Collections and collecting

[Chest Rockwell]

I find the idea of collecting stuff really really weird. Like, collecting anything where collection happens for its own sake. I just don't understand it.

 

It was Ronnie's post in the Villains thread that made me think about this, but I know loads of people do it, on this forum especially. I think I'm probably in the minority on this, in fact.

 

Does anyone else feel like this?

 

I do, however, have a really big music collection. But I don't class this as the same thing, because I actually listen to the music so it feels like there's more of a point because I'm actually physically enjoying the items.

 

Is this a false divide I've put up because my particular passion makes sense to me whereas other peoples' don't? Or is the difference I've stated valid?

 

The only other thing I've really got in defense of my position is that I've copied all my cds to digital and have no need for them anymore and would happily junk the lot.

 

Has anyone ever read any articles about the phenomenon of collecting and the mental process behind it that isn't about freaky hoarders?

 

I should probably go read something about freaky hoarders.

 

Anyway. Perhaps nobody else even thinks about this kind of stupid shit, but I can't remember having ever discussed it with anyone.

 

To make this more inclusive, does anyone collect (or know anyone who collects) anything particularly unusual?

 

 

 

 

Oh, and one further thought on the subject - I put autograph collecting somewhere in the middle of this. I don't get it,a nd wouldn't want to do it.. But I guess if you actually met a hero of yours and got to hang out with them it would be a nice memento. But where it is a memento of getting to stand in line for two hours to shake their hand and not speak to them, or a memento of purchasing it on eBay it falls into the "makes no sense" category for me.

[JLM]

A music collection you listen to regularly is definitely distinct from collecting for the sake of collecting. That said, a lot of people have their collections on display somewhere, and that could be considered physically enjoying the items too.

 

I think there's also some satisfaction in having a complete collection of something you're interested in just for the sake of having it, but that's something you either get or you don't. Having to go to some lengths/do a lot of research to track down the last few pieces of a collection could presumably be quite good fun in a treasure hunt-y sort of way and give you some satisfaction, particularly if you pull it off by finding the item in an unexpected place or for a lower price than you'd expect.

 

The only sizeable collection I have that isn't something I use all the time is playing cards. I have about 70 decks so far and I collect them because I think they're nice items when done well. I do play with them aside from the rarer/more expensive ones, but I mostly have them for the sake of having them because I like them. I tend to buy a deck or two whenever I go travelling and I also ask anyone I know who goes on holiday to bring me a deck. It's a really small and easy holiday gift to bring back and they're usually dirt cheap, so this has been a major source of them. I have a decent number of countries covered now. Aside from that they're often used as promotional swag, so I have themed ones people have picked up at film premieres, expo events and donations from friends who work in the games industry etc. It wasn't something I consciously started doing but I've ended up with quite a few now and it keeps growing.

 

Oh, and I have a pretty decent foreign/old currency collection, but that's all inherited (shilling notes, dead currencies etc.) or stuff people/myself have brought when they've been on holiday or visited from other countries. I haven't actively sought any of it out but it's quite nice to have, and I reckon some of it will be quite valuable in time.

[KingOfMetal]

 

after years of buying stuff and then getting rid of stuff to make it easier when me and my now Wife moved into our house, this is how the collection looks now. This does not include the wrestling stuff I have in the attic. Lets just call this the 'official' collection as opposed to the 'bootleg' collection.

 

Stuff thats too big on the top along with the start of my comic book collection (the wife's Sex And The City boxset being trampled on by my The Shield boxset is particularly well done)

Into the handful of books I've got (most of my stuff is on kindle), into a few PS3 games then DVD into Blu-Ray into boxsets into the music CD's into music related DVD/Blu-Ray into stand-up finishing with WWE Blu-Rays at the bottom corner. Some stuff is slanted as I've just got rid of a bunch more stuff.

All in alphabetical order like a true OCD freak

[pryko]

I've got all the Batman Arkham Asylum and Arkham City action figures from the DC ollection, along with the Eaglemoss Batman Chess Set and Board and currently collecting the Eaglemoss Batmobile Collection.

 

My girlfriend is always telling me I'm a hoarder, as we live in a small apartment, and I can't really display them properly.

[Bellenda Carlisle]

currently collecting the Eaglemoss Batmobile Collection.

