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Am I a collector?

You see these people who spend unreasonable amounts of money on a small model car or pencil cases... a baseball card, action figure or movie poster all because it is rare or because they don't have "that one" in their collection yet. I always thought they where insane. "You are never going to play with that. You probably aren't even going to take it out of its package (because that would somehow, make this million dollar toy, worthless.)" I would say to them. "If you are lucky you are going to have room, amongst the other collectibles in your house, to place it on your wall or bookshelf. Other wise it is going to go into a box (carefully labeled and stored) and you are never going to see or think about it again, except to "know" you have it and to possibly take it out to show off to other collectors, promptly wiping the package off and carefully replacing it into storage. Sound familiar to anyone yet? Now don't get me wrong, I didn't used to berate all collections. Let's say you collected antique dolls. That was okay right? They were pretty, classical looking, the added warmth and a child like freedom to your home. But, comic books, video games, action figures...? What are the points of collecting these? You don't use them; you are scared to read the comic books for fear of breaking the spine. You don't take the actions figures out of the package and you hardly know how many and what video games you have much less have time to play even half of them.

... Now wait, before you go thinking that the entire point of this article is bashing the collectors; remember the title of this article is "Am I a collector?" Up till recently the above has been my over all view on such collections. I have recently (I say recently, it has been about a year) moved to a different state. And like in any other move, you pack all your belongings into boxes and find stuff, or realize you have stuff that you have never given much though to before. Among such belongings are, all the Star Wars books from episode 4 'A New Hope' to Vector Prime (the first book of the new Jedi order series.) That is every book written since the holy trilogy first came out. I also have two millennium falcon figures and approximately fifteen other assorted books, including original art books, technical journals and a trivia book published before Return of the Jedi was ever released in the theatres for the first time. Then came 'Harry Potter' I think I counted 300 plus Harry Potter cards in my possession, and when I see them in a store I am compelled to buy even more. I own hard copies of all the books, am trying to get a hold of the books on CD. And again, I have a slew of various other Harry Potter related things. (Journals, stationary sets, coloring books, Lego sets, and the list goes on.) I even found a collection of coins and British marks with Harry Potter characters on them, on e-bay. I am still fighting the urge to purchase them.

...and if you thought it couldn't get worse. I was introduced to Anime! A series entitled Fushugi Yugi (mysterious Play) to be more precise. Is everyone ready for this? I own the entire series on DVD and the OVA collection on VHS. I have five wall scrolls, three laminated posters, a desk top clock, three pins, two soundtracks, a collection of character cards from the final session and two key chains. I even dropped one hundred and fifty dollars on a box collection set from Japan. (fifteen original manga posters, a Tama plush, Chichiri figure, Tamahome silk scroll, Nuriko incense burner, Hotahori mirror, Taske' jewelry box, and Chiriko note pad) I own both art books and am now trying to get a hold of the entire manga lot.

So in conclusion... collectors, you have one less critic. I still might not understand it but I would be a hypocrite if I criticized. So all long as there are companies making this stuff there will be collectors of it. Spend on.

After reading the above posts, I have concluded that I am an oddball. I do not have any collecting interests, whatsoever. I become interested in something, such as Sailor Moon (my obsession in elementary school) and become promptly immersed in the Internet looking for pictures, fanfictions, etc. to feed my hunger for the subject, spending as little money as possible. This is practical in my case; I do not earn any allowance, and the little money I had from teaching piano was taken from me by my mother because of the immense amounts of money I used up by shopping in Taiwan.
Another reason why this is an extremely practical practice is because after I quench my thirst for the exalted subject by way of the Internet, I grow tired of the subject taking over my harddrive through pictures, mp3s, videos, and fanfiction links. That is when I delete all of the folders having to do with the subject. It's almost a cathartic experience; I rid myself (and my computer) of the emotional and physical burden of all the pixels and sound files that took so much time to find. I go on to do something different, other than sitting in front of the computer all the time.
One subject that I don't delete files from is from the file named "School," placed within my personal folder. I don't like to forget things, especially when I can write about my experiences. I also like seeing my growth over time as a writer, especially since most of the files within that folder is writing I do for various subjects. I like to learn, and that is my way of learning. I create, I save, I store. Then, one random day when I have nothing else to do, I look over those files from perhaps freshman year of high school (which really wasn't long ago, only about one year, but the amount of growth I've done as a writer makes it seem like an eternity ago) and then I see what I did wrong, and store them within my hard drive of my mind. I guess what I collect is memories and experiences.

I am a collector of collections.

It has been a question often posed to me, "Do you have a collection? If so what is it?" and every time I feel the need to respond with a long winded response - every little thing that I collect. Truthfully it just doesn't seem right to leave any of them out, none is paramount (with the exclusion of my books which could be considered a literary collection.) I have teddies of every type, for awhile I had coins (until they were stolen), I had bath beads (grew out of that but they're still around), I occasionally add to my rock collection, piggy banks are a certain fanatasism, my stock of purses is ever increasing, and the number of stackable dolls in my room is posatively robust.

It seems that I just can't have one of something... Thus - I am a collector of collentions.

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