There Is A Limitless Diversity Of Items That Attract Collectors, And There Are Countless Different Reasons Why Folk Collect Things
† Thursday, July 7th, 2011Why does anybody decide to start collecting something? It’s true that there is a whole range of items that collectors look for and buy, from expensive works of art all the way to keyrings. There are a number of reasons for collecting things as well. Some people simply want to have a entire set of the objects they collect, others collect due to the rarity of an item or how valuable it is. And a lot of people just collect things because they like them.
As a youngster I collected stamps. Any stamps I could track down! I was not a picky collector, I just tried to find as many stamps as were available to me. I was happy that my father worked in the international department of a bank and so he was able to gather up the stamps from all the overseas letters that turned up and give them to me. And even though I wasn’t concerned with anything much else than getting lots of stamps, I did educate myself quite well about world geography as I would look closely at new additions and take time looking up any new countries in my world atlas. All that peering at stamps and maps when I was so young – it won’t come as a surprise that I need to have Laser eye surgery.
Following stamps, I progressed to postcards. And again, it was as much about the number I could collect instead of any specific sort of postcard. I would buy them out of my pocket money if we were out for the day, and took custody of any that were sent to the family by folk who had gone somewhere exotic. I possibly got the postcard idea from my mother as a relation was flight crew for an airline and he posted her cards from many of the places that he went. But that’s the difference – her collection was very precise in it’s content. I just had to have lots and lots of postcards and considered it was the best thing ever when a relation found literally hundreds of them whilst involved in a house clearance and then passed them on to me.
After I left home I had a phase of investing in a range of collectable replica cottages, and even though I still own them I basically see them more as dust traps than anything else now. A lot of the ones I possess are limited edition collector’s pieces, so comparatively rare, and I think maybe this was the point where I changed from collecting numbers of things to collecting carefully chosen items. Possibly it’s all down to how the adult brain differs from the child’s? If the collectors market was more active at the present time, I would quite possibly try and sell them to fund my Laser eye surgery but I don’t want to sell them for less than the purchase price!
Today, my collecting is music related. I collect all the items recorded by my favourite bands along with any memorabilia or promotional issues that I can track down. When an album is released on CD and vinyl, I have to purchase both. Often I will purchase an extra copy of the CD so that I can get it signed for my collection. Memorabilia and promo items are a lot easier to track down than you would guess too. The record labels will give items to radio stations and journalists, but ultimately once the music is available in the shops or for download, a large number of the items end up in the public domain.
The more famous the artist and the bigger the sum of money there is funding the campaign, the more ridiculous the items that get handed out. I’ve seen decent quality CD players posted out with the album stuck inside (not sure quite how that works with the Laser eye beam being able to read the CD to play it!), many different kinds of clothing, joke road signs, huge banners which would cover half a house and much more. It does seem quite disproportionate when giving an extra item away to get music lovers to actually invest in the album is not allowed, but giving bonus items to people to promote the product in the first place is positively encouraged. With the large sums of money presently being used to publicise manufactured pop acts, it’s probably only a matter of time before journalists are being handed vouchers for free cosmetic surgery or Laser eye treatment to convince them to pen a good review. Luckily, I collect a couple of rather less hyped artists and so can quite easily add to my collection without too much expense.