Anyone have a crazy collection to share?

Harp Tail

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GGJaguar said:
I use to collect seashells. It's a scientific collection (I'm a nerd) so they are cataloged as a natural history museum would do. Some are self-collected, but most were bought from specimen dealers (because I'm not going to the Philippines). I have a lot of scientific reference books and monographs, many of which are out of print, and many of which are obsolete because the taxonomy has changed thanks to DNA analysis. Once malacologists started reorganizing species, I stopped as I didn't want to re-learn it all. It's dying hobby anyway. Few young people care about stamps, coins, shells, etc. anymore. Here are a couple that are not part of the collection, but that I keep in a curio cabinet just because.

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I wonder if you also have a narwhale tooth, GG...

When we were kids (a long time ago) we stole the one that was in our high school science room to use it for very un-scientific purposes. After we had it "modified" we found out it was worth quite some money...
 
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GAD said:
I'm a bit confused. Do you mean pics as in pictures or picks as in guitar picks? Or both? A mixture of the two? Pics on Picks? Pics of Picks? Your Pick of the Pic of Picks?
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Since you're being picky in meant guitar picks. I'll go back and edit.
 
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GAD said:
Oh yeah, I have a substantial collection of mostly vintage safety razors:

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That's not even close to all of them. I also have enough razor blades (most of which aren't made any more) to shave everyone in town daily for probably 100 years.
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I have bricks and bricks of old Gillete 7 O'Clock blades that are no longer made (these blue ones were some of my favorites):

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I don't do anything halfway.
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but....do you have one of these?
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My father was a very frugal man, and he had one. Lost to the mists of time.
 
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Rocky said:
but....do you have one of these?
il_fullxfull.1871800234_ez9p.jpg

My father was a very frugal man, and he had one. Lost to the mists of time.
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Blade sharpener? I've seen some on forums. Very cool.

According to my spreadsheet (of course there's a spreadsheet) I have 5,288 blades, which at the rate of one blade per week is enough blades for 105.7 years. Maybe with a sharpener I could double that!

Collecting inexpensive things is a joy when compared to something like guitars.
 
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I have a bunch of guitars, amps and effects, but it's more of an accumulation than a collection.

I suspect that after I disperse my late brother's collections, it will cure me of accumulation.
 
Brad Little

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tonepoet said:
Aside from guitar and amps... books and vinyl records are collections (or problems when moving!!!) Vinyl records are 700+ (all in boxes right now) Books are an unknown quantity. Books everywhere!

And my wife is an artist of many types and when I asked her just now what she collects her answer was: "Any item that doesn't rot"

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This is a shot from the former apartment. Now that we are in house, the books are in bookcases or boxed out in the garage.
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tonepoet said:
Aside from guitar and amps... books and vinyl records are collections (or problems when moving!!!) Vinyl records are 700+ (all in boxes right now) Books are an unknown quantity. Books everywhere!

And my wife is an artist of many types and when I asked her just now what she collects her answer was: "Any item that doesn't rot"

1702925183236.jpeg

This is a shot from the former apartment. Now that we are in house, the books are in bookcases or boxed out in the garage.
Click to expand...

tonepoet said:
Aside from guitar and amps... books and vinyl records are collections (or problems when moving!!!) Vinyl records are 700+ (all in boxes right now) Books are an unknown quantity. Books everywhere!

And my wife is an artist of many types and when I asked her just now what she collects her answer was: "Any item that doesn't rot"

1702925183236.jpeg

This is a shot from the former apartment. Now that we are in house, the books are in bookcases or boxed out in the garage.
Click to expand...
Been there, done that

bKQ4SU.jpg

There are three more shelves not visible, plus another unit on the other side of the room as well as probably 350 or more in boxes.
alPpCI.jpg
 
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Wow, Brad. Gotta' organize that book collection, buddy! Beautiful job with the albums (and guitars of course).

Oh, hey, one thing you book collectors might not be aware of is that termites and other bugs can get into books and ruin them. Keep eyes on your collections or you might be unpleasantly surprised one day.
 
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chazmo said:
Wow, Brad. Gotta' organize that book collection, buddy! Beautiful job with the albums (and guitars of course).

Oh, hey, one thing you book collectors might not be aware of is that termites and other bugs can get into books and ruin them. Keep eyes on your collections or you might be unpleasantly surprised one day.
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They're mostly my wife's, hard to organize when all the available shelf space is used up! FWIW, they're mostly cookbooks!
 
jp

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Whew! I must admit that after dealing with my parents' and aunt/uncle's estates a few years back, I've already started liquidation. I don't want to leave my kids with my mess of obsessions. And my wife and I have had a lot of them.

