Ask any of your family members if they ever collected anything. I am sure that their reply will be positive. And if you are lucky enough – they will show you their old collection. It can be anything: coins, postmarks, flowers, dried butterflies, etc. It looks great, let’s be honest. Besides, the personal collection can become a great conversation starter when speaking to strangers in the airplane or train.
So what’s the deal with all this collector’s stuff? Why do people start collecting things and does it bring anything in response to the high investment and dedication levels?
The personal origin of collecting
When attending a job interview back in the days, I was always asked the same question: “Can you name your hobby?”. Could I? Not always. I mean, I managed to find a reply, but it was not always exact and did not place me in the line of an interesting person with his unique hobby, and that definitely made me upset. Having people around who used to collect different things like collector’s edition game and movie DVD’s, they used to share their stories, attend club meetings, trade and make friends locally and outside.
I might surprise you, saying that I managed to find my own hobby only 2 months ago.
I started collecting playing cards.
Going back, its hard to explain how did this idea come to my head, since I was never interested that much in the cards. The idea came overnight after browsing around the internet when I came across one of the playing cards manufacturers. I browsed around the decks they offered, and well, I fell in love with the design (damn you, Theory11).
For me, every deck was like a small piece of art, with a unique idea behind every card.
This is the moment my love for collecting started.
Needless to say, on the same week I backed up 3 campaigns on Kickstarter, one of them offered a limited number of 1000 decks printed only.
Moving away from the personal stories, my idea is to let you understand that if you are still a young person, looking for his own place and still trying to understand himself, don’t rush, after time you will find something you like and desire to collect different types, shapes, colors of this thing will prevail.
Common sense in collecting
As I mentioned before, being a collector means spending a lot of time, effort and most important – money, in order to grow your collection and obtain valuable pieces.
Initially, on your collector’s journey, you might go crazy and try to obtain as many different pieces as possible, which can hit your wallet pretty hard (again, depending on the things you want to collect). In order to avoid financial difficulties, it is important to cut the small portion of your budget and dedicate it strictly to your hobby.
As another option, you can divide your collector’s journey by the periods of time. Meaning, if you know that your local shop has 5 playing card decks you want to obtain, but buying 5 of them at once might be a little bit expensive, you can divide the purchase by getting 1 deck every month until you finish your current desired collection. If you have a higher income, you can cut it to 1 deck/week. Still better than spending money at once.
Another positive aspect of the second option is that you can keep your interest heated since you will lose all the taste of collecting desire once you get your collections in bulk in 1 purchase.
In general, these were my personal tips I took from my own experience. Being a collector is a great hobby, which can further on lead you to something more (collecting vintage cars?).
It is indeed a great conversation starter and allows you to develop yourself as an interesting person since you will have a desire to learn more about your area of interest, study the origins and in perspective – interact with other people having the same hobby, participating in trades, and becoming an expert in your field.
Thinking ahead in the future, imagine the face of your child when you will finally pass your decades-long collection to his legacy!
