Some follow-ups here:

My DH Tom has all the Dick Francis books, most of them in hardcover. I have a good, but far from complete, collection of Tolkien related books. Certainly nothing like this person's collection --

http://www.houzz.com/projects/38611/Hobbit-House

I gather books on many topics -- favorite authors, SF&F, garden topics beyond roses, favorite children's books (including the Judy Bolton series), Craftsman and other early 20th century architecture, a smattering of art books, histories of books, libraries and typefaces, lots of history of fashion, sewing techniques, knitting, quilt making and books on fibers and fabrics. But really I consider these gatherings rather than true collections. I am exploring my interests rather than trying assemble a cohesive collection.

Rosefolly's comment reminds me that I recently gave away a pile/collection of yellowing Dick Francis paperbacks. Luckily as I flicked through them, checking that no one had used a £20 note as a book mark, I came across a signed copy, so have held on to it, 'though it probably is worth very little.

I don't usually think of my books as a 'collection' since to me a collection is of things that are nice or interesting but not essential. :) But I'm definitely acquisitive with books, and once I discover an author or series that I like, especially one I enjoy re-reading, I'll end up gathering all of them. I do have some that are more 'collections' - and Rosefolly, the Judy Bolton series is one of them! I've got the entire series plus I made a special effort to get the first printing of The Haunted Attic so I could have a copy with Judy's birthday in the Halloween party announcement. Some other of the juvenile series I have: Nancy Drew, Maida, Peggy Lane, Nan Sherwood, and the old Roy J. Snell mystery stories for girls. I have several of the Newbery winners/honors as well. Of the mystery series, I have all Dorothy Sayers, Ngaio Marsh, Brother Cadfael, Sister Frevisse & Joliffe, and yes, most of Dick Francis's work as well. Most of the Heyers, and most of the Andre Nortons. And about a half-dozen copies of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, beginning with the old Ballantine paperbacks with the Barbara Remington covers. And a surprising number of picture books for someone who never had children. :) I have about a dozen different versions of The Night Before Christmas, and spread them around the house as part of my Christmas decorating.

The last time we moved, the book boxes exceeded 100, and I've filled up 2 more bookcases since then. My name is Cheryl and I am a bookaholic.....

Interesting and wow at your collections mentioned here. I’m not a collector of any one thing in particular because I love a pretty minimalist household (and luckily DH agrees with that). I do need to go through my bookcases this weekend as I have a small pile of books that don’t fit in, so perhaps I do collect books as a whole. However, there isn’t a particular author or topic that I focus on (although I do have a handful on Victorian social history). I wonder how many objects does it take to become a collection? :-)

I wonder how many objects does it take to become a collection? :-)

Two and a longing for more? I have eleven teapots and several teacups and saucers, most of which don't match the teapots.

Carolyn, I collected bells for a long time. Then we needed the space where the bell cabinet was, so all but a few treasured ones went to Goodwill! :) The cabinet was given to friends who had just bought a house and wanted it.

Donna

Donna, I also collected bells for a while. When we went to the UK, originally for a year and then lived there for over twelve years, I forgot about the collection which I had packed up and put in store. Quite a surprise to find when I finally returned!

Although I could have added to the collection on my visits to Europe and the US during those UK years, I am glad in a way that I didn't as I now have little space left in my curio cabinet.

I also collected small elephants made of all kinds of materials and was given so many that I have passed on most of that collection to my granddaughter who loves elephants and has room to display them.

Ann, my DH's great aunt collected elephants. I think she had somewhere north of 1,000 when she passed away.

Donna, that was a Jumbo size collection! I never did a trunk count but I wouldn't have had anywhere near that many. However, the ones I had were mostly gifts sent from all over the world and included some unusual figures. Among my favourites are a leather one, a baby with a short trunk etched into glass and a sandalwood Ganesh.

Aunt Vera had quite a variety, too. Once people know you're "into" something it's Katie Bar the Door! LOL Everyone in the family got one or two of them. I'm not sure what became of the rest of them.

