Does anyone collect something else other than music.
I guess all of us must be collectors at heart, both music and kit, but are there other collecting obsessions out there? Many people collect watches, cars, mountain bikes and so on.
I have started a small collection of good Scotch malt whisky. Always loved whisky, but never studied the range and quality available. It may be a bit easier for me, living in the UK, although most bottles seem to be available in the US, at comparable prices too. The only drawback is that I don't get to drink any of the good stuff, as the collection is something I intend to leave to my kids, who all have tastes above their pay grade. Whisky has always been collectable, but prices do seem to be on the up. It is staggering what bottles, particularly of the best distilleries and closed ones, can go for. Prices over £100,000 for one bottle, aren't unusual, with interest from all over the world.
I like all whisky, but my current favourite is probably Caol Ila, a not too heavily peated Islay distillery. Glad to say my consumption has remained very modest. Unfortunately, when we emerge from Covid 19, I think there are going to be a lot more problem drinkers.
So what do you collect? If you are a whisky fan too, perhaps post your favourites and bottles worth collecting.
Thanks
@richopp, regarding ties. That’s a pretty good guess on my total as well. I am a little shocked now that I don’t wear them why I thought needed so many. Clearly a first world problem. I’m thinking of paying forward to the local career center for young men and less fortunate to use for interviews and hopefully business attire. I have suits and topcoats that I will not be wearing too. It’s the right thing to do.🍀🙂 Unfortunately dressing for success is a lost art in our ever increasing service oriented and casual culture. I think people would feel and be more productive if they upgraded their wardrobe and took a little more stock in appearance. But then again, I’m “old school”. |
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@tom6897 Since I retired from a big company where we dressed every day, I have about 100 ties I no longer wear if you are interested...mostly BB from the last 25 years or so...nothing too wild, I'm afraid. Ties were $2.50 when I started buying them in the 1960's; now they run about $100 up for normal ones...crazy! Cheers, Richard |
Wow...this thread does make you think. I realize now that I also have 2 large storage bins of Christmas story books from classic to modern, many illustrated and aimed at young people but not all. I do read some of them each Christmas, and leave a couple of stacks around for visitors to look through. |
Sweaters. Don't ask, and I have no idea why. I have several hundred vintage sweaters mostly from Hadley (formally from Weaverville, NC), Ballantyne (now made in CHINA!!), Dalton (gone today; from Cleveland, OH originally--my dad knew them), Pringle (still Scottish!), and various others. My daughter wears them as she lives in a cold climate, but I have bins and bins of them. No excuse. Toy trains--I will be using them soon, but I have a few hundred pieces now ready for a big layout. Children's Books--Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, and the original Winston Science Fiction series. That's enough! Cheers! |
This is a little crazy for a man of my age, but one of my sisters gave me a collector tin of Crayola crayons about 20 years ago, and I spontaneously started collecting Crayola crayons, and there must be others who collect them too, because I go to the Target a couple of times a year and I always find a couple of new things. I only collect the crayons, not markers or any type of pencil, and I am about out of room in a large Rubbermaid container; the type that you use for Christmas decorations. I also don't use them. I just keep them as they are and keep adding to them. |
Trains, I like trains, pictures of trains, I like HO scale. I like the layout, I was just getting into the sound side. I had to add a shaft from the basement all the way through to the roof. Kinda stepped in the middle my Model RR space in the attic. I never worked on any RR stuff, but I did work on a truck mount piling rig, for track stabilization. Regards.. |
I also collect cymbals. I play drums for fun. But I had some great teachers who helped me develop an ear for finding a decent cymbal. Cymbals are truly another rabbit hole universe in percussion. They can be dry, bright, trashy, dark, warm, etc. and we can be talking about undertones and over tones. There’s the sticking, attack, sustain, saturation and decay. Do those terms sound familiar? My best cymbal is a 19” crash gifted to me by the Zildjian family (long story). This cymbal made me realize that what most people buy at retail is simply not what sponsored professionals have access to. There is a world of difference. You gently tap this cymbal and it actually crashes lightly like a thin crash. You lean into it hard and it doesn’t saturate and fall apart but responds like a thicker rock cymbal. How is this possible? It’s magic. Lots of sustain. You can play jazz, pop and heavy metal with this thing. |
