What do you collect?

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Personally, I've started a collection of Lightsabers. It's small right now, I only have two - three if I break down my staff. They're both stunt sabers I bought from Ultrasabers, but I want to save up to get one with sound. I really like their Consular hilt, and I've got my eyes on a Guardian and a Scorpion as well.

It's small, but they're my prized possessions nonetheless:



They're extremely bright - this is in the same brightly lit room:


And last but not least I have a shelf-full of Muse-related items:

https://m.flickr.com/#/photos/12553333@N05/sets/


My old obsession/collection which I have all boxed up

I now have a new obsession (not really a collection) which has been going on for 4 years.

https://www.instagram.com/six1six/

Health problems.

Knives & similar things

I collect coins!

This might sound a bit weird, but... hair. My own hair. When I find loose hairs, I add them to the big hairball sitting on my desk.

I went through eye shadow & shoe collecting phases but luckily they passed quickly.

I'm currently collecting unique stones, shells & bits from beaches. My favorites are ones that were once mud, were burrowed in by bivalves and then turned to stone, leaving many round tubes and holes. Like this:


Which is really ironic since i'm trypophobic (although it's specific to living tissue, not hard inanimate objects).

For a long time I was able to latch my interests/obsessions onto whatever my oldest has as theirs out of convenience. So over the last decade I've built up small, inexpensive collections of:
fossils
telescopes
roller skates & gear.

I've always collected computer equipment, so that is probably my largest collection. But it's not the same, I don't feel connected to each item. It's more because I needed it at some point, it has historical significance & was easily/cheaply available at the time, or just massive amounts of spare parts & systems.

With any of the ones that are no longer active interests, I try to thin the collection. Except the fossils, simply because they are unique and make nice displays around the house.

Money, skills, knowledge, experience, wisdom.. I also have a small collection of crystals and gemstones, sporting goods & tools - but those are more practical useful things vs. simply stuff I collect. I've been trying to reduce my material possessions bit by bit over time to have a less cluttered more focused life vs. taking up collecting anything, really. Hence my primary focus being on collecting money - but don't worry, not to no end; I am going to spend it all eventually.

Why does anyone collect? Maybe it's because of some dark and creepy or maybe it's just part of being human.

Dolls and stuffed animals have always been a big part of my life and I don't see why that has to change because I'm an adult. In the 90's I was crazy for collecting troll dolls. I still have quite a few of these so called terrors of Scandinavia with their ugly-cute faces and furry hair. In fact I seem to have a thing for dolls of fantasy creatures that usually don't have a positive reputation but are really just misunderstood by humans. Naturally.

My best guess is that it's just a part of being human. I bet it's a modern day adaptation from when we first learned to collect and store food back when we were hunters and gatherers. Most of us now live in economies of abundance where we don't need to use those traits for survival, but we still have that instinct to collect and save something.

Also, there's the whole "prized possession" & competitive nature thing. People feel a need to "keep up with the Jones'" & have more and "better" things than others. So, they accumulate them.

I'm guilty of having "things" I don't need or use, but bit by bit I'm getting rid of clutter and junk and not acquiring anything new. I'd rather work myself towards having a very clean slate of a room/home - clear space, clear mind, easy to relax and focus on what matters in terms of my goals etc.

As for collecting money, it's the same as gathering and storing food for the Winter, really. Both are simply a matter of security.. of buying time. One is physically literal in the sense that without enough food stockpiled some people wouldn't survive the Winter. The other is just the modern day equivalent. I currently have enough money to launch the business I want to be in, but I'm not entirely prepared yet.. still acquiring skills, knowledge, experience etc and continuing to stack cash so that when I do soft-launch my plans, and then go full tilt, I'll have enough money saved up to buy myself a considerable amount of time so that I can work out any kinks, bugs, and growing pains w/o the pressure of having to be instantly profitable. By all rights I should be able to make money within the first 6 months, possibly within the first 3 months, but I'd like the comfort of knowing I can pay my bills for 2+ years without earning a single dime before I go for it.

Modern day collecting isn't really about security/time like that.. it's more like a residual human trait that we don't know what to do with anymore since we're all quite food/shelter secure. For some it turns into an obsession or hoarding. I never want to be like that. I know too many hoarders who's lives are less than ideal because of all the crap they hang onto.

I collect computers mostly, I have enough of them but I do throw them out or sale them if they get too old so I have no Apple II or commodores laying around. As of this year, all my Desktops/Laptops have multiple cores and at least DDR2 memory. I also used to collect glass pipes for a while but my parents keep destroying them arguing them as drug paraphernalia but some if not most of the ones I had were clean. I got rid of them either selling them people who would make it drug paraphernalia or broke them. I got rid of the ones I was using too, I have a cheap pipe now that I don't care if my parents destroy.

I collect Doctor Who merchandise. My collection has taken over my whole room, but I wouldn't change it for the world

Over the years:

Legos *
Bionicles *
Stuffed animals
Rocks *
Coins
Paper boats/tanks/spaceships
Dead Space related items *
Tolkien related items *
Pink Floyd related items
Star Wars related items *

asterisk denotes active collections or collections that I'm only not pursuing due to lack of current money

I'm curious; how much do rocks cost? :p

*Words
*Rare, Mexican, and Canadian Coins
*Other curiosities made mostly in Mexico and one in Ethiopia