For you collectors out there: What offbeat items do you like to collect?

[Joe Fields]

Warning: wives, husbands, SO's, dogs and cats do not count. Also, if you have a pic of what you prize, all the better.

Me? I love to collect old road maps from gas stations, dating back to the mid-1920's.

What say you?

[LisaM]

1. Old purses, from the 1920s and 1930s

Beaded, if possible. I love them.

[Joe Fields]

4. I've seen some really cool ones at flea markets and antique malls.

[AllegroRondo]

2. hotel bibles.

I used to travel a lot as a musician. I would take the bible from whatever hotel we stayed at, write the date and city inside the cover, and keep it.

I have several hundred of them.

[Joe Fields]

5. Man, if you ever start a church, your congregation's going to be

so confused...:shrug:

[mitchum]

103. That's cool! Did you know that Michael Stipe used to (and he may...

still do this)pull out the bottom dresser drawer in his hotel room and sign his name on the bottom of the drawer?
Stipe autographs aren't very common (he prefers to shake fans' hands), but there are actually thousands of secret Stipe autographs out there.

[BarenakedLady]

3. Chimpanzees

not real ones. : (|)

[Joe Fields]

7. How many cymbal clanging chimps do you have?

[BarenakedLady]

10. Alas

None. But then again those would probably creep me out.

[Joe Fields]

13. I think I would like to have about 30 of them, clanging at the same time!

[AggieGal]

79. I agree those things are creepy.

[malta blue]

6. Dirt

I have little vials of dirt from interesting places I have been:
Kafka's grave in Prague; Pyramids of Giza; Mount of Olives; Teotihuacan...you get the idea....

[Joe Fields]

I used to do that with sand, when I was a young boy.

All the beaches, death valley, bonneville salt flats, and the like.

[EstimatedProphet]

27. I used to collect bones

I worked on a lot of field projects, and plants were off-lmits. But bones were legal to pick up.

[wildhorses]

8. menus from restaurants

playbills, records, movies, books, cards, letters:blush:

i am better than i used to be:shrug:

[Joe Fields]

11. Hey there!

:bounce:

[wildhorses]

12. hey~

i also collect rocks, watches, jewelry, christmas ornaments, angels, stars and moons and pictures:blush:

i am a pack rat

:yoiks:

[Joe Fields]

15. I used to be.

:(

[seemunkee]

9. Flip books and smashed pennies

I have about 300 flip books.
The smashed pennies I get whenever I see the machines while traveling.

[Joe Fields]

14. I have two family members that collect smashed pennies.

[Kali]

80. cool do you have one from The Thing? Mystery of the Desert?

(That is the only place I have ever seen one of those machines)

[seemunkee]

109. No. Where are those places?

and if you go there could you smash a penny and send it to me?
I have some from Mt St Helens, Seattle Space Needle, The Royal Fusiliers Museum in London, San Francisco, and a lot of east coast areas. They still have World Trade Center ones at the NJ turnpike rest stops.

[Kali]

116. It is just one place -

a hokey tourist shop but local and a fun place to tour when you are um, in an "enhanced" mood, either chemically or just with the right friends.

I would love to have an excuse to do a penny for you - pm the address and you will have it within a week or so!

http://www.roadsideamerica.com/attract/AZCOCthing.html

http://doney.net/aroundaz/thing.htm (warning this one is a total spoiler and the author should be shot!)

[Richard Steele]

16. I "accumulate" more than collect. But probably my biggest actual collection would be...

...my vintage clothes. I've got quite a few great old suits,
and probably around 500 neckties.

Here's one of my favorites. It's a Tom James "Photometric" from
1970- lots of hand-stitching, genuine horn buttons, working
buttonholes, the works. Very "G" in its day.

[Joe Fields]

18. Nice suit. I have those identical glasses. Quit wearing them about a year ago.

Old prescription.

[Initech]

17. I have a huge collection of ticket stubs from various sporting events and concerts I've been to

I even have a few flight receipts.

[Joe Fields]

20. Yeah, I used to collect concert ticket stubs.

[RetroLounge]

19. Still have a few collections, although they are dormant...

Most of it is in storage or boxed up and in the attic right now...