This subject has appeared before. https://forum.audiogon.com/posts/1892888 But, I’ll bite again....I collect: Porcelain insulators, the electric pole variety (Victor, Fred M. Locke, A.B.Chance, Ohio Brass, Lapp, etc., etc.) Locomotive air horns, the real thing (Nathan Airchime, WABCO, Leslie, no relation to Leslie speakers, Prime, Nabtesco) not J. C. Whitney pretend versions ...plus lots of electronic components, vacuum tubes and tools to build amplifiers and preamps |
I own over 4,000 vinyl LP's. They are openly displayed in cabinets in my living room. Once at a party someone said that it was a nice collection. Until that moment, I'd never considered myself a collector. I bought my first album when I was 12 years old...I am now 66. I've never intentionally collected any LP's. I woke up 54 years later with 4,000 records that I ACCUMULATED. Collecting was never my intent. In the 1980's I was somewhat a sartorial dandy. All of my suits were custom made and all of the pants were made without belt loops. Consequently, I needed something to hold my pants up. Over the years I accumulated over 60 pairs of Trafalgar braces. I don't wear them any longer...but I am getting a wall display case made to display about 20 pairs of them. Some of them are truly works of art and they deserve better than to be hidden somewhere in a box. They too are an accumulation, it was never my intent to have a 'collection'. It's like the guy that goes out to his garage one day and sees that It's full of 'stuff'. He never intended to collect anything...he woke up one day and sees all the stuff he accumulated. |
I collect books, most of which are non-fiction. I love books on history, free-market economics, also classical liberal authors from the "Old Right," such as Garet Garrett, Frank Chodorov, Albert J. Nock, John T. Flynn, Hayek, Mises ... etc. If you want a good one, get Hayek's "The Road to Serfdom." It is an eye-opener ... and relevant to today. Frank |
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Interesting. I’ve never thought of books as a "collection."I have books about any subjects, not only the one that interest me most...Books are collectable beautiful objects but are way over my possibilities to buy them and collect them now....I sell my 5 thousand books collection....By the way I read 4 thousand of them... I use other medium now...When you are older the place is less available and the house smaller... Books are not only object tough for me ...Never has been only objects …. Books are living spirit no less real than my friends.... They speak... And living with them is like living in heaven....Many books has completely change my way of thinking and living.... I dont collect book in fact, no more than I collect people.... But in this thread we speak about collectable objects, books are objects also.... I pity those who has never pick a book that change their mind and heart many times in their life... How can we know about geniuses of the past or contemporary one without their books ? How can we marvel about nature if we dont live in the midst of it without books? How can we fall in love if we live lonely without books? I cannot live without the books I have read and even without those I will not have the time to read.... Music help me, books also.... :) By the way, we cannot read Goethe or Blake and throw the object after reading it....We cannot throw books never, only some impersonal manual course perhaps, and not some for sentimental reason…. But for example who will throw the number theory course of G. H. Hardy after reading it ? It is a work of art.... One day I go to buy the books of a ninety old electrical engineering professor, we speak a lot, he was surprized that I comment about much of his books mathematical, physics and epistemological one, and at the end the last book was Maxwell electromagnetism ( old dover edition) and i said to him:" this one cannot go you keep it ".... He almost weep and say :" you are right" …. Books are not books they are souls.... I remember the day I go frantically in a search in the aunt's house for the first book I had ever seen....I turn his pages for one day...But we were poor, and the day after my aunt hide the book from me for his own children... :) I desperately look for it and remember my search at 4 years old, this was my age for 2 reasons: I cannot read the words at this time, and it was the first time I go for every corner of this 2 floors housing and each 2 rooms under the attic near our own housing....I never see this book again in spite or because of my tantrums …. :) |
mahgister I am amazed to be the only one that collect books it seems.... Anybody else?Interesting. I’ve never thought of books as a "collection." They are just ... books. You have to have books, right? It’s kinda like saying, "I collect flatware" because you have a drawer full of knives, forks and spoons. But I guess our books are a collection and, like our LPs and CDs, they reveal something about the collector. |
Yes to single malt (around 70 different ones) and like Caol Ila especially an 18 I tried recently but hadn't tasted in a long time. Also pre-resurrection Ardbegs (although I also enjoy Uigeadail when in the mood). Other collections include watches, wine, fountain pens, sports cars, antiques (particularly clocks) and some specific areas of gardening. |