Donna

Donna, that's what my sister said after she began collecting dishware with strawberries on it. People gave her an astonishing number of things, not all of them very pretty. She downsized after her husband died and was able to put a lot of stuff in yard sales to get rid of it. She kept several pretty things, and what she displays in her china cabinet is a set of Wedgewood's Wild Strawberry pattern china.

Yes, I got several bells that were the tacky souvenir ones from various locations.

I bet those Wedgwood china pieces are pretty!

Donna

Donnamira, do you ever travel in New Hampshire? Rouan and I have twice visited a rather marvelous used bookstore there that has quite a bit of early 20th century children's series fiction. I think you would be in heaven. If you think you are likely to go there some time, let one of us know and we'll try to dig up the name and location of that store.

Rosefolly, I love the New England states, and although I seldom travel for pleasure (I haven't been to New Hampshire since 2003 when the INTEX-North America field campaign flew out of the former Pease AFB!), I'd love to know about the bookstore, just in case! Checking out the local bookstores is a favorite pastime when I do travel. :) My parents had a few books each from several of the early juvenile series, and although fine literature they were not, I always enjoyed them as a kid. Even then, I could see that the world portrayed in the books was vanishing.

I'm checking with Rouan and our other sister and will get back to you!

Donnamira, Rouan tells me that the bookstore was located on the highway outside Peterborough, NH. Unfortunately when she passed by it last summer, she saw that it had closed. Too bad.

Disappointing! Thank you for checking though!

Interesting about the elephant collections. My mum also would collect elephants, but I'm not sure if she accidentally had one and then it blossomed into a large assortment due to elephants being an easy gift or whether she just really liked them. When she down-sized, I do know only a few elephants made the cut to the new house. Another stateside friend is a accidental collector of snowman stuff - people now are rather indiscriminate about the quality of snowman things and so it's rather tough for her to decide which to keep. (The gift-givers are frequent visitors to the house which makes it tricky.) I'm glad that I haven't had to "force-collect" anything yet.

My grandpa was started on collecting those tourist spoons and his well-traveled family produced quite a collection for him (all done very tongue-in-cheek for us as well as him). When he died, you wouldn't believe the squabble that arose in one branch of the family as to who should get the spoon collection.

Family is like a box of chocolates: you had quite a few sweet ones and a few nuts.

So true, Lemonhead! My brother's wife's parents had a pair of stuffed pheasants and the fight that broke out among the siblings over those things was unbelievable! My brother "mounted" two rubber chickens on plaques and gave them to one of them...they didn't think it was very funny. :)

Donna

I am the keeper of my mother's stamp collection. She just loved it and spent a lot of time (and money) on it. She told my sister once that the best winter days were when the previous year's collection blank pages came out and she could fill them in. The collection is quite large and we would like to sell it, but no one seems to be buying these days. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!

There is a problem with disposing of collections and other items as we get older and want to downsize. Who wants or doesn't want what we have?

I was given a small collection of crested china because my grandparents thought I would cherish it but it isn't valuable and I don't think anyone in the family wants it so it will probably go to a charity shop eventually.

I loved Judy Bolton when I was growing up. I had all her books, but gave them away when I got older. I currently have about ten that I have found at used bookstores. Very nice to have them back.

You can get all the Judy Bolton books in softcover from Applewood Books. Check out the new volume The Strange Likeness written with the consent of the author's daughters and based on her notes!

annpan, I'd never heard of crested china and had to go look it up. :) I suspect my porcelain figurine collection will be one of those millstones around my family's neck when it's time for me to downsize. I've got about 5 cabinets' worth. arrgh! Probably the same thing will happen with all my books, but I would hope that the books at least will find a home.

Donna, my grandparents collected the crested china when they went on holidays or coach one day outings. Otherwise they were gifts from friends who had been on similar trips.

Sadly some were broken when they posted them to me from England to Australia many years ago. Only one piece is by Goss which is more valuable. The others are by less well known makers.

I could have sworn I responded to this thread. I guess I forgot to click submit after I finished my message.

