A Foray into the World* of the Modern Collector

I've been looking at packaging for Combat Cards, which means surfing for boxes and finding more than I bargained for, like this ebay page instructing one in the best method to store valuable card collections. Note the Pokemon expansion pack pictured, with the exhortation, " Now watch money roll in!!!"

I've always collected things in a very mild, artistic-research way, however my tastes run to things like squashed pencils found in the street, Things Shaped Like Houses**, souvenirs, doll shoes***, and weird old pre-1965 glasses that have things like Havana and Santa Anna Bowling Lanes printed on them. There is nowhere to buy special plastic boxes made especially for Things Shaped Like Houses, and no one has ever, I would wager, said, "Collect squashed pencils - then watch the money roll in!!!"

In common with everyone else, I collected rocks when I was a child, and my oldest possesion is a rock. It's quartz - a small brick-sized thing, and is sitting on my hall table. I tend to stick with things ;-D

Truthfully I haven't added to any collections in years; at some point just seeing a pencil in the street, squashed, and noting its shape, length, condition, characteristics, was enough. I didn't need to bring it home. Bringing things home wore off for me long ago; perhaps it does for everyone.

On my travels I did find THIS though - billed as "GIANT microbes."

* I was going to say 'anal-retentive world" but decided not to be so mean. One can see by the photograph that I've nothing to feel superior about.
**For instance a workman gave me a wooden peg that had been used to lay out the new Wa He Lut after the old was washed away in a flood. It's a pointed stick, so turn it upside down and it's shaped like a house.
*** Less a collection than the accidental acquisition of a few pairs.

Labels: Combat Cards, Dept. of Short Drives, Disjointed Thoughtlets