Discuss: Collector 'mentality' can lead to obsession.

General
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“Only the obsessive compulsive or the insecure egotistical feel the need to collect things.” - Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps

Though I don’t fully agree with the above sentiment, I thought I’d bring it here to invoke some form of healthy discussion.

There are various reasons as to why we collect what we do. It’s a broad spectrum, ranging from engaging in your passion at one end, and some may argue that at the other end lies a deep rooted insecurity, a desire to show off to others, especially strangers. Once you start collecting in order to impress others, surely this can soon become obsession, rather than enjoyment. If I’m truly honest and reflective, I can see that a partial reason as to why I collect is to satisfy an element of my childhood, where little PokemonChina wanted the same things, if not more things, than his peers. The very tagline of the Pokémon Company encourages this with its very premise, and of course its tagline “Gotta Catch 'em all”.

I guess the point of this thread is to think about why we collect what we do. Have you ever purchased something that you didn’t really want, but knew it would impress other people? How do you feel once your collection is complete? Do you feel satisfied? Or do you feel at a loose end? Perhaps it’s the collecting we are hooked on, rather than the items themselves.

Thoughts?

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There’s always something special about being that guy at the anime cons with 20+ volumes of manga in your hand just to add to your collection.

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I think I may be a little guilty of collecting for the sake of collecting. There’s more joy in opening a pack and pulling a nice card than there is in just looking at the card in a binder. Browsing ebay is also one of the best ways to kill time at work. That being said, while I do enjoy the chase I also enjoy having the items and displaying them. I’d never buy something I don’t want just to impress people but it is nice when people are impressed by things that I have.

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This a great and unique thread that is much needed. This will help not only researches such as Reina, but each other understand why we collect, to a more full extent. It is kind of exiting to think about being able to get inside someone’s mind about why they have or want certain things in their collection, down to the smallest detail.

As for myself, I collect because now I have the chance to live those moments I couldn’t as a child. Especially these recent years almost everyone is doing some sort of retro or Anniversary release that targets people our age that pursue nostalgia. Whether it’s Dragon ball’s 30th Anne Super Masters Stars Pieces 13" statues and Carddass Reprints, Pokémon’s 20th Anne Game and TCG rerelease, Digimon’s 15th Anne Digivice and Gold Card set, Power Rangers(Mighty Morphin) Legacy merchandise nostalgia is a big thing. So bringing ego and compulsiveness into OUR spectrum of collecting is kinda irrelevant.

I do speak for myself though. I feel like some people on Instagram do the most, some people on there collect even Creased Charizards just to prove some unnecessary point of who has the most. There is a difference between hoarding and collecting in my eyes.

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I would say that collecting relies significantly on bandwagoning, like the twitter effect you mentioned. That’s how worth is instilled in this particular hobby that doesn’t have an explicit functionality. Like the cash monies. Although, there are some people out there that collect some pretty strange things, things most others would consider worthless. Maybe that’s the obsessive part. You couldn’t by bread in exchange for pokemon cards at most grocery stores. I say that this line of thinking is hypocritical though. Who is to say shiny rocks in the ground are worth more, disregarding characteristics that make gold and silver functional. People hoard gold and not necessarily to use it as conducting material in circuits or whatever.

It’s hard to say that there is as much functional purpose in collecting than there is in playing the piano. Although, I would imagine the reasons people are entertained by music is that it affects their brain chemistry in a certain way, to create certain feelings. So, if collecting cards creates similar effects and feelings, why is it less functional?

Is the functionality determined by some sort of external consequence? For instance, I do the science, so if my hobby is finding the cure for cancer, does the external effect of healing others provide more validation for pursuing the hobby in the first place? Also, would this make me less egotistical considering I forgo my own ego to benefit others? Or is it just happenstance that what I enjoy benefits someone else and in that case I am still equally as selfish?

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A majority of my spend goes towards investing these days however i must admit i do feel like a bit of an ‘obsessive compulsive’ when i jump on some cards i buy as soon as i see them pop up on ebay because i like the art work or it invokes some form nostalgia.

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Great discussion and great points brought up by everyone so far. I love the science side of it from Reina and nostalgia angle from 'M.