Collections:

George Gissing, of course! He was a very prolific writer but not a bestselling one. He has many titles out there, but not many copies of them. I would say that I have about 3/4 of them at this point, plus a few biographies of him. There is actually a Gissing Society and bunches of scholars who delve into his stuff more deeply than I have time to do, but I do tend to skim some of their papers here and there. Personally, I think the scholars need to step back and enjoy his writing a bit more. And maybe find another hobby as well... they take this Gissing thing wayyyy too far.

I used to collect books on the art of making bread. I love to make my own artisan loaves and I had books upon books upon books. But really, the recipe doesn't vary all that much so I kept most of what I had and stopped buying new titles.

Classics. If you look at almost any list of "books for the college bound" "Classics to read in your lifetime" "Great Books you should have read in college", I own almost all of them. I like old books and while I care about condition, I don't care about value. I am not an investor, I am a reader. I like old copies that I enjoy carrying around and reading. And if it falls apart, at least it fell apart being read and loved, not stuck on a dusty shelf someplace. (books have feelings, too.)

Everyman Library: This is my guilty pleasure. I just love these little books. I think they look cute, fit nicely in my hand, and I can get them relatively cheaply. I like the way they stand so tall and proud with nice bindings and edges even though they are only six inches tall. I will NOT read a mass market PB (because they feel so horrid in my hands), but these little books are gems.

I think that's it... but who knows what will grab my attention tomorrow.

PAM

Since we‘re
on the subject on collections in general:

I used to
collect Kinder Egg figurines, but I got rid of the collection some 10 years ago
and only kept the ones I liked best, including some rather rare and collectible
ones from my childhood. Along with my miniature owls they form the core of a growing collection of
miniatures, the kind usually grouped together on knick-knack shelves or in small
curio cabinets. I dream of owning a large printer‘s tray to display them in,
but those are expensive.

I have
collected owl figurines for 25+ years. It started, as such collections
sometimes do, accidentally. I bought two clay figurines, people saw them and
started giving me more. I try to limit myself to small ones – under 20 cm,
preferably under 10 cm – but I have a few bigger ones, all but one of which I
have been given. People were also indiscriminate in their giving to begin with,
so I got owl postcards, owl jewellery, owl candles, owl mugs and so on. I
managed to put a stop to all that, and little by little was able to make people
realise that just because it‘s owl-shaped, it does not mean I‘ll be happy to
have it.

I like them best if they‘re unusual and/or artistic. The collection ranges from simplified to realistic to abstract (and a
few kitschy anthropomorphic ones), in materials as diverse as clay, ceramics,
plastic, wax, wood, metal, coal, shell, glass and crystal. I have about 100,
but only display about a dozen of the larger ones at any given time. The
miniature owls are grouped a few together per each of my several miniature shelves and on
various bookshelves.

Lately, my
elephants seem to be breeding, but I bought those myself and I think 8 is quite
enough. The herd lives on one of my bookshelves. I also have two Ganesha figurines and since I plan to add one each time I visit India, I guess they can be
called a collection too.

As for
tourist spoons, my paternal grandmother collected those, and so did my mother, but she gave them away when she and my father moved house a few years back and only kept a few of the more unusual ones. When gran passed, each of her descendants chose a few spoons as mementoes and the rest
went to a charity shop. I plan to use mine as teaspoons if I ever get the chance to
serve tea from my silver tea-set (that I also got from her).

I only wish
getting rid of her books would be as easy. No-one seems to want them: we have already taken the few we wanted, and we got firm negatives from all charity shops, second-hand bookshops and libraries we contacted.

I have collected books by favorite authors (the Amelia Peabody series by Elizabeth Peters, for example, I am only missing the first one in hardcover) and have somehow amassed a fair number of books on herbs, growing and using.

Aside from favorite authors, I seem to have also amassed a large number of cat themed objects, mostly figurines. I really don't want any more as I don't have enough room for them; I'm just going to have to clear some out if any more show up!

That's what I say about my miniature Christmas trees, Rouan. I started with just a few to put around my nativity set, and now I have a small forest and have to admit that I bought another one this year. But it is so pretty, crystal with a pale green tint at the edges of the branches.

