I may have mentioned here before that I am something of a purger-of-things–always gleaning my closet, always weirdly pleased when I use up the last little squirt or scrape of lotion or jam and can recycle the container. I think it’s a function of having moved quite a bit. Or possibly its a counterweight to The Dude’s hoardy tendencies.
Anyway, when I went home to see family around Labor Day, I spent about two long days in MamaDork’s basement, going through old papers and boxes of mine, looking for things to trash, recycle, or donate, so as to make room for stuff that Mama and her new husband (Mr. Mama?) decide to keep as they combine their households.
I was pretty ruthless with my stuff–getting rid of 75% of it, I’d say–and I slipped some junk of BroDork’s out, too (faded photocopies of Dungeons & Dragons manuals from 1984? SRSLY?). But really, it’s like trying to hold back the tide, because both Mama and Mr. Mama have lifetimes of crap that they’re having some difficulty winnowing. Some of it is decent crap, comparatively speaking (Lladro porcelain figurines), and some is just crap-crap (approximately one beeeeellion old popcorn tins, warped Tupperware). But both of them, it seems, are collectors.
To which I reply: UGH. With the exception of books, which are both aesthetically pleasing and practical, if you read or consult them repeatedly (as I do), I am not a collector. As a kid I was. I collected everything. Stuffed animals, bottle caps, shells, stones, buttons, posters of sexy bands or musicals I loved, tote bags, et cetera. Ad nauseum. Years of moving (only once with the help of burly professionals) and trying to find places to stow my junk in increasingly smaller apartments has convinced me that “stuff” does not mean “safety” or “comfort” or “happiness,” but rather “hassle,” “upkeep,” and “likely to be ruined by cats.” And so I’m constantly weeding.
Which is not to say that I completely unattached to things. (Lay a finger on my beautiful, cobalt blue Kitchen Aid stand mixer, I dare you.) I daydream about Tiny Houses, but I don’t think I’ll ever get to that point. At the same time, I think some collections are pretty fantastic: beautiful, meaningful, silly, or charming.
So this week’s FFT is about what, if anything, you collect. Matchbooks? Pint glasses? Jewelry? Commemorative thimbles or spoons? Ticket stubs? And if you’re a collector, how do you engage with your collection? Do you go to conventions, scour eBay for rare items, lovingly dust and arrange your things? Are they on display, for use, or only for private enjoyment? Bonus points for the most eccentric collection (by general acclaim). Show and tell! Show and tell!
P.S. I’m working on a money collection, but it’s not going very well.
Living in NYC has definitely curbed my collector tendencies. If I lived in a big house with a library, I’d keep my books, but now nearly all of them get passed on or donated, because books take up WAY too much space (and are heavy as hell when packed in moving boxes).
My maternal grandmother, of extremely blessed memory, was a prolific collector of teacups. Not full tea sets, mind you, just beautifully matched tea cup/saucer combos from various high-end designers, as well as kitschy royal wedding cups. There are two beautiful floor-to-ceiling glass display cases in her home full of these cups. There is some apprehension in the family that when Grandpa dies, we are finally going to have to figure out what to do with all those cups! (She passed me all the royal wedding china before her Alzheimer’s got too bad, and I not only love them, but have added to the collection. If you want to sip tea—or whatever—from a Charles & Di or Kate & Wills teacup, come to my house).
I collect weird religious kitschy things (nun in a snowglobe, glow in the dark jesus pencil toppers, etc) and wooden toucans. My sister also collects wooden toucans, only because one year we both randomly bought each other almost-identical toucan figurines for Christmas and have carried on ever since! I also have a fair bit of Moomin paraphernalia, and while I don’t collect plasticine animals, I do make them so kind of collect them by default because I can never bear to squish them and make something else!
My mother is a shocking hoarder and I do have tendencies that way. I am quite brutal with myself though, since her house got out of control when she was ill a few years back and we had to really blitz it. I saw the future and didn’t like it!
I get rid of almost everything. Limited living space means purging is required. So that means that I collect jars and boxes and tins and other containers. Because I can store this-n-that neatly, I think to myself.
So every so often I have to purge the containers too.
As a child I collected marbles and picture of owls and until I was 26, I owned about 15 books and took them with me through many house moves. I haven’t moved house for 4 years and now I collect vintage cookbooks – I have about 25. I started buying them because I thought they were funny or liked the pictures, and when I owned about 5, a like-minded friend said to me ‘You know we’re always buying old cookbooks and laughing at them? Well, I thought we could try actually cooking some things from them and blogging the results’. Most of mine are from charity shops, some are inherited from family, some were presents. I don’t use Ebay because there is too much choice and I can’t flip through and check I’m not buying a bunch of recipes I already have.
Best recent find was a 1955 Puerto Rican cookbook (by two Puerto Rican home economists) from a secondhand bookshop in Inverness. (Leakeys – it is the bookshop of your dreams and I commend it to any Harpy who finds herself in that part of Scotland.) It contains recipes for almond milk icecream, buñuelos and arepas, which will make a change from trifle, scones and chicken pie. Occasionally publishers send us reprinted cookbooks for review, which is very nice, though less exciting than rifling through a stack of romance novels and stumbling across something wonderful for £2.00, that I later discover is £35 a copy on Ebay (another reason not to use it).
