"Collecting"

(this has been edited for personal reasons)


How about anyone here. Any collectors ? Any here that think collections are "bad" - anyone married to someone who dislikes collections ? Any comments ?

I'm a collector - of cd's mainly. But I'm where you were 10 years ago. Mortgage and a kid and a job that doesn't pay much.

I've never understood collecting for the sake of collecting.  I've had friends who'd collect everything and a lot of it was just a mess.  On the other hand I've known others who collect, say old toys and games and have them on a shelf for display.  It's out for everyone to enjoy rather than stored in boxes out in the garage.

Personally I don't think there is anything wrong with collecting as long as it's not hoarding disguised as a collection.   

I think spouses need to be gracious of one another for those things they don't understand about their partner.  As long as it's not disrupting life.

It's good to keep this in mind: There's a difference between a collector and hoarder.

G/F:

I must've married your wife's twin sister because mine hates it too. I don't collect much but I have a lot of CD's and now LP's and she is growing tired of the LP collection. In fact over the years some of my "collections" have come up missing.... Meaning they were taken to Goodwill or just plain thrown away. Some of it really upset me. But I can't let it bother me.... Some of it was stuff I could've sold on eBay for lots of money. She sees it all as clutter... But I do not hoard it. I just have lots of CD's. Recently I have been selling many of them or trading them for vinyl. And many of them are out of print and sell for huge amounts of money on eBay (example, if something rare sells for 100 bucks I'll take 30 for it). But I am finding many of my "rare/collectible" promo only stuff is gone. Probably thrown away (I used to have a huge supply of The King Biscuit Flower Hour radio shows -- classic concerts from classic bands and I started selling some of them last month only to find 90 % of them got thrown away, not even Goodwill, just thrown away -- without my knowledge until after the fact). Some of the stuff that gets thrown out, I just re-buy it if I really want it. But the stuff I wanted to sell that's now gone, well it's just gone and I'll leave it at that.

^ wow... I don't even know what to say to that. My wife def hates collecting, but she knows I am acutely aware of every single item I own, and she's always respected that which I own. So I'd hope she'd never do something like that behind my back as she knows I would be righteously pissed off.

However, again it's just stuff.

(edited)

I have that collector's mentality as well. I've had it for a very long time. When I was younger I collected legos, keychains, rocks, business cards (seriously, I had them from all over the world). As the kids started coming along I had to give much of it up just due to space (I had about 40 lego castle sets that had to be boxed up and put away).

Now I pretty much just collect music, and no my wife isn't a fan of it...but it sounds like she does tolerate it better than some wives.

My wife tolerated my music fanaticism completely when it was 100% digital. I went from about 300 CDs to several 1000 albums in digital format ONLY.

But about 2 years ago I decided to go back to the physical albums - Kids moved out, we began our empty nest time, going places and changing the house, etc. I decided it was MY time after sacrificing 15 years to raising kids. Idk, call me selfish but I feel like I should be able to have what I want, within reason. I feel I've earned it.
(sound like a whiney baby eh - haha    )


She feels that the best way is new technology - she supported me having all my music digital. Then she said that my magazines and comic books could be digital now too. I bought her a Kindle and she loves it. She has 100s of books on it, and thinks it's only logical that I have all my future books and magazines digital so they don't keep growing in my media room. Sounds great, but my personal preference is to hold, touch and don't forget the smell of a new book - not to mention taking a tablet to the toilet    

I'm a bit of a completionist. I like having everything the same and in a complete set, such as a series of remasters. However, I don't collect much outside of certain things like CDs. It doesn't take much room in my room in my case, because I've only about 200 CDs (so far). I'd collect Christian metal shirts, but they're generally very expensive.

My grandpa was a huge collector/accumulator. He collected fountain pens, clocks, watches, musical instruments, spoons, model trains, little plastic doohickeys, you name it. It was a huge frustration for my mom when he passed away, because we didn't know how much all of it was worth, or who would buy it. We've whittled it down to a few things in two years, but I'm pretty sure we're still selling stuff.

I used to collect rocks.
Right now I collect little things I find interesting like a snail shell, an egg shell (not a chicken egg), and a fish vertebrae.

I've learned to live with it... She doesn't mean any harm and isn't doing it to be vindictive it is just she doesn't understand collecting at all. It does anger me at times and it would eat me up if I let it. The first time I blew a gasket (several years ago). And occasionally I'll find stuff missing (like the King Biscuit CD's, I discovered those missing last week). Also, shirts. Some of my shirts disappear. If that happens I just order another online, in some cases the exact same shirt. And that isnt collecting, other than collecting DUST by sitting for so long because I don't always wear them. 

And now I just mention it in passing like "yeah, I decided to sell my King Biscuit CD's on ebay and I already sold two for 30 bucks each.... Oh really!?, how many do you have?... Oh, well I had around 50-75 of them but they are gone. I don't know what happened to them, maybe I lost them. I sure coulda made some money on those but oh well, that's like giving cash away......" then no response.

