What do you collect?

[WickerBill]

I'm an aging white man, so naturally, I have begun to collect things as a hobby. Beyond the obvious things, like cables and adapters for computers and TVs and audio that I will quite literally never ever use, my personal "thing" is trying to get a license plate from every US state plus DC for the year of my birth. This was insanely easy for about 20 states, then a little more difficult for the next 12 or so, then quite a search for the next 15. Now I'm down to four, and frankly, it's really really slow going. But it's a real old man thrill when I find one I haven't been able to get, so I guess I've got that going for me.


Anyway, this is wrapping up, hopefully this calendar year. What next? What do you collect? What should be my next "thing"?

[SteveH]

Seems like I'm collecting aches and pains as the years go by. Just when I think I've got a complete set a few new ones pop up.

[datachicane]

Ah, geeze, I've got multiple crippling problems on this front.

About fifteen years ago, when my daughter was young, we went TV-free for a couple of years. Naturally, other demons rose to fill the void. The small View Master set I'd had as a kid had been stolen from a storage unit, so I started looking for a few for my daughter, ostensibly, until things spiraled out of control with my buying and selling progressively larger lots and ending up down a very specialized rabbit hole. Before I cut myself off I ended up with around 2,500 reels, with very few exceptions all pre-GAF Kodachrome, 80% pre-1946 hand-lettered singles, and all of the early Bakelite viewers. I tried to stick with the early single scenics rather than the later kid-themed stuff or three-reel packets, which mostly ended up in the kid's collection. I actually made money at this, but the amount of time it took to keep it organized and monitor a bunch of small online auctions was unsustainable. Still, nothing better than seeing the 1939 NY World's Fair in 3D Kodachrome.

This is about 50% of the collection while I was doing an audit a couple of years ago...

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/tkwIxPmW4Bfs2qsgMkrL7BXVVIrqWgtQ7WmCkHfyF7MI0ITf48 jmGPiEEIL4CipaAGZNVDadu_nCZA3Gk6EafVfa8SfqVvasUGj6 QisTdhEK0fX_XLHmxnxEDJpVpylzXtXvbNHjdBpcwbDKchYH_G yA31FjxjnQLMm6IRDIPxq7ZwzpMfoPh1WWCaa4neSPXP2Gqws7 wVQ7YX3QqMEWakZOuKN4tlFzWaZqEbY9I0Cig6B2Ld7Wb5_g8N 3QF02TjyBPkqGWEHQp0z6xcDm_D8ZMEiIiXX0BFJQZD4AsqAIJ 1RSDWmGQXOkZJVNoQ4amssImMVG5ssZCWYDfQ8rP0SYix-lpnzvHdvq3ljyrKr94J5o037_5X_hBfnSzHQsEfm-SeczeB60hqmxHLrtCeNARhPhqMeSoCPgVYZ7D4U6faYV4yJeKb a2_PyQm6Ufh4vbTHGIT5xQ0hZnrhZSx_iMLUOQAJAIz976WAKl ILyeU3etDosd3e3e3cWl3w8HCirGf_zLjgERCNyrkamlMS4Apn c7Nbmv7TWpmFpaDr-JqqSwzinS0SBYY9fuVAZM38OzGYP_FbEcsM-KlptQLhqocM2rIvKsvbtuoZBw3_hqm6z64d6-kGdtrKg9mdi4kIQVNe2TWBNjUsa5Y356buow5c_ywdXI_mHknT t4GeS1xUI_dLa-_SthBVXJn5A=w1195-h896-no?authuser=0

[nrc]

This seems like an opportunity to go through my basement and suggest that you start collecting all of the stuff that I eventually need to get rid of when we downsize.

Bronze Age Marvel comics? Early '90s Tori Amos memorabilia? Left over bits from various plumbing projects?

Seriously, I grew up reading the Bantam paperback reprints of the original Doc Savage pulp magazines. If you had anything like that you've got two levels of difficulty available - the books, or the original pulps.

[indyfan31]

Unfortunately I went with the obvious: Hot Wheels, over 800 of them. Early through late nineties. I was gonna get rich. Then I remembered I was too lazy to research, catalog, individually package, and ship each freakin' little car. Now what? :confused::irked:

[WickerBill]

I love Hot Wheels. Maybe you'd sell your entire estate? :)


If I put up my plates, and then remodel or get rid of them, I feel like I'll be able to turn them for a profit to someone lazy, born the same year as me. These things aren't getting more plentiful as time passes.

[nissan gtp]

Good topic. :D

I've read and collected sci-fi and fantasy since I was about 10 years old. At the peak, I had 6 or 7 thousand books, plus tons of magazines (Astounding/Analog back to the 40's, complete Fantasy and Science Fiction, nearly complete Galaxy, plus lots more).

At some point once I got into racing (early 20's -- my age, not 1920), I started buying die cast cars and the dreaded "racing art" (and t-shirts, lots of those). I sold a bunch of the 1/18's a couple of years ago, kept about 100. All the Senna collection cars (in both 1/18 and 1/43), some Indycars, a bunch of Can-AM, and sportscars. Also have a lot of 1/43's. They are safe in plastic bins, with a few on display.

Racing art. Not the cheapest hobby ever. I've got upwards of 100 pieces (maybe more?), almost all limited editions, framed. The majority are Randy Owner serigraphs. He lived kinda nearby, so we'd go to his house/studio to pick things up, and he'd show us what he was working on. The process of laying down the colors one at a time is pretty amazing. We saw "Monaco Grand Prix" in-progress and ordered one (for a shocking at the time $1,200 IIRC). It goes for $5K or more now (signed by Senna). We have a number of pieces up on the walls, there rest are stashed away in closets to keep them clean and in conditioned spaces.

When we moved to our little (1500 square foot) house, the great purge was on. Donated all the magazines to our local University. Sorted out the books and got down to maybe 1500 or 2000 of the best/favorites. The rest went to a friend that's a super collector /dealer. He's selling things off gradually. He has some *****oad number of paperbacks/mags/pulps -- probably 30K plus. He has close to "everything"

Sold off a bunch of 1/18 (too big to store/display), kept the 1/43 since they are small.

I've recently started buying limited edition Sci-fi. Fun groups on FB, and good "investments" :laugh: as they tend to go up in price.

Still have all the artwork. Anybody want some racing art?

[Lux Interior]

I've read sci-fi and fantasy starting with the Conan books way back in 1979-1980. Then I was on to Lord of the Rings, Thomas Covenant, Stainless Steel Rat, David Eddings, Steven Brust, and whole slew of other stuff. Still a fan.

[TravelGal]

The Stainless Steel Rat! For many, many years it was my favorite book. I'll have to read it again to see how it holds up after all this time.

As to collecting, about the only collection I ever consciously attempted was going to every race on the CART calendar. I wanted to do it so I could start a tour company devoted solely to CART. I'd provide track knowledge and hotel bookings. I had permission from all the CART execs to use the CART name and logo in the advertising. I even designed the tee shirts that said, "I'm here for the race." Then, poof. In came KK and the end was near.