Featured How Long Have You Been Collecting?

I caught the collecting bug in my teens (2004ish) when my family started going to estate auctions looking for some cheap household goods. That slowly turned into bidding on other items that caught my eye like coins and art pottery.

So I've been collecting for 14 years now, although the 1st couple of years weren't really that serious. I've really taken my knowledge to a new level due to the internet and forums such as these.

How long have you been collecting?

 

My jewelry collecting started at a young age. My mother wore a lot of costume jewelry, and when I was ill (which was frequently as a child), she let me sit in bed and play with her jewelry box.. My favorite aunt always wore a lot of costume sets, too. I started collecting at a local flea market as soon as I was old enough to drive, age 17, so that makes 42 years. One of my best Christmas presents comes from my family not having enough money for Christmas for my sister and me. My dad only had $10 a piece for us back in the 60s. My mom made this very special. She took us to Lee Jewelers in Pleasantville, NJ, and she had them bring out trays of rings for us to look at (birthstone rings, alexandrite purple spinels for June.) We were so excited and felt all grown up. I guess this has always stayed with me.

 

I still have my ring.

 

I've collected dust most of my life. My late dad was a train collector, and a stamp collector. and a dust collector. I didn't start collecting as much as started having things collect around me. My first jewelry purchase I can remember was a fundraiser cat pendant from Ghana or Nigeria (I forget which) when I was 10. I still wear it sometimes. It didn't really start accumulating until about 10 years ago.

 

I was about 10 , and I bought a figurine of a boy with a horse and a dog ,made in occupied Japan . It was a quarter , and I had to have it as Id just read a book about an english boy who lived in a run down mansion and had a horse and a dog ! I still have it , and Im still buying stuff !

 

I've been into antiques since I was 5 or 6. Used to visit all the antiques shops in my area and go to the local flea-market every Sunday (still do).

I've been COLLECTING and RESTORING officially, since I graduated highschool in 2005, and had more time to dedicate to that stuff.

 

Hi,
Well turning 80 a few weeks ago I began thinking of when I started to "collect" stuff. My first purchase was a clock when I was 11. I had to work for the lady for a few weeks to pay for it. I still have it. So I have been collecting for 74 years and buying for 69 years.
greg

 

I have been collecting since the early to mid 1990's just in a very small way to begin with, As my knowledge grew and the wherewithal to purchase more the obsession grew, So many things have come and gone over the years, Through the years though my love for sewing antiques has never diminished, I still get excited when I see a stall with sewing accessories.

 

I started collecting at an early age. I was given a ship in a bottle by a family friend when I was 3 or 4 and it was my prized possession. By the time I was 5 or 6, I had amassed a pretty good collection of rocks, shells, and anything else that caught my fancy. Collected anything science related. Had a Crookes radiometer, one of those bobbing glass bird things, magnets, and a pretty good blob of mercury. I started making model birds that came in kits and learned all about them. I began collecting their bird nests and egg shells. I searched high (literally) and low for various examples. Collected butterflies, other insects, and learned how to mount them.

My grandparents had a house full of antiques and we went down and liquidated their house when I was 14. My parents kept a lot of things but most were liquidated at auction. I was pretty enthralled by the process. I brought home a few things including an old bed in pieces that no one wanted. It was my first restoration project. By the time I was 18 and on my own, I began attending auctions. Soon after, I started buying with an eye to selling. The rest is history.......

I still have some of the rocks I collected at a very early age, some of the antiques I got from my grandparent's house, and have inherited more. The ship in a bottle got lost in a move very early on. I bought a replacement not all that many years ago but I don't know how it compares to the original one. For some reason, the details are a bit fuzzy after all these years.

 

I pretty much grew up with early American antiques.....think I've said before my Mom was the avid collector.....so they were pretty much always a part of my life. Much more so as we aged as she just kept collecting and not selling (or VERY RARELY!!!)!! So, I do LOVE antiques, just rarely found the need to BUY them!!!!! But when I did, it WAS so much fun!!!! Guess I missed out on the "fun of the chase" a lot of times!!!!

I have to add that Mom was also able to pretty much furnish the three of us, that married, with as much of a houseful of antiques as we desired!!!!! And I have to admit.......we all desired!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

I started collecting in the 1950s aged about 12. It was not long after silver 3d bits and farthings (1/4 pennies) more or less stopped circulating. The 3d bit had been replaced by a bronze coin for almost 20 years but silver 3d turned up pretty often.

I'd take maybe a couple of shillings pocket money and go round all the local shops in my small town asking if they had any farthings or silver 3d bits in their tills. Any they had I would buy at face value, so for a shilling I could accumulate 48 farthings or 4 3d. After I got near to complete sets back to late Victorian times, I'd just keep on searching and upgrade any I already had, as better examples came along. Neither coin had ever been much used, so it was not all that hard to assemble what now I'd call very fine to extremly fine sets. Since the surplus farthings and 3d bits simply got recycled as money, the total cost was about 2 shillings for about 100 years of farthings, rather more for the 3d's but I'd get given some by people to help out.
It was quite a healthy hobby as it meant a fair amount of cycling to find unplundered shops. A bonus was the odd foreign coins that the shopkeepers would give me for nothing to get rid of them. Some shopkeepers would give me the coins I wanted for nothing as well. Maybe they thought I was a sweet kid or something. Or they just took pity on me. Who knows?