I respect everyone’s personal reasons for collecting and I enjoy looking at everyone’s goals and progress on this forum. Selfishly though a great part about this forum is the enjoyment I get out of posting my personal additions knowing that it will be met with positive reactions and enjoyment from everyone else. Reina called out this as a function of the social media era and I completely agree. Social media to me is essentially a platform for people to brag about themselves. That’s why in the last year I’ve completely stopped using Facebook/Twitter. It’s people bragging about topics or things that I’m not interested in. Reddit and this forum is everyone showing off things that I am interested in. We can equally share our selfish want to have others drool over our personal collections and do the same back for others. It’s a community. Facebook/Twitter/Snapchat is simply someone blasting out information blindly into the internet wanting people to like and comment on them. I get much more enjoyment in life sharing a common bond over appreciation of the things I like. Life’s too short for me to be giving attention to someone I went to high school with and their trip to Vegas (facebook).

Basically everything Reina said but trying to apply the science to my experiences :blush:

Probably the main reason I collect is for my son. Every time I buy a card I look forward to the moment when I can share the enjoyment with him. He’s only 16 months so I have a while before he will appreciate it and if he never does that’s okay too. I want to have an amazing collection by the time he’s old enough haha. I guess I’m hoping I can teach him important life things through the collecting: organization, saving money, investing, taking care of possessions, appreciation, etc.

Anyways, I look forward to what others have to say and I hope my endless babbling hits home with someone else.

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This is pretty awesome.
Its this practicing and defeating all the things that makes an epic musician. something my family has a thing with. Its a trait in my family to get stuck on something and do it 24/7.

I use to share alot more stuff but ID be lucky to show anyone anything accept some psa subs now.
I think its better to focus, as sharing takes more time and distracts you from the overall focus on becoming the best.

Same with music, i think its best to be focusing 24/7 and never leave the house or share what your trying to achieve or practicing ect… You should complete the task of becoming the greatest before you share things, because that means you will definitely have 100% of the time focused on completing the task that meets your goalingtons!

I mean you can still tell your friends or whatever your practicing minor scale or something, but thats about it :ninja: or show them you added a no rarity psa 10 to the coolection. Whilst really your practicing the harmonic minor scale, or youve got 10 psa 10 no rarity :grin:

I will defeat you smprattican and take over the universe.

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Wonderful discussion, great to see such mature responses and reflection from everyone so far - it’s why I love coming back to this forum.

I have a theory I’d like to share. I don’t mean to cause any offense by this, but I’d love to have stats to back up the idea that the majority of collectors are male. Now, if there is truth in that assumption, I wonder if this could be linked to a ‘primitive’ psyche of collecting in order to provide. One of my other passions is fish keeping. I love to build beautiful planted aquascapes. Where does that come from? On one hand it’s nurture - my father kept many exotic animals and I learned from him to respect animals and raise them accordingly. His father was a semi-famous photographer of exotic animals (had an alligator in England for example) so it may be passed down this way. Another idea is that it’s linked to hunter gathering, building a ‘nest’ of sorts to impress a female. Just an idea.

Perhaps card collecting is similar. We collect things that impress other people to raise our status. This may operate on varying levels, but let’s be honest - if we were truly in it for ourselves and collecting purely for the sake of collecting, would we be on a forum posting our items? Would we have instagram accounts to share pictures of our cards? Even if we don’t like to think that we collect in order to impress, on some level we all do it. So I don’t think it’s a negative thing. It’s sharing our passion with like minded people, and all the benefits that brings. Community, resources, shared knowledge etc.

Maybe on some level, we’re all like this little guy:

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Okay so mrserbz reinerb

There is this other thing that can be mixed up with OCD, and here it is, so… should we add ocd and OCPD to the comparisoinz :

psychcentral.com/disorders/obsessive-compulsive-personality-disorder-symptoms/

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Its all about that emotion. I still lose my shit when I pull a full art or rare card. Hopefully that never changes.

Isn’t this quote from the fictional character Gordon Gekko? If so, he collected money. :blush:

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Ha, yes. I should have said manifestation of built in behaviour rather than collecting cards. Glad you read into that though.

Not to be disparaging of your aunt’s collection, as I’m sure she has a fine collections of rooster related objects (as does my mother coincidently) but there should be some differentiation between a collector who actively seeks out the items on a regular basis as opposed to the “ooh, that would go in my kitchen as I already have a tea towel with hens on”.

Maybe I’m flogging a dead horse, but I just think its fascinating why it is human nature to acquire and collect objects.

I’m glad other primates don’t collect Chinese PSA graded base set cards. Those guys would f me up.

I was just chatting to a colleague about collecting. He’s a history graduate and his opinion is that collecting is just related to elevating your status, in the same way ancient kings would collect pottery/statues/gold. At that time, society dictated that these items had worth, so they would be collecting in order to acquire wealth, status, power.

