What do you collect

[Turnr77]

Glass paperweights, but the best are too expensive to keep. I used to buy and sell them, used to be able to get them fairly reasonably at auction, keep and enjoy them for a while the sell them on at a profit to fund the next ones. It's a pretty specialised field as few are signed so bargains were to be had if you had done your research to recognise the makers,and I did pretty well, but for the last 3-4 years like many things prices have dropped and more collectors now have found the auctions so buy very few these days. Still probably have around 80-100.

A few below I have had and sold on.At the time of selling there was around £19,00 there, the last one pictured of the yellow flower wasn't mine, although I wish it was.
It appeared on ebay about 2013 listed as an unknown maker and being bought by the seller at a French Flea Market. It had a starting bid of £10, I saw it but didn't bother bidding as I knew what it was and what it was likely to make and it was out of my price range, it made £10,000!

 

[artie]

SWMBO's Aunt has been collecting £50 notes since she was a teenager. She's drawing the pension now, I often wonder how many she has.

 

[Jameshow]

I guess guitars, but not intentionally. Somewhere around 25 guitars and 8 amplifiers.

I have an ungodly number of hand tools, but do usually dump the ones that will not either be used or copied in the future.

Slowly thinning things, but making replenishes.

Not to mention the 500+ chisels....!

 

[TRITON]

Warning to you all. There comes a stage in life when you know that there are tools, materials, fittings, bicycles, garden machinery or whatever sitting around your workshop or house that you don't have enough years left to use, but the wrench of thinning them out is REALLY painful. I'm there...................

Done it.
Blowing my own trumpet I'd probably the largest and most obscure Hope technology collection in the UK,outwith the companys own museum and sold 2/3 of it(£5k) to buy a high end Emtb. I still hold a number of one offs and prototypes that never made it to retail sale.

 

[D_W]

Not to mention the 500+ chisels....!

Yeah, too many chisels and probably still 75 or 100 sharpening stones. Strangely, I have none of the better chisel sets that I've made and nothing commercially sold is as good as 26c3 chisels (except Japanese chisels, but those are tough to find in the shape of an old ward).

 

[heimlaga]

I collect useful materials and parts and tools.
Everybody needs a spare engine and spare gearbox for the car don't we?
Everybody needs a few tons of mild steel materials don't we?
Everybody needs a lorry load or two of sawn timber don't we?

Some of the more odd things found in my stashes:
-A 14 inch metal shaper.
-Some 20 or 30 three phase motors in various sizes
-A dozen or so used propeller shaft glands
-A dozen cast iron woodsstoves
-Quite a few panel doors mostly 18th and 19th century
-A few hundred kilos of old hand forged building hardware. Window hasps and door locks and hinges and so on.
-Cotton enough to caulk half a dozen wooden boats
-A spare welder providing spare parts for the welder I use.
-Some 200 square metres of garvanized corrugated steel roofing.
-Flat belt pulleys and a few line shaft hangers.
-50 kilos of white metal ingots for casting bearings
-A winding machine for rewinding burned out electric motors.

And besides that I also have quite a lot of books.

 

[Turnr77]

Missing photos now uploaded to my reply above.

 

[Jameshow]

I'm starting to feel relatively normal...!!!

 

[dickm]

I collect useful materials and parts and tools.
Everybody needs a spare engine and spare gearbox for the car don't we?
Everybody needs a few tons of mild steel materials don't we?
Everybody needs a lorry load or two of sawn timber don't we?

Some of the more odd things found in my stashes:
-A 14 inch metal shaper.
-Some 20 or 30 three phase motors in various sizes
-A dozen or so used propeller shaft glands
-A dozen cast iron woodsstoves
-Quite a few panel doors mostly 18th and 19th century
-A few hundred kilos of old hand forged building hardware. Window hasps and door locks and hinges and so on.
-Cotton enough to caulk half a dozen wooden boats
-A spare welder providing spare parts for the welder I use.
-Some 200 square metres of garvanized corrugated steel roofing.
-Flat belt pulleys and a few line shaft hangers.
-50 kilos of white metal ingots for casting bearings
-A winding machine for rewinding burned out electric motors.

And besides that I also have quite a lot of books.

Thank heavens. I feel nearly cleansed!

 

[Droogs]

I used to collect 2000AD as a kid and had the full first 600 all in mint condition, then not long after I joined up and my mum gave them to a couple of cub scouts for their jumble sale. I was not amused, she said "Ach your too old fer comics anyway". Little did she no at the time the first "Prog" was worth £200 and that was in the 80s.

Also until I had to spend a bit of time (just under a year) being unemployed and technically homeless(I was living in a tent in the bushes of a large public park), I had never thrown away a book that I had read. At the time I had around 9000 and now I only have around 300. I also used to collect Zippos, usually with the crest or badge of a unit/base I had visited or worked with. Used to have some rare ones including original production run ones from the Varga Girls series and a Camel one. But all gone now, lost along with most of my stuff during the dark time of the early naughties.

Now I just seem to collect various genetic medical conditions as different bits of me start to fall apart

 

[Sandyn]

Warning to you all. There comes a stage in life when you know that there are tools, materials, fittings, bicycles, garden machinery or whatever sitting around your workshop or house that you don't have enough years left to use, but the wrench of thinning them out is REALLY painful

I have an alternative theory. As long as I have things that 'I'll find a use for one day', I'm fine, I'll wake up for another day. The minute I run out of them, or throw the last one out, I'll drop dead on the spot!
So far the first part of my theory seems to be holding out. I'm not going to bother testing the second part

 

[danst96]

Not many material things but I do collect air miles. Got enough with KLM/AF and Air Canada to do a few long haul journeys for "free"

 

[Jacob]

In short, waaaay too much stuff....
A large amount of it is woodworking related tools etc but I collect across the board. Unusual and rare things pique my interest and displaying them to the masses is another part of the pleasure.

Was trying to find you a picture and then realised just how many contained at least one woodworking related tool.

However, from a meeting I attended the other night here's a little (non woodworking ) quiz I set up....
Cheers AndyView attachment 121880

The brass thing on the left is a window roller blind fitting - it would have had a pulley block mounted on it - adjusted by sliding and clipping in to the appropriate slots
PS or if it wasn't I've got things very like it which were!

 

[deema]

I need to see the doctor on Monday I’m cleariy not normal……I don’t collect anything

 

[doctor Bob]

I suppose I could also say I collect Deloreans, I have one at present but just about to buy another. Wife doesn't get it. To be fair I will probably sell the original one as the second is a bit special.

 

[Adam W.]

Maybe she knows more about Delorians than you think.

 

[petermillard]

I have a very modest collection of Seiko watches - one or two from each decade I’ve been breathing. I won’t pay silly money, and wasn’t sure I’d manage anything from the 60s, but picked a nice one up last year.

 

[robgul]

Bikes approx 6!
4 road and 2 MTB!

Cheers James

Huh - you're just playing at collecting bikes - about 10 years ago I amassed 16 at the same time . . . . I'm now cured and only have 3

 

[hog&bodge]

I collect Beswick.
Have hundreds of figurines to many to put on show.

 

[Kittyhawk]

Used medical equipment, mostly courtesy of my former boss who saves up out of date stuff for me.
Things like artery clamps, gullet forceps, syringes, drawing up needles, probes, oxygen tubing - all incredibly useful in the workshop.