What else do you collect?

[Bugguy]

This kind of snuck up on me - collecting can be pretty insidious. Next thing you know you're hooked.

I just realized I have a copy of every episode of Max Headroom in the US (1987-88). I'll save the details for that other movie forum, but it's safe to say Max was the original 'talking head', an AI from 20 minutes in the future. I passed on all the collectable trinkets & trash, but have copies of several of the original show scripts, including Theora's Tale that was never produced before the show was cancelled by ABC. I may go looking for more.

 

[green papaya]

I have several years of old calendars with notes for each day, showing what I was doing that day , it's like my personal log book for each year , trips , food eaten, important dates , etc.

I can check old calendars to see what I was doing last summer or go back several years to see what I did or what was going on back then.

 

[Turnip]

Tools, certainly, though less collecting but more passed down from fathers, grandfathers generation who have been metal workers like me, they kind of pile up a bit meanwhile. Thankfully the garden shed has an attic and a cellar…

 

[Fifty150]

Some tools are bought, for a specific task, only to not be used again as you only had to do that job once. For me, it's still less expensive to buy a tool, than to pay someone else to do the job. I bought a special tool for brakes on my motorcycle. The job was easy enough, as the tool did all the work. The local dealership would have charged me 10 times what the tool cost. I bought a plumbing sewer jet. The cost of a plumber to clean out my pipes would have cost 10 times what the tool was worth. Again. No real work involved. Once I turned the tool on, it did all the work while I drank a beer. It's like buying a $5 wrench, versus the $50 for an oil change on your car. I don't want to acquire or collect tools. But it just sort of happened over the years. Now I'm the person that my family and friends call first. Not that I am charging friends and family for clearing clogged drain pipes - although I should, as every time I bring the tool over there, they are saving $$$$ by not paying a plumber. I just show up, plug in the machine, then eat their food and drink their alcohol.

 

[Edward]

Debt and dust!

Besides knives and books, which I show off here pretty often, I enjoy collecting movie prop replicas. I tend to focus on Halloween masks, and Star Wars, though my Jurassic Park collection could fill a room of its own.

You could certainly 'boldly go' in a few of those. Fun fact, my late, maternal grandmother (the last of my grandparents, she just died in November 2019) always cited the original Halloween as her favourite film. She loved a good horror, and always complained when "they ruined it by making it just some man doing it in the end and not something supernatural". Heh. I think I must have gotten the horror gene from her; it's something I gravitated to in my late teens, but my parents never cared for.

I never knew royalty, nor anyone who pretended to it. I did know guys who took whatever jobs they could get while pursuing education or whatever else they had to do to resume the kinds of work they did back home. That’s how people with professional educations and experience ended up driving taxicabs while they got their credentials in order over here in God’s Country.

I've known one or two truly remarkable people like over the years myself. Apollos was one. He just died a couple of years ago, but he was a long standing member of the church even when I moved to London. Retired by that point (I believe he was closing in on ninety or just over it when he died), he'd been a highly qualified engineer in Uganda. I don't know all the details, suffice it to say he got out when Idi Amin came to power, and came to the UK as a refugee. He built a life for himself and his family here, and worked for many years as a security guard as his qualifications weren't recognised in the UK - something my generation have it easy with, with much greater international co-recognition of these things. Always remember him arriving on a Sunday morning, well into his eighties, immaculately and proudly dressed to the nines.

And keep it right there where it should be - not ruined by turning it into a movie prop.
- Graflex cameras and accessories collector -
(I once used several of those connected in series to take a midnight photo of a B-29.)

I remember about twenty years ago or just over it, all the Star Wars nerds I knew were looking for these. Word at the time was never tell the seller what you want it for or they'll refuse the sale. Much like vintage car dealers who won't sell to a known customiser, really. Which is important when you're dealing with something rare and important. On the flipside, I also recall outrage in the vintage car community over an ambulance that had, as the story went, once carried Churchill ended up on the banger racer circuit. When one of the magazines did some digging, it turned out the original owner had desperately tried to find a restorer interested in this, but noone would take it on, so. Swings and roundabouts, I suppose.

I just realized I have a copy of every episode of Max Headroom in the US (1987-88).

I must have been too young for the show, but I seem to recall the character being sufficiently exposed that everyone knew who it was. 1985 he first appeared, right? Must have been a big hit, as the version of Ronald Reagan in the Cafe 80s in Back to the Future II was definitely influenced by it a touch.

I have several years of old calendars with notes for each day, showing what I was doing that day , it's like my personal log book for each year , trips , food eaten, important dates , etc.

I can check old calendars to see what I was doing last summer or go back several years to see what I did or what was going on back then.

Similarly, I have every work diary I've ever used since my first in 1999. All but the three most recent are on a shelf in my office. I don't know what I'll do with them when I retire; perhaps I'll have a ritual burning of them, or maybe I'll deadpan pass them on to a younger colleague I don't like.

