What do you collect?

[barq]

Some of us have have growing bike collections and endless boxes of bike parts (well they'll all be useful one day won't they? ), but what else do you collect and why? Might be interesting to attach or post a link to pictures if you can (instructions here if you need 'em).

Right I'm off to take some photos. Back in a bit...

 

[Fab Foodie]

Apart from dust and clutter, I've never got into collecting...ever. That the number of bikes owned is increasing is more down to enjoying different forms cycling and different steeds to play on.

 

[marinyork]

I seem to be collecting Dover/Dover Thrift books. They offer classics (non literature is what I mean) at very cheap prices.

 

[beanzontoast]

I don't collect anything to do with bikes, or anything else in quantity. Our house has enough junk in it already! I'm even digitising all the family photos (from the past 70 years - relatives keep giving them to us) so that we can print off what we want to display in albums and reduce the piles of the old ones waiting to be gone through.

 

[EmGee DK]

I don't collect either... but the stack of old PC's, monitors, routers, printers etc. has reached a point where it's embarrassing not to mention depressing to think of how much I paid to get it compared to what its worth today.

 

[mickle]

Postcards and greetings cards. Over 3000 at last count. All featuring cycles.

 

[Renard]

Injuries

 

[Speicher]

You are not the only one collecting those.

You have my sympathy and comiserations.

 

[Renard]

It is mutual

 

[barq]

I don't collect stuff in a methodical 'must own every issue/version of x, y and z' sort of way. It starts out with me buying something and after a few years I realise I've got a load of items in a certain field and it becomes a collection. I needed to make more space earlier this year so a lot of the computer graveyard got junked or given away. I know what you mean EmGee DK, some of that stuff cost a packet back in the day. Anyway here are three things which I think count as collections:

1. Records. I suppose most of us own a music collection, but I love the physicality of mine because so much of it is on vinyl from when I used to DJ. It weighs a ton but I'd never sell it, some records would be hard to replace. I'm slowing making high quality digital copies.

2. Swords. A bit of an odd one for me because I'm a lefty-liberal-pacifist. I used to do quite a lot of theatre so I first encountered them as stage props. A friend's father use to forge swords for film and TV (he made the Braveheart sword) and that made me interested in their production. I bought a (fake) samurai sword in France and then a sabre at a theatrical suppliers in Camden. They were kind of the equivalent of a £100 Halfords mountain bike. Later I started buying better quality (the bottom two in the photo are real hand forged swords). My interest is in the metallurgy and mythology rather than their use. I think they look beautiful but I've put them away now for obvious reasons of safety (I don't trust visitors not to do foolish things like testing how sharp they are).

3. Herbs and spices. I think my two shelves of herbs and spices now count as a collection. I'm a keen cook and a good range of flavours is essential. Ok it isn't like stamp collecting, but I use them every day.

 

[barq]

Postcards and greetings cards. Over 3000 at last count. All featuring cycles.

3000! Now that's a collection!

I saw a postcard the other day of Marcel Duchamp's Bicycle Wheel at Tate Modern. Do you have that? If not I'll try and pick one up for you next time I'm there.

 

[mickle]

3000! Now that's a collection!

I saw a postcard the other day of Marcel Duchamp's Bicycle Wheel at Tate Modern. Do you have that? If not I'll try and pick one up for you next time I'm there.

Why thank you very much indeed in anticipation! I'm sure I don't have it.

 

[buggi]

i have lots of sea shells in my bathroom. well, i say lots, probably about 12. it started when my brother bought me a huge one from corfu for my birthday and a few people have given me really nice ones since. not the kind you find on the beach (altho there are a couple in there) but mostly the nice big ones you have to buy.

the other thing is, i do like teddies, but they have to have a bit of an unusual face. more like baloo type face than the classic look. can't resist em if i see em.

 

[barq]

Why thank you very much indeed in anticipation! I'm sure I don't have it.

As a fellow wheel nerd this might make you laugh: When I saw it in Tate Modern something about the rim looked wrong for 1913. Turned out Duchamp had to re-create it in 1964 as the original was lost.

Anyway PM me your address and I'll sort you out a copy at some point.

 

[Speicher]

I have got lots of teddies from very large to teeny weeny. I try now to just buy very unusual ones, and however small they are they must have movable arms and legs, and nice faces.

I also collect foreign tins. The more unusual the better. One is from a shipping line, and has a clock on the front of it, another is a Brazilian cigar tin. The strange thing about this is that in Sweden for instance, I found some tins with Italian names, Iceland had one with African theme. I have some with German names, and lots of French ones. Not sure how many, perhaps I should go and count them. They are lightweight to bring back from holidays, and usually inexpensive if found in second hand shops, or in shops selling coffee.

Sometimes, unfortunately, the nicest ones, have expensive chocolates in them, so I have to make the sacrifice and eat the chocc/biscuits.