I love Christmas and had to laugh when a young woman told me recently that she dreaded getting out her decorations because she had six tubs of stuff to carry in. I have seven boxes just for the den. That is where the tree is, though, and the mantel.

It's a good point that as you grow older you have to consider the disposition of any collections you may assemble. It is like considering the fate of any pets you may acquire late in life. You cannot in fairness take them on without considering what will happen to them once you are gone.

A collection can also be a responsibility.

Rosefolly, with regard to taking on a pet.

When we were in the UK on a very long (13 year!) working holiday, we wanted a dog but were wondering what would happen to it if we had a car crash and had no one to take on our pet. We decided to get a pure bred spaniel from a spaniel rescue place and made insurance arrangements with a dedicated refuge to look after the dog permanently if we couldn't.

I brought my last spaniel, the second we rescued, back to Australia with me and when she died, decided not to get any more pets. It was getting difficult for me to cope and the retirement place I am in isn't really suitable to house one.

Annpan, I have been thinking about that too. After my current cats are gone (not for many years yet, I hope) I am considering fostering cats that are waiting for their forever homes. That way I can still enjoy the companionship without having to worry about what will happen to them when I am gone.

Rouan, that is a good idea. It would be easier to pass on a cat than a dog, I think, as cats are very adaptable.

I was offerred a place for my dog in the UK when I was leaving to go back to Australia. The groomer I used said she could find a home for her easily but I thought my poor sensitive girl had been passed around enough!

rouan, i have thought of doing the same with parrots. Parrots are so long-lived and so misunderstood and often abused. I had a Nanday conure for 30 years, and although I want another one, I know it would outlive me, so rather than creating a future problem, my thought is it will be better to foster others' left-behind problems.

Back on book collections, has anyone else faced the dilemma when a series changes format? I have all 4 of Megan Whalen Turner's Attolia books, and when The King of Attolia came out, the format changed including a new cover artist, and the first 2 books were re-issued in the new format with new covers. I want a consistent format, but at the same time, I'm fond of the original covers and don't want to replace them. Same with Shannon Hale's Bayern books. What to do??!?

Rouan's and my father had three cats at the end of his life, or were there only two by then? He loved them dearly and they kept him company after my mother died. One cat came from a no-kill shelter that was willing to take the cat back, so that one was fine. I forget what happened to the second one, which is why I am wondering if it was the cat (his favorite) who predeceased him. The third one was a rescue cat with a very difficult personality that no one wanted, including me. By something of a miracle, the people who bought Dad's house decided to take on the cat as well. In the day it was an outside cat. I expect it kept the place clear of mice. At night it slept in the heated garage. Frankly this was a far better fate than I expected for what was actually a rather unpleasant animal.

If I take on responsibility for any animals later in my life, it would be from a no-kill shelter that is willing to take surviving pets back.

Thanks for your kind words about my Booker collection, Rosefolly!

But it's not my only literary collection. I have a complete set of Stan Barstow first editions (www.stanbarstow.info) and a complete set of Paul Gallico first editions - both US and UK (www.paulgallico.info). Both those web-sites badly need updating - but I'm retiring next year (yay!) and I'll have more time to deal with them. I have a separate collection of The Snow Goose in various editions as well.

I also have a complete set of Ishiguro firsts (one or two of which are worth a bit - especially A Pale View of Hills, which I recently got him to sign).

I have a complete collection of the Agatha Christie Crime Collection - those are a nice set, each with three books in a single volume. I also have a complete collection of the Jennings books in hardback with covers - regrettably, many of these are not first editions.

I have a lovely collection of The Wind in the Willows in many different editions - though I don't have a first edition. Which is a shame, but it would cost me a LOT of money.

I have a nice complete set of Dickens too.

(I am a bit obsessive - once I start to collect something, I want them ALL!)

I love the quaint illustrations in some early childrens' books. I just realized I have several books on the topics of King Arthur and Robin Hood saved from childhood. I just cannot bring myself to get rid of them because I adore the charming illustrations. These books were printed before I was born. Another childhood favorite, simply because of its wood engravings by Howard Pyle, is "Otto of the Silver Hand", which I have kept and cherished. Another old favorite is "The Bird's Christmas Carol."