 

I subscribe to this & I fucking love it.

 

I buy really expensive (like

[Chris B]

currently collecting the Eaglemoss Batmobile Collection.

 

I subscribe to this & I fucking love it.

 

I buy really expensive (like

[pryko]

currently collecting the Eaglemoss Batmobile Collection.

 

I subscribe to this & I fucking love it.

 

I buy really expensive (like

[Ronnie]

Since I was a nipper I've always eschewed the goodies for the villains. In the wrestling sense this meant that I was pretending to be the Million Dollar Man, the Model, or Mr Perfect, and I never cared about Hogan or anybody who associated with him. Even to this day I don't concentrate if there are scenes in books or films that are centered on the virtuous; I watched Return of the Jedi last year whilst jumping from Empire scene to Empire scene, meaning I wrapped it up within, I think, about twenty minutes - it was great!

 

The earliest I can remember of this emotional investing in malefactors was with Transformers when I was a child. I was an avowed Decepticon, my Transformers annuals (in which the owner not only indicates his name but his allegiance) bore testament to that. (As well as to a certain arrogance, I fear. We were supposed to fill in our "tech specs" on the inside cover, giving ourselves scores out of ten for strength, speed and intelligence. In a transparent and evidently failed bid to be modest I limited myself to 9 for strength and speed. Hm.)

 

The leader of the Decepticons was Megatron and I loved him in a way not too dissimilar to how my contemporaries did Chun Li around a decade later. Evil bastard, he was. Ruthless. Sexy too, though I knew nothing of that sort of thing at the time. But he definitely is.

 

Within the last couple of years I've started collecting modern iterations of that Megatron of my childhood (but not the original toy itself because it's diabolical and renders him a disservice). For the sake of symmetry I've also taken a similar approach with Optimus Prime, and I can look back at him fondly now as a flag-bearer, much as I do when watching Hulk Hogan matches.

 

So I've accumulated a fair bit of stuff that looks rather samey:

 

 

 

Samey good, of course.

 

There are some downsides to this. One of the most evident ones for me was that to display them I've had to use up a lot of storage space that was originally for our 2000+ books, including an awful lot of language-based ones, which I used to collect and many of which have now been moved into storage in the attic. What was once a fairly impressive collection

 

 

has now visibly dwindled. And it's not really going to increase any because I have next to no free time now, so I think the language-learning days are probably over or at least on hiatus. I'm sure to most outsiders shelves with books in different languages look far more impressive than those loaded with toys, so it's probably for the best that we rarely have people round.

 

Further to that, the fact that some items in this Megatron collection were pricier than I ever intended to ever pay for blocks of plastic has degraded any sort of common sense that I ever had about prices, such that I picked up other things for stupid amounts of money. Don't get me wrong; it's been great fun picking up remodeled versions of toys that I wanted but never had when I was a child, such as this reissued Devastator with extra add-ons to make him look like the cartoon version

 

 

but the money spent on them is pretty unjustifiable, especially given that I've never even transformed the thing. And I really love this tooled-up Predaking

 

 

but it's so big (that's a 16-inch high shelf and I've had to lower those shoulder guns because he's 20 inches tall when they're in their usual position) that I can't actually fit him anywhere that displays him, so it's a tonne of money spent for nothing, really. I've sort of confessed to Ronette how much he cost me but not dared confess the whole lot. I've got a couple hours' use out of him though, taking him for her young cousin to play with. (Note the two 12-inch Emperor Palpatines either side of him. The only Star Wars things I have are of him and Vader, of course ... but Ronette's got a 14-inch Jar Jar Binks in here too, ruining everything. Bah.)

 

I've even bought tooled-up versions of *spits* Autobots, which the four-foot-something me never, ever would've countenanced. I think he would've considered me to be less a betrayal of him if I'd grown up into a drug-addicted serial rapist. He'd hate his future self. And I'm not a particular fan of him either, the profligate idiot ordering two more Autobots the other day, which were immediately dumped on a shelf without any attempt to even look at them. Verily meriteth he the name Mongatron.

[King Pitcos]

I do, however, have a really big music collection. But I don't class this as the same thing, because I actually listen to the music so it feels like there's more of a point because I'm actually physically enjoying the items.

