Do you collect?

Accidentally, I seem to be collecting crane art. I'm fond of Asian art and in the course of acquiring various types, somehow they all seem to feature cranes. I have a huge 4 panel chinese screen with cranes wading, a bamboo framed embroidered silk scene of a crane in a pine, a Persian or possibly north Indian painting of a crane, a piece of framed yarn art depicting a Japanese umbrella pine with a flock of cranes in the background, etc. I suppose cranes, being symbols of long life, good fortune, loyalty, wisdom, and immortality, are commonly depicted in Asian art, but I swear I never looked for them

I collect business class toiletry kits, OP. I have a big bag of them in my closet. It's completely irrational but I just feel the need to horde them.

I used to keep a small jar beside the bed and would put my partner’s belly button lint in it. It become quite something over time.

I used to have a huge collection of CDs. I prided myself on finding rare musical recordings. Whenever I moved apartments, I’d lug the collection along with me.

Whenever streaming came out, everything was available on my phone. So I gave almost my entire collection away to a college library.

I collect heroes

social security checks

I collect gyros

I collect movies on Blu-ray.

Back when you could smoke in restaurants, I used to swipe those with logos or the name of the place on them. I no longer smoke, but still have dozens of them.

I have a bunch of those ceramic buildings that KLM used to give out. I fle them a lot in the 90s-00s.

Collecting today, refrigerator magnets. One per place I visit.

I collect stamps and coins. Not randomly. I collect stamps of various royal families in Europe. When euros came into existence, I got government packs of brand new euro coins for each country. I don’t do it obsessively. I let years go by without buying anything. Then I will suddenly buy a few. I don’t out them in an album since that often ruins them and I often get big first day covers that are stamped by the European mail service for the day of production. I just keep them in a waterproof box.

Tiffany favrile and Loetz art glass.

I collect broken dreams, thwarted ambitions and unavenged grudges.

Pottery, uranium glass and small Lalique items

I've done coins in the past....just holding onto them before I cash out.

R2 you’re not alone ;)

I could donate an entire collection to Delta’s archive at this point.

Interest on bonds and dividends on stocks.

R9 those are houses!

R14 do you a slot where you keep them?

*have

Flies

That’s a step up from mites!

Ever Forward!

Precious Moments and Christ-art.

Well, let's pic a material. Glass. uranium glass American milk glass mid century French industrial glass Sklo Union Vienna Secessionist French Art Deco Venini and Barovier & Toso

again Well, let's pic one material.

Glass.

uranium glass

American milk glass, and boopie glass.

mid century French industrial glass

Sklo Union

Vienna Secessionist

French Art Deco

Venini and Barovier & Toso

etc.

Instant cameras

I have a weird fascination for obvious homemade pottery, usually found at a garage sale with someone's name or initials at the bottom. It doesn't have to be perfect, either; in fact, I like them when they have unique imperfections.

This isn't something I've done my whole life; in fact, I've just taken it up over the past few years. I seem to be drawn to them if I see them at yard/garage sales and usually end up taking them because they're cheap. I don't have a huge collection...maybe close to two dozen or so various pieces. I have several rougher, handmade bowls that I use as everyday soup or mixing bowls as well. Some of them remind me of stuff my mom might have had when I was growing up. Now that I'm typing it out, this interest started probably right around the time she died, so I'm guessing that's when this started.

Olympic trading pins and vintage High School and College yearbooks.

Comic books, since I was a kid in elementary school.

Dust.

Some of the UG

R27 I have four yearbooks from the 79s from one of SoCal’s top hs journalism depts—National award winners (Columbia). How much? ;)

70s*

R27

I used to collect glass insulators from old railroad and telegraph lines. Then my ex Tongan bf and I got in a drunken brawl and they were all I had to defend myself. He had to pick up our California King mattress to hide behind.

I have all of the Appalachian White Mountain Guides, the first was published in 1916.

Although it's related to my profession, I have well over 5,000 pieces of piano sheet-music - mostly classical, most in volumes with many individual pieces inside. If I played the pieces in those volumes for one hour a day, never repeating a piece, 365 days a year, I think it would take me about 5 years to get through them all.

