Collectibles Eye Candy

What fuels a collector to collect? How does one start? Would you say you started piece by piece over the years, or did you suddenly take interest in something and began buying everything you found of that genre? Luckily collecting does not have to be an expensive hobby, and most everyone has a collection of some kind, whether they realize it or not. Collecting has certainly been around since the cavemen era, when the hunters would create and collect tools for hunting and making shelter, so in some of my spare time, I decided to research collections on the Internet that had some zany or kookie qualities to them, just to see what I could find. Check out some of the stuff I found out there:

Air Sickness Bags:
Curator Steven J. Silberberg brings us the Air Sickness Bag Virtual Museum. He writes that Air Sickness Bags are art. "One can tell a lot about an airline's image from their Air Sickness Bags. Some barf bags are no more than a baggie with a twist tie, while other sick bags could win international design competitions. Are they art? I think so. You decide." He also posts that he has never been out of North America and is single.

Chocolate Wrappers:

Martin Mihal, of the Czech Republic, collects chocolate wrappers from all over the world. He created his chocolate wrapper indexing site to "popularize this hobby, let anybody browse chocolate wrappers from five continents, and to find new collectors of chocolate wrappers in the world to exchange chocolate wrappers and cooperation." As of January 31, 2006, Mihal has 38,579 wrappers from 99 countries.

Fat Collectibles:

Bill and Becky Sherman, of Illinois, have a number of collections, but my favorite one for its oddity is the fat collectibles collection. Though they do not shed too much light on the story behind the figurines and books, they do share an interesting hobby which Bill introduced into their relationship, and which I now bring to you.

Rum Bottle Labels:
Petr Hlousek, of the Czech Republic, is a member of the Curiosities Collectors Club from Prague and an avid collector of rum labels from around the world. He has 6,407 labels from 98 countries, 4,046 of which are unique. He also has 366 full bottles of rum from 38 countries. Lastly, he lists 2,832 labels that he does not yet have, and asks for help from the cyber-community in obtaining them. His collection is categorized by country and then further dissected by region of the world.

Soviet Calculators:
Sergei Frolov has a rather large collection of Soviet calculators, about 150 models in fact. Although I couldn't understand some of his site for language barriers, he does have several models missing from his collection that he is actively seeking out.

And Last But Not Least.....
Drum Roll Please....

Tissue Box Covers!!!!!!!:
A lady of unknown name or origin has been collecting decorative tissue box covers for a decade now. She purchased some through mail order catalogs, but really began to increase the size of her collection when she found an eclectic assortment of them on eBay.

Collections bring passion and interest into the lives of those they enrich. Like any other hobby, avid collectors give a structured purpose to their free time so they can amass and organize collections. Keep on collecting and showing off your stuff for the betterment of the world!!! Or at least us here at iTaggit!