Microscopes, fossils and home computers
I was introduced to a small toy microscope as a child, by my uncle, who showed me a drop of pond water. I now own six, three of them circa 1920-1930 (including my grandmother's magnificent 1930 brass Hearson), two 1950's children's microscopes and a 1970's OU MacArthur field microscope. I'm trying to buy a very nice Leitz microscope at the moment.

I also inherited my grandmother's fossil collection (she worked as a palaeobotanist for many years) to which I have since made many additions. One of her most interesting specimens is what appears to be a fossilised dung beetle's ball of dung.

I also have a pile of old computers : ZX81, 3 Spectrums of different types, two Dragons, a Vic-20, BBC micro, Acorn Electron, Mac 128 and an Atari 2600 "woody" console.
Why? I don't know, although the BBC micro was my Dad's and along with the ZX81 it's one of the first machines I ever programmed.
( finnbar has officially retired, Fri 12 Jan 2007, 11:08, Reply)

Just realised I collect SCALEXTRIC!
Having moved house 18 months ago it's all in boxes but I have about 4 monitor boxes full of track just waiting for me to finish boarding the loft and make a HUGE nurburgring size of track. I think I've got about 500 track pieces so somewhere around 400 - 500ft of track :-)

I don't know what's wrong with me, I'll be at a car boot sale and see a box of it and just buy it. Get home, chuck out the crap and keep the good stuff.

I've also been planning elaborate elevated sections and bridges to cram as much track as possible into the loft space. I reckon using the roof rafters as bridge supports I can get 2 or 3 levels of track... Might need more power though...
(golddust QOTW now revolves around being a cunt, Fri 12 Jan 2007, 11:06, Reply)

Cultural Differences... kind of related.
I used to teach English abroad. One of my students was like a real life pilsbury doughboy, but Japanese.

I had to teach him a module on hobbies, which involved watching a news report about a granny that would go land windsurfing on Venice Beach. We started the warm up to the DVD:
"So... do you have any hobbies?"
"I.. uh... collect uh... baseball cards"
"OK, good, do you know of any unusual hobbies?" (Warming up to landsurfing grannies y'see).
"My freind... uh... he collect uh... womens panties."
"OH... OK... I understand that in Japan you can buy womens panties from vending machines, like how you'd buy coke in reception."
"Uh... Yes... but my freind no like... he say not authentic."
"OK"
"Him steal panties form uh... nandana... uh... wahing line"
"OK, how many pairs does he have"
"Uh.. I think around 2000"

That kind of made my unusual hobby (bell ringing) seem like a sad excuse for a hobby... er... hang on a sec.

But 2000 pairs of stolen womens pants, that's some serious theiving. if you stole a pair of pants from a washing line every day it would take nearly 5 and a half years to ammass such a collection.

Standard lenght/girth apology
(ralphseviltwin, Fri 12 Jan 2007, 11:02, Reply)

I collect dust.
I've been sitting in the same spot for 6 weeks now and the stuff's really starting to build up.
(LunarJim, Fri 12 Jan 2007, 11:00, Reply)

Lack of fashion sense
I collect t-shirts with skulls on them. Ok for a teenage boy but not for a middle-aged women. Plus I only have 3.
( girlinthehole, Fri 12 Jan 2007, 10:59, Reply)

definitely a hoarder...
well, there's the mp3 collection (around 250GB - i need a new hard drive now to carry on), and the cd collection (1200 or so) and the dvd collection (600 or so) and the book collection (400 or so)... i've also got a collection of pointy sharp and shiny things, and my garage currently has a collection of bits of wood and plasterboard and power tools and laminate flooring. fun-ness. there's also a minor pc collection (four working, about six not working) and a guitar collection (there's only six, although to be fair one's a gibson les paul gothic) and every issue of computer music from the last four years or so and a collection of hi-fi equipment (three cd players, four amps, two dvd players, 37" plasma, 30" lcd, three consoles, two minidisc players, eleven speakers, around a hundred metres of cable or so...). and of course, there's the obligatory collection of cables and interconnects and assorted components lurking around the place. i've also started a tattoo collection, too. one sleeve down, and loads more ink to go :)

the other half's got a collection of eeyores and another one of shoes. and neuroses ;) but to be fair they're probably mostly due to living with me.
(blades is looking for a brain, any brain, at, Fri 12 Jan 2007, 10:54, Reply)

Back in the days of Amiga computers...
...I had a significant collection of pirated games all perfectly maintained on blue 720k 3.5 inch floppy disks. So anal was I that each was perfectly labelled with matching labels properly typed the type that went over the top of the disk and were colour coded according to game genre....

I guess it was the floppy disk equivalent of filing.

Scarily a box of 10 disks used to cost £10 + VAT. I even paid extra for the labels...

On reflection I must have spent over £500 on floppy discs. That's pretty bad.
(golddust QOTW now revolves around being a cunt, Fri 12 Jan 2007, 10:51, Reply)

Star Trek
Back in high school, I was into Star Trek. Not in a big way, never spent any money on anything, but watched the show.

