playlists, alphabetize, arrange in chronological order, by artist, by album cover-art, by any parameter imaginable. And then, next day I can re-arrange the collection all over again in just a few minutes.
But I was a little bit dissapointed that TWENTY-FIVE years of collecting music could take so little space. I mean, the stupid hard-drive is 250 Gb big, you know? So I hardly made a dent in its capacity for storage. Makes me nervous to think I have that many more recordings to buy!

Regardless, that puny amount of data is enough to listen to songs, without repeating a single one, every minute of the day for twenty-four hours a day, every day of the week, for ELEVEN months straight.

Maybe that's enough records for now.


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## Heba

I remember that when I was 15 or 16, I was collecting jacket or shirt buttons of different sizes and shapes. My collection was a small one. Actually my passion for the buttons did not last long perhaps a month or something.


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## Hakro

A long time ago I saw a TV program about a small shop in Soho, London. There were maybe hudreds of suspended lamps. It looked like a second hand shop but it wasn't. If a customer came in the owner was eager to present all his lamps and thei history, but if the customer said "I'll buy this one" the owner got angry: "Get out of my shop! These lamps are not for sale!"

I think that was quite an eccentric collector.


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## Hockey13

I used to collect NHL hockey cards when I was little. I had four big three-ring binders with special card-holder pages in them that could hold 18 cards per page (9 in the front, 9 in the back). I had all of them (thousands and thousands) sorted alphabetically and I could tell you where almost any of them were. This was probably ended about 10 years ago when I was 10 or 11, but I still have all the cards and I still extensively watch hockey.

These days, I don't collect much of anything.


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## Hakro

I forgot to tell you that I have been an eccentric collector my self, too. I collected the lead caps from wine bottles (and sometimes from cognac bottles when I had more money). 

My idea was to cast a lead keel to my next boat. Lead is expensive but from the wine bottles I got it "free".

When I had about 50 kgs of wine bottle cap lead, after many years of collecting, I started thinking that I'm progressing too slowly. I weighed bottle caps to measure the average weight, and I found that with a reasonable consumption of wine, let's say three bottles a day, it would take about two hundred years to get enough lead for my keel. It's a long time.

Anyway, I continued collecting bravely, but then somebody found out that lead caps can be dangerous to our health. And sooner than I could imagine, all the lead caps had disappeared from wine bottles. There's only plastic and aluminium left. I can't make a keel from that stuff.

Besides, I collected also corks from the wine bottles. They are good material if you want to make life vests for sailors. I remember how happy my little son was when I told him: "If you're a good boy daddy promises to drink a new life vest for you before next summer."


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## la reine victoria

Hakro, you are priceless!  What a wonderful story about wine bottle corks.  

And you are VERY ECCENTRIC.    








LRV


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## maxiogee

I collect the sachets of sugar one gets in restaurants/cafés. I have a large ornamental glass vase about 50cm tall and 23cm diameter at the top. The sachets get thrown into it, and it adorns our kitchen.
I've no idea how many it has in it. It's quite colourful and I try not to repeat any - but it's difficult after a while to remember of I have got one already.
This is it.

View attachment 3781

I am usually to be found with a sachet or two about my person.
In the photo you will see part of a frog ornament, which I also collect. Not just any frog, they have to look nice too, and a lot of what I see on sale are dreadful.


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## zaigucis

maxiogee said:


> I collect the sachets of sugar one gets in restaurants/cafés.


 
Me too  and matches too

and I know one beer coasters and cans collector, He have ~ 17 000 coasters and 9 000 cans  I have small coaster collection too  but only for that beer that I have drinked.


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## la reine victoria

zaigucis said:


> Me too  and matches too
> 
> and I know one beer coasters and cans collector, He have ~ 17 000 coasters and 9 000 cans  I have small coaster collection too  but only for that beer that I have [S]drinked[/S]drunk.[/quote]
> 
> 
> 
> Please let us know if the collections are on display.  9,000 cans is a huge amount and would take up a lot of space.
> 
> The 17,000 coasters could be stored in albums.  It is an amazing number to have and, I'm sure, very attractive to browse through.
> 
> Thanks.
> 
> 
> 
> LRV


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## Etcetera

Several friends of mine are fond of anime - like Cereth's friend. 
Some of my friends are Star Wars fans. They buy all the books they can find, all the movies, they search the Net for fan-films and fanfiction, buy dolls and albums - all that stuff with the Star Wars logo on it. A lad from Moscow has collected an amazing collection of Star Wars stuff - it was even shown on the TV!
I've never been a true collector myself. I have a number of ceramic and toy mice, but I don't pretend that I collect mice... Collecting definitely isn't my cup of tea!


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## lablady

I collect spoons. Not spoons used for eating but those miniature spoons sold as souvenirs in touristy places. I've lost count as to how many I have. I display them in racks on the wall. I am working on my sixth rack and each rack holds over 100 spoons.

It started about 20 years ago when a unique design caught my eye. I was visiting an old silver mine when I saw a spoon that had a little gold prospecter sitting on top of a pile of real silver ore nestled in the bowl. I then started looking for imaginative spoons everywhere I went. They are wonderful keepsakes. They are usually relatively inexpensive and they don't take up much space in a suitcase.

At first I limited my collection to places I had been, but then friends, relatives and even mere acquaintances heard about my collection and started bringing me little gifts of spoons from their travels. I now have many spoons from places I have visited only in my dreams.

I have spoons with moving designs, spoons that commemorate events, oddly shaped spoons, spoons made out of coins, spoons with tiny paintings in the bowl, etc. Some of my spoons are like tiny works of art that exhibit the cultures of the artists. I am especially drawn to the unusual. I think I qualify as an eccentric collector.  

