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Collectors Item Class Feature Article
Collectors Item Class Feature Article
By Emily Fisher
Collections allow people to relive their childhood, connect themselves to a period in history or
time they feel strongly about, to ease insecurity and anxiety about losing a part of themselves,
and to keep the past present. This quote, stated by Catherine Carey, a professor at Western
Kentucky University, in her article Modeling Collecting Behavior: The Role of Set
Completion, provides many explanations to answer the question, Why do people collect?
Collecting has been around for many generations, has been passed down through family lines,
and is a hobby among many, including Tom Hanks, who is a fond collector of typewriters,
Madonna, who enjoys buying paintings every chance she gets, and Demi Moore, who collects
antique dolls and is said to have an entire house set aside just for the dolls. No matter what is
collected, whether its a typewriter like Hanks, paintings like Madonna, or dolls like Moore,
there are a vast majority of items that many people collect, making it part of their lives.
A Whole New World
Sydney Walsh, a freshman at Blackburn College, passionately collects a variety of snow globes
and says that she collects them because snow globes are a world that she can escape to. Around
age ten, her grandma gave her her first snow globe for Christmasa hand carved wooden tree.
After receiving this, she was mesmerized by its beauty and uniqueness and began looking for
them everywhere she went. With more than forty snow globes at home with themes of
Halloween, Easter, Christmas, seasons, vacations, Fourth of July, and many more, Sydney
doesnt plan to stop collecting. Once you tip the globe upside down to get the snow floating, its
like a whole new world. They make you forget about all the stressful things that are going on in
your life and make you wonder what the world is like in globe-world, remarks Sydney.
I Love Lucy and She Loves Me
Premiering on television in 1951, I Love Lucy is a sitcom that many Americans adore. Alta
Hackett, a seventy-year-old admirer of the show since she was a little girl, started her collection
in 1992. As a child, I always loved watching the show and at times, I still watch reruns, says
Alta. When her youngest granddaughter, Tori, was two or three years old, Alta started buying the
show on video and before long, had accumulated all of the episodes. When the show was
introduced onto DVD, she started over and bought all of the episodes on DVD as well. Now,
after twenty-one years of collecting, she has an entire room set aside in her house just for I Love
Lucy. Along with the DVDs, fifteen years of calendars line the walls, along with over ten dolls,
multiple books, hundreds of pictures/postcards, magnets, puzzles, games, pillows, throws, tshirts, school supplies, blankets, and even light-switch covers. I never actually thought about
getting rid of them. Theyre part of my life as well as my granddaughters. One day I might
consider selling them, but until then, Ill keep finding more collectables to put in the Lucy
room. If she doesnt sell them in the future, then the collection will be passed on down to her
granddaughter. One day, Ill want her to possibly have the collection. Its been in my life for
over twenty years and one day it will give her something to look back on and remember me by.
Plus, with the DVDs, she can show her children and grandchildren so they know what television
used to be like-when it was actually good. After talking with Tori, Altas granddaughter, she
says that she would be glad to take them in one day. Even though she wont add to the collection,
she would still like to keep them to remind her of her grandma.
Photo Credit: Alta HackettFigurines that line the shelf on one wall
Photo Credit: Alta HackettHalf of the refrigerator filled with magnets (the other side is full of magnets as
well)
my grandma and know that I have a piece of her with me always. Every time I pass the shoes it
makes me think of her. I know that the collection reminded her of her dad and in a way it
reminds me of her too. With over thirty-five individual shoes, Maggies unique collection is
part of her life and will always have a connection to her grandmother.
Photo Credit: Maggie Andersona look at a select few shoes of her collection
Photo Credit: Emily FisherA view of half of his collection on one side of his room.
Even the most unique collections have stories behind them to tell and reasons of why
they are being collected. Dr. Greg Meyer, the department chair of Philosophy and Religion at
Blackburn College, explains, The psychology of collecting has been studied for many years.
Psychological ideas about collecting have stressed the need to deal with existential anxiety by
filling the void, or sense of emptiness with collecting complete sets, etc. For Jordan Fisher
with his enormous amount of Pez dispensers, collecting seems like a hobby that never gets old
and wants to feel that satisfaction of completion of the set. But for Debra Wilson and Maggie
Anderson, both who inherited family heirlooms, collecting is a way to stay connected to the past
and to memories. Collectors like Alta Hackett, with her I Love Lucy collection, collect not only
childhood memories, but to also start those family heirlooms. With Sydney Walsh and her snow
globe collection, collecting is a way to escape to another world. Kim Herzinger, an awardwinning author and enthusiastic collector, agrees with Sydney by saying, Collecting, like most
passions, has the capacity to let (the collector) live in another world for awhile. If I could tell you
why passion allows us to inhabit another world, I would stop collecting.
Whether collecting stems from the psychological need to fulfill an empty space in your
life, the passion to collect, adventures to new worlds, or a way to hold onto something in the
past, every collector has their own reason for why they collect. Kurt Kuersteiner, columnist of
The Wrapper, a non-sports trading magazine, states in his article Collecting Collections, I
believe the main reason people collect something is a basic interest in the topic. Perhaps
Kuersteiner is right in the sense that there is no psychological explanation behind many
collections, like Tom Hanks typewriter, Demi Moores antique dolls, and Madonnas paintings.
For some it is just a general interest in the collected antiques. No matter what the explanation,
people around the world will continue to collect for many more years to come.