The objects we collect are more than meet the eye
You know how there are little tokens, icons, “things” which people buy on a whim or pick up at souvenir and gift shops? Some people have frog collections with cupboards and china cases full of the little green amphibians in every guise and pose, funny and serious. Philosopher frogs and dopey, dumb ones. Something about frogs.
Then there are the salt and pepper shaker collections (I always thought those were a bit odd); shaving mugs lined up all in a row; the coffee mug connoisseurs; the campaign button and sign collectors; toy cars; Coca Cola memorabilia — the list goes on and on. People like to have little harmless collecting obsessions and display their treasures for others, but primarily for themselves to view.
From kitsch to fine china and porcelain, collecting habits tell us a lot about people. I used to collect stamps as a kid, spending hours peering at them, arrranging, organizing and studying them. Why, I am not sure. But it was part of my tendency toward escapism. I collected stamps of all the British colonies and took vicarious trips all over the world via the scenes they portrayed of exotic islands and small nations on far-flung continents.
Like I said, I have never really understood the salt and pepper shaker collecting phenomenon, but I presume there’s a lesson there, some symbolic meaning to it all.
Some of us develop a long-lasting fascination with certain material things, which, when looked at in the harsh light of logic or rationality, makes little sense. But collecting fulfills some need, the objects accumulated brings a smile to our faces. They let us know that out there in some flea market or junk shop or “antique” store there is one of those missing pieces to a collection, the one-of-a-kind, unique and rare item that, when we see it, immediately takes on value far beyond its actual worth. It becomes something we have to purchase. Our collections are ourselves, one might say.
I don’t do much of this because mostly I collect books — new and used. This has been a life-long passion since I joined the Doubleday $1 Bargain Book Club in 1963 when I was 12.
if I see anything whatever related to my great nostalgia collecting passion, which is old grist mills, I will not hesitate for a second to purchase it. That’s what happend years ago in an antique store on the main street of a little town in upstate South Carolina. There on a table near the far corner of the shop was a grist mill painting in an old, dusty frame of a scene from corn milling days of long ago in the last century or early in this century. it was a time of ingenius mechanical devices that turned big buhr stones that ground wheat the old-fashioned way. I think I paid about $4 for the print, frame included.
To me it’s a treasure because grist mills symbolize a gentler, quieter age in our country’s history when people lived primarily on farms and in small rural towns and communities. They were much more self-sufficient. By 1920, the grist mills were dying out and being abandoned, becoming sentimental relics in the countryside. Today, however, many are being lovingly restored, and an old tradition of millers teaching apprentices is being revived in a few places. I like that.
One other note about collecting obsessions. You may have noticed when you enter someone’s kitchen how the refrigerator door is likely to be covered with stick-on magnets, kitschy pieces of collectible art themselves, holding down photos, recipes, notes, poems, newspaper clippings and a bewildering variety of other objects deemed worth viewing and remembering. Some of these magnets are little doodads that are just cute or odd, conversation pieces — collectibles, again, if you will. Since I rarely have the opportunity to venture into these spaces inhabited by others, I don’t get a chance to observe what’s cluttering up the surfaces of refrigerators these days. I am intrigued, nevertheless.
Myself, I have a grand total of three refrigerator magnets, and each in its own way provides a pithy little insight into my psyche. The complete inventory is as follows: a miniature 6-oz. Coke bottle with tiny temperature gauge; a small scene of a beautiful covered bridge I visited in North Carolina many years ago; and an a 1997 era magnet with Cicero’s oft-quoted maxim: “a room without books is like a body without a soul.” Cicero said that?
I write this here because no one ever sees them, and thus, for posterity, I wish to record these little snippets of my solitary life.
That’s a beautiful collection of objects. I wonder why there isn’t a way to preserve them just like we had them in our lives? My writing desk has some objects that I love – a ceramic bird that my son made when he was 6, a little pot that my daughter made when she was a little younger, my father and his father’s watches. They are both familiar and comfortable.
@ravdiablo Thank you! That’s a small but representative selection, kinda random, except those related to old grist mills.
If I had children, things they made for me or cards they gave me on special occasions, would be the top priority of what I’d cherish and hold on to. A lot of the things I’ve collected could be tossed. But the memorabilia I’ve saved and treasured, I plan to always keep and look at to remind me of loved ones, and special events or times in my life. I’m quite sentimental.
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My mother had a China cabinet that now belongs to my daughter. It back 7 generations of dishes, thing from the Chicago world fair 1904, the the remaining dishes of my ancestors that immigrated in 1830 to my parents old passports and driver’s licenses. The thing is stuffed with dudads. The collection continues onwards.
@mankiller26 I hope you’ll be able to hold on to those treasures!
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There was nothing like receiving a big box of books from The Book of the Month club. The smell was enchanting and anticipating what was in those books delightful.
@solovoice Yes, indeed. I’m always excited when a box of books I’ve ordered arrives. I think about all the knowledge and wisdom contained therein.
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Collecting things seems to be something that has gone out of favor for the younger generations. It seems that they hold little or no value to that which cannot be held in the hand or physically had in one’s possession. Whereas, anyone from about middle age on (gen-X) probably did (or still does) collect something. I think my generation (gen-X) is perhaps the last one to have grown up in the non-virtual world. This might be why younger people have little interest in collecting physical things.
I’ve always been into books, and I did join a couple of book clubs here and there. My mom gave me a membership to the Columbia Record Club when I was 13, and I still have a fair number of vinyl records from back in the 80’s. As for my fridge, it isn’t too busy, but there are magnets from the many amusement parks (and some other places) I’ve visited over the years. I also have a collection of park and roller coaster memorabilia, including a small piece of the fiberglass cover of an actual roller coaster train. Speaking of odd collections, recently Cedar Point cut up and sold multiple small pieces of a section of track that was removed from one of their roller coasters. The pieces went from $350- $400, the higher priced ones bearing an autograph of that coaster manufacturer’s CEO. And no, I didn’t buy one! Too much money and it wasn’t my favorite coaster.
As for grist mills, there’s one right up the road from me near the PA line called Union Mills Homestead. It is open for tours and the grounds host various events thru out the year. I have visited it in the past, back when I was a teen. We also have a farm museum here, you’d probably like that too. In the 19th century it was a working farm, and somewhere during that time the main house came to be used as an alms house for homeless and indigent people. Those who lived there help work the farm, and this continued on up until the early 1960’s. Everything was basically preserved as it was when the alms house closed, including the barn, the outbuildings, the main house and some of the land. There is also a graveyard, which is now part of an adjacent county park, where residents who had no families were buried. I go past that several times a week when I do my exercise walk around that park. The farm museum is open all year round and there are lots of events held on its grounds. The main house can be toured at most anytime. There’s quite a lot of such rural history around where I live.
@schrecken13 That farm museum sounds so interesting. I love places like that, often referred to as “living history museums.” One of my favorites I visited back in 1985 is called Living History Farms and is located in Des Moines, Iowa. I had such a memorable visit there. It was exactly like going back to a farm in the 19th century.
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