Mate of mine, who was a hard core addict, was going to the Star Trek convention and had a free ticket. Plus he had also booked a room in the hotel the conference was being held in.

So off I went. My thoughts, worst comes to worst, I drink the mini-bar dry.

The conference was full of the usual freaks and geeks, but my 16 year-old horny body had been fortified with booze and I was attempting to chat up some geeks (yes 16, also desperate).

I did manage to pull.....a romulan. Dressed in full costume (which ain't that bad, just a uniform with the ears and funky haircut). Back in the hotel room, did the dirty deed, which was also slightly more surreal by the fact she insisted I call her Commander Daska (or something like that) during the act.
(Kaer, Fri 12 Jan 2007, 10:49, Reply)

Smarties Lids
As we all know, the inside of the round Smarties tubes have a letter inside, leading to much hilarity spelling out rude words with them. And, as everyone knows, if you achieved the impossible task of all 26 letters, you could send them to Smarties, and receive a super secret special prize. My friend, Daniel, managed to get nearly all the letters, and with the rest of us pitching in, avoiding real food for Smarties, we managed to collect them all.

Off went the parcel to Smarties, and we duly waited for our special prize. 2 weeks later, we get a reply, basically telling us 'There's no prize or gift. There never has been. We wish people would stop sending us 26 Smarties lids. But anyway, good job. Here's 26 Smarties tubes' (so I guess there was a prize after all...)





Daniel was 25 at the time.
(DjArcas, Fri 12 Jan 2007, 10:47, Reply)

Commodore 64 midi music
Went to this house party once. I was friends with the girl of the couple, only met the bloke once or twice.

Get there and another female friend jumps up from the couch, and tells us "I've never been so glad to see you guys before".

Why?

Turns out the the guy who was trying to chat her up collected "antique" fax machines.

Okay, not too bad. But the host collected Commodore 64 midi music. And he was in charge of the music.

A very strange evening (only helped by a lot of booze).

And yes, I did feel as geeky as possible when I recognised the theme from "The Last Ninja".
(Kaer, Fri 12 Jan 2007, 10:43, Reply)

Star Wars figures
This wasn't me.

A long, long time ago, in a city far, far away (Sydney), this bloke collected Star Wars figures. A lot of them. He was renting a two bedroom apartment by himself, and that was full of them.

Somehow he managed to get the scratch together to buy a place and went to move in.

Only to find that he couldn't fit his Star Wars collection in the place.

What does he do? Sell some of the collection? Put it in storage?

Nope, sells the house (at a massive loss) and finds another place.

Now that's dedication (or freaky).
(Kaer, Fri 12 Jan 2007, 10:40, Reply)

We are amassing...
an ever-expanding collection of the weird presents my mum gives us for birthdays and Christmas. My collection includes a perfume bottle with a face on, a clock with a dragon on and strange hedgehog-shaped feet for standing a plant pot on. Mrpiggy has a petrol pump beer dispenser and an 18inch high metallic statue of John Lennon, amongst other things. Why???
(misspiggy In danger of having to get a job, Fri 12 Jan 2007, 10:38, Reply)

I collect..
Long time lurker, regged a few months ago, first post. Be gentle please.

Anyway.. I don't really collect things. Being a car nut I regularly buy CAR Magazine, and I have a few 1:24 scale cars.

And yes, there's the porn.

If a cherry pops in the forrest, and there is nobody around, does it make a sound?

No excuses for length or girth - this is my first post!
(zeroSignal, Fri 12 Jan 2007, 10:28, Reply)

Breakfast anyone?
I collect reasons to eat alpen.

up to 3 so far.

Remember?
(hatofjam built a friend out of lego on, Fri 12 Jan 2007, 10:14, Reply)

little yellow boxes
i starting collecting these in vietnam, until the authorities locked me up

regards
Gary Glitter
(Handel blah blah blah, Fri 12 Jan 2007, 10:12, Reply)

Get out of jail free cards
I've collected and used a ton of these over the years

regards
Pete Doherty
(Handel blah blah blah, Fri 12 Jan 2007, 10:10, Reply)

Star Wars.
personally, i am not a collector, but i did have a friend who collects star wars related items. He had literally everything. the very first luke skywalker figure ever made, with an estimated value of £400. He literally had walls covered with figurines. in the original package, offcourse. The hallways of the house where he lived where crammed full of stuff like comics, figurines etc. But it didn't stop at the star wars stuff, oh no. his mother collected perfume-commercials and bottles. everything that belonged to her was filled with perfume-related items. And i was never allowed to touch any of it.

Oh, and he was from france.
( Mr. Johnson, Fri 12 Jan 2007, 10:05, Reply)

Not me but...
I want to work in the pathology labs in hospitals (dont ask why!) but I recently wnet to a lab visit at wythenshaw hospital and while I was there I was introduce to there 'ki8dney stone museum'.

