Awesome stuff guys. I love reading about this.
@ SD
I think it is so interesting how your dad pokes fun at you and your mom for your collections, when the reality is, as you say, that his collection is ultimately no different. I mean, I suppose some things that people collect, like art work or real meteorites, could strongly be argued to have more value than bottles or 80's toys, but really a collection is a collection.
This is the idea I'm thinking about right now: what comes first, the chicken or the egg. Do we collect something because it really attracts us, or do we have an urge to collect, so then we unconsciously find something to collect, be it bottles, video games, or toys?
It's kind of like TV watching. Lots of us are compelled to sit and watch TV for hours, but we all watch different shows. Lots of us are compelled to collect, but we all collect different things.
As to family members who collect, my dad has always collected stuff. Baseball hats, baseball and football cards, Star Wars toys, matchboxes, and now bottles. I too collect. Is it a learned behavior modelled by my father or is it more likely that I simply have the same "collecting gene" that my father has?
@ Dexes
Very interesting. Thanks for sharing. The concept of Identity marking is very interesting. I wonder where that fits into the coping collecting/hobby collecting and nostalgia collecting. It's kinda both. It's nostalgia because it reminds you of your brother
and it makes you feel better. Of course, not everyone engages in "identity marking" when a precious loved one passes, so I wonder if you would have ended up being a collector even were your brother alive today.
As far as the following, you are right on the money!
The items that we collect are not the work of passionate artists who love their craft. It's sleazy businesspeople laughing at our tastes as they make their boat payments. They are LAUGHING at us, they think what we're doing is ultra lame but they like that we do it because it pays off their mortgages on their Hollywood estates.
Catchy slogans work. Collect 'em all! Gotta catch 'em all! Why do you exactly NEED them all. I'm certain that you don't WANT them all. We've just been conned into thinking we need them. The unfortunate thing is now that I have it all, I can't, in good conscience, dump it on someone else because I know it will just be ballast in their life.
And as bad as they are, I read an article about how Hallmark is even worse. There are millions of women waiting anxiously to buy every single cheap, machine pressed ornament that Hallmark pumps out. They even have pre-release preview shows for these shizznitty things. There are also all those crappy little "cottages" things that woman collect.
It truly is a multi-million dollar industry. However, I tend not to think it's these companies creating awesome products that compel is to buy them. I don't even think it's nostalgia. I think nostalgia is part of it, but not the main driving force. There is no nostalgia involved in woman buying ornament after ornament or Beany Baby after Beany Baby.
What these business men have tapped into is an innate human urge to collect things. Smart business man and woman have fully taken advantage of this. It didn't happen over night, but it is in full effect these days. I just made an entry on Toypedia about
Garbage Can-dy. It's little candies that come in tiny, plastic cans. The makes, Topps, had the foresight to make the cans in different colors. Boom. Instantly collectible. You've just given your customers a reason to come back for more, to get the other cans.
These days, we even have toy companies creating figures that are artificially common, uncommon, and rare. On the one hand, it can be looked at as the company making the toy line more fun and exciting to collect, but on the other hand, it's just a way to make collectors who are a slave to their own urges put out more money.
I think the answer is that collectors simply have to be aware. That's where the reflection comes in. Why do I collect? For fun! Do I really, really need to be all these shizznitty ass toys they keep pumping out? No. I'll collect toys that are truly good quality and that I truly like.
Something else for collectors to consider is do I collect items that were specifically created to be collected, or is it more fun and rewarding to collect items that are created with something other than collecting in mind like, say, bottles. (Although I'm sure now certain bottles are now made with bottle collectors in mind.)
Or, yes, I do like the challenge of getting all the figures in a series... but I'll do it on my terms and I'll choose a toy line that is affordable and easy to collect, but not so easy to collect that it's not a fun challenge. While pretty much all toy lines were designed to be collectible, there certainly is a difference between collecting MUSCLE men and "collecting" modern day MOTU.
Edited by Soupie, 10 October 2010 - 06:32 AM.