The Collector's Bug

[Jonathan]

As an active shell collector who started when he was 3, I don't think I will ever stop. However, in the future, I may start selling things off. Anyway, I used to avidly collect CDs but have scaled this back a lot, due to financial pressures.

However, if you add to the collecting bug, the "completionist thing" as well and you have the recipe for lots of whatever it is you collect!

Having met lots of shell collectors, it does seem predominantly a male pursuit but there are notable exceptions!

[vinteuil]

As an active shell collector who started when he was 3, I don't think I will ever stop. / ... /

Having met lots of shell collectors, it does seem predominantly a male pursuit but there are notable exceptions!

... I worked for a time in Fiji: my predecessor had served in the South Pacific for a long while, and his house which I used while there bore evidence of his collecting mania. The walls on the left-hand side of the main rooms were covered by his shell collections - extraordinary cowries and many fragile fragile things I didn't recognize at all. To balance which, the right-hand walls were covered by his other obsession - hundreds of war clubs and other weapons from the Melanesian group - brutal things, the very opposite of the delicacy facing them...

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

... I worked for a time in Fiji: my predecessor had served in the South Pacific for a long while, and his house which I used while there bore evidence of his collecting mania. The walls on the left-hand side of the main rooms were covered by his shell collections - extraordinary cowries and many fragile fragile things I didn't recognize at all. To balance which, the right-hand walls were covered by his other obsession - hundreds of war clubs and other weapons from the Melanesian group - brutal things, the very opposite of the delicacy facing them...

Not a conchientious objector, then?

[vinteuil]

Not a conchientious objector, then?

... ho! ho!! ho lothuria!!!



...

[umslopogaas]

vints, I actually do know what you are referring to, but for the many forumites who probably dont, I think you should post a few enlightening words!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holothuria

[teamsaint]

.


... is there a distinction to be made between this 'easy collecting' (part-works and the like), where you just have to sign up and wait for the things to turn up (even for many years, in Alpie's case, respect ) - and what I wd consider the more demanding 'quest' collecting - where you are trying to complete sets which are no longer readily available?

In the days of many good second-hand book shops, I got great pleasure from the hunt for the 'missing volumes' I needed to complete sets - this of course became much easier (tho' perhaps less thrilling... ) with the advent of the interweb and agents such as abebooks.

O the feeling of triumph when a particular set was 'completed'! - in my case this included the Walpole correspondence, the Howe edition of Hazlitt, the Coleridge Notebooks, the Proust letters, the Henry James in the Macmillan pocket-size editions. Happy, happy days....


.

I think there is a distinction to be made between " active " partworks collection, such as actually buying with one's own money and /or assembling the things, and just being bought stuff by somebody else that arrives in the post.....

[Jonathan]

... I worked for a time in Fiji: my predecessor had served in the South Pacific for a long while, and his house which I used while there bore evidence of his collecting mania. The walls on the left-hand side of the main rooms were covered by his shell collections - extraordinary cowries and many fragile fragile things I didn't recognize at all. To balance which, the right-hand walls were covered by his other obsession - hundreds of war clubs and other weapons from the Melanesian group - brutal things, the very opposite of the delicacy facing them...

Sorry vintueil, I missed this yesterday! The main family of shells that I collect is Cowries - I don't suppose you know what happened to the collection? There are some amazing and ridiculously expensive Cowries from South Africa - sadly I only have the common ones from that locality!

[vinteuil]

Sorry vintueil, I missed this yesterday! The main family of shells that I collect is Cowries - I don't suppose you know what happened to the collection? There are some amazing and ridiculously expensive Cowries from South Africa - sadly I only have the common ones from that locality!

... my time there was back in 1987 - I think my predecessor eventually retired to the United States taking his collection with him. Cowries can indeed be amazingly beautiful, both alive with their mantles covering the shell and when dead with the shininess of the exposed shell.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

During my unpacking (which seems to go on for ever, I came across on of my other collections - the Star Folio Albums, containing a mix of well-known piano solos and duets, along with Victorian piano pieces by the likes of Sydney Smith.

There doesn't appear to be a volume 13, though there is a volume 14. I've searched high and low for this mythical thirteenth volume, and can find zero evidence it ever having existed, I can only assume the publisher thought this number might not sell well. However, this kind of Mahlerian superstition doesn't really work when the total number of volumes in the set is, er... 13.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Why, oh why does Frau Alpensinfonie want me to store my complete collection of Private Eye annuals in the loft?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Why, oh why does Frau Alpensinfonie want me to store my complete collection of Private Eye annuals in the loft?

... especially when you've just moved into a bungalow!

[Richard Tarleton]

Why, oh why does Frau Alpensinfonie want me to store my complete collection of Private Eye annuals in the loft?

some helpful stuff here alpie. Explain that it's a fire risk, they'll get damp.....Get technical

Worse, they'll never be looked at again .

Do you have a separate cloakroom/loo? Surely this is the place for Private Eye annuals - floor to ceiling bookshelves, ideal for leisurely, uninterrupted visits.....

[David-G]

My bookshelf space is being remorsely eaten away by my collection of Glyndebourne Programme Books, each a rather substantial volume. I have them all from the first in 1951. This year is the 65th.

[umslopogaas]

Rather late in life I have started to collect Collins New Naturalist books. I had one or two for many years, but recently the local secondhand bookshop acquired a large collection and I bought the lot. There is a total of about 120 and I now have about half of them. Getting the other half will be quite a challenge.