[Fluorescence]

I am a bit disturbed by collecting hobbies to be honest. When there is some novelty, archival or scientific value to a collection, that is different and fascinating, it's the purely consumerist collecting that gives me the heebie-jeebies.

It's purely acquisitive and about the buying and getting and just seems quite sad and empty. Those afflicted become slaves to the companies pumping out items purely for this class of consumer. For example, "limited editions" and such are not rare because the product warrants it, it's just designed scarcity to press the buttons of the collectors and extract the most money from them. Or it's bidding wars on vintage items like wine where huge price inflation happens just for the collection kudos not the virtues of the item itself.

For example, I like fountain pens, but I can't really read r/fountainpens because it's mostly people building huge collections of pens and getting excited about buying a new pattern or colour of pen they already own. Nothing makes me sadder than seeing their full collections of 100s of fantastic tools that will sit idle for the vast majority of their life until the owner passes and a relative has to liquidate things they don't understand.

It looks like a dysfunction to me - a stimulation seeking addiction which is not satisfied by the next acquisition and will never fill the emptiness, the need, the dream, of the collector. I know people will be super defensive about their collecting but I would love for that money and energy to be redirected towards higher degrees of self-actualisation. It feels like a failure to scale the Maslow's hierarchy of needs and get stuck in a loop down the bottom. Instead of creating novelty or growing, there is something safe, comfortable and unchallenging to just acquire.

[Paul-Craft]

I wouldn't go so far as saying it give me "heebie-jeebies," but I also don't see the point in collecting mass market consumer items that are not and have never been rare. Probably the closest I come to ever wanting to do so is that I have a real appreciation for old computer systems. Once, I even got it in my head that I could theoretically own and run a working PDP-11. Fortunately/unfortunately, I've never had the space to properly store, much less display a collection of obsolete home computers, and I don't even want to think about the power and space requirements to actually operate a working PDP-11

So, yeah, I truly do not understand collecting Beanie Babies, Funko Pops, or fountain pens. But, I do collect coins. I find them interesting on multiple levels. I can't think of too many other hobbies that give one a good excuse to study history, economics, art, metallurgy, and more. So many things that happen involving humans and human societies also involve money and commerce. Going back to the rarity aspect, I own quite a few coins that are anywhere from quite scarce to truly rare. It also really helps that they don't take up a ton of space, either.

I don't see anything particularly maladaptive about it, except that it's a hobby that can take up arbitrarily much time and money. But, that's actually one thing I like about it: I could definitely have fun collecting coins on less than a $100/month budget, even though I actually spend quite a bit more than that on it. The acquisition process is fun as well. I like going to coin shops and coin shows. Buying online or at auction is slightly less fun, but it gives me a greater opportunity to find what I'm really looking for. When dealing with things that are, as I said, fairly scarce, the hunt itself becomes part of the enjoyment.

[Fluorescence]

> that give one a good excuse to study history, economics, art, metallurgy

Not sharing this as a serious alternative, just sharing this as something nerdy and cool. It's a little more involved than coin collecting lol... but this guy making his own Carnyx (Celtic war horn) ticks many of those boxes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWTFIDAbDtY

A Carnyx being played:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRIQp4qZrrE

Engaging with history in very practical ways like this is very cool. I'd love to make my own Round House one day.

[gilleain]

I have a friend that makes medieval lutes. He even reproduced one from Skyrim - it sounded bad, apparently, as it was designed to look good, not sound good.

More of a business than a hobby, but still.

[vwcx]

Wow, down the rabbithole I go. Thanks for sharing (especially that second link). Always good to get a dose of awe first thing on a Friday.

[mikewarot]

The new hot computer at Rose-Hulman in 1982 was the VAX 11/780. I always wanted to have one ever since. However, I've been through hording, and having had to purge things, I realize that it would be quite silly to actually own one.

So, I've done the next best thing... Thanks to Termux and SimH, I run one in my Android phone. I can telnet into it and log in, not quite the VT100 experience, but close enough. So for the low price of about 4GB of storage, I have a VAX 11/780, running OpenVMS 7.2 in my pocket. ;-)

[cbm-vic-20]

> I even got it in my head that I could theoretically own and run a working PDP-11.

Me too. Thankfully, buying old PDP-11 manuals on eBay and assembling a PiDP-11 satisfied that urge. I also live close to two good computer museums that have plenty of PDPs to poke around on, when they're working. Watching the graybeards diagnose and fix things on these 50+ year old machines reminds me why I don't want to do that at home.

[kaashif]

I used to collect old Sun, IBM, and HP Unix workstations. You know, the ones with weird architectures like SPARC, POWER, and PA-RISC. And the software to run on them, which was often very weird.

Like you, this isn't the mass market consumerism type of collecting, but is maybe a bit closer to it than your idea of somehow getting a working PDP-11.

[slowhand09]

Ha! I used to want an Inmos Transputer. Even tho I had zero experience in parallel process development. Saved myself some money by not being able to afford it. "I should buy a boat" meme appears.

[mnky9800n]

what bothers me is not the people collecting them but the ones who offer such consumerist trash (e.g., funko pops). Because they are willfully using resources to create nothing from something so they can sell their nothing to people who have some need to express themselves by collecting. there are many quality things to collect however most of the "memorabilia" that exists today is not it.

now that my rant is over would you like to see my extensive collection of Star Trek memorabilia plates? The paint is toxic so we cannot eat from them so i just leave them in this box and bring it out when guests come over.

