What do you like to collect?
Saw a post like this on Reddit once and I thought some of the responses were quite interesting.
I collect all sorts of stuff from vinyl records and vintage game consoles to Harley-Davidson dealer t-shirts.
I'm curious about what some of you guys collect, the weirder the better :D
I collect mint condition unplayed steam games
Nice! Me too.
I like Watches. The problem is I'm basically working minimum wage job and have two kids to feed, so I have to be pretty careful about what I buy.
My most expensive watch was £300, and I've got a few more in the £150+ range. Not exactly a Rolex, but I like how they look on my wrist and I like how they make me feel like maybe I do have some part of my life together.
The brand doesn't matter at all as long as wearing it makes you feel good. Especially with watches where certain models can just be so ridiculously expensive sometimes less is really more I think.
What's your favourite time piece in your collection so far?
I've got this absolutely gorgeous Orient Kamuso thats got a green face and it looks and feels amazing on my wrist. That one cost me £220 iirc.
On the other end of I've got this Timex Weekender that's super cheap (like £40) that's an absolutely stunning watch for the money. Great nightlight too. Just a shame about the rather loud ticking.
The Weekender looks really nice, just a no-thrills classic watch face. I rather like that.
Super versatile too. I've got a few NATO straps for it and I change it up whenever I feel like it.
Me too! My most expensive was in the £300 range as well, I'm currently rocking a Steeldive "Captain Willard" homage (I think the model is a 1972) I absolutely love it. I have no interest in spending thousands on a watch even if I could.
I collect records and general music memorabilia (posters, stickers etc…) I also collect matchbooks from cool bars I go to when traveling
Nice, how many records do you have? I've got a few band posters/stickers as well, mostly the freebies that came with records.
Last count it was around 200 or so
That's massive... If you had to pick a favourite, what would it be and why?
Had to think about that one. I’d say the one that means the most to me is an original pressing of Hüsker Dü’s Metal Circus. My wife got it for me as a gift and it’s such a great album and it means even more coming from her.
I'll have to give that one a listen then!
Edit: It's pretty good as far as 80s metal goes I think. I quite like it!
I collect Star Wars cards through the Topps app. I only started doing it in May, but it's quite fun collecting and trading with others.
Takes me back to my childhood of collecting football stickers and Pokémon cards. 😄
I started with the Topps Star Wars card app. Then I expanded to the Topps NHL Skate app and Topps Disney app as well. It's fun putting together trades and collecting sets of your favorite characters and players
I've thought about trying the Disney and Marvel apps as well. But then I'd be spending too much time and money on it.
If I limit myself to the one app, it's not too bad.
figures and plushies! i love my small collection, every one feels special. any merch for my hobbies is great too
Plushies are great, I have a couple as well
i collect seashells
Websites.
Okay, that requires a bit of an explanation. I have the world record for the person who has signed up for the most websites. One day I just found myself on track to holding the record longterm and have since defended it. If I see a new website, I sign up for it, no question about it.
I have two close friends who also collect cave souvenirs. Cave exploring is a hobby of theirs I got them into (despite being unable to keep up with it myself) and they know every cave by heart.
Three questions: How many e-mail addresses do you have and how do you determine which one to use for which website?
How many Spam e-mails do you receive each day?
One email address per email website, so about a dozen. Actually this is useful because some websites, when signing up for them, invalidate some email providers due to spammers flocking to certain ones. A few email addresses are personal, a few I actively use for different websites (the ones that are least likely to be marked as spam), and a few I keep as backup; equal numbers for all three. Ironically the email addresses which are associated with the providers people use for spamming are the ones which themselves are the least likely to receive spam; depending on the email address, the number ranges between no spam a day to a dozen spam letters a day.
It's a habit that grew on me; I had a habit of branching out and I guess you could say a catch-22 formed. Lots of time to reflect without others which turned into the discovery that I want this aspect of me as long as possible. in this sense, having a world record is like having a kid. Each account of mine online links to others and forms a web, and along the way, it begins to speak for itself.
When signing up, do you use real information at all?
This is way more interesting to me than I would've thought.
