What do you collect?

[GURUving]

I think we all collect something, if intentionally or not.

I collect change only until it overfills my bowl in the bedroom for it. Then, it gets rolled and to the bank. It's amazing how much it adds up to.

So? Collectors?

[benburch]

1. Stray cats.

I guess I'm just an easy mark.

[Bertha Venation]

25. You too?

Kathy and I both have "PUSHOVER" tattooed on our foreheads. Apparently the tattoos have some scent that draws cats from miles away.

[Bertha Venation]

27. besides stray cats, baseball caps

of all varieties (but only one MLB club), and memorabilia re: the Anaheim Angels, 2002 World Series Champions.

[Kenneth ken]

2. coins sort of

I collect change until it fills the container I keep it in, also, then off to the bank with it. My bank has a change counter machine, so I don't have to roll it.

I also collect the state quarters, but I am not paying attention to which ones I have or need; I just look at all the quarters I get, and the state ones go into a Crown Royal sack.

Lastly, I am collecting Sacagewa dollars. I buy a few at the bank every pay day, and am keeping them in a different Crown Royal sack - my own bag-o-gold.

[Red State Rebel]

3. Antiques of all sorts...

I've had to stop on the furniture as I have no more room in the house, but I love browsing antique malls and going to auctions.

[supernova]

24. Love antiquing and junking

flea markets, auctions, ah... the stuff of a great weekend. :thumbsup:

I'm partial to glass and crystal. I would love more furniture but the stuff I like (art nouveau) is rare around here. Mostly Queen Anne and Victorian furniture is available here. And some 30s Art Deco.

[Systematic Chaos]

4. I'm a regular packrat.

I collect CD's (thank goodness not ALL of them were stolen last week), computer games (lost all of those :( ), books, and change.

I save the change in this thing that looks like an airport control tower. It has four tubes in it, one for each denomination of coin. When one of the tubes is full I wrap them up and put them away. When I have so much in coin that I need to make several trips to the car to get it all out of the house, I will cash it in and get something really nice.

[nono]

5. Old Electric Trains

Wife is a Doll collector

[RandomKoolzip]

6. Vinyl Records, and (seriously) cassette tapes...

Hold on to those cassettes, kids, especially the more obscure indie stuff, I predict the cassette collecting racket is going to be a seller's market in a few years, given the record industry's drive to keep making us buy the same shit every ten years in different formats. Don't abuse your tapes!

[Whitacre D_WI]

22. I collect records...

but not tapes. Which is not to say I don't have a few, but I haven't purchased a non-cassette-only-release on tape in ten years.

[alwynsw]

7. Guns

and hot sauce for some unknown disconnected reason.

[7th_Sephiroth]

23. i have a hot sauce bottle

put out by GM for a trade show

[alwynsw]

28. Wow!

You got my Christmas shopping done already!

[Archae]

8. Snowglobes.

I have over 50 now, including some rare Austrian ones.

[Hogarth]

9. Cigarettes and lighters

n/t

[Diego360]

10. Manual Typewriters

Loved 'em since I was a kid.

[oldleftguy]

11. Dust.

:bounce:

[GoddessOfGuinness]

12. Better'n mildew...

:D

[Buns_of_Fire]

13. Everything

I am the black hole of American Consumerism. It used to be books (my personal library had roughly 5,000 titles -- including a first edition of "Steal This Book" by Abbie Hoffman, the Attorney General's Report on Pornograpny, and a first edition of "Final Exit" <the one that counsels you on the best techniques for committing suicide> -- until my divorce when I lost all but a few of them). Once, when I was living in Atlanta, it was beer cans (I had a complete six-pack of Billy Beer -- unopened -- until someone stole it). When I was in Atlanta and Omaha, it was comic books (anyone want to buy a Catwoman #1?). In Dallas, I even kept old DART passes (they made good bookmarks).

Now, I collect belly-button lint and unsold manuscripts. I figure if I wait long enough, there'll be a market for them, if only encased in Lucite. Hey, anything's possible with eBay. :shrug:

[moz4prez]

14. dust

:-(

[arwalden]

15. Ex's. Men.

Souvenir shot glasses. Hard Rock Cafe Tee-Shirts.

