My mum has a pretty cool collection, that I wish I'd thought of first.
She collects whimsical pens. Her collection includes ones shaped like all sorts of elongate beasties, twinkly ones, bejewelled ones, ones that light up and make humourous noises, and ones that write in all sorts of weird inks. She usually buys a silly pen or two from the gift shops of places we visit. I think her favourite is her Tardis pen that plays Doctor Who noises. Today I bought her another one for her collection - it's shaped like a sword with a little dragon coiled around it.

When I was wee I collected weird things. It seems lots of small children do this - I think it's because they're still formulating their own identity (that's also why they copy bits of other people's personalities, because they're still not sure who they are themselves) and don't yet have anything that's really theirs. Hence a tendency to hoard develops. That's just what I think, though. People with psychology degrees can feel free to debunk me.
I collected milk bottle tops. No idea why I chose those. I had some vague idea, though, that they would one day be valuable, as milkbottle technology would no doubt one day develop to the point where the foil tops were obsolete. I now think collecting something just because you think it will one day be valuable is generally a lousy idea - it's got to be something you enjoy having. Plus, I really didn't take good enough care of them for something I was hoping would be valuable: I squashed them all flat (I think the reason I collected them may have been because smoothing out foil things is therapeutic and fun) and kept them all together in a big box. I made it to about 500, by which time my room began to smell of cheese. I then went on to collect corks. My parents prefer wine to beer, so it wasn't long before I had about 100 of those. They started to take up space and I got rid of them too.
I also used to collect marbles, which are a pretty cool thing for children to collect, as they are pretty, quite cheap and can actually be played with without deteriorating their condition. I had lots in all sorts of lovely colours, and dozens of marble-run pieces with which I had great fun making layouts. I gave them all to my brother when I was about 13 and he 7, and he quickly lost most of the marbles.
I collected Happy Meal toys still in their original packaging until I was about 12 or 13. I got them off my brothers, who considered themselves too sophisticated for the toys but were still too small to have an adult meal instead. I think they're still in the loft somewhere. Might make a fiver off eBay in 50 years' time.

I started collecting blue stones a couple of years ago. I still have all of my collection, but a few months ago I realised it was a bit of a rubbish gathering. Not because it was small - I deliberately chose something of which there aren't many kinds so I wouldn't get swamped with them. I decided it was rubbish because they were all stones I'd bought and not found in the field, so they were something any monkey could have collected. Admittedly, the vast majority of collections consist of things that are bought, but a rock collection ought to mostly be specimens you've harvested yourself. I still do buy stones from gift shops and rock and gem shows if I particularly like them.

Since joining uni I have started collecting dragon figurines. I never set out to - I just keep acquiring more of them because I like them. I'm quite discriminating, though: a lot of collections of [insert animal name here] models consist of many specimens that were acquired simply because they're of said animal. I only collect ones I think are pretty.

For the past few years I've also collected gaming-related gubbins. I buy the official soundtracks of all the games I have, and where these aren't commercially available I rip or download them where possible, and I burn myself 'best-of' mixes. I buy game character action figures where I can, which isn't often, as most of my favourite games don't have a toy line, or the one they do have is rubbish. Spyro, for example; the only Spyro figures you can get are plushes, which I don't want. I might if they were very well-made, but they're generally crap and are sold purely on the strength of the license.
Currently I have:
- official purchased soundtracks: Devil May Cry 1, 2, and 3; Lucifer's Call; Onimusha 3; Primal (plus the 16 Volt album from which the battle music came from); SSX Tricky and 3; WipEout Pure; Zone of the Enders 1 and 2.
- downloaded/ripped soundtracks: Beyond Good & Evil; Crash Bandicoot 2 and 4; Daxter; Digital Devil Saga; Jak 1, 2, and 3; Krazy Ivan; Ratchet 1, 2 and 3; Soul Reaver 2; Spyro 1, 2, 3, and 4; SSX tracks that weren't on the official soundtracks; WipEout 1, 2, 3, 64 and Fusion. I also have several mp3s from games I don't own, simply because they sound so cool. Nobuo Uematsu's One Winged Angel, for example, is an awesome track. It sounded great live at the Hammersmith Apollo.
- a couple of Dante (Devil May Cry) figurines
- Kain and Raziel figurines, though those are currently awaiting delivery from eBay.
- the Devil May Cry 1 and 2 soundtrack DVD/books
- all of the DMC comics that were published (4th one got canned, bums)
- DMC novellas and mangas. Not sure if the later ones have been published yet or not. Looking forward to the two films (one official, one fan-made but looking pretty good) as well. I bum DMC so very much.
- a lovely purple CD-carrying wallet (holds 20 discs) embroidered with Spyro, which came with the limited edition version of Spyro 2 - I think only a few hundred of those were made. Rather proud of that one.
- the biggest thing in of my gaming shit collection: a fuck-off cardboard cutout of Spyro that's taller than I am. It lives in my room back in London - if I'd taken it to Pompey with me (besides the logistics of getting it here) it would literally take up half my uni bedroom. I rescued it from the local games shop and carried it all the way home. The hardest part was getting it up two flights of stairs to my room.
- a Munch's Oddysee poster signed by Lorne Lanning and Sherry McKenna. I don't display it because Lanning's a hippy cunt. Plus, it's not a nice poster - the paper/cardy stuff is good quality, as is the print, but Munch is an ugly bastard.
- the pride of my collection: my copy of George R R Martin's A Feast for Crows was the only paper I had on me when I went to Videogames Live in November 06, so that got signed by everyone at the meet and greet. I have signatures from Michel Ancel (Rayman and Beyond Good & Evil creator), Bob & Barn (Primal soundtrack) and Tim Wright (WipEout soundtrack and creator of the Music series), among others. Still got the ticket to the event too.

Other misc. things I still collect:
- nice-looking dice, of all shapes and sizes. There's something pleasing about them.
- humourous badges, and keyfobs and patches for my flight vest. On one of the zip pulls I have a circuitboard from an old mouse I rescued. Looks pretty cool, and more hardcore than those cut and polished bits of circuitboard jewellery you can buy.
- out of print Fighting Fantasy books. I loved these as a child and still enjoy playing them now. They've republished a select few and discontinued all the others, so I now collect all the disappeared ones. They're pleasingly cheap, except for the rarest few. I paid £20 for my copy of Night Dragon, which if anyone else wants will have to be pried from my cold dead hands with a crowbar.

EDIT: Oh Jesus tittyfucking Christ, that's long!! I had no idea it would get that big said the actress to the bishop.
( Bob Todd whee, Sat 13 Jan 2007, 20:55, Reply)