What's the point in collecting things?

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Member for

14 years 6 months

Posts: 2,536

I don't mean a nice collection of ornate frogs on your mantle piece or the rembrandts hanging on your wall. I mean collecting things where the sole aim is to collect them. Like the recent loft Airfix collection, or people who collect model railway trains and keep them in their boxes, or worse, in their parcel wrapping.

Original post

Member for

19 years 2 months

Posts: 585

What an excellent question.

Something I am thinking about at the moment.

I have accumulated lots of things over the yaers and during a recent house move got rid of 30 bin bags full of paper basically from the (old) loft. Consisting in the main of old manuals and course material.

Having now made it past my half century I wonder why I continue to keep certain things. These days I very rearly take photographs of aircraft. I have albums full of the things. Is it time to get rid.

When I fall of pearch doubtless, someone will just put them in a skip anyway.

Member for

17 years 5 months

Posts: 8,980

The Airfix loft collection would be damn good insulation..

I have a lot of model kits, that I do hope I will get to build, but probably have about 50, saying that though i also have another 20 odd that when 21st century models went bust the home bargains store was selling stock off at 1.99 a kit, these were kits that retailed over £15, so I bought loads and still have them, evil bay prices are creeping back up to the £15 mark at which I will eBay the 20 plus I have... So my 40 quid investment a year or so ago is now worth in the range of £300 plus which is a nice profit. Get that profit out of a bank¡

Do not throw away your old photos, someone I know sold his collection on retirement for some 40k, mind you it was a big un.

Member for

14 years 6 months

Posts: 2,536

What an excellent question.

Something I am thinking about at the moment.

I have accumulated lots of things over the yaers and during a recent house move got rid of 30 bin bags full of paper basically from the (old) loft. Consisting in the main of old manuals and course material.

Having now made it past my half century I wonder why I continue to keep certain things. These days I very rearly take photographs of aircraft. I have albums full of the things. Is it time to get rid.

When I fall of pearch doubtless, someone will just put them in a skip anyway.

This is what I mean. When relatives die a few things are kept as mementoes, some goes on ebay, the rest land fill or charity shops. Buying to collect seems to be implying some kind of immortality on the part of the collector. The only person these collections benefit are the people who buy them, ironically to put in their collections until they die.

Member for

14 years 6 months

Posts: 2,536

The Airfix loft collection would be damn good insulation..

I have a lot of model kits, that I do hope I will get to build, but probably have about 50, saying that though i also have another 20 odd that when 21st century models went bust the home bargains store was selling stock off at 1.99 a kit, these were kits that retailed over £15, so I bought loads and still have them, evil bay prices are creeping back up to the £15 mark at which I will eBay the 20 plus I have... So my 40 quid investment a year or so ago is now worth in the range of £300 plus which is a nice profit. Get that profit out of a bank¡

Do not throw away your old photos, someone I know sold his collection on retirement for some 40k, mind you it was a big un.

Your collection doesn't count. You intend to build or sell them. That's valid reasoning.

Member for

13 years 11 months

Posts: 1,335

i got part of a house clearance of airfix kits that were going to be thrown away so i got them for free i got about 2/3rds of the collection in all about 250 kits

i still buy the odd one but as a builder and not a collector realise i will be dead before they are all built

so some went on ebay to the point i gave up once i got enough money for a compressor and airbrushes

he was mad on ww1 stuff and as such there are subjects i'll never have the intrest to build lost count of the roden kits i sold on

plus i still have a tupperware box full of 1/72 airwaves whitemetal ww1 type engines i'll never use ( unless after 50 i get that urge )

but i never understood collecting for collectings sake or for proffit later in life

surely the idea is to buy and build or run it is a massive disservice to leave as a forlorn item in a private collection to maybe see the light of day for 3 times in 70 yrs lest the packaging gets sun faded !!

Member for

14 years 11 months

Posts: 894

It's a hobby, and hobbies are not supposed to mean anything, they're just supposed to be fun. "All work and no play...." remember.

Member for

14 years 2 months

Posts: 1,259

I think sometimes it is just nice to have things because you can, the old Dinky Toy aircraft are a good example, got quite a few mint in box and even if they don't get played with it is nice to know they are there.