It depends on the website. Not because I'm deceptive, but because there are some websites that mandate everything about you reflect yourself and some websites that mandate the exact opposite where you use all made up stuff, along with websites that don't enforce either one (most websites don't). Fortunately for me, I happen to have a birth name with many variations (Leni itself is a nickname), another name with a few more, and details about me that fall on certain cusps when trying to categorize them. The name thing is why I often seem to go by different names depending on the website I use. It would also require an explanation to those who wish to see how far my world record goes if I didn't use wholly matter-of-fact information on the websites I use, as, hypothetically, I would need to verify myself on an external level that I am a certain individual, if that would truly work, since, classically, the verification of the world record comes from all the accounts co-identifying as each other in some way.
How often is your data stolen?
I've had certain aspects of myself released to the world, but as of yet, no theft of data per se, if we're talking things like bank details and whatnot. The way I've always gone about things provides natural security benefits. There have been times where SWAT made a cameo, thrice actually. I was always wary of them but, though this is going to sound dark, I subconsciously still straddled such lines because of "mental health issues" (I put that in quotes because often people say that dismissively) and me thinking "what a way to test my luck". Third time they came, they probably knew this because there was a difference in them.
Side note, with that said, I'll use this opportunity to be the first to confirm that VPN's don't protect you from malice, they're really there for foreigners accessing forbidden content, something I've always known, and NordVPN was recently caught empowering others to do what it itself promises not to. Any exchange of cookies is going to give you away, I remember using the DeviantArt forums long ago (I was banned from there without being banned from the whole site) and seeing people constantly ban evade with VPN's and get banned because each time they ban evade they think they found "a suitable IP" even though a VPN is more akin to having a mailbox disguise than an invisibility cloak. You don't know who is disguised as a mailbox, but you know enough to consider it strange when you see a mailbox wandering the streets on its own, and you know you can remove their disguise if you're close enough to them. Most such thievery happens by the wannabe thief just being a detective about it.
Bonsai trees
Wow, really? That's awesome. How many do you have?
Music. Gimme all your albums.
Physical or Digital?
Both! Whatever I can get my hands on.
Which genre do you prefer?
Alternative or opera. Haha. The two extremes.
Enamel pins. Some are really cool artist made ones that were done in 2-3 variants and maybe only 25 of one variant were even produced. Those are difficult to come by when released and gain value usually 30 days after their release date. But I also have a bunch of just smaller ones I pick up here and there. They’re just neat
I thought about getting some cool ones for a battle jacket I wanted to make.
It's impressive how detailed and colourful they can get for their size.
I don't know why, but I keep damaged or other cool looking coins. Like if I find a bent quarter, chipped penny, or some other type of damage to coins I'll keep them. I have one quarter that's completely coated in bright red paint.
Retro games from almost all systems even though they're all in boxes. I plan on setting them up and never playing them eventually.
Various virtual collections, if those count? Pokemon. Any free games from Prime Gaming, Epic Games, etc. Lately, cute decor Pikmin in Pikmin Bloom. That's been keeping me out walking a lot and getting healthier, so that's a fun one.
My partner collects enamel pins (and gifts me ones she thinks I'll like, so I have a tiny collection of those from her). She also collects wood puzzles (like 3D models), those metal brain teaser puzzles, and dice.
I'm sure I'm missing a few others but that's all I can think of for now.
I don't really collect any one thing in particular, but I do have small collections of videogames and books.
I guess I've got a multiple mouse plushies. Not sure if I have enough to call it a collection though!
A small collection is still a collection :D What kind of videogames, just one platform/time period or all over the place?
Mostly PS4 and Switch games. Although I did buy a PS3 the other year and I'm gradually building up a collection of classics! I also have some Gameboy, GBA and DS games (but no cases unfortunately). What vintage consoles/games do you have?
I pretty much grew up with PS3 and Wii games and I still have a lot of PS3 games (only rivaled by my Xbox One collection), the Wii games were pretty much all lost along the way unfortunately. When it comes to vintage stuff I've got a PS2 (mostly to play Silent Hill 2, 3 and 4 on), a PS1 (Silent Hill 1), a Gameboy Color that's pretty much mint in box with some also mint Pokémon games I rarely play and a Nintendo 64 (European Pokémon edition) for which I have yet to buy any games.
I also have a few GameCube games but unfortunately no GameCube.
I sadly sold most of my Wii stuff a number of years back. And prior to that I'd traded my PS2 in to get the Wii when it came out.
Main reason I got a PS3 was to play MGS4 and the other Metal Gear games. I'm happy to emulate anything else that I can get to run.