Franciscan Starburt 50's dinnerware


TST Pebbleford Dinnerware


Holt Howard Cats


Vintage Board Games


Ceramic Animal Dresser Caddies


Heywood Wakefield Furniture


Wire Animal Letter Holders


Exotica and Lounge Music LP's


RL

[Joe Fields]

23. Way cool. The Pebbleford looks a lot like Fiesta. Love 50's stuff.

[elehhhhna]

21. beach glass, Roman glass, old glass in general.

and small boxes made of anything from cinnamon bark to goat-horn

[Joe Fields]

46. I used to collect old apothecary bottles...Most had the labels intact,

and a few still had some kind of elixir in them. Too afraid to drink the stuff, though.

[MissMillie]

22. bad relationships

I've had a whole bunch of them over the years.

[Joe Fields]

25. But did you make any money off of them?

[datasuspect]

24. the skulls of those i vanquish

[Canuckistanian]

34. Do you collect skulls that others have vanquished?

Or are you keeping the collection "pure"?

[Joe Fields]

43. Do you have much of a collection?

[TommyO]

26. New Fiestaware, not the old "collectible" stuff.

They are my everyday dishes, and I don't have any piece in the same color. It makes for a very colorful table when it's more than just me dining here.

[johnnie]

28. Souls

:evilgrin:

[Connonym]

30. ...

:scared:

[Joe Fields]

44. I'll sell you mine cheap.

[johnnie]

47. Let me check my records

I may have it already.

[Love Bug]

29. Fortune telling teacups and

fancy-face playing cards

[Blue_In_AK]

31. I don't collect, but my husband, HullBoss,

has a museum-quality merchant marine memorabilia collection dating from pre-WW II. He was a marine engineer as was his father, so this stuff really interests him, all kinds of pins, ship photos and prints, badges, insignias, etc. etc. etc. He's got a whole roomful of stuff.

[Joe Fields]

48. He must have to search far and wide for that stuff.

[Blue_In_AK]

51. Lots on eBay, believe it or not...

He just found something there that he's been looking for for years. He was practically dancing on the ceiling when he won the auction.

[1gobluedem]

32. I collect tacky souvenirs

I have shelves and shelves of them in my office.

I also collect teenage series books from the 40s, 50s, and 60s; also known as Malt Shop Lit.

[Joe Fields]

45. tacky souveniers are cool. Like shot glasses from the Ozarks and such...

[1gobluedem]

64. Or canned roadkill from Tennessee

A commemorative bottle opener from Pope Benedict's coronation....Ole and Lena salt and pepper shakers...a keychain shaped like Jesse Ventura's head. Yep, I've got 'em.

[Joe Fields]

65. Canned roadkill? how novel. Why didn't I think of it?

[1gobluedem]

66. A fortune just ready to be made...

I also have Michelangelo's David in a snow globe...

[Canuckistanian]

33. Unusual foreign beer bottles

Strange shapes, weird names, microbrew one-offs.

You know, the usual.

[Joe Fields]

62. I used to collect soft drink bottles. The more obscure the better.

[Canuckistanian]

67. OOh, I had one you might have been interested in

There was a softdrink company in Sudbury, Ontario that used to market a GREEN soda and they put it in our standard brown Ontario beer bottles. We felt so cool as kids, drinking our soda out of BEER BOTTLES.

Like this kind of bottle:


I wish I could remember the name. It was an Irish name, like O'Donell's.

Never saw it anywhere else or any other time other than Sudbury in 1969.

[Joe Fields]

68. Oh, yeah. Just the kind of bottle that would fit prominently in my collection.

Like Polly Soda, an independent soda maker and bottler in my hometown.

[Zoigal]

35. Political pins

and other political associated paraphernalia.

[Joe Fields]

49. I once had a ceramic Jimmy Carter bong. Would that count?

[BuddhaGirl]

86. LOL

my hubby has a ceramic Nixon bong! He was smoking it when Nixon resigned LOLOL

[Joe Fields]

87. can you feel the kharma??? oh, yeah.....