I also collect unusual watches, kaleidoscopes, praying mantises and flying pigs. Those collections are much smaller.


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## Sofia29

I collect postcards. Whenever I travel to a new city, I send myself a postcard. I actually send them home (I live with my family) but then I keep them. 

I lack the dedication to keep a journal of my trips, so the postcards are a great alternative for me. I get to have a picture of the place, a few words about it, the date I was there, and a stamp, all in one, delivered to my home.

This is going to sound really pathtetic, but right before I mail it, I get a thrill from thinking: 'Will I ever see this postcard again?'. Yeah, a few haven't made it home... I get so happy when I do get them, though, that the risk is worth it. 

I started my collection after a 1.5-month-long trip to Europe in 1996. I sent lots of different postcards home and I loved having them when I got back, so I thought 'hey, I have to do this every time!". It's become a sort of ritual now.


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## Hakro

Instead of stamps you could collect stamps. 

(This may sound stupid but I couldn't find different words for the piece of paper you glue on the envelope and for the ink pattern that is stamped on it in the post office.)

Today collecting (paper) stamps is frustrating because every year they publish hundreds or maybe thousands of new stamps all around the word. Instead, the number of post offices is staying more or less on the same level. It could be (theoretically) possible to collect all the (ink) stamps of the world. It's a challenge, isn't it?

I started collecting these (ink) stamps when I was working in an office where I received mail from all around the world and from practically every post office in Finland.

I may still have my collection (or at least part of it) somewhere. If somebody is interested in collecting this kind of stamps I'd be pleased to send him/her what I have.

(And please tell me if there are different words for these two kinds of stamps.)


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## maxiogee

Hakro said:


> Instead of stamps you could collect stamps.
> 
> (This may sound stupid but I couldn't find different words for the piece of paper you glue on the envelope and for the ink pattern that is stamped on it in the post office.)
> 
> <snip>
> 
> (And please tell me if there are different words for these two kinds of stamps.)



I believe they are called "cancellation marks".


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## Hakro

maxiogee said:


> I believe they are called "cancellation marks".


Thanks, Maxiogee. No one of my dictionaries (books and on-line) could tell that.


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## Sallyb36

I inherited a collection of spoons from my Father and a collection of teapots from my Mother.  My elsest son has a collection of Matchbox cars in boxes, he never played with them as a child, always wanted to keep them boxed, he displays them in a cabinet.  My spoons are in cabinets on the wall and my teapots are on top of my wardrobe.  My youngest son collects Clangers memorabilia.


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## Chaska Ñawi

Moderator Note:  Fascinating as it is (Hakro, I loved your comment about nobly drinking a life vest for your son), much of this thread is chat.  Many of the posts are are of the who-collects-what variety instead of promoting discussion.

This thread can only remain if the subsequent posts break new ground and generate discussion.

Thank you for your cooperation.


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## LouisaB

What interests me most about this thread is the big question - WHY?

I think I'd perhaps assumed eccentric collectors were those obsessed with a particular subject (eg Elvis) who must own everything to do with him/it. Others have found something genuinely of beauty and interest to collect, such as lablady's spoons. What this thread is revealing is how deep the 'collecting bug' goes in all of us, regardless of race or culture - or of the merit of the thing collected.

_Why_ would anyone want a collection of cancellation marks? _Why _did little boys in England remorselessly write down the number of trains and buses to increase their collection of numbers? What is this desperate urge for completeness? 

I've managed to avoid the collecting bug myself because I fear it. I have a compulsive personality, and simply don't dare _start. _Even in small things, it reveals itself. If I own volumes one and three of a music collection, I fidget every time I see it on my CD shelf, even though I don't like or want the compilation that is volume 2. It looks _wrong._

Is this really as universal as it appears - or am I the lone loon in the universe?


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## Etcetera

LouisaB said:


> I've managed to avoid the collecting bug myself because I fear it. I have a compulsive personality, and simply don't dare _start. _Even in small things, it reveals itself. If I own volumes one and three of a music collection, I fidget every time I see it on my CD shelf, even though I don't like or want the compilation that is volume 2. It looks _wrong._
> 
> Is this really as universal as it appears - or am I the lone loon in the universe?


You aren't.
When I happen to buy two or three books from a certain writer's collection, I can't but buy other books of him/her from the same collection, even if there is another collection of higher quality. 

As for the reasons why people collect things... Well, Lablady's collection of spoons started when she visited several countries and brought a spoon from each of them. In her case, spoons are what reminds her about the countries she has visited. At least that's what they are (ot might have been) originally. A friend of mine collects magnits. Another friend collects dishes.


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## lablady

Etcetera said:


> As for the reasons why people collect things... Well, Lablady's collection of spoons started when she visited several countries and brought a spoon from each of them. ...spoons are what reminds her about the countries she has visited. At least that's what they are (ot might have been) originally...


Yes, you are correct. My spoons are a record of my adventures. Like sofia29 and her postcards, I like to have little momentos of my trips and my spoon collection makes it easier. I don't need to stand in little shops trying to decide what I'm going to bring home with me; the decision is already made (I'm not saying that I don't bring home other souvenirs in addition to spoons  ). 

I have also found that my collection invites conversation when people visit me. They notice my spoons and enjoy seeing where they came from. Many of my spoons have a little story behind them, and many a happy hour has been spent in conversation about them with friends. And if those friends have also been to those places and have stories of their own to share, so much the better  . That is another reason I collect them, and the main reason I display them.


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