Collector anonymous

[shed9]

As I've seen the use of the word collector used both positively and negatively on many woodworking forums, I feel the urge to ask - At what point do you become a collector, and is it positive or negative?

Possibly strange question I know but I read a thread recently on another forum and you would think they were discussing the morality of capital punishment.

 

[Rorschach]

For me a collector would be someone who purchases and seeks to purchase what are essentially duplicate items of things they already own for the pleasure of owning it rather than the necessity of needing or wanting to use it.

Example, someone who has 2 or 3 no.4 planes would just be a woodworker, someone who has 10 and still looks to buy more would be a collector.

 

[Cheshirechappie]

If it's your money, your time and it harms nobody else, it's nobody's business but your own. Thus, if it brings you pleasure, it's positive.

When do you become a collector? That's trickier - maybe when you have more tools than you actually need. So that's most of us, then!

 

[Bod]

If it's your money, your time and it harms nobody else, it's nobody's business but your own. Thus, if it brings you pleasure, it's positive.

When do you become a collector? That's trickier - maybe when you have more tools than you actually need. So that's most of us, then!

Guilty as charged.

Bod

 

[shed9]

If it's your money, your time and it harms nobody else, it's nobody's business but your own. Thus, if it brings you pleasure, it's positive.

When do you become a collector? That's trickier - maybe when you have more tools than you actually need. So that's most of us, then!

Guilty as charged.

Bod

Same here, hence the question.

I've seen arguments of taking tools out of circulation, negatively impacting prices for everyone else and even that it dilutes the craft itself.

 

[StraightOffTheArk]

I'd say it's when owning a tool is more important than using it - I seem to remember that Alf said something to the effect that she wasn't a collector, but had a lot of choice when it came to which one to use! Which, thanks to the relative cheapness of 2nd hand tools probably describes most of us.

Must admit that I don't understand the pejorative overtones - tools are great, their history is fascinating, their practical use (in the hands of others!) often breathtaking and the theory deeply interesting, something for everyone!

Cheers,

Carl

 

[bugbear]

I recall a "user" wanting to know the exact spec of a part, so that a cheaply bought tool could be restored and used.

One of those HORRIBLE collectors had a mint, unused version, and was able to provide all the measurements.

BugBear

 

[AndyT]

Yes, it may spoil a good argument, but there are pros and cons on both sides.

I have more tools than I need, but I enjoy using nearly all of them, so I think I'm not "just" a collector. But then, if I bought some cooper's tools, just because I liked them, I'd have no intention of making my own barrels, so I would definitely be a collector. And one or two of my tools are too old and knackered to be put to use, but are interesting objects.

I think the "more than you need" argument is a weak one too. Nobody would seriously expect a pottery enthusiast to only have one teapot, to make tea in, when there are so many thousands of teapots out there, all different, all with a tale to tell of materials and makers. Same sort of thing with tools.

 

[shed9]

I'd say it's when owning a tool is more important than using it - I seem to remember that Alf said something to the effect that she wasn't a collector, but had a lot of choice when it came to which one to use!

That makes sense as a definition and I agree with the concept of greater choice (within reason of course).

I recall a "user" wanting to know the exact spec of a part, so that a cheaply bought tool could be restored and used.

One of those HORRIBLE collectors had a mint, unused version, and was able to provide all the measurements.

BugBear

I suppose that would also add to the description, whether or not the tool actually gets used or stored and displayed.

 

[D_W]

A collector is someone who buys something they don't need.

A user is the same self-defined person who complained that the collector paid too much and made the tool unaffordable for them.

On a more serious note, positive or negative, I don't know. I don't love it when collectors buy washitas, but I do like the fact (a museum employee reminded me of this) that most of the pristine examples of older tools are around and will be around because collectors acquired them and took care of them without using them.

 

[Bod]

In my defence, I will see and buy a rough condition tool cheap, return it to a usable state, and use it.
Till I see a better one, (often as cheap, as the rough one) then I have two,or three.....
How do I get rid of the first?
Car boot, auction, local adds...easier to put into "stock". Thus I became a "collector".
Had to teach myself, saw sharpening, brought from carboots, £1-2 each, cleaned, sharpened, sold at carboot 50p-£1 just to get rid of. (had some knowledgable comments on the good sharpening, but they all were either retired, or used hardpoint.)
Still have too many, anyone interested in tenon saws?, most of the bigger ones have gone.
Am I a collector by default?

Bod

 

[Tasky]

Collecting is basically organised hoarding.

As I've seen the use of the word collector used both positively and negatively on many woodworking forums, I feel the urge to ask - At what point do you become a collector, and is it positive or negative?

I'd surmise that you become a tool collector when you own more multiples of a specific thing (say, Marples chisels, or No. 5½ planes) than you'll likely have need of or use for, or you just amass a large number of tools in general for the express purpose of having them rather than using them.
Same for most things, really.

There's having four or five different spokeshaves, with perhaps a second of each as backup, to give you a choice... and then there's having multiples of each kind, from each year of manufacture, especially if you don't even know how they work.
If they're organised away or on display in cabinets, perhaps lovingly restored, you're a definite collector. If they're displayed and open to visitors, you're a museum. If they're gathering dust in some cardboard box somewhere, you're hoarding... even if you always plan on sorting them out, but never manage to get around to it.