:hi:

[stuntcat]

36. bones

I have some animal skulls and bones, and a taxidermied mouse dressed like Hamlet :headbang: I want to get a human skull someday, they cost more though.

[EstimatedProphet]

37. I often collect dust

[Joe Fields]

50. Don't move around much, huh?

[EstimatedProphet]

63. No, I just sweat furniture polish

[Joe Fields]

72. You must keep your lustre...

[Ikonoklast]

91. Do you have a nice lemony scent?

Does the water bead up on your skin in the shower?

Inquiring minds want to know.:rofl:

[rockymountaindem]

38. Antique military medals

There's a fantastic world of militaria out there to collect, and it's nice to own a real piece of history. The way I see it, it's also nice to collect old-time medals that are sitting around in dusty drawers in dusty shops and display them under UV-proof glass in a temperature controlled environment.

[InvisibleTouch]

39. Not anymore, but years ago...

...I used to collect differently-colored pastic milkbottle caps. Started with the standard blue and red, and added orange, yellow, brown, green, pink, purple. I eventually ran out of new colors and variants to add, so there was no sense adding more. I still have them. :)

[Joe Fields]

56. Now THAT'S offbeat!

:hi:

[GenDem]

40. Art Deco mottos, wallpockets, Victorian oil paintings, tole trays

[Parche]

41. AIRLINE TIMETABLES

I have over 5000 of them, different airlines, different dates!!!!:hi:

[Joe Fields]

57. believe it or not, I had a few train timetables. The graphics on the covers

were pretty cool.

[mitchum]

42. Hyapatia Lee memorabilia, minstrel memorabilia, Ouija boards...

(technically "talking boards"), tube amplifiers

[Joe Fields]

58. all pretty cool. Minstrel memorabiglia? cool.

[grasswire]

82. I have minstrel memorabilia, too

It's mostly a tangential thing with me, because of my true love of American popular song and being a dealer in antique and vintage paper things. My grandfather remembered the minstrel era when traveling shows would come to the little towns of Saskatchewan, and he sang a lot of the songs of that era. I keep minstrel things when I come across them.

What kind of items do you have?

[mitchum]

85. Several handbills, a couple of posters, sheet music, pair of gloves...

the history of minstrel shows is fascinating.It's a lot more complex than people assume.
A lot of times I tell people that the gloves belonged to my greatgrandfather who was in the Tarbrush Serenaders. Got show business in my blood :)

[grasswire]

96. I'd be real interested in hearing what you have in sheet music.

If you want to PM me, I'd really like to hear about it. I don't often run into people who have any interest in the minstrel era as part of our musical history.

[VenusRising]

97. I loved Ribald Tales.

It was a great storyline.

[nedbal]

52. woodworking tools, such as these, and many others

also I have some of these type records




and other

STUFF

toooooooooo much

STUFF

[Joe Fields]

59. Where did you get those records?

[nedbal]

69. one I got from the grandparents, then I found others at tag sales

[Joe Fields]

73. That is so wierd. I've never seen picture discs that old.

[XemaSab]

53. Chopstick rests

:)

[nedbal]

54. I also have old road maps , dating back to the mid-1940's.

[Joe Fields]

60. I'm literally obsessed by them. I have one of the coolest "Auto Trails "

maps you'd ever want to see, from 1922.

[nedbal]

70. Like a lot of things I started to sell em off on ebay, then stopped, I HAVE to get back getting ..

RID OF STUFF.

when I sold some maps I got a lot a feedback praise for the excellent condition they were in

[Bjornsdotter]

55. Old Swedish cookbooks

and old sewing patterns.

Oldest pattern.....1930's

Oldest cookbook ......1902

Cheers

[Manifestor_of_Light]

61. I'm trying to get rid of stuff.

If you want to buy my old stuff that my grandparents and parents had, you can go to www.etexauctioneers.com or go on eBay, click on "My Stores" and type in "Three Sisters".

[grasswire]

83. Is the June 9 auction stuff from your family?

And I'm not sure I found the right ebay store. There are eight stores with "three sisters" in the store name.

[blockhead]

71. levels

(part of my trade I guess)

[BrotherBuzz]

77. Sweet!

I especially like the two cast iron levels.

