What do you collect

[JandK]

I have a very small collection of Seiko watches and a large collection of cigars. I do smoke cigars about 6 times a year but replace them immediately. I am now at the stage of thinking about building a large humidor to keep them in.

 

[akirk]

Oh, and wood for turning OBVIOUSLY!! Have a barn with a good deal in it and have been told to STOP by my children who don't want to have to clear it out when I'm gone!!

Phil

Carry on - tell the children that there is a whole forum of people who will happily clear the barn of wood when necessary

 

[sploo]

Stress.




No? OK.

Music. Well over 1000 CDs and a slowly growing collection of vinyl.

 

[Garden Shed Projects]

I can hardly move in my house for stuff but I don’t collect anything. Don’t know where you find the room

 

[Rustic Mike]

Lets exclude woodwork items as I suspect we all collect those a bit.
I have 2 things
1/ started to collect vintage pedal cars, had to stop at 3, as pandemic just drove prices through the roof. Still look but need prices to drop a bit.
2/ Viz comics, easy to get hold of the majority, still find them very funny, I have about 290 of the 310 issues. Some of the early issues are rare and pricey so whether I'll get the lot is dubious as I can't see me doing a grand on a comic, so far it's cost me £270 total.

How about you?

I started collecting pounds shillings and pence, it’s very hard to get a satisfying collection together, as everyone wants it.

 

[D_W]

I did think of collecting Wives but after I got the second one I realised how expensive the hobby was going to be so gave up.

Yeah, expensive, and the residual value is poor.

 

[TRITON]

a man can never have enough of them.

What ?? Filings in your teeth ?.
I would have thought there was a finite market there.

Filings from other peoples teeth, now that would be a collection. Creepy but still a collection.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

My mother had a couple of Caithness glass paperweights. Every time I or my sister went away anywhere we bought her another one. She ended up with quite a collection. She got rid of them somewhere along the way and when we were both well adult something cropped up in conversation one day - you know, she said, I always loathed those things. I wish she'd told us before we bought them all.

She had quite a number of pieces of Meissen, Dresden, Doulton, Lladro etc. and one year she went on holiday, telling me to look after the house. I went there daily for a few days, then every few days. One day I went and opened up and the lounge looked like a bomb site - a squirrel had got down the chimney and couldn't get out. It had jumped from the mantlepiece to the sideboard to the cupboards time after time, and had knocked off and smashed about twenty pieces.

 

[Sporky McGuffin]

Carry on - tell the children that there is a whole forum of people who will happily clear the barn of wood when necessary

And our fees to take it away are surprisingly low.

 

[JefL]

Airguns, had over 50 a while ago but I've slimmed it down to 44 now.
Triang Railways from the early 1960s, that started when clearing out Mum & Dad's loft I came across my old set from my childhood, I now have almost everything in the 7th edition catalogue except the transcontinental series, and quite a bit more besides.
I have a small collection of watches the star of which is a pre-moon Speedmaster Pro. Most of them are mechanical, I just love the smooth movement of the seconds hand, rather than the 1/2 second or 1 second jerks of the quartz movements.
Malt whisky, but that never seems to increase beyond five or six bottles, can't think why.

 

[Ollie78]

Malt whisky, but that never seems to increase beyond five or six bottles, can't think why.

You can't count Whisky as its a consumable, you can't collect water either. At least that's what I am saying. I have a few, Islay malts are my preference. Again not a collection....
Though maybe a fancy cabinet could be on the cards if I ever get time.

Ollie

 

[baldkev]

SWMBO's Aunt has been collecting £50 notes since she was a teenager. She's drawing the pension now, I often wonder how many she has.

A clever ruse... every birthday and christmas it guarantees she'll get 50 quid out of you

 

[sammy.se]

I used to collect Michael Jackson singles/LPs/Albums, but I lost them all when I moved house a few years ago :-(
I don't collect anything any more...

 

[thetyreman]

I'm really bad for music, it's an obsession, thousands of CD's and it's about time I made a ridiculous cabinet for them all.

 

[nickds1]

I'm really bad for music, it's an obsession, thousands of CD's and it's about time I made a ridiculous cabinet for them all.

...or rip them onto a server and then you can get rid of the CDs... Go digital and no CDs, no cd player, no loss in quality either.

I did this with our 500+ CDs some years ago. Not looked back.

 

[mg123]

Aquariums, it was an addiction of mine a few years back but a house move helped ween me off them, and now a chance meeting with another aquarium user brought me back into the habit. I currently have 7 set up and another 3 in waiting. I can spend hours zoned out in an aquarium black hole, it's unhealthy.

My father was a collector of very random things, mainly electrical and more specifically telephony related. He was a British telecom worker for many years, he passed away 2 years ago and I'm now the proud owner of more phones than I know what to do with, also lots of obscure tools for telephone repairs, about 50 sets of imperial feeler gauges, hundreds of screwdrivers, pliers, spanners and God knows what else. He also became intrigued/obsessed in a nuclear war, so he'd also been buying a lot of cold war oddments, gas masks, full radiation suits, lots of radiation meters etc. They're also in my garage sitting around until I know what to do with them.

 

[Auldfart2010]

Anything with a sharp edge will get my atention. I just wish I could master circular breathing for all the didgeridoos that I have.

 

[John Brown]

I started collecting pounds shillings and pence, it’s very hard to get a satisfying collection together, as everyone wants it.

I was on a cycling holiday in Ireland many moons ago, and we stopped in Tipperary to take on "fuel". A boy of about 10 came over and said "excuse me, but I'm putting together a collection of coins from around the world, and I wondered if you'd have any pound coins you could spare".
I seem to remember we gave him a couple. He probably owns Ryanair or something by now.

 

[Keith 66]

What ?? Filings in your teeth ?.
I would have thought there was a finite market there.
Filings from other peoples teeth, now that would be a collection. Creepy but still a collection.

Fillings in teeth i didnt want but got them anyway.
G Clamps etc are something many woodworkers collect willingly me included.

As for air rifles a guy i know has over 400 air guns & similar number of air pistols, absolutely obsessed & just has to buy them.
He never sells any, He & his wife think they are worth a fortune & many are worth a lot, trouble is when they come on the market after he is gone it will crash the said market!

 

[shed9]

I think I have started to realise that I have a collector impulse on most of the things I take an interest in.

When I got into hand tools for woodworking I pretty much went west and now have an obscene number of Stanley type 11's and modern premium hand planes. I took up photography before lock down and am now swimming in Contax Zeiss and Russian lenses. The latest interest has been astronomy which I'm fresh into but already have more scopes than I know what to do with.

My point is that I think collecting can be addictive and not sure that's always healthy. That said, the value of my hand planes and especially my lens stash has pretty much doubled to tripled across the board in terms of what I originally paid for them. I have a knack (which I suspect is more dumb luck than skill) for buying items that tend to go up in price when I collect things. I have genuinely considered putting serious money into the process to see what profit margin it would produce, just need to be able to sell it on and not hoard it.