Yes thats right so guy who works at wythenshaw hospital has a collection of weird kidney stones, one was the size of a tennis ball, others bigger!
(purplefairy, Fri 12 Jan 2007, 9:55, Reply)

It's not as easy as The Jackson 5 would have you believe
I collect letters of the alphabet. I'm up to 25 so far. If anyone has a W going spare, and are open to offers, please let me know.
(Hampton St.Roker (has probably had your mum), Fri 12 Jan 2007, 9:53, Reply)

Computers
I'm a technophobe, I'm not a fan of technology which hasn't stopped me becoming a senior IT consultant....

Anyhoo

I joined my project and arrived with just my laptop and a winning smile.

I currently have gained an extra desk and 7 PCs - I don't remember how that happened but I've got them - and all the monitors that go with it. I could lauch a shuttle from where I'm sat :-)

Update - I've just got me another (brand new, just out of the box) laptop

Length? Well, I could go for England. And Scotland, and Wales, and Ireland, etc......
(james_tiger_woods is going to start his killing spree on the, Fri 12 Jan 2007, 9:37, Reply)

I don't purposefully collect anything...
...but I'm incredibly good at amassing reams and reams of utterly useless bits of paper.
(Shining Love Pig, Fri 12 Jan 2007, 9:34, Reply)

Paraphanelia
I am not a good one for chucking stuff away, despite a lack of space so I've hoarded all kinds of crap over the years.

Birthday cards, xmas cards and letters... I've got them going back to 1988! I have my leaving card from when I returned to England in 1988 from Cape Town signed by my class and of course some reasonably raunchy letters from exs which I retain for nostalgia/blackmail purposes. Meh.

I also have a number of white label vinyl discs from Factory Records circa 1991, which came into my posession via a mate who lived in Manchester. He's got an original cut (metal master disc) of Substance somewhere.

My biggest collection of crap is mountain bike related gumpf. In addition to the bike itself (2004 Specialized Enduro, extensively modified), I have the associated tools, plus several spare parts including a heavy duty rear shock unit which cost me about £250, spare drivetrain bits and four complete sets of tyres for different conditions. Rather than bore you all to tears with the comprehensive spec list I'll pm interested parties (that'll be no-one then - you're all more interested in the hormonally fuelled scribings of the ex-squeezes. Perverts).

In addition to this, I regularly buy three different bike magazines each month and am running out of space for them.

Note: The bike magazines DO NOT constitute "under the bed" literature, contrary to popular speculation.
(Bicycle Repairman "you're also a bit of a wanker", Fri 12 Jan 2007, 9:30, Reply)

Morbid
I have an extensive collection of emotional scars. Evidence of these are displayed if I go on the whiskey.
(quedge, Fri 12 Jan 2007, 9:27, Reply)

Scents
I used to collect the scents of dead women. But when I wore it people tried to eat me

So now I collect toes in buckets and butterflies, oh yes!
(Jugular, Fri 12 Jan 2007, 9:27, Reply)

Dusty collection
I have a very valuable and unique collection. It’s all a bit dusty these days, but hardly a day goes by without me pulling out one or other item, polishing it off, sometimes sharing it with others and carefully filing it away again.

I am, of course, dear readers, talking about my collection of youthful memories. Last week I was very busy so didn’t get a chance to share my many failures with you, but one of them was my failure to become a writer. As I travelled around Europe in the early 1980s, I kept a series of diaries in scrawled biro in school-type notebooks. My intention was to turn them into a novel, I even had a title: ‘Master of None’. Sadly, the notebooks now reside in my locker at work and although I never wrote the book, I have at last found a publisher for my work…B3ta QOTW.

Another gem from the collection later I hope. I will be picking up the trail of young Che as he went up into the Alps in December in search of bar work in the ski resorts…
(Che Grimsdale Best before:, Fri 12 Jan 2007, 9:26, Reply)

That should've read "Japanese"
But you got the idea.
(LunarJim, Fri 12 Jan 2007, 9:10, Reply)

I collect Japanses Bukkake DVDs
With such classics as "Tokyo Goo-fest : The Directors Cut" and "Konichiwa, Human Jizz-jar", who can resist?
I am also a fan of the seminal classic "1001 ways to eat my jizz: Biscuits and Gravy Edition", what a flick. Bought tears to my eyes.
(LunarJim, Fri 12 Jan 2007, 9:08, Reply)

I
have a Blue Peter badge.
(clumsyeloquence is a girl, Fri 12 Jan 2007, 9:02, Reply)

Vinyl
Not just dance stuff, but anything really. My favourite thing is when I find something rare or classic in a shop where they don't know what it is worth.

Original 12" version of Herbie Hancock's "Rockitt"? 50p - Acorns Hospice Charity Shop

One of the best scratch/beat juggle records ever, worth about £20 on HardtoFindRecords

I have a room full of the stuff, along with CD collection and electric guitar which I admit is more a feature rather than an instrument.

Vinyl collecting has been put on hold while saving up for wedding :(
( h3donist tryin' to play me out as if my name is Sega.., Fri 12 Jan 2007, 8:50, Reply)

I'm collecting enough people
for a threesome.

Only two to go!
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Fri 12 Jan 2007, 8:22, Reply)