I have no idea now what happened to the coins I accumulated, probably sold them later to buy an old gun or a motorbike or something, but the lust to accumulate stuff never went away, even if at times I had to sell off my stuff to lighten the load for moving on.

Nowadays I try to confine my purchases to silver, (for my Hoard) coins and banknotes. All small stuff that's easily salable when I'm dead.

Of course, it all has to come in at a reasonable price, no point going mad even if I can afford it. I's no fun that way, it's just going shopping.

 

I have been collecting curling event pins and club pins since
1980. If you have any pins please let me know.
Jim

 

Hey!!!! I LOVE all of these LIFE stories!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Oh boy...this may/will be a long one...
>Best I recall was that I may have started, unintentionally, at 6. I had Rheumatic Fever and was basically incarcerated in bed for 11 months.
Because I read, played and listened to the radio constantly, WNEW, I'd bet that's where radio collecting came to be. Not sure how many I have, dozens of all types at least...including consoles, and the latest is right next to me, a 1976 R,W & B Bicentennial small hand-held transistor.
>Perhaps if all my Tonkas, tricycle, bicycle and pedal cars weren't stolen I'd have those too. It was my first experience with theft and I just couldn't believe it.
Here and there I have 'replaced' them with a few of those large collector ones and Hallmark ornaments.
>My twin uncles had a huge O gauge set of trains that ran through the whole apartment at Christmas. (there's a Christmas movie I love because of the O gauge set in it which is much the same scenario...except for this part>) In the projects we had incinerators where you burned your own trash and for some reason my Grandmother, who I lived with with my Dad, lost it about them and made me help her put the trains and track into it. It was my first real traumatic experience and I've never forgotten it. As you may imagine I was beside myself with grief. Much later in years my Dad and I were talking and he didn't recall it...and I was shocked for I had to be inconsolable when he got home. I informed him that the locomotive alone had to be worth at least $500.
So... I still have my .027 and HO Lionel sets from back then. The HO set may also be the first one of Lionel's. I have the accessory Fire Car which last I saw was worth some $600 without the box and it's in the box. I have the little buildings, trees and misc. other stuff from then.
I have added to it all over time including other brands.
>I had collected random other things like Tootsie Toys, books, comics, Hot Wheels and Johnny Lightnings. They went to my Uncle's when we moved with the plan to be sent to us later...but there was a flood...supposedly.
>The next 'oldest' things I know I have are my white belt and badge from my crossing guard stint. With those add my grammar school stuff; autograph book, diploma and probably my report cards. The ladies here will no doubt recall the gum wrapper chains they made for their beaus that were as long as he was tall.
I have mine.
>Because I read profusely, even before 6, I love books and have a ton...literally....and probably more. I have many kid's school books and teacher's editions, some as new. With those are children's books but I've mainly wanted those with color art.
I have some very old ones but the most valuable is likely my first edition, 1 of only 2k, The Hunt for Red October which was signed and inscribed to me by the late Tom Clancy. I also have his next 2 first edition books in the same state.
>I have thousands of albums, 33 and 78, and 45s. I have many that are radio station promos.
>Because I served in the US Navy I began an interest in Naval items. In approximately 1990 I came across a 'yard long' of a nest of navy destroyers. That started me off on collecting yard longs, mostly of ships, crews and boot camp versions. Some of these have names and perhaps, some day, I'll research these people. I have many ship and sailor photos as well as women and children in navy uniforms. I have a boy's 'real' wool sailor suit.
>Being from Jersey City, NJ I could see the Statue of Liberty every day. In all this time I hadn't ever, that I recall, been there at all much less inside. A few years ago I got to go on the island, last year I got to the balcony...some day...her crown.
I began collecting her relatively recently and have a clock, a lamp, a number of various sized small ones, misc. other stuff and the base of one of the two-part souvenirs sold to raise money for her pedestal.
>I have some things related to Charles Lindbergh and the Spirit of St. Louis most importantly and priceless are the personal rolls of film of the building and test flying of the aircraft, and misc. others with Lindbergh, which were shot by one of the build team.
>I have many unusual WWII items including many huge posters that were centerfolds in newspapers at the time. The most shocking item I have may be the actual overflight weather radar images shot the day before the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.
~I also have the nautical chart that was on the bridge of a destroyer lost on D-Day while on fire support for the landings. It has hand written notations of the picket lines and where she hit a mine and where they sailed to try to get her out of the harbor so she didn't sink and become a hazard. The whole crew got off but she didn't sink. Some returned to save her but she drifted in range of large German guns which hit and broke her in half. 35 were lost.
I've recently been able to determine that this belonged to the Captain and was sold at his estate sale at which a friend found this for me for 50cents. She wouldn't take the 50cents and I didn't know what I had until years later.
God knows what else was there.
>I have a lot of Peanuts stuff including all or most of the felt banners sold in the late 60s. Most recent find is a 60s rotating dog house music box with Snoopy in an astronaut's suit on top. It seems to have surely suffered in a smoker's house.
It plays; 'Fly me to the Moon'.
>I also collect drag racing items and have some great stuff and autographs. My drag racing jacket has patches I bought at the events and attached which go clear back to 1970. Some are quite rare. The next one to go on is from a race in August but I have to move all to a new jacket for there's no room left.
>I collect school children's hand made wooden shop projects.
>I collect little hand carved wooden boots and shoes.
>I collect kid's well-made wooden racing cars.
...and on and on.... Be warned...I may add on later...
p.s. some of this is in my profile.