[pipoman]

123. Looks like a Davis filigree and a Stanley cast iron?

The middle section of the back cast iron level is throwing me a little, it doesn't quite look like a Davis. You have a nice collection.

If you scroll down to my Keen Kutter collage below (post 100) the level there is a 6" Keen Kutter cast iron. It sold last Oct. for $3,200 at auction.

[greatauntoftriplets]

74. Old white linens.

They can be cream or ecru, but nothing with color.

ON edit: Also maps of places I have been and places I want to go.

[Broken_Hero]

75. superman stuff, I don't know if its off beat

but I only know one other superman collector(my fil)....check my journal.

[Digit]

76. Cream of Wheat ads from the 20's

Oh, and stuff I dig with my metal detector from the civil war. Revolutionary would be fine, too.
Then again, you can never have enough oak antique furniture, either.

What I would WANT to collect but can't afford...a Regina antique music player with those metal discs.

[Kali]

78. rusty metal

actually I don't like collecting it but I live in a dry environment with a lot of history yet very rural. So...when folks come to visit they invariably wander around and find neat old rusty things. They bring them back to the house and ALWAYS leave them behind when they go home. It is an old running joke with me to say "Don't pick up any rusty metal" when visitors decide to "go for a walk". They never follow my instructions.

[Richard Steele]

113. I have a sizeable accumulation of "rusty stuff" myself.

I actually make use of some of the smaller pieces:




The bigger stuff is harder to find use for, but if I ever find one, I'm ready.

[Kali]

117. those are cool! I had the idea to somehow embed some of the stuff

around here into stucco on a wall and deal with it that way, but of course I never do it.

[Kat45]

81. Cow-related items.

Figurines, linens, toys--anything bovine.

[Kali]

118. what is your ratio of Holsteins to Hereford or solid red, or other beef type cattle?

I am the recipient and involuntary collector of a lot of Holstein items, being a rancher - but those are dairy cattle and we raise beef animals! Drives me bonkers. Don't any manufacturers know the difference?

[Kat45]

121. You probably get Holstein items because most of the items around are Holsteins

I don't know why that is. I'd say most of mine are Holsteins, though I do like them a lot. (I tend to like black and white animals.) Plus, a lot of my cow items are Woody Jackson products; he's an artist in Vermont who does pictures of Holstein cows, and for a while he had a company that sold cow products based on his pictures. (He's the one whose cows are used for the Ben & Jerry's logo.)

And being in New England, dairy cows are the common ones in this area. I have some Jersey and Guernsey cows, yeah I know, also dairy. One or two belted galloways--I think those are so cool looking (but they weren't easy to find). I haven't identified the breed of all of my things, though of course some could just be "generic cows," no particular breed depicted. Some could be beef cattle, I don't know; coming from dairy country, I'm not as familiar with beef breeds. But I might have a black angus or some longhorn cattle among my herd, I can't remember them all.

[Fire Walk With Me]

84. "Wheat" pennies, "Moog" records, etc.

I haven't bought a Moog record in years, and I sometimes search my spare change for the Wheat pennies. My sister used to collect them as well. I also love vintage tube audio gear (recording and reproduction), going through many sets of loudspeakers, and Buchla analog synthesizers. Not much around my place right now though.





This guy has 109 records listed, many of which I'd never heard of before. This is a completist. I have nowhere near that many, although I have several that are sealed/unplayed.

http://rateyourmusic.com/list/zeke/the_magical__marvelous_moog

[NightWatcher]

88. beer tap handles

the more exotic (or tasty) the better

[libodem]

89. miniatures

I have a whole little house of Victorian furniture and people in a 4 shelf curio cabinet. I, also, have a 40's dollhouse with old furniture and people, too. I have some black ladies hats form the 40's and 50's.

[Joe Fields]

92. That would be something to see...

:hi:

[applegrove]

90. I like frogs. I don't really collect though. Two cats are expensive enough.

I did get a frog sticker this week. It was free. Sweeeet.

[Bombero1956]

93. diecast

just a sample

[Generic Brad]

94. Fishing lures

I buy ones I know I will never use. And I don't know why.