Sounds like you've got a decent collection! Hopefully you can find a Gamecube at some point (are they expensive nowadays?)
Depends on the condition but they can get pretty pricey (at least here in Germany).
Christmas ornaments. Any time I visit a "destination" I get a christmas ornament as a souvenir. It's nice at christmas to look at the tree and spark memories of travel.
That's a really neat idea
Very small glass bottles. The smaller the better. Bonus points if it's an unusual shape. I have a lot of them and didn't even try hard, people around me see a small bottle and automatically bring it to me.
I can see the appeal, my mum used to collect these tiny (glass) bottles of alcohol that you get near the cash registers in supermarkets (in Europe at least). I pretty much inhereted them when she wanted to throw them out, I even still have them and some are really cool looking.
As far as non-alcoholic beverages go, the small pear-shaped Orangina bottles are pretty cool but I'm sure you've got a million of those lol
What's your favourite bottle in your collection? Do you also keep unopened bottles sealed or do you drain/drink whatever's inside first?
Oh yea! My collection started with those little alcohol bottles. They're so joyful! Unfortunately my ex threw them out when we broke up so I had to start all over. This time I decided to keep an open mind and accept all kind of bottles.
My pride is a vintage bottle of boonekamp. Found it in a flea market. The seller told me it was at least 50 year old. I also love old things so.. it cost me something like 2 bucks back then. It was open but had a little bit of alcohol left. The second is a extra small tabasco bottle, holds only 0.7 ml! That one is sealed.
I don't have a standard really, if it's something enjoyable then it's long gone. Jack Daniels & absolut, grey goose bottles all emptied during weak moments lol. If it's something like a herb oil or tabasco I keep it sealed. I appreciate the bottle more than what's inside anyways so.
Do you keep yours sealed? Got a favourite one?
I have to say it's been a while since I last looked at them and I'm not even sure where they are.... but I kept them pretty much sealed, the alcohol has long vapourised out of most of them anyway. There's one I quite like, I don't know what beverage it held originally but it's like a tiny wine bottle with a small basket around it that goes around the whole bottle.
I can't describe it very well but hopefully you know what I mean.
I think I know what you mean. I've never seen a miniature wine bottle, let alone one with its own basket. Sounds super cool. So cool that I'll try to buy one online. Thanks for that!
do you have a klein bottle?
Nope, it'd be a great piece though! Do you?
I don't, but if I found a store that shipped to Brazil, and had a reasonable price, I would buy it
I don't collect physical items as such, but I do collect crafting hobbies which sort of comes with an ever-growing, if sometimes accidental, stash of tools and supplies. It's not just the yarn and the embroidery floss and the clay and the felting wool, it's all the damn specialist tools and then the storage solutions you have to buy for it all. And then your other half decides you're both going to get into dicemaking as the next thing, so you end up with an expensive 3d printer as well meaning your joint collection now not only takes up a whole craft room and half the living room, but now also the garage.
We used to collect retro video game stuff and still have a pretty good collection taking up space in my craft room but in the age of emulators and ridiculously cool handhelds I can't even remember the last time we fired up a real Game Boy.
I don't really collect physical objects as such. Until a few years ago I used to collect/buy books, but for a long time I ran out of space. There are probably 600-700 books in my bookcase and another 2 small trunks filled with books. Then there are further two cabinets filled with my study books. Now that I have run out of space, I am collecting epubs and pdfs on my laptop and phone.
I have a small collection of art books and tarot decks
Little boxes! My grandmother started my collection with her gift of a small gumball machine-shaped box with little colorful wooden balls inside for gumballs. I became obsessed with tiny versions of big things and haven't looked back! Now I have around 20 various-shaped tiny boxes (safely stored away in a much larger box).
Money! Unfortunately I'm broke, but I do have a sizeable collection of foreign coins and bills. I don't remember how it started but at some point in my life people just started bringing me their foreign currency. "Hey, I heard you like collecting coins, I got this from Algeria" "Hey, I heard you collect money, I got this from Taiwan"
I think my favorites right now are the currency no longer printed or of nations that no longer exist. USSR, Nazi Germany, Mao Zedong bills, some Eire from Ireland. I also have several misprints that are very cool, a silver penny misprint, and I have a ridiculously old bronze coin from a Chinese dynasty.