 

[CatsCan]

Beyond life experience: Flint artifacts! I have gathered thousands in my collection. I simply can't walk without looking for them unconsciously. I seem to stumble upon them. Once educated to recognize them properly I can't overlook them. Neolithic axes, Mesolithic adzes, arrowheads from the late and final palaeolithic until the bronze age, blades, some thrusting spear points and blades as old as 13000 years (Bromme Culture). It has become an addiction.

Not to forget Ukuleles .... oh no, don't throw foul eggs on me, I don't want to risk this thread ;=) duck and cover..

 

[belfastboy]

Some tools are bought, for a specific task, only to not be used again as you only had to do that job once. For me, it's still less expensive to buy a tool, than to pay someone else to do the job. I bought a special tool for brakes on my motorcycle. The job was easy enough, as the tool did all the work. The local dealership would have charged me 10 times what the tool cost. I bought a plumbing sewer jet. The cost of a plumber to clean out my pipes would have cost 10 times what the tool was worth. Again. No real work involved. Once I turned the tool on, it did all the work while I drank a beer. It's like buying a $5 wrench, versus the $50 for an oil change on your car. I don't want to acquire or collect tools. But it just sort of happened over the years. Now I'm the person that my family and friends call first. Not that I am charging friends and family for clearing clogged drain pipes - although I should, as every time I bring the tool over there, they are saving $$$$ by not paying a plumber. I just show up, plug in the machine, then eat their food and drink their alcohol.

Back when I was teaching myself auto mechanics (pre computer/pollution controls) I accumulated my tools using your methods. When I had to do a specific repair that required tools beyond my basic Craftsmen I bought the tools needed for the job. Justified it as doing the job myself more than compensated for the cost of the needed tools. Good news is that I still all of them except for my coveted Snap On gasket scraper....the only Snap On I could afford at the time......thus my Craftsmen collection.

 

[tonyb]

Beyond life experience: Flint artifacts! I have gathered thousands in my collection. I simply can't walk without looking for them unconsciously. I seem to stumble upon them. Once educated to recognize them properly I can't overlook them. Neolithic axes, Mesolithic adzes, arrowheads from the late and final palaeolithic until the bronze age, blades, some thrusting spear points and blades as old as 13000 years (Bromme Culture). It has become an addiction.

Not to forget Ukuleles .... oh no, don't throw foul eggs on me, I don't want to risk this thread ;=) duck and cover..

Are you cataloging where and when you found these artifacts?

In my earliest years, in southern Wisconsin, we kids would occasionally find stone arrowheads in plowed fields. I’d imagine that doesn’t happen much anymore.

 

[Fifty150]

teaching myself auto mechanics (pre computer/pollution controls) I accumulated my tools

And just like my dad, and a lot of other guys, you get a collection of automotive parts and fluids. I've got extra brake pads, brake rotors, carburetors, oil filters, belts, chains, hoses.....

 

[Doctor Strange]

I'm surprised that I never posted on this thread before!

Books, thousands of books, all different kinds, some rare early editions, some nearly worthless paperbacks. Last time I moved, it was 43 boxes... after I'd given away 10. I've got big tubs of 50s-80s magazines and 70s Marvel comics too. (I never read books on my phone!)

Movies/TV, loads of it. On DVD, VHS, 16mm film, and Super 8 sound film. (I never watch movies on my phone!)

Music, on CDs, LPs, cassettes, and reel-to-reel tapes. (I never listen to music on my phone!)

Vintage photo equipment. My parents were pros with their own studio for over 50 years. I've got everything from 4x5 cameras down to Minoxes, loads of darkroom equipment (including a huge Omega D-3v enlarger), lights, lenses, you name it. When we closed up the studio a decade ago, I gave away HUGE amounts of stuff, including some things that were nearly worthless then that are now hot items with young "analog" photographers. And I still regularly shoot and develop b/w in the old Nikon and Olympus cameras. (I do occasionally shoot digital images with my phone... but I mainly use it as a display device for my negative scans!)

I've also inherited or accumulated lots of kitchen stuff, tools, midcentury furniture, paintings, tchachkes, display pieces, etc., but I don't consider them "collections" per se.

Of course, I've got a few jackets and hats too...

 

[CatsCan]

Are you cataloging where and when you found these artifacts?

Most times I do. There is one huge site where I have walked thousand miles over many years and gathered every tiny flint object. They are now part of a university study of late palaeolithic to early mesolithic transition period settlements in this area.
But sometimes I just keep them, enjoy them and don't tell about. I used to work as a professional archaeologist and museum pedagogue for most of my working years but nowadays my job is orbiting around a reconstructed iron age settlement as an open air museum. I am specialized in experimental archaeology. But I still find the pre-farming periods much more fascinating. To collect flint artifacts I consider as my hobby.