It would take 10 hours just to get through the Beethoven Piano Sonatas alone, for instance. (Bach, Scarlatti, Mozart, Haydn, Schubert, Chopin, Mendelssohn, Liszt, Schumann, Brahms, Rachmaninoff, Mussorgsky, Debussy, Ravel, Scriabin, Prokofiev, Bartok and on and on and on. )

There are almost no brick and mortar sheet music stores left in the US, so those of us who teach need to amass these ridiculously huge collections.

I collect mugs since I drink a lot of coffee and tea. It got so out of control that I donated 65 of them but still have about 40.

I also used to collect books but they were stacked everywhere: closets, bedside, living room, bathroom, etc...I had to either donate them or trade them in. Now I usually get them at the library.

I still have a large 8-shelf bookshelf and as of yesterday, have 71 books I haven't read.

Chinese antiquities, Japanese sumo-related items, vintage Kokeshi, Netsuke, glass floats, foreign films, vintage kimono, jade, wood carvings and other sculptural art. I have friends that are artists and I've collected many of their paintings. One of my fun collections? Coins. A lot of old US but also a foreign coins. I have filled a large chest with those. Many are from travels but others I have picked up along the way. I have to stop myself from starting new collections, it becomes a problem at some point.

One last thing (I'm R38) I collect books. I never loan them, never get rid of any, and I am obsessed with art books. I have an insane collection of gorgeous art books that I cherish. There is nothing I love more than going through my delicious book collection on a rainy day.

Signs (mostly local, especially old streetcar signs) art pottery (mostly Walter Bosse pottery) native American stuff, old posters, antique Boston things

Single socks.

Vintage costume jewelry: Miriam Haskell, Schreiner, Trifari, Delizza and Elster (Juliana). A few dolls; Barbie, Tammy, a 19th century porcelain doll. Old glass buttons. I love anything that sparkles. I told my niece I was leaving my jewelry to her. She said she doesn't want it.

Ouch. But that's the reality. Nobody wants an old queen's treasures unless they are the British Crown Jewels.

I collect records, pixiwear

She's an idiot. That jewelry is 100x better than what's on the market now. You can always put it on etsy where it will find someone who will appreciate it @R42

But that means old dish and jewellery queens need to sell the treasures while they are still fit and of sound mind to do so.

French glass jewelry caskets, Lyonnaise silk fabric remnants...mostly 18c, small classical bronzes, most of these were 19c "grand tour" souvenirs, not the greatest quality, but decorative. French silverplate flatware for every day use, Chinoiserie tea caddies and small boxes, small landscapes...tons of linens.

How many Chinoiserie tea caddies do you have in your homes?

No, I have slight compulsive tendencies so would become one of those nutty people with rooms lined with shelves filled with batshit crazy crap of whatever I was collecting.

I see the writing on the wall in certain behaviors such as needing to buy all the books in a series, even if I've abandoned reading it after the first couple books.

I also have one excellent piece of American Brilliant Period cut glass that sparkles like diamonds. And old textiles like Victorian lace and elaborately embroidered linens and doilies.

I collect baseball caps. I thought I had close to 100, but it turns out I only have 89, give or take a couple. Most of them are souvenirs from places I've been, but some were gifts and have a lot of sentimental value. I have worn every single one of them, even if only once. I have given many of them away over the years, and I still wish I had the original Tampa Bay Devil Rays hat I bought when it was a brand new team. They're just "the Rays" now; the damned Xtians didn't like the "Devil" in the name, so they changed it. I think I gave it away to a woman who wanted to keep her head out of the sun.

Oops! I almost forgot. I have a bulletin board chock full of pins I've gotten at various motorcycle events, or pins I've earned for doing some motorcycle thing or another. Same with the patches. I have four leather vests with a shitload of patches on them, and I still have a big plastic bag full with no place to put them.

That's a lot of stuff no one will want after I'm gone. Oh well.