What's your favourite bank note or coin in your collection? Personally, I really enjoy oddly shaped coins. I always carry an Australian 50 cent coin with me as it's just so great to fiddle with.
Odd shaped coins are great. I have some coins from the Bahamas with scalloped edges. Those are neat! My favorite odd-shaped one is a misprint. It's a blank round of copper except for a small sliver on the edge that is pinched into a penny.
Unfortunately I can't narrow down my favorite coin as there are too many to choose from.
Video games. I like having a physical library to browse and the original hardware to play the games on. I go for games that are complete with their manuals, but if it's a good enough deal the manual isn't a must. My backlog is ridiculous
Data
I bottle up my emotions! Does that count?
Rubik's cubes, Star wars Legos, lightsabers, retro handhelds..... I have a problem 🙃
I've been learning to speedcube for about 3 months now, and I'm nearing my 40s. I have 3 shit cubes solved on display on my desk, an RS3M 2020 in my pocket at all times and a Tornado sat in my basket waiting for me to have a spare £30 to just drop on another cube.
The struggle is real.
I got my first sub 40 second solve yesterday, twice! I've tried telling people in my life but nobody cares, but I'm proud of that
Very nice! Next hurdle is 30 seconds ;) I've got a gan one I've had for a while that I can't remember the name of lol but I love it
Those massive UCS sets? Where do you put those? Seriously, one of them alone takes up an entire shelf lol
Which ones do you have?
Nah the biggest ones I have are the Millennium Falcon and Star Destroyer that were like $100 20-ish years ago lol. But I've got a big bookshelf that I've got them all on :) as for the handhelds I have a bunch of anbernic and retroid, as well as like an og Gameboy, gbc, gbasp, hylian shield 2dsxl, and vita :D
I don’t have too major of a collection as far as quality, but I have been holding on to all my old Nintendo games and consoles since I first got them back with the OG game boy and NES, and I occasionally expand it when I find other old games I like when I have the money and can find them out in the wild. I have most of the consoles except for the more obscure old handhelds. (Still working on getting an original game boy advance to fill out the collection, but they are fairly expensive considering the costs of the later SP variant, which I have floating around.
Yeah, the prices some of these older consoles go for are just insane. Most first-party GameCube games, for instance, are really overpriced nowadays, let alone the more obscure acccessories (Wavebird, component cables etc.).
I'd love to have a GameBoy Micro but I probably don't have to tell you why I'm most likely never gonna get one... The SPs can be pretty expensive too if you want one with a backlit screen (AGS-101).
Books, ephemera found in books, tree leaves, grass clippings, pencils.
Menus and matchbooks have been more challenging with changing times
Menus like restaurant menus? How do you get those?
Why grass clippings? I'm curious about that one lol
Both of these collections have more or less 'dropped off'.
Menus are mostly printed take-out menus, though I swiped the in-house menu as well when I could. Now, most of the casual dining places have replaced menus with QR codes.
The grass clippings were just a snip of a memorable event (cousin's college football game, first time solo camping, special event, new home, etc.).
Used to collect glass bottles and different paying card decks (had a set shaped like mummies).
Eventually got rid of both. No where to display the playing cards, and cats meant bottles were a bad plan.
Might start the playing card one again
Apparently I collect keyboards (specifically split ones: you have 17-20 keys for each hands), I just love building them it feels like playing with Lego but you get a working tool after you're done! And you can program it however you like too, for "I need to find the perfect setup" people like me, this is the cherry on top.
I also have a few manga and a growing collection of Lord of the Rings related books, I just think this is really neat.
I do like the obsession with mechanical keyboards some people have, there are some really nice models out there.
I don't know why but I only have two keyboards in mind when I read your description: those weird Microsoft Ergonomic Keyboards and the IBM Model M15, I think the latter is quite desirable nowadays.
I have a plain boring Model M myself, it's an absolute tank and I love it.
The Model M sure looks really cool! I've 'ever used one, but it feel very retro (and I like retro stuff too) and the community generally agrees that they have really good switches. What do you use your Model M for?
Everything pretty much, the missing n-key rollover doesn't even really hinder gaming as much as many people say. It's just great to type on.
Souls. Also stamps.
Animals, temperarily.
