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What do you collect besides basses?

Books.

I currently have close to 500 books with the breakdown being about 70% science or technical works. Maybe 20% are F & SF novels. The remaining 10% are "miscellaneous" that I find interesting for whatever reason.

Among my favorite science books are the works of Carl Sagan, Roger Penrose, Steven J. Gould, and Richard Feynman. And anything good on physics, cosmology, evolutionary biology, acoustic science, chaos theory, and emergent behavior.

Larry Niven and Isaac Asimov make up a good bit of the science fiction content.

I've gotten a lot of use out of keeping copies of what are popularly considered "The Bible of ________" or a recognized classic in the field.

Some examples are:

"The Complete Joy of Homebrewing" by Charlie Papazian

"Getting Stronger" by Bill Pearl

"Bone" (epic graphic novel) by Jeff Smith

"Bosch Automotive Handbook"

3 of Neil Peart's Travelling books.

Everything by Christopher Hitchens

"The Science of Sound" by Thomas Rossing. I took the acoustic science course by the author at NIU, not realizing the book was widely recognized as the leading textbook in the field.
 
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My father collects fantasy and science fiction novels. He started when he was a teenager and would buy a lot of SF novels in paperback. He would read them and then keep them in boxes for storage.

After some years, he'd bought and read every one of the good "classics" so he would make sure to keep up to date with all the current novels and stories of that year. He never got rid of anything once he bought it and would typically read 3 - 4 books per week (150 - 200 per year).

Eventually, he had so many books that he built his own library. It's a 20' x 24' room that is climate controlled and packed tightly with filled bookshelves.

It now contains more than 9,000 books (all carefully catalogued) with more constantly added every time he finishes reading new titles.

Very rarely does he buy something just to collect it. He has actually read nearly every book in the library and has an "encyclopedic" knowledge of F & SF.

Lucky for me, he considers it a lending library and I've always been allowed to sign out books as long as I return them in the same pristine condition. I learned as a teenager how to read a book without wrinkling or marking pages or weakening the spine or scuffing the cover. I'm 50 now and estimate I've read close to 1000 of his books so far.
 
Other than instruments, I have a collection of 2347 titles on DVD/Blu-Ray. I usually go crazy during Black Friday and Boxing Day (Canada) sales, easily buying at least 100 titles between November/December. Many of my movies are unwatched and still in their plastic wrap.

I need to subscribe to Collectorz software and their companion CLZ App to keep track of them. Otherwise, after I return from shopping, I discover that I just bought a Title I already own.
 
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I don’t collect anything. I spent my career working in a museum and I was around old things constantly. I love old things, especially when they have a great story, but I have no desire to collect and store them in my home. Of course, museums owe their existence to people who obsessively collect things, and then donate them, or die and the family donates them.

there is a saying: “If you own something and you can’t bear to part with it, it owns you.” I have instruments that I can’t bear to part with, but I don’t collect them. None are irreplaceable or one of a kind. Just tools that I use that I really like.
 
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I've been a KISS fan since '78, collected lots of stuff over the years.

One wall of my music room.
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The Gretsch is now gone, only 2 basses, so maybe not much of a collection.
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Ticket stubs from 25 KISS concerts, including some streamers, confetti, and picks from shows.
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Since the "collecting" threads are cross-pollinating, I'll put this over here too then...

I've found playing cards an inexpensive and easy-to-transport (and store!) collectible. I don't go deliberately searching for them, but if I happen across them when I'm out & about, odds are good I'll pick up a couple of packs. It also means my friends & family have a very easy time gift shopping for me. :thumbsup:

I especially enjoy seeing what different people do while following the format up to a certain point, then doing something different with it, such as with the figure designs, and in some cases, the shape or materials used.

These aren't all the decks I have by any means, but it's a good sampling (certain subjects obscured to comply with various TB rules):

PlayingCards-Partial-Censored for TB-w.jpg
 
Since the "collecting" threads are cross-pollinating, I'll put this over here too then...

I've found playing cards an inexpensive and easy-to-transport (and store!) collectible. I don't go deliberately searching for them, but if I happen across them when I'm out & about, odds are good I'll pick up a couple of packs. It also means my friends & family have a very easy time gift shopping for me. :thumbsup:

I especially enjoy seeing what different people do while following the format up to a certain point, then doing something different with it, such as with the figure designs, and in some cases, the shape or materials used.

These aren't all the decks I have by any means, but it's a good sampling (certain subjects obscured to comply with various TB rules):

View attachment 3567117
Sometimes you don't even have to pay for a deck of cards. If you inquire at some Las Vegas casino reception desks, they will sometimes give you a deck of used playing cards that were for a game of poker/etc.
 
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Sometimes you don't even have to pay for a deck of cards. If you inquire at some Las Vegas casino reception desks, they will sometimes give you a deck of used playing cards that were for a game of poker/etc.
Yep, some places also have them as promotional handouts (particularly the ones from airlines). :thumbsup:

I've got a few "retired" Vegas decks in there, plus a whole carton of decks in another box that were part of the inventory clearance sell-off when the Sahara closed down.
 
Since the "collecting" threads are cross-pollinating, I'll put this over here too then...

I've found playing cards an inexpensive and easy-to-transport (and store!) collectible. I don't go deliberately searching for them, but if I happen across them when I'm out & about, odds are good I'll pick up a couple of packs. It also means my friends & family have a very easy time gift shopping for me. :thumbsup:

I especially enjoy seeing what different people do while following the format up to a certain point, then doing something different with it, such as with the figure designs, and in some cases, the shape or materials used.

These aren't all the decks I have by any means, but it's a good sampling (certain subjects obscured to comply with various TB rules):

View attachment 3567117

That's awesome! Do you have the military aircraft recognition deck? Those are pretty cool.

347ae0ce9f3076c7b8dab0869744024c.jpg