I said to him that cards don’t have the same worth in society, so it’s weird that we collect them. He made a good point - on a forum, that is your community, where you are showing your ‘wealth’ be it experience, amount of cards/rarity etc. If I was to take my Pokémon Cards to a Furby forum, they’d have little worth. So by having access to online communities, we are self affirming as well as encouraging each other to collect more. Interesting.

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I’d like to throw another idea into the mix that I didn’t quite see as I was reading. I think we should also consider collecting as a consequence of personality.

While it is possible that many people make a decision to collect, it would be unfair to say the same of me. As baby Charlie was laying on the ground, not yet able to be particularly mobile and not yet speaking, he was pushing things together into piles around him. I started sorting almost as soon as I was born. My drive to order, document, reflect, and make information available is evident in every aspect of my life. Collecting, in a sense, is a significant predictor of how I will act under any certain circumstances. It plays into my academic success, my hobbies, the people I choose to be friends with and the people I am able to be friends with. I perceive of collecting as having rights and wrongs. For example, I can distinguish between inventory and collecting because I believe proper collecting is merited in its own right and is undermined by a profit motive. Collecting is part of how I make sense of the world.

If this idea of collecting as a consequence of personality is granted, the way in which we collect is also largely subject to our personality, habits, mannerisms, so on and so forth. Obsession could be related to a natural inclination toward addiction, for example, creating a feedback loop with the personality of the individual. This would play its course until there is a force acting on the individual inclining them, or forcing them, to do otherwise. People who are flighty, always struggling to commit to certain collection goals, might then be seen as collectors doing the only thing they know how. There would be less emphasis on good and bad collecting behaviors and more emphasis on personal expression via collecting.

To clarify, I think the major distinction I want to make is that with collecting as it works for me, “why” is secondary. Ascribing meaning to my collecting for the sake of X, Y, or Z actually betrays the natural, emotional interaction I have with the act. With my understanding, a dichotomy could very easily and holistically be made between collectors and people who collect. It would be a square/rectangle scenario.

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Interesting thread in general. It really made me start to think the reasons why do I collect and I really don’t have an direct answer to that.

I’ve been collecting all my life basically and I’ve collected various things when I was younger, but Pokemon cards are something that I never stopped collecting since I started. I love the concept of Pokemon and I really love the creatures, the video games, the franchise in general. The only thing I really don’t follow anymore is the anime and the movies as for me the quality of story telling etc has gone down a lot during the past years.

The thing is, I could stop collecting if I really wanted to but I don’t want to as it’s something that I really enjoy. I don’t collect to impress anyone and I don’t buy certain cards because of their high value etc. I only want to get the cards that I really like myself and I only collect to please myself purely. I want to buy cards of the Pokemon that are my favorite, and the cards that I think are cool, beautiful etc. Most of it is about the artwork and I think Pokemon cards (and trading cards in general) are art as there’s always an artist creating the artwork and the feel of the card and the Pokemon. Different artists bring out a different way of a Pokemon and I think it’s cool.

I don’t like to be a show-off but I truly enjoy showing my collection updates here and on Instagram because this place is full of people who are interested in the same thing as I am. I really don’t have fellow collector friends irl. I have a friend who likes Pokemon and has some cards but her knowledge and level of collecting is just occasional, so that’s the reason why I absolutely love reading discussions about Pokemon collecting here. That’s also the reason why I have two accounts on Instagram, the other one is purely made for collecting because the people who follow me on my “personal” account really aren’t interested in Pokemon etc.

I also don’t think that I’m obsessed in a way… Sometimes I do get really exited and want to get myself a lot of stuff but I’m also able to control myself if I want to and not make stupid purchases. I like to think: “Sini, do you reeeally want this card? If not then don’t buy, you shouldn’t just spend like that”. I also think I’ve gotten better with it with age and that has helped me to get the cards that I really want. Few years ago I was buying almost every promo products that were available etc but I haven’t done much of that lately. I’ve found the way I want to focus on, which was kind of missing before.

I also think though that my childhood has to do with why I collect as I couldn’t get most of the things I wanted. I lived with my mom and sister and our money was limited as I my parents had divorced so I rarely got my mom buying me some Pokemon cards. Most of the time I really didn’t have my own money so when I finally got some I would spend it for the first awesome thing I saw and really wanted and then I would regret afterwards when I saw something else that I liked even more but couldn’t buy as I already spent my money. That was my mentality for long time when I was younger, but when I finally started getting money constantly, I finally got so much better and intelligent with it.

