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Collectors And Their Collections

Bearsyzf said:
I guess my collection would be my Shoes ?
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I saw your latest purchase before I saw your post in this thread. You have to have a great collection of shoes. What brought collecting shoes about. Do have some special to you shoes or particularly collectable shoes? Do you wear the shoes or just collect? Do you have some pics of your collection or of some of the shoes in your collection that mean more to you than others?
I'm fascinated. My oldest daughter was a shoe collector. She kept them in their original boxes and when she passed we all realized what an obsession it was to her to collect shoes. She had no children so one bedroom was nothing but a storage and display of shoes. Everybody has a thing and shoes were her thing.
 
I saw a weird collection years ago. I was visiting a couple that lived in the next block from my home. They had a long hallway leading from the living room that gave access to bedrooms and bath. In that hallway they had taken half inch wide elastic band and thumbtacked it to the walls ever inch or so in horizontal rows from floor to ceiling about eight inches between rows. Between each thumbtack an ink pen was inserted. It was as if the hallway was papered with ink pens. There had to be over a thousand pens in that hall. At a glance, they looked old.. mostly fountain pens. It was a crazy collection and a crazy display.
 
Other than my vintage Star Wars collection (beginning with the 1978 Early Bird action figure set), I had a brief fixation on old kitchen gadgets. My caveat was that they had to be perfectly functional. I have three awesome old Oster Galaxie blenders (1950s & 60s) that still work like a dream. Space being as it is, however, I'm going to begin offloading stuff and decluttering. I'll likely let most of my Star Wars collection go in 2027, in time for the 50th Anniversary of the first movie's release.

One thing that will NOT go, however, is my Revenge of the Jedi teaser one-sheet. After being printed, folded and readied for mailout to theaters in late 1982, George Lucas had a last-second change of mind and retitled the 3rd movie "Return of the Jedi", saying that Jedi don't take revenge. Distributors were instructed to throw out the old stock (there was no collectibles market for movie posters back then); and new posters would be sent out. A guy at one place saw these posters in the dumpster and pulled them out, thinking they may be of value someday.

In September 1984 I met that guy at his booth at the Science Fiction Convention in Los Angeles. He was selling the one-sheets for $100 each. I bought two. This one was framed in an argon-sealed enclosure with standoffs so the fragile paper (especially at the folds) isn't damaged. It's a prize possession of mine (along with the Mattel 30" Space:1999 Eagle I got for Christmas in 1976).

:)
 

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I collected knives most of my life. Most of what remains of my collection is just folding knives. I do have an old Knights Of Columbus decorative sword and scabbard. I have the first pocket knife my father gave me for my 6th birthday. He told me to take care of it and it will serve me a lifetime. I took heed and still have the knife. I have a number of auto knives both out the front and folders. None are collectable but most are quality made.

The sad fact is I sold my more collectable knives to my father when I was running short on funds years ago. Before I had a chance to buy them back, he sold my collection. No hard feelings... they were his to sell. Among the items sold were two that I really would love to have back. The lesser in value was a WWI infantry bayonet and scabbard. The blade was 16" long and I had a great time throwing it with a flip or two and sticking it in the ground. It hasn't a great value but I'd love to have it back. The other was a German's officer dagger that my uncle brought back from WWII. It was so incredibly made and was a work of art. Google failed to produce an exact match. Mine had a black circle knob at the end of the handle. It was surrounded in silver and a gold swastika was on each side. I would not necessarily want another but I'd love to have the one that my uncle brought back.
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Wow. So sad. In his later days my Dad handed me a German dagger, saying some unknown uncle had brought it back from Germany. I have no idea what its history is or how it relates to me... so if you're interested in acquiring it, let me know.
 
There is no replacing the dagger that I had. It was a nice piece and I'm sure yours is as well but the value to me was my uncle brought it back and naturally it had a story attached. The story may or may not have been true but either way.. he was a good guy and defiantly deserved my respect for his service.
I do not need your dagger but it's my nature to love knives. If you are interested in selling it, place a price on it and I will not insult you be advocating less. I'll either be a buyer or I'll just thank you for the offer.
 
Not sure why I had to have one of these :

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Also have a few of theses : (this one is used alot, I have a few more never used new ones)

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Got a ton of vintage Case knives from a box of things my great grandfather used to have. Some, well, if you can trust Ebay or the Internet, seem to be worth more than $500. For myself they come in handy at work and just to show. Some are rusted and broken, but many are in excellent shape. I'm not one who's really into a specific brand of a tool, I'm happy so long as it's vintage, but it's a thing.
 
I was surprised at the prices of knives when I took up collecting them. Case is a good brand name that is known for quality product, it is no surprise the older ones command high prices.

I have two "knife rolls" that are not quite full but dang near it, most of the knives are cheap look alikes, but interesting none the same.
 
Maybe I'm just old, but if a knife is gonna be worth $500+ it better have more than one or two mere blades in it, it better have a tooth pick, corkscrew, scissors, blade, and possibly a flashlight.

Otherwise it's just a 'knife' with a name 'Case' on it, nothing more nothing less. I stopped being brand loyal when everything started being made in China, and used names illegally like say, Zenith, RCA, Magnavox in name only. Used to be, you'd walk in Kmart or any other store, and if you bought Kenmore, or Craftsman, or Zenith, you knew you were getting good, long lasting quality, while if you bought the 'Jing Yong' brand TV or stereo, it's gonna be crap and likely landfill in a year or less.

