What do you like to collect?

[Tom]

I collect paper/card/plastic products. In general the paper/card comes in the form of some sort of packaging. I've got some unusual coloured and patterned tissue-type wrapping paper with shoes I've ordered. I like how corrugated card packaging is constructed and the interesting textures, patterns and edgings that are created when tearing corrugated card up.

I can relate in a cross-over sort of way. I have always liked making things out of cardboard, and do regularly to this day, although it is more for practical purposes then artistic. But I too save different types and quality ones for special things and can appreciate a particularly nice piece.

 

[Slithytoves]

I collect stories, the stories of people I meet. Been doing it since I was a kid as my grandfather told me all his stories of the war and how he got through it.

Since then I have been both fascinated by, old(er) people, and death. Over the years I have collected countless stories from people on their deathbeds, mostly from folk who had no one to listen to them. They are my greatest treasures and I'll remember every one of them, so, in my head, all those people continue to 'live'.

Yet another on the miles-long list of things we have in common. I've always been a magnet for people who need to tell their story to someone, and have amassed a collection worthy of the Smithsonian or the British Museum. I really should find a way to transmute them all to material form. Art, or short stories. I've only done it with a few.

You and I also share a fascination with death, as you know. My rabbinical training frequently had me working around the dying and the deceased, and I became broadly interested in funerary customs and artifacts. I play a game in cemeteries that I learned from a rabbi, oddly, in which I try to find headstones situated together with names that fit a category or have something in common. I've photographed some of those and have an interesting collection, including people with the surname English and French buried one behind the other (New York), a Sailor and a Seaman three stones apart (Massachusetts), and people with the names Bone, Ashe and DeKay all within the same frame (Scotland).

There is a custom in Judaism where members of the Chevra Kadisha (Jewish Burial Society) sit together after washing and shrouding a body and talk about the person's life, interspersed with readings from the Torah and Talmud. It was one of the best parts of doing that service; a really beautiful tradition. I always made sure I had some interesting insights from the family when nobody on the team knew the deceased. I guess that made us "soul collectors", too, in a way. We were the last people to ever see a person's body, and we capped the event with a formal gathering of their stories.

 

[Harrison]

Yet another on the miles-long list of things we have in common. I've always been a magnet for people who need to tell their story to someone, and have amassed a collection worthy of the Smithsonian or the British Museum. I really should find a way to transmute them all to material form. Art, or short stories. I've only done it with a few.

You and I also share a fascination with death, as you know. My rabbinical training frequently had me working around the dying and the deceased, and I became broadly interested in funerary customs and artifacts. I play a game in cemeteries that I learned from a rabbi, oddly, in which I try to find headstones situated together with names that fit a category or have something in common. I've photographed some of those and have an interesting collection, including people with the surname English and French buried one behind the other (New York), a Sailor and a Seaman three stones apart (Massachusetts), and people with the names Bone, Ashe and DeKay all within the same frame (Scotland).

There is a custom in Judaism where members of the Chevra Kadisha (Jewish Burial Society) sit together after washing and shrouding a body and talk about the person's life, interspersed with readings from the Torah and Talmud. It was one of the best parts of doing that service; a really beautiful tradition. I always made sure I had some interesting insights from the family when nobody on the team knew the deceased. I guess that made us "soul collectors", too, in a way. We were the last people to ever see a person's body, and we capped the event with a formal gathering of their stories.

Maybe it's a subconscious urge arising from the Jewish side of my crazy head that makes me collect them then. We will have to swap stories during our isolation in May

Maybe you've turned up to take my story

 

[Slithytoves]

On the more mundane side, I collect netsuke, 1-3" Japanese sculptures, usually made of wood or ivory, that are drilled with two holes to bind the cords of small bags of personal items to the sashes of kimonos. The most common netsuke depict animals or people. I like collecting them because they're incredible works of art that don't take up much space.