[Nursie]

I was encouraged to collect things as a kid. I think it was even a badge in cub-scouts. I collected keyrings. I was given them from various places, spent pocket-money on them on holiday, that sort of stuff. I certainly didn't own any keys. I also collected model dinosaurs (usually acquired at museums) and Lego.

The Lego I would put in its own category because it was endlessly fascinating and rebuild-able. I used it all the time. The dinosaurs were at least educational.

But the keyrings were just hoarded and gathered dust. I'm trying to decide now if this was unhealthy and trained me to covet stuff, or if it was a good inoculation against the behaviour later in life. I now have zero interest in collecting anything just for the sake of collecting it. I'd rather be minimal where possible, and after accumulating a lot of crap in my early 20s (when owning stuff was a novelty) I now also try to avoid the "I might use that someday" trap.

I too like fountain pens and have about six, moderately priced, all made by 'Cross'. I put various coloured inks in them (I usually have about 3 good to go at any one moment) and ... I virtually never hand write anything.

The thing I have most of is certainly cables and tech widgets of various descriptions, but I don't try to collect them, somehow they just sort-of happen.

Make of that all what you will.

[Fluorescence]

> I was given them from various places

Mmm. That does remind me of the quite nice social interaction some types of collecting gives. For example, a neighbour was a thimble collector so whenever visiting somewhere, we would look for a thimble. It gave us some entertainment as a tourist, like a treasure hunt, and then the nice moment to give it to the neighbour and show we were thinking of them while away.

It can go wrong though. I've known a few friends who have become associated with "a thing" because their family saw they owned one of "the thing" and now it's the exclusive theme of all presents but they don't have the heart to correct them and reveal all their presents were unwanted!

[Nursie]

Yes there can be a social thing, I had a friend who collected Starbucks city mugs, so people would bring them to her from all over the world.

On the “associated” thing - not so much about collections but there was an interesting article on the guardian website a few months ago, about a woman who came to realise that ‘I like Prosecco’ was not a substitute for a personality, but she had run with it for so long that that was all she ever got as a gift, and she discovered her friends knew very little else about her. A one-dimensional character trap.

[gilleain]

> The thing I have most of is certainly cables and tech widgets of various descriptions, but I don't try to collect them

That makes me think that someone who is a hobby cable collector must have the easiest time of it!

People do collect all sort of non-expensive things (pebbles, seashells, ...) so it feels like just a coincidence that collecting pens means also collecting a lot of tools that will never be used.

[captn3m0]

I collected clothing tags as a kid for a few months because I saw a kid on TV for collecting something inane (I forget what). Used to do Philately for a while before that.

As an adult, I go by the motto of “Don’t save the candles”, which is to actually use the things you buy, even the expensive cutlery and the scented candles.

[4death4]

I agree that collecting is weird, but I also agree with the GP’s general point that one should accept they have a collecting hobby and find contentment in that fact alone. There is a large amount of personal satisfaction to be found by accepting who you are and what you like. So what if other people find it weird?

In all likelihood, you and I find collecting sad and empty because we’re not collectors. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. For all we know, collectors have found more fulfillment than we will ever know.

[Mindcraft]

I think seeking value in hobbies is a problem, they don't need to have any inherent value for the hobbyist other than being fun. I say it is a problem because it leads to a kind of mentality where one seeks productivity and optimization of RoI in all things in life. You are allowed to enjoy thing for no other reason than being fun. That being said, I agree with you, but I feel this kind of thinking could lead to see others who just want to enjoy a hobby as less than me, and that's where I draw the line.

[interroboink]

Perhaps there are just some basic human urges at play, and in some cases it is directed into something you value (eg: archival pursuits), and in other cases it is being cynically manipulated by companies for profit.

It's hard to choose the line between "don't yuck someone else's yum" and not wanting to endorse others' self-destructive tendencies.

Part of me wants to chastise you for gatekeeping other people's enjoyment[1], but I do agree that it can slip into dysfunction, and also agree that some companies downright push people in that direction (looking at you, microtransactions).

[1]https://xkcd.com/1314/

[scruple]

Steam libraries with hundreds or thousands of unplayed games. I do understand it, I think, but I'm glad I'm not afflicted.

[Thiez]

Sometimes they sell bundles that include some games you want and some you don't care for.

[kashunstva]

> It looks like a dysfunction to me

Undoubtedly for some it is a dysfunction; but for most, I suspect it taps into something common to most of us and is encoded by our evolutionary past given that for most of human prehistory we were equipped to deal with scarcity. For many with collecting hobbies, the target items are very specific and their practices don’t preclude moving effectively through life.

[cainxinth]

It's because the law of marginal utility, which states that the satisfaction derived from each additional unit of a good decreases as one consumes more, often doesn't apply to collecting because collectors derive pleasure from uniqueness and completeness.

[swayvil]

There's a vast and profitable opportunity awaiting the man who can connect "collecting hobbyists" with generative/AI production technology. A veritable money machine.

[marcosdumay]

Any hobby can be a healthy, fun exercise you do on your spare time or an unhealthy compulsion that takes over your life. You are singling-out collection for no good reason.

[yayitswei]

Isn't that the highest level of Maslow's hierarchy? Where your other needs are met so you can afford to do something "useless" that makes you happy.

[ginko]

I didn't realize accumulating a large funko-pop collection was an expression of "man's tendency to actualize himself, to become his potentialities ... to express and activate all the capacities of the organism"