 

I bought this silver Art Nouveau pin in a local junk shop when I was 24 in 1980, and of course, I still have it. It started me on a path of LOVING antique and vintage jewelry. I have branched out to collect glass and pottery also, but jewelry is my main thing



I did not grow up with antiques, my mother's parents were immigrants and didn't have a lot when they came to America. My father's family was here for generations but not much of anything was passed down through the years. I don't think my parents valued antiques, they wanted things that were new. Luckily I went in the other direction

 

I think I've been collecting since I was BORN!

I still have my baby silver, the Steiff teddies that relatives presented at my birth, every toy I loved from childhood, my pristine Barbies from the early 1960's - you name it!

Up above, Brad mentioned the rocks, shells & all that he collected as a kid. I did the same & still have jars & jars of lovely shells, bottles of pretty pebbles, beach glass, and even a paperweight-size piece of granite I picked up when I was a kid... (I actually wrote "Vermont 1964" on the back of it!)

I also have a couple dozen things purchased at the NY World's Fair in 1964-65. Mom took us every month while it was open, and each trip, my sisters & I were each allowed to pick a "special something" from a foreign country - no kitschy souvenirs...

In addition, I inherited many things from my grandparents, and my Mom has been "passing along" all sorts of things for years. (She's 89 now, and at my last visit to her home, she urged me to "take anything you want" from the house. I mailed almost 30 lbs of photos home from her place, but I didn't take anything else - I just don't need any more STUFF!)

Meanwhile, I have more collections than anyone should... Sterling silver, china, crystal... Sheep... Pre-1960 Steiff animals... Tiny pitchers & creamers... Old mailbox banks... Kunstlerschutz animals... and lots & lots more.

My family has traveled a lot, and we've bought things to hang on the Christmas tree just about everywhere we've been. (Many items didn't start out as ornaments, but they do work well for that purpose.) I have enough ornaments to decorate half a dozen big trees, and I'm looking forward to passing special, meaningful ornaments along to my kids for their trees in the years to come.

I have "downsized" twice now, in the last several years, but I STILL have just about all of my collections. (How the heck did THAT happen???)

-C-

 

I watched my dad collect stamps as long as I can remember.

I got a late start in collecting. I was in a local mom and pop variety store in town and someone working that I chatted with mentioned that they collected Winnie The Pooh items and were watching and hoping to win an item on ebay.

I got home and looked up ebay and fell in love with depression glass.
Plus I had a new place to live and needed some vintage decor.
The rest is history.

I have saved many items that I had as a kid and an adult because they have sentimental or emotional ties but they are not a collection, just individual items
that mean the world to me.

Or perhaps, I would consider all my scraps of recipes, cookbooks and baking pans etc as a collection which began when I was about 9 years old.
Where did all the time go?

 

My great grandmother was a Nottingham who married a west Texas cowboy. Her "costume jewelry" was all sterling silver (or better). At age 3, I remember climbing up in her lap and admiring her art nouveau earrings. She took them off and gave them to me to keep! My mother, in protest, told her I was too young to have such nice things, not to give it to me, and in defiance, she pulled off her silver bracelet and gave it to me because they matched!

Oh yeah! I was hooked on art nouveau! I still have that set too.

I was a typical antiquer kid, had collections of rocks, shells, cans, books, souvenirs, post cards, art, anything. When I was a teen I went to a university, but I lived way out in the country in an area where general stores were still the norm. There, I bought McCoy mixing bowls and small ceramic planters - these were the items I could afford. I began to go to garage sales, even had a garage sale with my neighbors - I was hooked!

I stopped buying stuff nearly a decade ago. I have enough stuff to last lifetimes.

Now I am downsizing in preparation for the next portion of my life: old age. haha!
I sold my ex-biz property and my friends and the local collectors (dealers) were thrilled with the treasures they hauled out of there! ..But, I'd already brought the "best stuff" home. I have started to clear out my home to sell it.

 

I have several collections...minor to modest.....but only 2 that I've actively purchased & never sold any items from.
My comic books & my knives.
Neither holds any great value.....but the comics are mine & hold memories....& I bought my 1st pocket knife at around age 7 .

 

HA!!!! THAT LAST statement is a question we ALL want the answer to!!!!