What do you collect

UKworkshop.co.uk

Help Support UKworkshop.co.uk:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Bottle caps! My wife is a huge Fallout (computer game) fan, in which bottle caps of drinks are the currency after a nuclear holocaust.

So we ask people who are close to us to save their bottle caps.

There is one small woodworking project in it which may use about a 100, but god knows what we are going to do with the other 2200!
 
Grudges.


:) but more seriously vices and other work-holding devices. Depending on whether you count the ‘normal’ ones, or specialist things like carver’s screws, I would have 30-50 from tiny to huge.
 
chemical elements

Also have some comics etc - don't collect them (was given them) - have the first Beano Album and some other stuff like that.
 
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.


It can actually reach 88mph
 
I have several watches (not posh ones just seiko and citizen and a seagull ). If i got rich I could have a problem with watches but I am not so it is self regulating.
And a certainly unnecessary amount of squares, engineering and woodworking style.

I love well made things and interesting mechanisms and could easily collect a bunch of stuff.
However, I have experience with a family member who is a genuine hoarder and this is always in the back of my mind, what if its genetic ?
The inability to part with things due to some connection known only to the hoarder is a difficult thing to get through and stressful for anyone involved.
Not to put anyone off of course :)

Ollie
 
Last edited:
Ferraris. To be fair i havent started that collection yet, but i will when i win the lottery ( which i dont play )

I have a ton of tools, maybe 14 or 15 guitars, quite a few straight razors ( a lot of which need selling ) and kids..... i have 2, but a third is on order, due in at the end of march 😆😁
 
I used to collect coins years ago, then photographic equipment, but now I collect all sorts of stuff that i think will be useful. I have difficulty throwing some things out. I'm like a squirrel. I put things away because I might find a use for it and I usually do. Sometimes after 40 years!!!
When my daughter was about three I built her a Wendy house in the garden and glazed the Windows with clear acrylic. I kept the off cuts as they might come in handy. Rebuilding my lathe it has a clear perspex cover over the speed plate, which was badly scratched. Out came the acrylic which had been hiding behind my bench ever since I built the Wendy house, my daughter is now 21!
I confess I have loads of other similar stuff for which I have yet to find a use, but you never know !
 
My weakness is definitely watches. Would probably scare me to count them but I'm guessing 60 plus wristwatches and 40 odd pocket watches. Most of the wristwatches are Soviet era Russian ones, plus 70 's Seikos and Citizens, all mechanical. The Pocket watches are all American, Hamilton, Elgin and Waltham, but mainly Waterbury, and a few early Ingersolls. I mostly but them as non runners and then restore them myself, at which point I can't bring myself to sell them. They aren't expensive, don't think I have ever paid more than £100 odd, more often £20-30 for broken ones. Some once restored can be worth £3-400, so the kids will benefit when I'm gone. They all get used, can be amusing sometimes when you pull out a 19th century pocket watch to see what time it is, surprisingly a lot of youngsters seem to think they are pretty cool. I just get a lot of satisfaction from repairing them, and find it very relaxing.
 
I collect walking sticks. I make them, and cannot bear to part with them. Each represents another part of my life.......
About ten now. Who needs ten walking sticks?
My dad is exactly the same, loads of walking sticks and thumb staves. He's 98 now and can't walk far. I remember as a kid long walks in the countryside and he would always have a folding saw with him. Often used to dive into the nearest hedgerow and come out with his next project.
 
My dad used to collect plates, every month a new one would arrive from Braford exchange, Bradex or Franklin mint. After he & mum died we cleared the house, it took weeks & we kept finding the poxy things everywhere. Scores & scores of them, all utterly worthless! I gave the lot away.
As for me i collect fillings in my teeth, G Clamps & clamps of all other sorts, a man can never have enough of them.
I have a fair few vintage air rifles & have a soft spot for good quality antique guns. As to if they are a good investment time will tell.
 
Books, just paperbacks, generally historical works by people such as Bernard Cornwall, Lindsey Davies etc. Lockdown has had a bad effect, there are too many village book swaps springing up! I'm trying not to add to my Sharpe collection!!

Also, a gift from my Gramps, Stamps, particularly GB and India pre 1947. He gave me his collection which was world wide and I spent the £10.00 he left in his will to me on the best 1d Black I could get

Oh, and wood for turning OBVIOUSLY!! Have a barn with a good deal in it and have been told to STOP by my children who don't want to have to clear it out when I'm gone!!

Phil
 
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.
A man after my own heart. I have a whole shed full of spares for my 1980's S Class, pretty much a whole car minus the shell, and spare engine, gearbox and other bits for the Jeep. Makes perfect sense to me, drives the boss lady nuts !
 
Books, just paperbacks, generally historical works by people such as Bernard Cornwall, Lindsey Davies etc. Lockdown has had a bad effect, there are too many village book swaps springing up! I'm trying not to add to my Sharpe collection!!

Also, a gift from my Gramps, Stamps, particularly GB and India pre 1947. He gave me his collection which was world wide and I spent the £10.00 he left in his will to me on the best 1d Black I could get

Oh, and wood for turning OBVIOUSLY!! Have a barn with a good deal in it and have been told to STOP by my children who don't want to have to clear it out when I'm gone!!

Phil
You can only have as many Sharpe's as he wrote, - real shame! Do you have the short one set at Christmas time? And I believe there’s a new one about to come out. Ian
 
Back
Top