But now, everything is made in China, no matter the name. Even the price or the adage 'you get what you pay for' no longer means anything. I just want to buy quality, long lasting stuff, not junk. I don't know why disposable is a thing especially after climate change is so concerning.

It's a joke that Samsung or Apple cites 'being green, helping the planet' to avoid giving you a charging brick now, but goes out of their way to not only oppose right-to-repair, but makes their devices disposable. What irks me most is that nobody seems to care enough to fight it.

To whomever manufacturer thinks they are fooling people by using old, once-great American names on modern appliances, you are only fooling yourself. Nobody is going to assume today that Magnavox or Craftsman is good since you went out of your way to crap on it by selling the name to China and turning everything into landfill fodder. You are neither helping the planet or benefiting anyone. Just put the name of the China factory on it and stop lying to folks.

What I would give to just go back in time when being brand loyal actually made sense.
 
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I gained my love of music from my mother. She loved music and played the piano and violin well. She had a respectable collection of records of the big band era and though the later forties. I spent most of my spare money on records as a teen and continued my gathering passion through the seventies. I ended up with over 500 LPs. Some might be collectable now that vinyl has become a thing again. I do have all of the Beatles albums still factory sealed. I bought them in the mid to late seventies because I wanted a good copy of each for all of time. Then the digital recordings arrived on the scene. I began collecting again. I recorded and converted many of my LPs to MP3s and traded them on the net. I got out of that game when MP3s really took off and I realized it was no longer innocent trading but theft. However, I didn't stop collecting but I paid to do so. I found a used CD outlet that allowed me to pay full price for a CD, take it home and rip it with modern one step ripping software, and then trade it back in for another CD for a dollar. I bought a dozen CDs and then I was in the trade and rip game. The outlet ultimately went out of business and I stopped collecting. I ended up with over 50K songs. Most all of my music collection is from the forties through the seventies. It's the music I like.
 
I never tried any of the big dnld sites. I had a channel on a chat net where I traded. I got out of the online trading business when Napster hit the scene.

I originally was trading .wav files before .mp3 tech. They were mono and a song was usually divided into three segments to keep the file size transferable. I was looking for a song (Young Love by Sonny James) because my Uncle's country music band had covered it. A guy on my channel offered up a copy so I grabbed it. It was a mp3. I had nothing that would play the file so I asked the guy what I had. He took me under his wings and not only pointed out the program to play the file but taught me how to make mp3s. It was a labor of love to make the early mp3s. It took recording software that captured stereo wav files. Then editing software to clip off the lead and ending and any abnormalities of the capture. Next was the compression tool to convert the wavs into a stereo mp3. Lastly on the list was to name the file to reflect the song name and artist. There wasn't an imbedded metadata tag at that time. It took around thirty minutes to make a mp3 in the beginning. He and I traded songs and within a year or so there were a number of people on my channel making and trading them. Then they became super popular with Napster and store bought players etc. The game was over. I certainly didn't invent the mp3 but I was lucky enough to be one of the few to enjoy the beginning.

Years later I returned to my digital collection. Storage became affordable so the best bitrate was an option. I ripped my tunes again and added metadata tags to songs I didn't have a hard copy of. My tune collection represents a hobby as well as a library. I still enjoy my efforts and often asked to do class reunions providing background and dance music from the era. I get a kick out of sharing my music.
 
With the luxury of ample phone storage, I have a 2K or so playlist that I play while mowing. I can stream from SiriusXM but enjoy my personal tunes best. I use the same playlist to BT to a receiver at the cabin for background music. I like your playlist!!
 
I love vintage music for its ability to trigger a memory my brain has associated with the song. Sometimes it is a person or place and sometimes it was just a mood or stage in my life that the song had an impact. That's not to say that I don't enjoy music without such instant recall triggers. Music moves or soothes my soul.
 
olbriar said:
I mow for an elderly woman who has a number of old farm implements in her yard. They have metal wheels and were made to be drawn by horse or mule. Not knowing, I suspect they are all very old and each is in great shape and look as if they are ready to do more work. It's amazing how well things were once manufactured. One implement is a two row plow. The tines on the plow have sat in the weather year round for many decades and yet are shiny like they just cut the earth.
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This dear old lady passed away more than a year ago now. She was in her upper 90's and a super example of how genuine people of her generation were. I miss my weekly visits with her.
I first knew her husband that was our veterinarian many decades ago. He cared.. I started mowing his neighbors yard twenty five years ago and he hired me to mow up his leaves one fall. I charged him twenty dollars and he paid me fifty. I told him I wasn't done and finished my work and cleaned up his drive and sidewalk. He came out and gave me a hundred dollar bill. I said I can't take that (though I needed it) and he said God told him to give it to me. Just one example of what sort of people they were. The years passed and so did the old man. I mowed for his widow for a couple of decades before she passed. I now mow for their only surviving child.. a very nice lady that is likely my age. She and her husband live in Texas but have been hanging out at the old family residence liquidating or at least moving the majority of the property. Most all of the antique farm equipment has been moved somewhere. The one remaining item that has my interest is an antique farm bell. It was made by the C.S Bell Co. Hillsboro O. I own a bell that was once in the bell tower of the oldest college in Wichita, Friends University. It was on a fluke that I acquired the bell and it's been in my yard twenty five years or so. It's a 32 inch bell and was cast somewhere around the late 1880s. I'm now trying to acquire the farm bell from the old couple's estate. I can find many bells online like the one in question but none have the same mounting yoke.
My Bell
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Farm bell I want
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I don't need another bell but it would be fun to add to the collection and to have something that belonged to two very fine people that I had the good fortune to know.
 
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