The Psychology of Collecting: Part II -the Rest of Us! - By: Bill Harvey

collectedSE (non-clinical) COLLECTORS:

Somewhat less 'traumatic' / 'dramatic'? -and it's pretty clear I'm on thin-ice psycho-babble here-- are the merely obsessive compulsive disorder collectors. No detectable brain damage -just good old OCD -or we might call it OCCD, (Obsessive Compulsive Collecting Disorder). But I wonder how many people who are truly committed to a given subject, (coin collecting, the Denver Broncos, UFO's, conspiracy theories, you name it) have family and friends who look at them, shake their heads and mutter something about OCD under their breaths.

But before we get on to collectors -Collectors with a capital C, coins, stamps, model railroad car Collectors, etc., we might consider the collector in all of us. There is a delightful story written by Judith Katz-Schwartz* - Remembering Grandma. Her grandma was a refugee -as a very young girl- from Tsarist Russia who collected... and I quote

...the tops of Bic pens neatly wound with rubber bands; hundreds of tiny garment snaps threaded onto safety pins; at least one hundred glass jars, all sparkling clean; eighty-seven neatly rolled and clamped Ace bandages.

I thought this was a little funny, till the chap with whom I share a wood shop reminded me about the two big garbage bags I have filled with carefully cleaned BBQ sauce bottles. I love BBQ sauce and eat it on almost everything. About a bottle a week. No idea what will ever come of them, but I KNOW the day will come when I'm dang glad I have all these empty BBQ sauce bottles.

Judith sums it up beautifully and with kind and rare insight, I think. In the above mentioned article, she closes with....


Some people collect for investment. Some collect for pleasure. Some folks do it to learn about history. And some people "save things" because it helps them to fill a gaping hole, calm fears, erase insecurity. For them, collecting provides order in their lives and a bulwark against the chaos and terror of an uncertain world. It serves as a protectant against the destruction of everything they've ever loved. Grandma's things made her feel safe. Though the world outside was a dangerous and continually changing place, she could still sit safely in her apartment at night, "putting together my things".

Then there was an episode from the TV sit-com Third Rock from the Sun. You might remember that Dick -(John Lithgow) became obsessed with Fuzzy Buddies. I take "Fuzzy Buddies" to be the producer's way to avoid being sued by the folks that make "Beenie Babies." If one were to be perfectly honest about things, I suspect most -if not all of us- saw a little of ourselves in the character.

There is another quite unique kind of nut-case collecting -that practiced by dictators as they accumulate bric-a-brac. Possible motives for collecting abound: compulsion, competition, exhibitionism, desire for immortality and the need for experts' approval. According to Peter York, a British journalist who studied dictators' decor for his book Dictator Style, recognizes all of the above in his subjects. It's basically a dictator's job, he says, to take everything over-the-top. For example...

Saddam Hussein
Sci-fi fantasy paintings featuring menacing dragons and barely-clad blondes.

Adolf Hitler
Bavarian 18th century furniture. Munich antique dealers were ordered to keep an eye out for him.

Kim Jong II
20,000 videos (Daffy Duck cartoons, Star Wars, Liz Taylor and Sean Connery flicks)

Idi Amin
Several racing cars and loads of old film reels of I Love Lucy reruns and Tom and Jerry cartoons

Joseph Stalin
Westerns with Spencer Tracy, Clark Gable and John Wayne. Stalin also inherited Joseph Goebbels's films.

Peter York also points out that "Some of these people," he says, "were really very short."

*Judith has a wealth or excellent advice to offer collectors. And some very nice stuff of her own for sale. Check out her site MsJudith.com and have alookf at herbook Secretss of a Collecting Diva If I had her book before I wrote some of my articles -would'a saved me a lot of research and making-up stuff.

In the next part - The Psychology of Collecting: Part III -Some Fringe Groups Then there are a few collectors who just can't help themselves. Simply t'aint their fault.

There are people in our lives who are just a little nutty about collecting -but not ourselves assuredly. Our collecting is perfectly reasonable and logical -based entirely on a sober recognition of the value of certain things that interest us.

Bill Harvey makes drawer and display cases for collectors and museums at Home-Museum.com.
He is also author of the COLLECTOR's HOW-TO series for dedicated collectors and hobbyists who wish to display and protect their very best stuff.