Most people I know have collections of one kind or another, and I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the stuff I collect and why I collect it.

I know people who collect coins, old books, and paintings as investments.  They purchase items for a collection with the intent of selling the collection in the future for a profit.  That is a valid reason to collect something, but that’s not the kind of collecting I’m here to talk about.  That’s just a way of making money.

I’m talking about collecting for collecting’s sake.

I am no psychologist, and I’m not going to delve into deep motivations or yearnings that would spawn the beginning of a collection.  I do know this though — I like stuff.  I’ve collected stuff related to activities I enjoy; I’ve collected stuff that is mysterious and nostalgic; and I’ve collected stuff almost by accident.

Collecting items of a cherished topic

During a four year span from 1972 through 1975, I spent approximately $26 for 2600 baseball cards.  Yes, baseball cards were only a penny each back then, plus each pack of ten cards came with a stick of gum.  I wasn’t planning on ever selling those cards.  I just loved baseball.  In fact, I didn’t just love baseball, I was a baseball fanatic.  I knew every stat about nearly every player by studying the backs of those baseball cards.  Those cards were a way of tracking who played on what team.  It also become a sort of social thing, as my buddies and I would bring our cards to school and trade with each other during recess or lunch.

I still have my 2600 baseball cards.  Some of the cards have remnants of scotch tape marks, scars of my efforts to decorate my bedroom by taping the cards to the wall.  Most of the cards are in excellent shape though, and a recent scan through a baseball card price book revealed that most of my cards were worth anywhere from fifty cents to two dollars each, with some like Hank Aaron and Nolan Ryan going considerably higher.   My boyhood collection increased in value, but that was not the motivation behind starting the collection.

Collecting intriguing or unusual things

In second or third grade, I read a mystery about a boy who collected stamps.  I remember nothing of the story except for the fact that this kid detective collected postage stamps, and I was hooked from that moment.  Why postage stamps?  Well, stamps can be beautiful and interesting.  I have stamps of animals and famous athletes and airplanes and successful military personnel and movie stars; I have stamps from countries I had never heard of before; I have old stamps that foster images of times long gone, back in the days when the world was a younger place and receiving a letter in the mailbox was a rare and special occasion.

Accidental collections

Some collections happen by accident, without any planning.  Shh, I have a secret for you.  In our family, I am the Tooth Fairy.  My job as said mythical persona is to remove the tooth that the child has dutifully placed under his pillow and to replace it with an understood monetary amount.  In other words, my kids get paid for each tooth lost.  When I was growing up, the Tooth Fairy always left me a quarter for each tooth.  You might be astonished to discover that inflation has not caught up with the Tooth Fairy, and my kids also receive a quarter per tooth.

I have only a few teeth left to go in this cherished role, and a few days ago I realized with amusement and satisfaction that over the past dozen years of being the Tooth Fairy, I have placed each and every tooth in my top dresser drawer.  Some of the teeth are in envelopes, others are in those old plastic film canisters.  I have a collection of my kids’ teeth!  Now is that special, or what?

That’s not something that will ever be worth anything (unless my youngest son really does achieve his goal of becoming a famous football player, then an actor, and ending up as president of the United States), but it’s a collection that will always be valuable to me.

Fun and expense are not necessarily related

Stamp collecting and other hobbies don’t have to be expensive.  In fact, today I took my youngest son and our exchange student (from Korea) to a coin and stamp show in Raleigh, NC.  We had a great time looking through book after book of stamps, some quite rare.  The best part of the show, though, was spending an hour at the Raleigh Stamp Club’s table, featuring several large bins of stamps that kids could dig through and take anything interesting (for free!).  We got out of the stamp show having spent a total of perhaps $7 for the three of us.

Lots of something is not the same as a collection

Collections and hobbies often go hand in hand, but having lots of something does not necessarily (in my opinion) make it a collection.  We have a large assortment of musical instruments in our house; two pianos, a tuba, a trombone, a clarinet, a trumpet, two cornets, two electric guitars, and three acoustic guitars.  We’re also borrowing my brother’s ukulele.  We aren’t really collecting instruments; we just all enjoy playing music.  As a result, our house is often lively and loud, and some of our visitors collect ear plugs as a sanity retention measure.

First-time visitors to our house might also think that we collect books.  We don’t do that, really.  We just all love to read.  Books are expensive, so my wife and kids spend hours each week at the local library.  Our library has a limit of one hundred books per person at any given time.  My wife has bumped into that limit numerous times in the past few years.  Lots of books?  Yes.  A collection?  No.

We also at one time had a lot of pets — one dog, one rabbit, two gerbils, ten chickens, an aquarium with a dozen fish, and hundreds of thousands of honey bees (my wife and two kids are certified beekeepers).  Lots of critters?  Yes.  A collection?  No.

Tonight during dinner, though, my wife was joking that she’s been collecting foreign exchange students.  Our current student is the eighth we’ve had in the last five years.  It’s been delightful and fun.  Lots of students?  Yes.  A collection?  No, not really.

Intangible collections

As a dad, the only collection that really has any meaning to me now is the collection of happy memories that my wife and children and I are accumulating.  We retell stories to each other, and recently I started writing a lot of these stories down.  You can read some of my stories at http://nutuba.blogspot.com.

Whatever your motivations for collecting something are, it can be a fun educational experience.  Collecting is also something that a parent and child can do together.

Happy Collecting!

Other articles of interest

Nine Guidelines When Hosting a Foreign Student
http://www.gomestic.com/Entertaining/Nine-Guidelines-When-Hosting-a-Foreign-Student.441237

Hosting a Foreign Student
http://www.gomestic.com/Family/Hosting-a-Foreign-Student.414019

Winter Vacation on North Carolina’s Outer Banks
http://www.trifter.com/USA-&-Canada/North-Carolina/Winter-Vacation-on-North-Carolinas-Outer-Banks.441771

Seven Simple Steps Toward Beautiful Pictures with Nikon Coolpix
http://www.quazen.com/Arts/Photography/Seven-Simple-Steps-Toward-Beautiful-Pictures-with-Nikon-Coolpix.393817

Dads, Take Your Children Fishing
http://www.authspot.com/Short-Stories/Dads-Take-Your-Children-Fishing.392841

My Yamaha Tuba: Going Strong After 29 Years
http://www.musicouch.com/Instruments/Brass/My-Yamaha-Tuba-Going-Strong-After-29-Years.390071