[caledesi]

16. Paper Weights *exciting, no?*

[Terwilliger]

17. many things

my most recent and longstanding collection is of movie theater stubs, going back to Batman in 1989

[Padraig18]

18. Ummm...errr... well....

I collect duck and frog figurines and political buttons/memorabilia. :hi:

[populistmom]

19. Things with roses

Pictures, nick nacks, whatever, and Thomas the tank engine stuff. It started for my two year old, but I like to play with all the different wooden choo-choos too.

[Zero Gravitas]

20. Old books

and I do mean OLD books.

[Tikki]

21. Emerald green colored glass, any....

and all objects.....and 70's home furnishing, 'survivors' .

[bratcatinok]

26. I collect

hummingbird stuff. Candleholders, pictures, china, plates...you name it, if I like it, I'll buy it.

Antique costume jewelry.

[BlackVelvetElvis]

29. I'm a sentimental packrat

Can't seem to throw anything away.
However, I love collecting <geek alert> antique history books. I have a real interesting elementary text from the time of the reconstruction here in the south. Beside an engraving of Abe Lincoln, the kid who owned it wrote: "Lincoln is the DEVIL" Wow! I love collecting books that people make notes in as well.
I also collect antique cameras and like to actually use them. They make great art.

[Aristus]

30. Autographed first edition novels.

I've got six or seven, mostly by Harlan Ellison. One by Sir Laurence Van Der Post. They are my pride and joy. :-)

[CBHagman]

31. Mostly dust and newspapers, but also...

...wheat-back pennies and some unusual coins (I have a ha'penny, some Communist era Hungarian coins, etc.).

I've also got a lot of stamps but no formal album.

[WoodrowFan]

32. Beer Cans, Books and small Democratic Donkeys. (NT)

[VermontDem2004]

33. Basketball cards!!!!

Well I usto anyway. :evilfrown:

[NightTrain]

34. LPs, 45 RPMs, and CDs

I've got thousands and thousands of the damned things. My music library dates back almost to the very beginning of recorded sound and comes right up to the present day.

[corarose]

35. Cookbooks

Before everything was stolen from my house I had over 300 of them.

[Philostopher]

36. Fetish bears.

Not bears in general; specifically, regional 'fetish bears.' The bear symbol has/had meaning in aboriginal American cultures, so in most of the U.S. and Canada you can find reproductions or new sculptures/ceramics that represent what that region's aboriginals used as bear fetishes.

I actually started doing this when I lived in the Southwest. The bears were one of the few things that weren't 'tarted up' to please tourists who really didn't care much about local culture and only wanted something brightly-colored to show off to their families and friends at home 'was made by a real live Indian!' That's not to say the one time I was in Santa Fe it didn't take me an hour to find one that didn't have feathers glued to it or neon-blue paint airbrushed all over it. Unlike the pottery and such, though, you can still find bears made by local artisans.

My favorite is a stainless steel fetish polar bear that I bought at the Duty Free store in Sarnia, Ontario over a decade ago, that's Inuit. It's beautiful, and I think I only paid twenty dollars for it. I have one from the natural history museum in Chicago, several different ones from New Mexico and Arizona, one from the Smoky Mountains, and a couple from Canada.

People will try to buy me bears when they go out of town, and I end up with glazed ceramic teddy bears, freakish Hallmark Card bears or Disneyfied bears that look like something from Jungle Book. I don't ask my family to do this, by the way -- they see the bears and think that's what I collect, but it would be inconsiderate of me to say anything, so I don't. Other than 'thanks!'

We've also started buying lithos -- signed, if it doesn't make them prohibitively expensive -- by local artists in the cities we visit.

And, last but not least -- like others have posted -- I have a fine collection of abandoned animals. Three came from shelters, two showed up on the street. The two tortoiseshells were the 'rescues' -- Mr. Nownow and I have decided we have a special homing scent that attracts half-grown tortie kittens. Ah, well -- it could be worse.

[corarose]

38. I have a real old Bondage Teddy Bear

It's a small blue bear that's in leather bondage and It had to be 20 years old. A friend of mine bought it for me in my punk rocker days.

My Mom asked me why it had handcuffs on and I told her that the bear was a collection from the Jail Collection of Teddies.

I use to collect Bears.

[ronnykmarshall]

37. Supremes stuff

and donkeys

[Darth_Kitten]

39. Let's see.....

coca cola collectibles, teddy bears, and really want to start(someday!) a miniature doll house collection. (get a miniature house and decorate it) :)

I also collect gems and stones. :)