[BrotherBuzz]

106. Go on and heap them in a pile and photograph them to show us

The girls might see the makings of interesting pair of earrings in the lot. Some men, too. :)

I just want to see a hoard of fishing lures. I met a neat fellow, the Harbormaster for Morro Bay, that had collected a fine mess of fishing reels. Had them everywhere in the house; in baskets on the coffee table, in bowls on the kitchen counter, loose on the bathroom vanity, in the bedrooms. He had hundreds of them, and they were everywhere.

[deadparrot]

95. Cast recordings.

Broadway, off-Broadway, movie musical soundtracks.

[VenusRising]

98. I collect boxes.

I like the jeweled ones the most. I have a 2x3 inch jewel encrusted box that I adore. I wish I could find more of them.

I also collect tarot/card oracles. I only have a few, but I really enjoy the artwork on them.

[Joe Fields]

99. I used to collect old wooden boxes and crates, like beer crates.

[pipoman]

100. I collect Keen Kutter tools and cutlery in general

This is a little collage I put together



and specialize in Keen Kutter photos and postcards

[pipoman]

101. Oh, and a small collection of Nixon stuff

I bought several years ago when my wife collected music boxes. I had to buy it all to get the little dancing Agnew and Nixon music boxes.

[Richard Steele]

112. OMG! That button! (You know the one I mean)

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

Some friends got me once got me a Nixon button that said "I like Dick",
and I thought that was pretty funny- but I see now that it was far from
the funniest out there!

[pipoman]

122. I found out after I bought the collection

that the button you speak of is sort of in demand. What makes it better is that the small print says "Republican Committee" . There is a reproduction with Nixon's face on it that sell for around $10 on fleabay and flea markets. I sold a plaster bust with different faces on 3 sides of his head. It was big and cumbersome.

[Joe Fields]

102. The lady in the Keen Kutter dress slays me man...You'd like my

70 year old ivory handled keen kutter I inherited from my dad. It's purty.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

104. Fat cells.

[Godhumor]

105. Japanese Capsule Toys

I probably bring home 50 to 100 of the little things everytime I go to Tokyo...

[NMDemDist2]

107. i seem to be collecting carbon steel cooking tools

I have a wok and several knives. I just can't seem to pass it up.

there is something about the patina of carbon steel implements that just hooks me :shrug:

[enigmatic]

108. A bunch of stuff

Old radios (mostly shortwaves from 1950-80), Masonic and Elks memorabilia (I have an Elk's Fez from the Early 60's), Curling (the sport)collectibles, a huge collection of Incorrect/Outsider/Insane music records from the last 50 years; stuff like that...

[Joe Fields]

119. I used to collect old transister radios and old cameras, including

a couple of Brownie Box cameras.

[mcscajun]

110. Music boxes.

I have a very small collection, including a ceramic San Francisco hill with a cable car climbing a Victorian-house-lined hill, a Thorens disc music box with about a dozen or so additional discs, and a small wooden box with the sheet music painted on the lid. Not sure I still have it or not, but I had a tiny plastic music box with a holiday motif. It worked with a pull string, and I used to keep it on the apartment door at Xmas when I lived in NYC.
:)

[bridgit]

111. i had an opportunity to pick up some 100+ deguerrotype plates...

and seen one of E.A. Poe, a portrait very rare, appraised at $30,000 on Antique Roadshow recently, made me wish i'd have bought them :banghead:

[last_texas_dem]

114. "Disk-go" cases, political campaign buttons, and license plates

Those are some of the more "out there" things I have small collections of.

* "Disk-go" cases, for anyone wondering (they're before my time as well!), are small carrying cases for 45 RPM records that they made, I believe, in the late sixties through the seventies. I don't actually keep the records I collect in them as they are more likely to get scratched up outside of their paper sleeves, but there is something very cool and retro about the cases, so I can't pass them up the few times I ever see them.

[EFerrari]

115. I used to collect old typewriters, hats and toys.

There's a great antique flea market here every weekend.

But am traveling light nowadays and gave away my stuff to other collectors.

[Joe Fields]

120. I also collected WWII rationing stamps.