Collectors Anonymous

Vijay Nagaswami writes on India's Deccan Herald website, "Collectors collect a wide range of things, from the relatively common place stamps and coins to obscure and exotic things that would astonish the non-collector, such as elephant toenails, which are not, as one may imagine, collected by being intrepid enough to find a pachyderm in need of a pedicure, but a type of American knife of very early 20th century vintage (which one can buy off the Net)."

In an article titled "Collectors Anonymous," Vijay scribes, "Most of us tend to collect something or the other in our lives, even if not completely consciously and sometimes when we shift residence we cannot understand for what purpose we have an impressive collection of unused shoelaces or rolls of ribbons of different colours."

He goes on to say, "But this does not make us collectors, for we are not subject to the most important aspects of collecting: The joy of the hunt, the exhilaration of object ownership and the joy of seeing it regularly amongst one’s possessions. Also evident is the pain experienced by the collector when a coveted object is misplaced, carelessly handled, broken or unobtainable for whatever reason, as well as the increasing quantities of time that are devoted to the collection, even at the risk of neglecting other priority domains in the collector’s life."

"The mindset of a collector is best summed up in the following statement that appeared a few years ago on the website of ‘The Card Collector’s Company’: “A Card Collection is a magic carpet that takes you away from work-a-day cares to havens of relaxing quietude where you can relive the pleasures of a past time brought to life in vivid picture and prose. This is history from an original source.”

Click here to read the entire article.