I just let two turtles go to make room for a newborn rattlesnake i found. Used to have a sugar glider i found in my backyard. I usually keep stuff a few week/months and alternate it out with new friends i find.
Im in the process of moving to a forest i bought so ill have more room for more tanks, and more time outdoors. I only keep as many as i can keep thriving instead of surviving, of course. But when i need to downsize i usually let stuff go in my forest.
It started when i found out my family and neighbors just shoot all the animals on sight so i started rehoming them
I'm kinda on the fence here, on one hand it's pretty cool to be able to care for all those animals and even potentially save them from being killed, on the other hand I kinda think that we, as humans, shouldn't disturb wild animals any more than we already do but I can see that your intentions are good.
Do you ever get like too emotionally attached to animals you find (to a point where you actually keep them as pets permanently)? Do you still have "normal" pets besides them?
Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but I immediately thought to myself "yep, they're Australian" :D
Nah im in the american south.
And im not so worried about disturbing nature as its all land i own not public land. I have like 50 acres of hunting land, i live on 2 acres rn with acess to a like 300+ft wide river with a beach(just camped out there last night actually), and the forest i said im releasing them is 40 acres of untouched woods with a 15ft river through the center. Im building a house there starting like 2 months from now and it will be my permanant residence. I want it FOR the nature so im being much more low impact than everyone else. I could bulldose the trees and put in a cow pasture on the whole thing like my neighbors do. But i bought the forest as a nature preserve basically. So me playing with animals here and there is still significantly better than what others would do.
Yeah i have 2 big dogs that are super friendly. They go everywhere i go, they go grocery shopping with me. But yeah i do get attached to the animals i find, but my forest if fucking perfect for animals idk how to explain it without pictures and maps lol. They're happy out there. So it doesnt bother me to let em go
So actually now that i think about it i collect land
I like to collect board games, trading cards, and vinyl records. I am very concerned about storage space so I try to collect only what I really enjoy or what I’ll realistically use.
Metal bottle caps. Like beer bottle caps. Started when Fallout 3 was out and never really stopped. I haven't counted in a long time but I'd say it's around 5000 or so now.
Different variants of Fight Club, mostly VHS, DVD and Blu-ray, not so much the book, although I do own a copy. I have one of the 500 Comi-Con 2014 Blu-rays they made. Have all the Fight Club 2 comics as well, even some rare cover variants.
Also Halo games and collectibles. All the legendary statues, limited edition versions, etc.
At least you're ready when the apocalypse comes around.... I assume Fight Club is also your favourite movie?
One of my favorites, yeah. Definitely the movie I've watched the most.
Apparently guitars. One day I looked up and noticed I had like 12 of them.
I used to record a lot, so I always wanted one more guitar to "round out my available sounds". Now I don't really record anymore, and I just have a room full of guitars.
I wish I could play good enough to do that... What's your favourite type of guitar? I like Jaguars a lot
My SG has been my go-to guitar most of the time since I got it in 2008. It's such a classic.
Though for a few years, my Schecter was challenging my SG for the go-to position. I got the Schecter from the used section in Guitar Center for super cheap. Someone heavily modified it. Custom paint job, custom pick guard (looks like it was a custom cut!), custom tuning pegs, custom pickups. Basically everything was custom. Guitar Center values customized guitars lower, so I got it for under $300 for a guitar that probably should have been close to $1000. The action is amazing. It sounds incredible. It just feels so good to play. So it kinda became my go-to guitar for a few years.
But the SG just fits my play style better. It has more bass in its sound, which sounds really good for palm-muted power chords, which I use heavily when I play. I do a lot of alternating between palm-muted power chords and un-muted higher notes (I play a lot of hardcore music).
Vinyl records and playing cards (Western, Hanafuda, and Tarot decks.) The vinyl collection started when I got my parent's old record player and started hitting thrift stores for bargains.
The card thing was sort of an accident; my wife (gf at the time) and I played a lot of Hwatu and cribbage and kept finding decks we liked.
That's what I enjoyed most about collecting vinyl as well, going into small record stores and just spend an hour or two browsing the isles.
Yeah we finally got a decent used record store in town and it's awesome. Before that, I had to dig through a lot of John Denver to find any ELO and Blue Oyster Cult
Used to collect beer bottles from my favorite brewery, Sam Adams. Had all 20.
But then something happened in beer and then there were just too many, so I threw them all away.