Do your copies of the King Arthur & Robin Hood stories have the NC Wyeth illustrations? I would keep them too!

Sailor Dolls

I remember a small 'collection' of sailor dolls owned by my late Mother. She had travelled widely by sea in the 1930's and these could be purchased from the ship's Purser. Each doll had the name of his ship on his cap band.

I have no idea what became of them, but do know we were never allowed to touch or play with them!

Vee, I bought a sailor doll on the ship from the UK to Australia in 1960. I might still have it packed away...and then again perhaps not!

If one is a true collector of an author's works, does that mean even buying books you didn't like? I had read Heyer's "Bitter Corn" but didn't want to buy it.

I also left my copy of "The Great Roxhythe" with friends and never asked for it back! I wasn't very keen on her early works.

Hmm, Martin, is it possible you may have crossed the line between "collector" and "hoarder"? LOL Your collections sound wonderful! Make sure you have a catalog of them, along with approximate values. My sister gave me a catalog of her books and record albums - she wanted someone to know that many are valuable, so we wouldn't just haul them off to Goodwill if something happened to her.

Donna

Donna, I have told my girls (a daughter and two stepdaughters) that I don't care what they do with my stuff when I'm gone but to please not put my books and old dishes in a yard sale without having them priced by someone knowledgeable.

Sound advice Carolyn! Sometimes around here, one sees outside a house of a recent 'departed' person, a skip/dumpster being filled with years of accumulated 'possessions'. I can understand that relatives don't need/want the stuff but much of it isn't junk and could be recycled. We are truly a throwaway society.

This reminds me deep in the furthest corners of this house wrapped in newspaper, we have my late Father's collection of silver cups won in the 1920's for various 'sporting achievements' from sprinting to rowing and probably many other events between. He even had a glass-fronted cupboard in which they had been displayed! I have no idea if they are worth anything and I suppose the engraving could be polished off. I should hate to see them just thrown out.

Vee, if the are silver they are at least worth the price of silver!

I believe one of my DH's cousins is approaching "hoarder" status. Their grandmother recycled wrapping paper, and even asked that greeting cards be signed in pencil so she could reuse them! I would imagine those habits were the result of growing up during the Depression, but the whole family kind of got in the habit of recycling wrapping paper. Now this cousin tries to save every scrap of paper, every bow, every card... She has many, many items that belonged to grandparents, parents, aunts and uncles that she just can't bear to part with. I truly think she's in need of help before it gets any worse.

Donna

It can be a neat idea to recycle beautiful greeting cards. I have a friend who cuts and trims the Xmas card, then affixes it to a package, as part of the wrapped decoration. Some of the artistic greeting cards are just too lovely to throw away, IMHO.

Yes, I've been known to recycle card fronts as package labels, too. :)

I also have a rather nice collection of bookmarks from RP friends -- Just saying!

I have remembered this thread because recently I have been adding to another collection. When I was nine years old, back in the days when girls simply did not read science fiction, my Dad bought me a couple of Edgar Rice Burroughs novels. I was hooked from that point on. In the past few months I have been buying hardback editions of older science fiction, the golden era books from the 1940's, 50's and 60's. That was how I came to have a copy of City handy for the first lines thread. I already had a gathering of my favorite SF&F novels from the past three decades, but I decided I wanted to have a representative selection of older SF that I first read as a child. My selection criteria is strict - did I like the books when I first read it? On re-reading, not all have not stood up to the test of time. I'm afraid to say that ERB is one such author, and there are others, alas. But others I still do enjoy, and I am delighted to have on my shelves.

That's a unique collection, Rosefolly. I like that it's so personal.

I had to smile at your post, Rosefolly, because my first science fiction book was ERB's Thuvia, Maid of Mars, suggested by my dad, also when I was nine! I eventually got the entire Mars set as a teen, and thought they were tremendous fun, but not so much when I tried re-reading one not long ago.