They take up little room, are easily packed and transported and can be shared over and over again without ever running out of the original supply.
That and Steiff stuffed animals. I started receiving these as gifts from my far off Germany grandparents when I was 5. When older and traveling on my own, I’d pick up up during each trip. Then when the kiddles starting coming with me they would each get to pick out their animal as their souvenir. The tradition continues. Whenever I or one of the kiddles travels to Germany we will pick up a Steiff for ourselves and the others.
H doesn’t participate. I’m afraid he’d start collected tools!
My H is a huge collector and buys & sells on Ebay. I don’t like collecting things…except the refrigerator magnets I used to buy from different vacations around the world. These days I’m like abasket: de-cluttering and de-collecting. We hope to move in 2-3 years, so much of our junk is going into The-Bag-a-Week Club (awesome feeling to get rid of bags!) or to sell on Ebay or to donate. I give away several big black trash bags of clothing, household items, etc. every other month to various shelters. And there’s still so much left to go through and part with. I do enjoy collecting neat recipes…and my family benefits when I try a new one on them one night for dinner (!)…
@FlyMeToTheMoon I used to collect cookie jars, old ones. When I purged, eBay got rid of all, and I got back most of my $ spent on them!
@austinmshauri I love that! When I bought this house it was WAY overgrown withhostas and lilies. They are now in my neighbors lawn, my moms garden and my aunts koi pond!
@nottelling I can’t say I still collect per se. Ive stopped buying and wear what cameos I have now! I mostly collect figural cameos depicting Greek gods and mythology. The only “profiles” cameos I have are athena and madusa. I find you can get them under value if they have no frame bc the framework is so expensive. But to me it is just a frame. My jeweler puts on a simple silver frame/pin for me. It’s all about the art for me!
@drgoogle I love gardening, but never germinated a seed I didn’t kill! ;(
My neighbors apparently collect old little tykes toys from when their now college graduate used them in the early 90’s, used pallets, garden debris and various other junk that they apparently value! To be extra nice,they display their collection outside of my living room bay window for my viewing pleasure. I am curious why they keep such a valued collection in a part of their property that isn’t visible from any of their windows. Such a waste.
You did remind me of one thing though that I used to collect and still have in the attic. The old Fisher-Price playsets - my kids LOVED them, ADORED them and played with them endlessly! The McDonald’s set, The Little People House, Main Street, The Airport, The Farm, The Zoo, The Camping Set, etc. - and oodles and oodles of Little People! I will not be able to part with these until I am passing them onto grandchildren (I hope someday!).
I gave away all the Fisher-Price sets. Do you remember the Brio train sets, if I’m recalling the name correctly. Well, I bought plywood and painted a BIG board to look like the one you could buy for $100 or so. It was much harder to pass that on.
I don’t have room to list all the stuff we (meaning 95% my wife) collect. She has a table top covered in antique glass paperweights, a shelf in the basement covered in milk glass chickens (and hats), a pile of “end of the day” glass, a bunch of black Tiffin glass (not the painted), camphor glass art deco lamps (that’s mostly me), a big jar of old glass marbles (that’s a reduction from wherever the rest are), dozens of old fruit & vegetable crate labels (again, mostly me; I’d buy them for $1 or so), so many paintings and other hanging stuff that extras can no longer be contained behind furniture (including a sub-sub-specialty in children’s book art), etc., etc.
Oh, come on. It wasn’t that hard to type in GoNoles was it :-)? The world is still spinning correctly is it not? You haven’t had any bad luck since typing that in have you?
The greta thing about collecting postcards is they are dirt cheap and create good memories. Christmas cards are just plain cool. I love the ones with Charlie Brown characters. Great thread.
I have a huge collection of museum postcards - mostly portraits. I also can’t resist buying origami paper, but it usually gets used eventually in art work or jewelry. Bought a whole bunch while we were in SF last week. But all the collections on display in this house were collected by parents - African art (some probably valuable others definitely tourist items), Japanese tea cups, Chinese pottery…
We do seem to collect a lot of books, but it’s not a systematic collection by any means.
I also kind of collect (though I really have stopped; now I only own) old-time cooking brochures that the product manufacturers would produce – eg, Betty Crocker, various baking powder manufacturers, refrigerator companies, etc. The oldest I have is from 1890 and it’s rather cool.
Very Happy – that’s so cool! I love stuff like that. On a similar note, have you ever seen the New York Public Library’s collection of menus from the 19th century thru present? It is digitized and available online. And the LA Public Library is having an exhibition of old menus right now.
I’d bet if you ever wanted to donate your collection the NY Public Library would accept it gratefully.