 

Is this a false divide I've put up because my particular passion makes sense to me whereas other peoples' don't? Or is the difference I've stated valid?

The difference is definitely valid. Pretty much everyone has a DVD/pirate-film-on-hard-drive collection... Not for collection's sake, but because they want that catalogue to dip into. It's a dying thing though, we're not that many years away from people streaming everything and only sad acts still collecting music and films.

 

Speaking of sad acts, I've loved collecting things since I was a kid. I don't know if the He-Man/Turtles/Ghostbusters/wrestling/Jurassic Park figures I got as a child count as collecting, because they were all for playing with. But I was obsessed with sticker books and cards. I dread to even think the amount I ploughed into Premiere League '94 packets of stickers just in the hope that I'd find Simon Charlton to complete the album.

 

Sidenote to that: The last few half-arsed attempts I had at collecting stickers, I noticed that the packets were duplicated. If you got a packet with half of Undertaker doing a chokeslam, a Kurt Angle shiny, Brock Lesnar doing the F5, Mark Jindrak posing, Torrie Wilson's cleavage and Charlie Haas looking bland... You'd only find those stickers in that same packet. You'd never get the Jindrak and Haas ones in a packet with Kane, Mysterio, Orlando Jordan and Rhyno. The stickers were allocated to specific packs. It wasn't like that when I was a kid though, or if it was, I didn't notice.

 

I've just walked four miles to buy an Ultimate Warrior figure. I never normally walk further than the fridge. I've been mad after it for a week. I am going to open it and do gorilla presses on Damien Sandow though.

[Arch Stanton]

I want to know how many decks of cheap European porno cards JLM owns.I don't consider myself a collector of anything. I do have a big old stack of wrestling DVDs, and a load of films on DVD and a few hundred CDs in various boxes and on various shelves scattered throughout the house, but those are things that I buy to use for their intended purpose. I don't display them or give them any special treatment.

[JLM]

Ha, only one. I couldn't resist buying a "Red Light Girls" set when I was in Amsterdam. They are a lot more explicit than I thought they'd be consdiering there was no age restriction on buying them. I also bought a nicer Amsterdam deck with touristy things on it. The most shameful ones I have are definitely "Rasta" playing cards from Spain that feature staggeringly racist caricatures of black people. Giant lips, bones through noses etc. I'd rather use the porn cards in mixed company than those ones.

[bAzTNM#1]

Got a massive VHS film collection that will hopefully be going into one of those Absolute Self Storage units in a few weeks.

 

Even I think it's time to move on now. I'm going to gradually toss them out but keep those big boxed ex-rentals.

[Chest Rockwell]

When I got rid of my VHS tapes bAz, I just went through pulling out the sleeves of the ones that had nice artwork.

 

In fact, I say this, but sadly I did it too late after I'd already just junked a whole bunch of them without giving it ny thought. But I think it's a good way to go if you kinda want to preserve the collection, but save on all the ridiculous space they take up.

 

Let's face it, the tapes themselves are kinda pointless, right? (after you've digitised any gems that have never been re-released).

 

JLM - any particularly cool sets you wanna share some pics of? It's quite a cool idea for a collection, I think mainly because it's one I've never come across before.

 

 

Edit:

 

I think there's also some satisfaction in having a complete collection of something you're interested in just for the sake of having it, but that's something you either get or you don't. Having to go to some lengths/do a lot of research to track down the last few pieces of a collection could presumably be quite good fun in a treasure hunt-y sort of way and give you some satisfaction, particularly if you pull it off by finding the item in an unexpected place or for a lower price than you'd expect.

 

See this, I get. It makes sense. But it seems to me that most of these collections have no tangible goal or end state. Like your card collection - that'll never be complete, by definition. It's not like filling up a sticker album.

 

I guess within even a larger collection, there are smaller collections or series of things to complete (like action figures) and it is about the thrill of the hunt more than the actual stuff you're collecting. But even that doesn't seem to apply to a lot of the examples given.

[Your Fight Site]

Currently collecting the Easglemoss Batmobile collection, as well as the Marvel graphic novels. Also have about five years

[Scott Malbranque]

I collect Deadpool, Hellblazer comics and merch, and also old comics like Oink, Whizzer and Chips and Buster.

 

I hate the Sub Mariner though.