Are you a collector?

[Tollers-n-Dobes]

I'm not much of a collector. If I see something Toller related, I'll buy it, but besides that I don't really collect anything. When I was younger I had a lot of orca stuff (blankets, posters, stuffed animals mainly) but I didn't purposely collect them - people just knew I loved orcas and whenever they saw something related to them, they'd get it for me just because they didn't know what else to get me/what I liked..

[Vette]

*cough* FOXY *cough*

But I do that, too, Vette.

You know me too well LOL

[wombat2u2004]

I collect keychains. I probably have over 150 now. It all started when my son went to Germany for his senior class trip. He traveled to the city of his birth and brought back a keychain. After that whenever someone went some where they brought me one. Since both of my boys were in the military, AF and Navy they collected quite a few. I have a friend who travels a lot she is a Capt in the Army she never fails to buy me two or three. I ask people all the time for keychains, neighbors, friends, co-workeres, business associates. Everyone has been really cool about it. I have almost all of the 50 states (I have a lot of doubles as well) and a some from the Middle East. I have Germany, Paris, Iceland, Italy, Bostwana, Ireland, El Salvador, Canada, Scotland, Australia, Hong Kong, (which is a tiny elephant) and many many more. I had them on three different cork boards in our hallway and everyone who came into the house always loved looking at them and adding to the collection.

151 soon.

[wombat2u2004]

I collect fossils. And have about 3500 in my collection.
My latest find, was a dinosaur crap.....it even has little bits of undigested bone in it. Really interesting. But they don't gather dust....I poke at them and look at them with magnifying glasses and stuff.
Wombat

[Marigold2]

Can you post some pictures of your fossils? Your collection sounds incredible. So very interesting to have a true piece of dinosaur poop. Amazing. To think of how long ago that was and what the earth looked like before man. How pure the water must have been, how blue the sky, trees everywhere. Fantastic creatures roaming the plains, bigger then a whale. Flying, crawling, running, jumping across this planet. The Saber tooth tiger how I would have loved to see you. Pictures............................... John

[Suki Wingy]

I have to say I don't really collect anything but crap. I do have a whole lot of PotC stuff, some breyers, too much tack, but I guess you could call my magazine and Dover Catalog a little obsessive.

[Pembroke_Corgi]

I sort of collect scarves and jewelry. Whenever I visit somewhere, I usually end up buying one or the other. I also enjoy anything corgi-related. My brother and I have this weird thing where we exchange sugar packets from restaurants in new places, so I have a bunch of odd sugar packets in kitchen drawers, too.

[Catlady711]

I've always been an eclectic collector (meaning I collect a multitude of different stuff). I've got (had) stuffed animals (249), books, 'nostolgia' items, stuff 'just in case I might need it someday', etc.

The problem is my house is simply running out of room, doesn't help that hubby is a pack rat too. lol

Last year I read a series of books by Don Aslett (Clutters Last Stand, For Pack Rats Only, How To Lose 200 lbs This Weekend). These books helped me ALOT with learning to downsize my collecting and finally throw away some of that worthless stuff clogging up my house. I mean do I really need to keep that t-shirt from the 5th grade I decorated with markers for a project that was too small to fit me even then? NO, so now I take pictures of the really sentimential stuff (so I can look at it any time I want without having to dig through boxes in my basement to find the stuff) and pitch it out or sell it at a garage sale. I have alot more room in my house now (although I still have a LONG ways to go to declutter from my collections).

I guess by those definitions in the first post, I'm a little bit of each one of those collecting types. lol

[cassiesmom]

Pathological collecting also goes by the name compulsive hoarding. Dr. Randy Frost (professor at Smith College in Massachusetts) and Dr. Gail Steketee (professor at Boston University) are about the best known researchers and writers in this area. There are a few others "on the rise", too, but Frost and Steketee were the first. I don't hoard animals, food containers, or trash. But I have too many years of accumulated "stuff" that needs to be culled down. I would not wish compulsive hoarding on anybody, not even my worst enemy. That's my soapbox on hoarding.

[dogzr#1]

I collect PotC stuff, and probably have over 60 pieces of merchandise. I also collect PotC/ Johnny Depp pictures and have over 500 of those.

I ALSO collect stuffed animals, although not as much as I used to. I have near 200 of them now, and have kept some for 10 years or more. I know they take up a lot of space in my room, but I just can't sell them or anything.

[Rachel]

When I was a youngster (a long time ago) I had a collection of little dog figurines. Most were china, but I did have some metal and wood ones too. They meant a lot to me and as an adult I wanted to pass them on to dog loving children. Today's kids seem to have such an abundance of stuff that I don't think the little dogs had much meaning to the recipients.

As an adult, I have not really *collected* anything. I do like teapots and there is a certain type of ceramic I would like to acquire some pieces, but I doubt that I would want any more than 5 of anything. Guess I don't have the collector mentality anymore. I still think that my little dog collection and that it really didn't have any importance to anyone else made an impression on me.