My aunt and uncle's collections were vintage fishing gear and sports cards. We're talking rooms with tackleboxes stacked to the ceiling, giant bundles of rods, and drawerfuls of reels. They had walls lined with unopened boxes of sports cards. It was a nightmare to deal with, even with an estate dealer helping to liquidate. My mom was also a cookbook collector, with walls and walls of bookshelves. Ugggh!

I've already started the Swedish practice of "dödstäding"-- death cleaning. My main piles are books, records, and tools. Not to mention a garage full of a van and motorcycle projects. The last time we moved, it was 80+ boxes of books, and I refuse to do that again. Although my wife and I love our stuff, I'm gonna try to remember, "In this world, you come with nothing, you leave with nothing."

I know -- I'm no fun.
 
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jp said:
Whew! I must admit that after dealing with my parents' and aunt/uncle's estates a few years back, I've already started liquidation. I don't want to leave my kids with my mess of obsessions. And my wife and I have had a lot of them.

My aunt and uncle's collections were vintage fishing gear and sports cards. We're talking rooms with tackleboxes stacked to the ceiling, giant bundles of rods, and drawerfuls of reels. They had walls lined with unopened boxes of sports cards. It was a nightmare to deal with, even with an estate dealer helping to liquidate. My mom was also a cookbook collector, with walls and walls of bookshelves. Ugggh!

I've already started the Swedish practice of "dödstäding"-- death cleaning. My main piles are books, records, and tools. Not to mention a garage full of a van and motorcycle projects. The last time we moved, it was 80+ boxes of books, and I refuse to do that again. Although my wife and I love our stuff, I'm gonna try to remember, "In this world, you come with nothing, you leave with nothing."

I know -- I'm no fun.
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Yup. We just got done spending some of the summer emptying out my mother-in-law's house as she went to assistive living. OMG. No collections, just junk and crud everywhere. And I mean everywhere.

Same with my Dad's house years ago. Bedroms full of boxes of "stuff".

In our own house, we have since cleaned out and repainted a few rooms, and the basement. To be honest, it looks so much better. We will now strive to keep it that way. The one exception is my wife's walk-in closet - apparently that can never be anything but full to the max...
 
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I had to sneak an old set of Funk & Wagnalls out of my parents house a few books at a time because my mom didn't want to let them go.


I had a huge purge about 12 years ago when I got divorced and we split everything up and sold the house. 2 dumpsters worth of stuff. and much more stuff sold, donated or given to friends.

We all have too much stuff!
 
tonepoet

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jp said:
Although my wife and I love our stuff, I'm gonna try to remember, "In this world, you come with nothing, you leave with nothing."
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Yeah, man !!! One big lesson for me was clearing out my mother's house and getting it on the market last spring. She and my Dad had the house 59 years... what a chore !!! It was only a 900 sq ft house but there was truckloads of stuff that needed hauled away !!!

One of the interesting things about my folks is that they'd get new furniture and then stuff the old furniture in another room or the basement.

The first junk hauling crew was just to get all the old furniture hauled away so that we could walk around and make decisions about what got kept and what was given to charity.

Another lesson: However long you originally think it's going to take.... add 7 to 10 days for a realistic estimate.
 
jp

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I've moved my books from one place to another so many many times! It's so true.

The most difficult part of estate liquidation was dealing with collectibles, and I believe that before one can trust a vintage dealer, one has to know enough not to get ripped off, too--I've met a ton of shady dealers. We also have antique furniture that probably is best consigned, and I have a sizable antiquarian book and record collection, as well as my dad's coin collection to address. It takes so much time.
 
chazmo

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jp said:
I've moved my books from one place to another so many many times! It's so true.

The most difficult part of estate liquidation was dealing with collectibles, and I believe that before one can trust a vintage dealer, one has to know enough not to get ripped off, too--I've met a ton of shady dealers. We also have antique furniture that probably is best consigned, and I have a sizable antiquarian book and record collection, as well as my dad's coin collection to address. It takes so much time.
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Good luck with all that, JP. When I go, I'd like to leave only a small list of things for my kids to deal with.

When my mom finally goes it'll be tough as she has a house full of her own art. I have no idea what we'll do with that.
 
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