The Psychology Of Collecting

Interesting thoughts, but how much is enough in a catastrophe. By its nature that is unknowable. On the other hand, I collect cds and have the perfect amount of them. Until tomorrow.

If your heirs don't share your passion, and they seldom do, your collected treasures eventually end up being somebody else's junk when you pass. Unfortunately, the frivolity of collecting doesn't become apparent until our senior years when mortality becomes more of an issue. On the flip side, most collections are a healthy obsession, and the collectors derive a great deal of pleasure from them while they are alive. 

Great thoughts....  but more specifically,  I focus on collecting the "greatest hits" of an artist/group and their top albums/songs.....  usually in SACD format.

+1 rcm

I have a part-time job for the summer helping to clear out and sell old farts - like me - stuff. That stuff is hummels - I had NO idea what they were in June lol - old soda dispensers from the 1950s that weight hundreds of pounds, Pez candy dispensers - several hundred of these at one house - , old soda bottles, records - mostly in bad shape - and lots of other stuff. As the saying goes "one man's garbage is another man's gold" - and vice versa. 

Until recently, with the arrival of streaming, collecting and listening to your personal choices in music was really only possible through physical media. Hence, we ended up with physical music collections, Frankly, I don’t see this behavior as being in anyway strange, but simply an expression of an interest in music. Like jmalen123 I have the perfect amount of CDs until tomorrow - as my wishlists on Amazon, eBay and Discogs attest to. I stream mainly to affirm the purchase, or not, of physical media, as I know at 72 I will die before being able to listen to my entire collection end to end. CD collecting simply reflects my choices emotionally and financially and the value of that music to me and very much one man’s gold is another’s trash - but I didn’t collect it for another man, but me. Am I obsessive, maybe, but frankly I’m also too old to care as it provides immense satisfaction and value to me as it was intended to. Collecting reflects what you love.