There was mentions about organizing and collecting and I see this really strange thing in myself. You see, I have my collection in order always, I have my videogames in order etc. But those are the only things, I’m kinda messy in general. Important papers? All over the place. Other things? Usually misplaced. This also used to piss off my mom so much back in the day. I would sit in my room and organize my Pokemon cards almost on daily basis and she often complained that instead of organizing those damn cards I should do something productive and organize my room instead or something. I don’t know why is that and I find it strange I’m like that and it’s more or less is the same today. My apartment is not that messy in general but if you look at any tables you’ll see I’m probably the only person who can find anything from there :grin:

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Wow so much reading.

In short many people collect for many different reasons. Here is some points to why people may collect in my opinion. (you don’t have to be all; But where do you fit?)

  1. Nostalgia
  2. Bragging
  3. Investment
  4. Addictive nature
  5. Business marketing circles(we fall into corporate enduced circles where we feel comfortable with one brand or type of product, I.e apple/android/Nintendo/pokemon?)
  6. Tcg playing the game, decks
  7. ocd nature
  8. Passion
  9. Sense of security
  10. Legacy
  11. Fun
  12. Work towards something in life

For me, collecting is a passion. It keeps me going, helps me make a living, and helps me with my addictive personality. I have alot of fun finding items out in the wild, and collect because I enjoy having something nostalgic / nice.

But I hate bragging, I don’t have a showcase thread here and my instagram is 95% sales. I hate attention. Not everyone collects to show-off.

I’m still wondering why pokemon? Why not marvel, or star wars, or cars or games, or other material possessions going crazy? Am I comfortable because the investment side is so high? or has this been set out from the start… We are brain washed from enterprises which sell and market items as collectables / difficult to obtain.

Gotta catch em all!

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Great thread and also some things I’ve been wondering myself. Why do I collect, and enjoy it so much? Why do I still think back on collections even though I threw them away because I hadn’t touched them in years? What if I was poor and would never have been able to buy anything for myself?

I personally started collecting peddles and post stamps from the age of 6. Both of these collection later grow. Even though I still have some of the original peddles, it has now grown into a collection of minerals, fossils and gemstones. As for post stamps, I ‘inherited’ my grandma’s, mom’s and uncle’s collection (not to mention my own). So even though I haven’t collected them in over seven years now (or four if you include Christmas stamps that I would still try to get the entire set of each December/January - currently have every Dutch Christmas set from 1998 until 2016), I wouldn’t dare selling them. I’m just gonna keep them and pass onto my kids one day.
In my youth I also collected Happy Tail plushies from a (pretty successful) local super market action. I also collected flippo’s (not sure how they are called in English, but they are round plastic discs that came with chips and alike) ← This is one of the few collections I threw away.

From the age of 7 the Pokémon craze started. I didn’t had my own money (everything I would get from my grandparents / parents would go to a saving account without that I knew about it), but my parents would buy me and my little brother booster packs on our birthdays, Christmas, Sint Nicholas, when we had good grades from school, etc. And the same applied to Yu-Gi-Oh from the age of 9 or 10. When I was a teen (14-16) I still bought Pokémon or Yu-Gi-Oh cards every now and then. At the time I used to play Yu-Gi-Oh with my little brother, friends and online. Also, the decks I made online I also really wanted irl. Some individual cards however were pretty expensive (read: 20-35 USD). I would never spend that much money on a single card! About 20 was my absolute top for a single card that I really, really wanted. Since I was barely working, and my parents wouldn’t buy me that many packs anymore, I also didn’t had that much money to spend.

Then when I started college and working on Saturdays and during holidays as mailman, I had some more money to spend. From around 2011 and onward I started buying A LOT for my collections. At first it was Yu-Gi-Oh, where I would buy the cards I was missing from my original decks that were too expensive. And from December 2012 my twisty puzzle collection started. In just halve a year time I had more than 75 puzzles, and it was my favorite collection in life thus far. Not only could I collect, but also solve the puzzles (I never understand some of my fellow puzzle collectors who only collected sealed stuff and never played with them). Then, in October 2015 I started buying a few Pokémon cards again together with my Yu-Gi-Oh orders, and one day I bought all the Pikachus available / in stock on TrollAndToad.com. That’s basically how my Pikachu collection started. I probably have said it quite a few times before, but that’s when I tried to figure out which Pikachus existed on Bulbapedia and forums, and I ended up here with justinator’s collection. Now it’s about 1.25 years later and I own the biggest Pikachu collection in the world. I will be completely honest: I’m not a show-off, but I do am really proud of it, and do enjoy making videos / pictures to show it to other people sharing the same interests, here and on YouTube. The same also applies to my twisty puzzles on the TwistyPuzzles Forum or Cubers-reddit.

