Does anyone here collect anything?

[Os Cangaceiros]

Just wondering.

I don't really actively collect anything but maybe I should.

[Philosophos]

I used to collect stamps but in the last two years I kinda stopped. I have approximately 200 stamps some rare and some casual. I was also collecting tele-carts (we used to use them on telephone booths just like the americans are using coins), tons of trading card games, lighters, comic books and coins.

I was practically stealing the owners because I was buying these stuff half or maybe less the price, but I wasn't a communist back then so don't judge me.

[Comrade Jacob]

When I was 8 I collected bottle caps and kept them in a tub, I think they are still somewhere, there are about 250 of them.
I know right.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I still have my mother's collection of pins - including one RKKF pin - and her collection of napkins. I used to collect all sorts of stickers before throwing it all out in one of my turns.

[Skyhilist]

I guess you could say I collect band t-shirts; I have about 30.

Also, I must have at least 20 different field guides to reptiles and/or amphibians... And I read them all.

[Landsharks eat metal]

When I was 8 I collected bottle caps and kept them in a tub, I think they are still somewhere, there are about 250 of them.
I know right.
I did that too, and I kept them in a shoebox (but never really counted). Then in my senior year of high school I had a freshman friend who collected them so I gave them all to him since I wasn't really actively collecting them anymore. I think I did keep all my silver Gatorade tops, though.

Now I sort of collect found objects and weird shit like random pieces of metal, shopping lists, and interesting candy wrappers I find on the street.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

I used to collect soldiers and planes. Like, the miniature versions, not real-size. Still got a few of the soldiers in their cases, probably worth a little bit.

[Questionable]

I collect broken dreams and bad memories.

I also have a nasty habit of checking out books published by the Soviets and never returning them to the library.

[Arlekino]

My son collecting phone cards, and I got about few hundreds soviet badges.

[Tifosi]

Football tops

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Do digital files count? Because I like collecting images. Mainly science fiction-related.

[RedCeltic]

"Collecting" is a bit of a bad habit of mine. I tend to be somewhat of a packrat or hoarder though thankfully not bad enough to qualify to be on any reality tv show. :laugh: During the Iraq War, every anti war rally and protest you went to one group or another was always handing out buttons I ended up with a large collection of them from various groups. At one point I collected newspapers from every imaginable organization which I finally threw out. I was a big collector of leftist books at one point. They took up much of my apartment... mostly every wall was covered with a bookcase full of books. I've given most of them away now... and have gone to buying books digitally. I play the guitar, so have about five guitars, a banjo, and a bass.

Lately I have become involved in civil war reenactments and have taken to collecting muskets. You can't really call it a collection as I only have an 1853 pattern Enfield and a 1861 pattern Springfield, though I'm keen on adding to my collection.

[Ele'ill]

mysterious cables and chargers, web bookmarks to shit I will probably never ever read or hear about again


More along the lines of what you're talking about I used to 'collect' comic books mainly those from the Alien, Predator, and Alien vs Predator universe. From the 80's into the 90's. I stopped when my living situation became regularly unstable because I felt like I was doing a huge injustice to them as if they were living organisms I had taken under my wing and that they deserved to be freer in a comic shop on a shelf than in a mildewy pack at a friend's or in storage.

I would also collect magazines from all over the world that discussed the mentioned sci-fi universes. I didn't go out of my way to order rare back copies or anything but when I came across them I would buy them.

[Quail]

mysterious cables and chargers, web bookmarks to shit I will probably never ever read or hear about again
I have loads of these but can't bring myself to throw them out "in case they come in handy" one day.

I don't really collect anything, although I do keep old copies of Resistance, Organise and any other papers/pamphlets I get at various anarchist events. I don't know if that's collecting or just hoarding though. I find it really hard to throw anything out in case it becomes useful, even when I know said item in all likelihood will never be useful for anything.

[Ele'ill]

Do digital files count? Because I like collecting images. Mainly science fiction-related.

This is a really good one. I don't collect them necessarily but I catalog them in my mind and have since I was a kid. The covers to the various fantasy and sci fi books and the various editions released for each.

[Ele'ill]

I don't really collect anything, although I do keep old copies of Resistance, Organise and any other papers/pamphlets I get at various anarchist events. I don't know if that's collecting or just hoarding though. I find it really hard to throw anything out in case it becomes useful, even when I know said item in all likelihood will never be useful for anything.

I've been going through my stuff recently and cleaning and I found a jacket I rarely wear as I usually prefer lighter rain gear but 'it might come in handy some day' and in one of the pockets was a code pink sticker from 4-5 years ago that I shoved in there and in another was a bunch of other radical literature that had gotten wet and dried into a complex paper 'thing'. Before this I had a box of radical paper/words since I just auto pick things up and put them into pockets to look at later like in a few years.

[Goblin]

Records, CD`s and books. But i´m sure most people on here do.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

I have loads of these but can't bring myself to throw them out "in case they come in handy" one day.

I tend to do this with all kinds of junk. Nuts and bolts, screws, pins, old computer parts, foreign coins, empty lighters, connector cables and lengths of wire, not-quite-dead batteries and other kinds of low-quality tat (http://www.uk-rec-sheds.org.uk/faq30.txt).

[sixdollarchampagne]

When I was a kid, I used to collect stamps; there is a book called the "stamp catalogue," that lists and illustrates stamps that have been issued, from all over the world, and we had one of those in our house, and, in that, I got to see, for the first time, what Lenin and Marx looked like, and all sorts of other interesting illustrations (on the stamps), from the old USSR and the "workers states." Paging through the Scott's Catalogue was really interesting and informative, since there were notes under the stamp illustrations about who the people on the stamps were, which was fascinating. I learned a lot of history that way, when I was very young.

