h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Beer bottles.

They have to be empty, drunk by me in the country they come from. So I don´t use ebay or anything else to buy the stuff.

At the moment there must be around 40. Not all from different countries though, but there are some from the UK, Belgium, Switzerland, Austria, USA, Canada, Australia, Thailand, China, Italy, Spain... that´s about it...

My girlfriend reckons I am bit obsessed with beer anyway, so she doesn´t really care about me finding a safe spot to store the bottles in our luggage.



Chili

Hey ho are we sad or what?
Badges
all absolutely useless and worth zippo (oh and lighters....everyone elses)
Badges are actually quite fun and a cool record of past times but the offsprung keep raiding the badge box claiming prior ownership...'who insisted you had the first play school badge you didn't want at the time?' I shriek...and nick one of their lighters in retaliation. It makes sunday lunchtime discussions quite interesting,...heated but interesting!

Hey ho are we sad or what?
Badges
all absolutely useless and worth zippo (oh and lighters....everyone elses)
Badges are actually quite fun and a cool record of past times but the offsprung keep raiding the badge box claiming prior ownership...'who insisted you had the first play school badge you didn't want at the time?' I shriek...and nick one of their lighters in retaliation. It makes sunday lunchtime discussions quite interesting,...heated but interesting!

I know lots of people collecting lighters - and actually I seem to be the only person here to by one... every two weeks... *hmpf*

*pushes a missing "u" into the "by"*

Good stuff so far!

Lady in a tree (me!) - cats
Archaris Kitten - glassware (shot glasses/cocktail glasses/champagne flutes)
Skugga - penguins
Cheerful Dragon - dragons (what else? )
Psychocandy - books, records, videos and shot glasses
Lakeman - Coca Cola bottles
David B - DC Comics
2legs - dust
Teuchter - frogs
Sneijder - T-shirts
Wazungu - trilobites (not very commited methinks)
Nitina - (as a teenager) magazines
Pinniped - MacDonalds tray-papers
TopHat KittyCat - dragons and penguins
Chili 666 - (empty) beer bottles
Useless Hound - badges

So at the moment there a 3 clear leaders...dragons, penguins and shot glasses.

Keep that info coming (don't think I've got enough to write about yet). Perhaps it is not you who is the collector - a friend or family member maybe.

If you are not a collector do you think people that are must be sad s? (careful how you answer that )

What do you think is the biggest problem about collecting? You don't get any gifts that have nothing to do with your collection? You haven't got the room to store it? It's taken over your life? Anything else?

Brilliant responses so far - thanks!

Problems with collecting? Occasionally getting duplicates (which has only happened once so far - fingers crossed!). Space to display the items. Space to store items that aren't displayed, like dragon T-shirts (forgot to mention those, and my 'dragon-on-a-spring') and jewellery. Finding nice items. Being able to afford the nice items I've found.

Collecting dragons hasn't taken over my life, and I get plenty of presents that have nothing to do with my collection. In fact, I prefer presents that have nothing to do with my collection, as the giver may not share my taste in dragons. (I haven't had any dreadful ones yet, but it may happen!)

Oh, and BTW, my mother-in-law collects bells and thimbles. We often bring her back a thimble from our holidays, if we can find an unusual one. Bells are harder - we only buy bells that have a nice tone, and they're not always easy to find.

My mother used to collect plates, but has given that up as she wants to reduce the amount of clutter in her house.

Space is the biggest factor, next being fear of breakages (since glasses tend to get used... I do get very jittery when handling my favourite pieces) And because it's fargile, I don't get a lot of glass as presents, but when I do it tends to be tasteful - my family and friends have a good idea of my personality.

The amount of dusting it takes to keep glassware looking lovely clean and sparkly is also a major annoyance.

Antique shops tends to be a good place to pick up nice pieces. Getting an intact set is much harder, though.

I don't collect so much as accumulate - so books/comics/cds.

I hope none of them are worth money, though I've yet to sell any of my comics for a loss (regular turnover, like regular bowels, prevents stagnation and creates room for other things.

E-Bay - well, it's be great if I ever knew what I was after, but mostly I'm an appalling impulse purchaser, so it's of little use to me, though it may soon be helping me with my colectios of Godzilla films and Doc Savage books.

I've just had a huge clearout of books (all to charity), CD's (waiting to go on E-Bay) and comics (waiting for my local dealer/E-Bay), so yes, i do anticipate getting rid of some quite soon (if they haven't already gone...

Dr. Who and general SF crap- tons of it None worth a great deal, although a few of the older annuals might fetch something to the right seller...

Post cards, which are always useful, all my realtives send them to me, I used to do watercolours from them when I had 5 hours to spend, (I'm a very slow watercolourist!)

Those oversized boxes on top shelves in chemists to advertise pills etc. I've decided to start collecting them. There's something surreal in having a box of paracetemol the size of a TV.

Oooh right where is it you're based? I've never seen on here, or else I'm interminably healthy...

I think Spinks means the fake ones...

yeah I mean big fake ones... nice to see you at the meet KerrAvon.... that you missed the quiz!

I too have a healthy dust collection, and it seems to increase of its own accord. Given this capacity for multiplication I am concerned about the risks of in-breeding and I wonder if 2legs might consider a swap in order to promote diversification of the gene pool?

I've been meaning to start a collection of round tuits as well, but somehow I just never get...

I used to collect...wait for it....pencil sharpeners.

It was an obcession that began when i was still in the Beaver scouts and one of the Cubs came to show us his collection of matchbooks. (rivetting stuff, I know.)

I was only about 6 at the time I think, because I was spending a lot of time down in london at Great Ormond Street children's hospital having my chronic tonsilitus diagnosed. (they were removed when I was 7.)

My first pencil sharpener was a rollerskate, I used to buy anew one whenever I went somewhere new as they were nearly always on sale in gift shops and souvenier places.

They only recently got consigned to the loft because darn it, it may have been a weird thing to collect but they were very useful.

Clive.

ticket stubs of all kinds
programs for events (musical, theatrical, etc)
post it notes.
ideas

oh, and dust, of course.

Collecting peguins didn't take over my whole live, mostly because I don't buy each and every penguin I see. Further on, there are only very few people who know I collect them, so it's my boyfriend and a friend of mine most of the time who think of giving me peguins as a present.

As I said, they are living all over our flat, no special places.

And I hope, nobody will have the idea to give me a living penguin - mind you, we breed fish and it would be annoying to see a penguin entering one of the fish tanks trying to dive for my Betta splendens for dinner...

London and Whipsnade zoos have a scheme where members of the public can 'adopt' an animal of their choice. So maybe somebody will buy skugga a penguin 'adoption' for a present!