Sometimes I think what I would do instead if I wouldn’t be collecting. I spend quite a lot of times reading through these forums, scattering ebay and other webshops / websites for new pieces of my collections, cataloging, re-ordering, and simply enjoying my collections.
It’s also fun to look back sometimes. Like I mentioned above, when I was around 14 years old I wouldn’t even dare to ever spend 25 or more USD on a single card. Now I will spend that in a heartbeat for any new Pikachu, even if it’s only worth 2 USD. I think in 2016 alone I spend at least 3 full month salaries (probably more…) on my collections in total. At the start of that year mainly twisty puzzles, and at the end mainly Pokémon cards.

Anyway, that is my collecting life-story in ‘short’.

Back to topic, and my original questions. “Why do I collect, and enjoy it so much?”
I can’t say a single reason, it’s the combination of all these reasons. I simply enjoy every single aspect of it (except for the money it costs, knowing it isn’t infinite… :wink: )

  • The search (for new items and scattering ebay and other webshops/-sites);
  • Cataloging (keeping logs / lists of everything)
  • Discovering (seeing a new card I’ve never seen before, or discovering a completely new puzzle; seeing newly released cards / puzzles that will come in the near future; etc.)
  • Sharing (on all the forums; on YouTube; irl with my family)
  • Discussing (speaks for itself, all the great discussions we have here!)
  • Learning (I learn something new about my hobbies so many times thanks to all the knowledge of you guy/girls, and what you share)
  • Contributing / Helping(I’ve collected Pikachu cards and twisty puzzles for a while now, and because of that have gathered a lot of knowledge myself, which I really enjoy to share with others or help them with. On the Cubers-reddit I helped new cubers all the time with all the information they would want - plus more - about puzzle they never even heard about, and I really love to help them - Something I’m unfortunately (still) missing in my job (so far), because I have a limited set of knowledge in the just two years I’ve worked, and need more help than I can provide others…)
  • The joy (collecting is just fun, and has been a huge part in my life. I definitely can’t imagine a life without collecting anymore, and I certainly don’t even want to.)

“Why do I still think back on collections even though I threw them away because I hadn’t touched them in years?”
Because even though I haven’t touched them in years, I still had memories of the actual collection. And even if it’s more than 10 years, it would still be fun to just go through the binder for a bit of nostalgia. Kind of like finding your primary school or kinder garden drawings. You don’t do anything with it, but it’s still something that I personally would like to keep to look at about one every 15 years on average for those memories.
I will never sell any of my collections anymore. If I already feel regret for something I only collected for a few months and hadn’t touched in almost a decade, I can’t even imagine how I would feel a short while after I would sell my Pikachu / puzzle collection(s)… (Which is also a reason why having my house burn to the ground is probably my biggest fear in life - apart from losing friends/family I love.)

“What if I was poor and would never have been able to buy anything for myself?”
I would probably be in the same situation as when I was 6 years old: collecting peddles, post stamps and sea shells. Something you can collect without the need for (a lot of) money.

Everyone has different reasons why they collect. Some do it for fun now, but at the same time an investment for the future. Some do it to pass the time. Some collect practical things with more uses than just a collecting collecting dust. Some do it for nostalgia of their youth. Some do it together with others so they have something in common to talk about. Everyone has different reasons why they collect. And there are of course people who don’t collect (anymore). Take my little brother for example. He has collected a lot in the past as well: Yu-Gi-Oh, Pokémon, flippo’s, Sea Shells, little Dolphin statues, etc. but has stopped collecting all together for quite a few years now and haven’t looked back). Everyone makes their own decisions and choices, and mine is to keep collecting as long as I can.

Sorry for the huge wall of text… I always type way too much when I get excited. And talking about collecting is certainly exciting (if you want to know why, read the text above again :wink: ).

Greetz,
Quuador

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Collector mentality…leads to an obsession???

Crazypokemon takes a bow!

“You’re welcome everyone.
Yes Yes I have over 12 years collecting my main collection. 18 years total non stop.”
Just wanted everyone to know i did it for me, and for the pokemon company.

How ya doing Reina
aren’t you impressed haha