Try to keep down the amount of kits though as it'll probably be the kids that end up making them otherwise at some distant point in the future.

Member for

17 years 6 months

Posts: 667

I collect dust*. Does that count? :diablo:

* As well as model aircraft, diecast buses and model trains.

Member for

18 years 10 months

Posts: 4,796

It's a hobby, and hobbies are not supposed to mean anything, they're just supposed to be fun. "All work and no play...." remember.

What he said, but some have a practical side. I collect old tools, but not just every old tool I see. I go after stuff I will (or at least could) use (although having 30+ bench vises is a bit odd). I also collect old tech books/manuals

Last weekend I came home with this pile:

https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/531724_3954790040955_482480659_n.jpg

& this pre '32 Union machinists chest:

https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/603747_3954791720997_1169622641_n.jpg

...which after a quick going over with #0000 steel wool now looks like this:

https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/576034_3955895108581_501623619_n.jpg

I'm not done cleaning it yet.:cool:

Member for

18 years 7 months

Posts: 1,376

I collect (on and off) old plastic kits, and I think part of the reason is nostalgia. On those rare occasions I get time for it, looking at parts of my collection takes me back to when I was a kid in the 60's and those Saturday morning trips to "Woolies" when every week seemed to bring an exciting new release from Airfix. Also recalls the anguish of not being able to afford that expensive new Series 5 kit on my pocket money, and the excitement of the Christmas releases, ie whether my parents had taken the hint and whether the promised new releases would make it into the local shops in time. Also just like the way they tend to capture the style and feeling of times gone forever.

Member for

24 years 2 months

Posts: 16,832

I so identify with the post above.

:)

Moggy

Member for

11 years 10 months

Posts: 42

I collect a lot of stuff! I have about 12 or so vintage air craft engines . I enjoy looking at them , working on them, getting them running again. I met a lot of great people looking for parts and traveling to get them. I look at them, as a link to the past. some are real works of mechanical art. do i loose money on them. sure. but thats not why we do it. Nice tool box by the way. i collect old tools as well. and propellers, parts to stuff ill never be able afford the rest etc etc. I think I enjoy the search for "stuff"as much as owning it.

Member for

11 years 10 months

Posts: 42

I do take all my things out of there boxes and wrapping. that i dont get.

Member for

24 years 2 months

Posts: 2,886

I collect large scale 'travel agency' type models, about 70 or so at the last count. I don't do it now due to losing my job to ill health. Collecting these things has given me 35 years worth of enjoyment, and I've made some good friends while doing it. I guess that like life itself, collecting anything is a transient thing, so best to enjoy it while we all still can.;)

Member for

13 years 7 months

Posts: 819

I collect aircraft photographs and daleks.

Member for

12 years 11 months

Posts: 390

It seems like we collect the toys we couldn't have as children. (Like Misrair's impressive travel shop airliners which we all saw back in the 1960s and 1970s.

Or maybe we did have some of these toys and feel nostalgic about them even today.

Boys collect airfix aeroplane models and train sets as grown men. Girls collect dolls and doll related stuff.

I feel that when someone wants to keep the toy 'mint and unopened they are bowing down to the adult in them that sees the value of the item.

Is there any point to it? I feel, yes and no. Yes because we have an interest and sometimes a passion for these items. But no, because any true hobby has no point. And surely that IS the point. I feel these hobbies and in fact any hobby is about switching off from the task/goal oriented world we are forced to live in as adults. So doing something that gives us 'fun' (a child thing) but has no real value is a great way to wind down and out of the adult survival rat-race mode we live in.

So I feel hobbies and collecting is really valuable to us psychologically. Like horse-riding, flying or sailing. No point to it, and that is the point - and a whole lot of fun.

Sarah

Member for

24 years 2 months

Posts: 2,886

Couldn't have put it better myself Sarah;) I was around 7 years old when I first saw a model of a BEA Trident in our local travel agents window, we're talking BEA 'Red Square' era here. I never did forget that model, even though I was never to own it. I started collecting these things around 35 years ago, but it was only in the last year, that I found one of those BEA Tridents! Aaah the thrill of the chase:)

Member for

18 years 10 months

Posts: 4,796

That tool chest has now been dated to pre-1920. :)