I also have a collection of foreign coins that turned up in cash registers when I worked as a retail manager for several years. It's amazing what a cashier will take; some of the coins in my collection have shapes, sizes and colors with no American equivalent. Along the same lines from my time in retail, I have a collection of the most ridiculous job applications I've ever received. I have one from a guy who said he was God for a decade, complete with job description and a reference to contact (Lucifer), and one from a stripper whose every job ended because "I made too much money to get welfare".

Maybe it's a subconscious urge arising from the Jewish side of my crazy head that makes me collect them then. We will have to swap stories during our isolation in May

Maybe you've turned up to take my story

Half a Jew is better than none?

Maybe I have. We'll just have to see won't we? (Where can I find the Grim Reaper emoji?)

 

[clg114]

Handguns, mostly eastern European handguns. If it is old or rare, I want it. I also like to shoot them, but only to poke holes in paper. I have no desire to shoot anything that is alive.

 

[Datura]

When I was a kid I used to collect rocks, foriegn coins, and sea shells. I must have had hundreds of seashels at one point. Unfortunately most of them were destroyed for one reason or an other, but I still have some choice pieces on a shelf in my room. The rocks and coins are still in my "treasure" box.

It might be fun to resume these collections and put them on display. I would especially like to start buying some fossils as I have always loved paleontology and evolutionary biology.

 

[The Penguin]

When I was a kid I used to collect rocks, foriegn coins, and sea shells. I must have had hundreds of seashels at one point. Unfortunately most of them were destroyed for one reason or an other, but I still have some choice pieces on a shelf in my room. The rocks and coins are still in my "treasure" box.

It might be fun to resume these collections and put them on display. I would especially like to start buying some fossils as I have always loved paleontology and evolutionary biology.

this is on the house

 

[Judge]

I love coins from countries or regimes that no longer exist. I think I posted that in another thread...but all you foreign coin collectors probably can relate.

 

[Harrison]

Completely forgot...

Buttons, I love buttons, not the Cadbury's Chocolate ones either

The reason I forgot is that I don't do it as much now, but just rifling through my draw I found some. In my younger days I had tins of them but a special tin for Mother of Pearl buttons. Some buttons had paintings on them, memories

 

[watersprite]

I collect books. I have too many, so occasionally I re-categorize them & either sell or give them away to make room for more.

 

[ExplosiveTMT]

Muscle car/ hot rod posters as well as issues of a V8 magazine.
Way to pretty up the bedroom

 

[Aurore]

I'm fond of snail mail and I love collecting postcards, stickers and writing paper.

But I've plenty of books (about 400) so I think we can say I collect them.
And I collect everything about my favorite TV series (Doctor Who).

 

[Adora]

I collect mostly dolls from the 80s,Also a lifelong my little pony fan but I also collect newer dolls like monster high and ever after high,I collect mostly old comic books especially the marvel ones and i also started building Lego.

 

[entropie]

I collect wheat pennies and books published before 1945. My dad and my partner both know that there is nothing that makes me happier on my birthday or Christmas than a super old book, especially if it's poetry or scientific.

 

[ThatSkyWing]

^ Sailor Moon amongst them?

Yes, now she is.

 

[Progster]

I collect prog rock albums in various formats - CD, vinyl, cassette, digital. I have about 13,000 albums

 

[Rocco]

I collect coins, mostly Jefferson nickels 1938-1955, mint condition, but have sets 1938-present.
Also Louis LAmour books, history books, occasionally Batman comics and walking dead comics. Paintings and paint.
Vintage Depression glass.
Random junk with a memory attached.

 

[Warmheart]

Experiences!

 

[psychotopsy]

As a kid I used to collect bottle caps and stuffed toys. Now I collect bow ties. And I wear them quite often. I like wearing a different bow tie every day. Although I must admit, I sometimes don't wear a single one for months because I'm a serial outfit repeater and changing something very often might become a hassle.

 

[Alex Bogue]

Neckties. I already own 50.