I tell my wife the same thing. "If I get hit by a bus, make sure you have the kids go thru my records and CDs and graphic novels and look them up on the internet - some are worth a LOT of money"
Her joking response is "wow, you should sell them now !" - I roll my eyes, cuz we both know I totally want to keep them, the whole reason I have them in the first place.
Then a serious response is, If something happens to you, I'm not gonna deal with all that stuff. I just say, well, it'll be your loss then.



(edited for personal reasons)

Yeah, I've got 19 years invested in this marriage and I want to keep it invested. Not worth getting blown up about but it does bother me when it happens. Another was a tape collection. I used to tape concert promos off the radio... Every concert that came to town from about 1982-1990, I taped those commercials off the radio. Then when I decided to digitize my cassettes about 5 years ago they were all gone. Tossed out. I went thru the trouble of investing in a tape deck, figuring out how to hook it up to the computer and then went to look for my tapes and they were thrown away. That's the one i blew a gasket over because I was looking forward to having a collection of concert commercials in digital format and saving them and sharing them with others. I had promos for Kiss Lick It Up Tour, Quiet Riot, Iron Maiden, Ozzy, Styx, you name it, I had it. 

So I just deal with it and remind myself I can't take ANY of it with me... But I can enjoy it while I am here.

My wife is pretty laid back when it comes to my music collection.  She knows it makes me happy.  She also realized early in our marriage that it is better for a man to collect music than to collect bar tabs and girlfriends.  Since I am coming home every night, she learned to live with it.

I am thinking of going fully digital.  I am just plain out of space for more CDs.  I could stand to unload the whole collection and just buy digital only.  My wife would also support that. 

I haven't decided, so no need to start salivating over those rare, OOP discs I own yet.

 

alldatndensum wrote:

My wife is pretty laid back when it comes to my music collection.  She knows it makes me happy.  She also realized early in our marriage that it is better for a man to collect music than to collect bar tabs and girlfriends.

I reminded my wife about that once (and only once) and she has never given me trouble about my music collection since.

alldatndensum wrote:

My wife is pretty laid back when it comes to my music collection.  She knows it makes me happy.  She also realized early in our marriage that it is better for a man to collect music than to collect bar tabs and girlfriends.  Since I am coming home every night, she learned to live with it.

I am thinking of going fully digital.  I am just plain out of space for more CDs.  I could stand to unload the whole collection and just buy digital only.  My wife would also support that. 

I haven't decided, so no need to start salivating over those rare, OOP discs I own yet.

Key Word: YET.

I do also have another collection that is rather eclectic (weird for you poor people LOL).  I collect eggs.  No, not edible ones--decorative ones.  I have one made of obsidian, volcanic glass, a couple of music box ones, and even a wooden one that has a kaleidoscope in it!  I don't get new ones often.  If I do, it has to be something really different than anything else I've got or seen before.  It also has to be affordable.

If I ever find one, I want one made of amber--petrified tree sap.  That would be an awesome addition to my little egg family.

Hey everyone has their thing. Long as it's not hurting anyone, I say have-at-it.

Before I get rid of a disc (and I didn't get rid of any until this year) I make a digital copy of it. As I said in another thread I still have about 90 % of all the CD's I have ever owned since about 1987. I just don't want to get rid of them even if I don't listen to them anymore. But this year I started going thru them and ripping them to digital files on an external hard drive. That way if I ever DO want to listen to it, it is readily available. And for some reason I am more interested in vinyl these days than CD's. If something is released on vinyl I will buy it in that format over buying a CD. 

 All of the CD's I have unloaded have gone for trade credit for vinyl at FYe. And the discs I sell on eBay I use for credit to buy vinyl. And I have sold very little on eBay, most of it is vinyl that I have multiple copies of (I'll keep the better of the two and sell the other). 

But here's the problem with going all digital -- What happens when you get tired of an album and want to go "trade it in" for something else? You can't, you're stuck with it.

MikeInFla wrote:

But here's the problem with going all digital -- What happens when you get tired of an album and want to go "trade it in" for something else? You can't, you're stuck with it.

Indeed, I've wondered if you can give your digital copy away. Say you don't want it anymore and don't intend to keep it. Why can't you write out a brief letter indicating transfer of ownership to someone else and just give the digital files to them?

Staybrite wrote:

MikeInFla wrote:

But here's the problem with going all digital -- What happens when you get tired of an album and want to go "trade it in" for something else? You can't, you're stuck with it.

Indeed, I've wondered if you can give your digital copy away.  Say you don't want it anymore and don't intend to keep it. Why can't you write out a brief letter indicating transfer of ownership to someone else and just give the digital files to them?

Would that be considered Piracy? I don't know. Let me give you another example. I have Styx "The Grand Illusion" on vinyl. I also have the 180 Gram vinyl remaster. Since I no longer need the original I can give it to you, right? So what's the difference in me e-mailing you a digital album I no longer want?

Oh -- And i file share with my brother ALL the time. It isn't any different than when we were kids and swapping record albums or cassettes is it?

I'm not talking about file-sharing (and I have done quite a bit of that myself).
I'm talking about transfer of ownership of the digital files. You would give (or possibly sell) the digital files to someone else and delete all copies you own. I don't see how it would be any different than giving away (or selling) a cd or record you didn't want anymore.