What do People Collect?

I was watching TV news the other day and the program had a short blurb about a man who collected the button panels from inside of elevators. He had some from all over the world. It showed him going into an outside storage shed you commonly see along a highway inside of a security fence. Elevator panels must be a high-value item.

Seriously though, it got me to thinking about what people do collect and more specifically, what have I collected, and do I still collect anything. I searched for “what do people collect” on Google. Boy, what a find! People collect almost anything. I found sites that listed and showed everything from belly button fuzz to banana stickers to back scratchers. The following site is worth visiting: http://www.atchuup.com/weirdest-collection-of-things-ever/

Of course, there were the normal things most people collect. Usually, the first one is coins. Stamps are always high on the list, as are comic books, rocks, marbles, dolls, and baseball cards.

Talking to my brother on Skype Sunday, he told me that he collects jade donkeys. He only has six, but that still counts as a collection. Here are two of the nicest.

Looking at the lists I found online, I realized I have collected many of the items. Some of them I didn’t really consider a collection until I thought about it. A collection is defined by Dictionary.com as “something that is collected; a group of objects or an amount of material accumulated in one location, especially for some purpose or as a result of some process.”

That said, my childhood collections consisted primarily of stamps, coins, plastic airplane models, matchbook covers, baseball cards, and marbles. I read comic books but didn't collect them.

What do I collect now? To be continued…

(TNR 12)