On the drive home from Betty’s house, I started thinking about all the assorted collections I have had in my lifetime. When I was a youngster, I collected dog figurines; I had about fifty of them when my interest turned to stuffed animals. Bedtime became a nightly ritual of clearing the bed to make room to climb in and the morning ritual of putting them back usually made me late for school. After a year or so, I donated all my stuffed buddies to the Shriners Children’s Hospital.
During my teenage years, a friend got me interested in stamp collecting, and I in turn got my Dad hooked on philately. (Don’t you just love that word?) I also collected Beatle records, oh how I wish I still had them, I probably could retire on their value!
Over the next forty years I have collected, not at the same time; cats, wolves, WW2 memorabilia, foreign money, Pairpoint Cup Plates and cobalt blue glass. Not to mention the accumulation of things that I didn’t purposely collect, like ticket stubs, 45 rpm records, shoes and such.
When I married my husband, he came with a collection of dragons, when my parents passed on, I inherited their collections.
There reaches a point in life, for many of us, when we have to downsize. A time to part with items packed away, perhaps for so long, we forget we had them! A time for someone else to provide a good home and dust enjoy.
All my collections have been sold or given away, except one…for over ten years, I have collected sheep. No, not real sheep and not cutesy sheep…they are more primitive and folk art sheep; and because they are not easy to find, my collection is a reasonable size. I can’t think of anything else I want to collect except maybe time and money!
What do you collect?
17 comments:
Afraid the answer is too much! Mostly, it falls under the heading of junk, closely follwed by those 'things-that-might-come-in-handy'. LOL
Oh I love to collect things and have many collections. Here are a some of them.
Old Planters
FiestaWare
Old kitchen utensils
Round paper weights
Bottles
Clear glass banks
Cookie Cutters
Actually I like anything old.
Its fun to collect things and I love it all. It would be very hard to part with any of them.
You are a real collector: so many different ones at different times. I'm not one, but of course living causes one to accumulate things you can't throw out. I have a "memories" drawer with old love letters, pictures of family from days gone by, and cards and notes from people over the years. It goes back 50 years, and when we moved up here, I simply packed it all up and one day I went through it. I wistfully threw absolutely nothing out but loved looking through it.
I also have a massive collection of pictures and negatives from the days we did such things. I know have maybe fifty pounds of them, and another 2 Gigabytes stored...
Christmas films! I've only got about 125 right now and could double that number if only I could play the American dvd's on my player!!! Perhaps it's a good thing I can't. It's costing me enough as it is...
I collect dust..does that count?
Seriously I collect marbles, calendars, dishes, old kitchen ware..games, books, old photos, and lots of weird stuff that I could be the only person that would appreciate it. I need to down size too..some of it should just go.. My husband collects Cobalt blue items and Forest Green too. :)
I've collected wooden boxes, heart shaped rocks, old antique bottles, and I would have to admit to saving every greeting card that I've ever received, I also have many of my mother's and mother-in-law's cards, some are over 50 years old. I have a few tins too!
Funny that you should mention the Beatles, ny grandson and I are listening to a Beatles album as I write.
I enjoy collecting alphabet books, Cinderella stories from different cultures, vintage glass flowers, vintage glass flower pins, skeleton keys, and vintage pink floral dinnerware. And I'm sure that's an incomplete list.
I once had a friend ask me, "What don't you collect?!" Oh yeah, I have several cobalt blue glass birds...and I've gathered a few pieces of white milk glass...hmmm,
I have several nativity sets...
Maybe she's right!
Blessings!
I collect angels also, Sunny, but my collection is only a Christmas collection ---that I keep put away during the year (except at Christmas).
I have a cross collection on my wall. My hubby collect stamps... AND we both have oodles of CD's. He still has lots of old 'records'--33 1/3 vinyl kind.
Great post.
Hugs,
Betsy
It is amazing to read how many bloggers are collectors. Like you I had childhood collectionsbut now I would like to sell them but not sure how to o about it yet until I do some research. I collected stamps, coins, postcards, bookmarks, crystal figurines and frogs of all kinds. But I don't want to collect anymore. I sent my bookmarks to a blogger who collects them so that is one down.
Great post as usual.
I use to collect foxes till I realized that as long as I lived, that would be the only present I would ever get. Socks and underwear could be in tatters but I would still only receive cute foxes as gifts.
Since I told all that I finally had enough foxes, it is again fun to open a present.
I am an inveterate collector and my collections range from the sublime (postcards, banknotes) to the plainly ridiculous (lamp-post numbers). There is something about collecting which is almost wired-in to my personality. I even "collect" good blogs. Yours, of course, is amongst this latter collection.
Hi Everyone,
Thanks for sharing your collections, I'm having a lot of fun reading your lists.
I did forget to mention that I also collect 'weird' things, like ash from Mount St Helens, lava rock from Idaho and such. I also save certain things but I don't really consider that collecting!
Sunny :)
I collect stamps, books and music. I keep thinking that 'some day' I'll have time to mount the stamps, read the books and listen to the music. I have a couple hundred LPs that I'm slowly converting to digital format. I wonder if I'll get it done before something better comes along?
Thank you for finding my Journal. I know what you mean about downsizing. We could outfit The Volunteers of America.. Don't feel guilty about not being full of Christmas spirit. The older we get, the less we need and expect. My favorite part of the season is being with friends. You have a great blog.
I've collected snow babies - statues of babies with "snow" on them. I love snowmen and I have lots of snowmen ornaments. I also try to buy an ornament from all the different places we travel to.
Post a Comment