Whether this is good or bad depends on who you ask.
Some people "collect" original flash battery cases from Graflex cameras, much to the annoyance of Graflex camera enthusiasts... later on, these "collections" end up being sold to replica prop makers, who use them to make Star Wars Lightsaber replicas... because the handle of Luke's original blue Lightsaber was a Graflex camera flash battery tube.
The Graflex club are incensed by this wanton destruction of an original piece of history, especially since other people out there make perfect copies of the things precisely for use in Lightsabers.

I know several people with quite large prop collections, worth more than the houses they're stored in. Some hide their stuff away from everyone, letting them rot in cardboard boxes... Others take pics of everything and post them online for people to see. A couple actually exhibit them at public events.

I guess it's up to you whether depriving another woodworker of a tool they could use is worth you having a ninety-third No4 plane in your collection, or not. Perhaps if it helps to kill off the whole hobby of woodworking with hand tools, it would actually increase the value of your collection...?
Sounds pretty selfish if you're looking for that blasted router plane that Paul Sellers keeps advocating, until you learn that tool collection is what will one day send the collector's grand-daughter to nursing school...

 

[StraightOffTheArk]

In my defence, I will see and buy a rough condition tool cheap, return it to a usable state, and use it.
Till I see a better one, (often as cheap, as the rough one) then I have two,or three.....

Bod

I'm sure that this is also true of many of us - but there is a difference between you and a true collector because of your reasons for acquiring the tool in the first place. By the way, if you can be faffed with packaging, ebay is generally a much more profitable way of getting rid of excess tools, then you'll have even more money to buy more tools! There's also various charities that specialise in distributing tools.

Carl

 

[AndyT]

In response to Tasky, if nobody collects stuff, it gets chucked out and disappears.
Conversely, as more people get the idea that old tools are sometimes worth a bit, they will make the effort to offer them for sale, keeping them in circulation.

 

[shed9]

Some people "collect" original flash battery cases from Graflex cameras, much to the annoyance of Graflex camera enthusiasts... later on, these "collections" end up being sold to replica prop makers, who use them to make Star Wars Lightsaber replicas... because the handle of Luke's original blue Lightsaber was a Graflex camera flash battery tube.
The Graflex club are incensed by this wanton destruction of an original piece of history, especially since other people out there make perfect copies of the things precisely for use in Lightsabers.

It could be argued that Star Wars enthusiasts are incensed that Graflex club members are depleting the stock of much needed prop material especially when there are perfect copies out for them to use with their camera's.

 

[Bod]

In my defence, I will see and buy a rough condition tool cheap, return it to a usable state, and use it.
Till I see a better one, (often as cheap, as the rough one) then I have two,or three.....

Bod

I'm sure that this is also true of many of us - but there is a difference between you and a true collector because of your reasons for acquiring the tool in the first place. By the way, if you can be faffed with packaging, ebay is generally a much more profitable way of getting rid of excess tools, then you'll have even more money to buy more tools! There's also various charities that specialise in distributing tools.

Carl

Ideas, ideas.....

Bod

 

[Cheshirechappie]

There are different levels of affliction.

There are those who bought some Jennings pattern bits .... then desperately hunted about to fill in the gaps, 'cos you need a set. Then discovered the hard way that two or three sizes get used quite a lot, two or three occasionally, and the rest not at all, so they decide that since they have some Jennings bits, they don't need Irwin pattern bits. That's the mild version. (That's about my level. Give or take a hundred chisels or so...)

There are those who need an example of every size of Bailey-type bench plane made. That's a bit more hardcore.

Then there are those who need every size of bench plane, and a sample of each size by every manufacturer. That's very hardcore.

Then there are those who need every size, example by every manufacturer, and every version that each manufacturer made. Now we're getting into major OCD territory.... and as for actually using them - that would damage the original patina. We can't have that!

 

[Tasky]

In response to Tasky, if nobody collects stuff, it gets chucked out and disappears.

Or sold on straight away...
I don't recall ever seeing a collection of router planes for sale, but I have seen many 'sets' of woodworking tools containing one of everything, though...

It could be argued that Star Wars enthusiasts are incensed that Graflex club members are depleting the stock of much needed prop material especially when there are perfect copies out for them to use with their camera's.

The Graflex club can't buy replicas (which I think are also 'non-usable' anyway), as the point is to preserve original pieces, intact and restore any others if able.
Kinda like saying you don't need an original old wood plane, when there's a nice new Stanley-clone in B&Q for a fiver...

 

[thetyreman]

collecting for the sake of collecting is annoying, I can't even begin to imagine how many amazing tools there must be out there, that may never be used by a craftsman

 

[shed9]

collecting for the sake of collecting is annoying, I can't even begin to imagine how many amazing tools there must be out there, that may never be used by a craftsman

I suppose the bottom line is that nothing really gets taken out of circulation forever, it's just a potential issue (depending on your viewpoint) whilst in the custodianship of the 'collector'.