We Collectors Are a Strange Breed

We collectors are a very strange breed. I do not understand why, but we all believe that our type of collection is the best possible, and that everyone else should understand why we collect what we do.

We con also not understand non-collectors. We cannot comprehend how someone could go through his or her entire life without being a collector.

Collecting is an extension of who we are. Sports fanatics collect sports cards, autographs, and jerseys. They will wait in line and pay seemingly insane amounts of money for a particular signature.

Movie fanatics collect props and posters. They will crawl around on the Internet trying to find the smallest, most insignificant item that could become the cornerstone of their collection.

Avid readers like myself, will spend hours, days, months, or even years attempting to track down a rare book that few have ever heard of. We will spend hours trying to keep our treasures in the best possible shape. Worrying not about the cost, only the elements that could reek damage on our prized possessions.

We collectors respect all other collectors, even though we laugh at them under our breath. We wonder how it is that the other collectors could not collect the same items as ourselves. Don't they know that our item is the absolute pinnacle of collecting?

When we see another collector that falls into our collecting field, we either end up feeling superior, or inferior like we did as children on the playground. We laugh at the inferior collections because their collectors did not have the items, or amount of items that we do.

We feel jealous of those with better collections. We wonder what they had to do to get the items that we envy. We try to make excuses to ourselves as to why we were not able to find of afford the items that are not in our collection.

We will also feel anger when someone questions our collection. How dare someone wonder why we would collect what we do? How dare someone wonder why we would spend the money that we do to make our collection as complete as possible? We will defend our hobby as if it were our own child.