Not sure of the line between show-and-tell and rampant self-promotion, but I’ll risk it – link from username.
Can one collect consumables? I don’t have strong collector tendencies, but do have a rather large collection of bath products and perfumes, and a large collections of teas, spices, obscure foodstuffs, etc. I guess it’s not quite the same, since they get used up, but ever so often I do have to go cold turkey on buying and use up my supplies.
My mom collects vases. I don’t actively collect them, but have a small collection due to her garage sale habits.
I’m a quilter, so fabric is both collectible and useful. I’m a sucker for bright, unusual prints.
I have my favorite books on the shelf, but stopped collecting all but my favorite series… library is amazing, so I now just have books that I have because I love them so much, everything else has been cleaned out.
Christmas ornaments, albeit a very slow collection. Each year I buy something relating to a place the family has been, or the kids make one each. Our tree is like a family history, with ornaments going back to ones my grandmother bought for us when we were kids, all the way to ornaments my children made. None of them are those kitschy plastic ones, they are things like a keychain turned ornament for the Vancouver aquarium, or a golden door plate cover replica from the Iolani Palace in Hawaii.
Plum-Pie you have officially made my day! Yay to your collection!
@Plum-Pie: Have you read Allegra Goodman’s “The Cookbook Collector”? I liked it and it might resonate with you.
@Es: If you want religious kitsch, just drop by your local women’s clinic one Saturday. If there are anti-choice protesters, they’ll have the full range of Chinese-made plastic rosaries, plastic fetus dolls, tasteless t-shirts, statues of saints, and even large crosses to be carried around on the sidewalk. It’s quite a sight.
I have about a dozen kaleidoscopes. Mr MM likes to buy them for me. I don’t often add to the collection because they tend to be pricey and once you cover the basic designs, it’s hard to find something unusual.
Mr MM never throws anything out. It drives me nuts. He’s a software guy, and we have hardware from when he was in grad school in the ’80′s and punch cards from his undergraduate classes and 30 year old tech journals that were outdated the day they were published. We visited the Computer History Museum in Mountain View recently, and it felt very much like our attic, except less dusty and with better lighting.
Rodriguez – thank you!
Mischief Manager – No, I haven’t. I certainly will now though.
@Plum-Pie: I love that website! The cookbooks are so much fun. The next time I’m in London, we should have a dinner party! Does your collection include any of the many self-published Junior League or church cookbooks from the American South? I absolutely love reading through those. They’re full of recipes like “Mrs. James Dudley Randolph’s Fancy Chicken Casserole with Noodles.”
Plum-Pie: love your blog! I love the captions on the finished products, lol
I have some cookbooks from the 50′s, nothing ridiculous, but the Betty Crocker, and a series of pamphlet books called “365 ways to cook…” one for potatoes, chicken beef, some other stuff. I find them quite useful when I want something my grandmother used to cook, and none of the modern recipes seem right.
My grandmother had so many church assembled cookbooks, it wasn’t funny. @Becky, yes, the names of the recipes are hilarious in those types of cookbooks.
As a child, I collected the plastic lids from gallons of milk. I was fascinated (for some reason) by the fact that different brands and different types of milk (skim, whole, etc.) had different colors, and that these colors changed over time. My interest has died, but my box of milk lids still lives at my parents’ house.
Now, I guess I collect a variety of things – the most interesting to me is the free bibles I get from those annoying-but-also-amusing street preachers. I always take one or two when they offer them because I have a weird sense of humor.
I don’t collect anymore, but when my parents moved to another country this year, I took back my childhood eraser collection. And my monchchis. And my Smurfs. And Holly Hobbie. And Strawberry Shortcake dolls. The ’80s are alive and well at my house now!
@Plum-Pie – I love your collection too!
Mr. FourEleven collects miniature figures, but we’re stumped on the best way to display them. Also, they draw a lot of criticism and contempt from others who believe that men “shouldn’t collect toys,” but we’ve ignored that since we’re in the mindset of “This is our house; we can do what we want.”
I’ve been using this house tour from Apartment Therapy as inspiration: http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/chicago/house-tours/sara-jasons-terrific-toytastic-house-house-tour-144580
Eyeshadow and lipgloss/lipstick. I have never done the same look twice.
Masks from places we have been to if there is a local tradition of masks or totemic figures… we counted Greek dramatic masks too, and a carnival masque from Venice, so obviously we have used the definition loosely in places. We are scaring our enemies and driving away evil in our family room, that’s for sure.
My partner is strongly anti-clutter, from watching his parents I suspect, and it helps me. I have a lot of books, but other objects I can keep under control. Oh, except notebooks… if it’s under $10, and it’s been “a while”, it’s an allowable impulse buy for me.
I collect things that invariably become cat toys and get destroyed. Such is my lot in life. But they’re too lovey and funny for me to stay mad. So basically I collect bills.