Now I collect all kinds of baseball caps and "progressive" and leftist political buttons, which is also fun.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Do digital files count? Because I like collecting images. Mainly science fiction-related.

If that counts then I guess I collect something, as I have a computer file with a bunch of political images that I find interesting. Mostly photos of various mass demonstrations, along with some riot porn, pictures of conflicts etc

I try to think of my interests (the opposite sex, drugs, surfing, extremist politics etc) but most of them don't easily translate into something that I can "collect". I suppose I could start a collection of original USSR/PRC/etc kitsch, as it tends to be dirt cheap on eBay and other auction sites, but that stuff is mostly boring crap from an artistic standpoint, I think. I guess one of the things that even draws me to want to collect something in the first place is having a good knowledge of a subject, and using that knowledge to find value in something that might be overlooked. Like finding some sort of a collector's "holy grail" (depending on the collection context) in some garage sale or dusty attic, etc.

I did read about someone's very interesting collection of antique opium pipes recently, though. Supposedly a collection of opium pipes led them to say, hey, I've got all these opium pipes, might as well try smoking some opium out of them! Which led them into a life of opium addiction and smuggling, LOL. It was a really weird internet story.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Now I collect all kinds of baseball caps and "progressive" and leftist political buttons, which is also fun.

My mom has a small collection of political buttons from back in the 60's and 70's, some of which are pretty funny. "WITHOUT DOPE THERE IS NO HOPE!"

[Art Vandelay]

I guess I collect empty beer bottles. Seriously, I have a shed outside my apartment and just stick them in there when I'm done. I'll probably wait till I have a shit load before I cash them in. I used to collect hockey cards when I was younger at a borderline obsessive rate. I guess I also collect books. I'm determined to have a library in my house when I'm older, so I buy books at a pace that no human could possibly keep up with. The living room in my apartment, which is pretty small, has way too many books in it. Especially considering that the majority of the space in the living room can't be used, cause of books and my guitar/amp. I've had to turn my extra seating (two fold out chairs) into a T.V. stand to save on space.

[BIXX]

I collect knives and flip them competitively. I haven't been as active in that community cause I lost a lot of motivation after stopping for a while then trying again. I can still do it, but eh.

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

Unread books.

[Rugged Collectivist]

I used to collect cans and bottles after I drank the contents. I threw them out because I ran out of room for them and people made fun of me.

A few years later I started "collecting" bottles again: water bottles. I would drink several a day and throw them on the floor behind me when I was done. eventually I got tired of taking them downstairs to the trashcan and started leaving them. This went on for months and it got ridiculous. My niece and nephew started using them like some kind of makeshift McDonald's ball pit. I eventually threw them out, which took 11 trash bags.

I don't know why I did it. I think it was because I was making progress with something. Like one of those dinosaurs that swell up in a cup of water over a matter of days. It was fun to watch the pile grow. I'm not used to seeing my actions translate into tangible results and this was an easy way to make that happen so it made me happy in a weird way.

God I'm embarrassing.

[Sinister Intents]

I collect rocks and minerals, I used to have a massive collection of toy cars when I was younger, my thief cousin put an end to that.

[bcbm]

regrets.

[Jimmie Higgins]

regrets.

LOL. How 'bout "I collect debts".

Really I'm more of a pack-rat than a collector - not in a severe way, just that I tend to collect random things and know that they aren't going to be as useful as I think they might be. In berkeley I found boxes in a dumpster full of old New Left-y newspapers and magazines... I looked over it for a day - fascinating to see people talking about political developments as it happened - but haven't looked at them since... but I know one day someone will offer me a huge grant to make a collage using images from counter-cultureal magazines from the 60s:D


Do digital files count? Because I like collecting images. Mainly science fiction-related. Good one, "collecting" is much different for me now in the digital age. If I had all the albums and obscure 60s garage and soul bands in non-digital form, I'd be considered a huge collector. I also collect digital images - funny ones, timely ones, ones that I might use on a flyer design. Of course unless it's something really specific that would be hard to google, most of the time I just do a new image search when I need a picture anyway.

As a kid I collected some comics - I still have them and a lot of them are kinda famous now. I went online to see if any of them are worth anything and I discovered that tons of people were collecting the comics at the same time, so they aren't worth as much as comics from 5 years before when no one really read them much. I also drew comics as a kid and I would have all these clippings from newspapers of objects and people in differnet poses for reference - all that is soooo much easier in the internet age... "image search: holding hands, leaping, throwing, etc".

I have a ton of DVDs - mostly from 2003-2006 when I worked at a video store that never really figured out that the checkers can change the number of copies of a movie in stock.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Here's a good tale of how something I randomly held unto helped me today:

I had just bought something that I needed to unscrew. I did not have a screwdriver, and I searched in vain for my pocket knife. Then I realized that this tiny crucifix (complete with mostly naked, emaciated Jesus nailed unto it) I had come across somehow, and had been kicking around in my vehicle for years, the end of the crucifix may just fit into the tiny holes of the TV antenna and could possibly be used as a screwdriver! And lo, it was! Praise His name!

I'm not making that up, that actually happened to me today. Don't give up hope on your useless crap, friends!

[Red_Banner]

I collect Russian/Soviet uniforms.

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

I have a collection of odd things, if that counts, like various animal pelts and taxidermy things, a puppet made by a man with no fingers, a drum from India, things like that, think Ripleys.

Also, jewelry, sunglasses and bags.