What do collectors 'do' with their stuff?

[kevin m.]

After seeing Bill's pictures of otherwise useful cameras sitting idly

in fondle-resistant cabinets, I can't help but ask what pleasure

collectors get from their collections. It seems to me that the better

your collection - meaning more rare and unusual items - the smaller

and smaller any appreciative audience would become. And if you were

the 'best' collector, only you could enjoy your collection.

 

I like stuff - especially well made stuff - just as much as the next

red-blooded male, but this honestly puzzles me.

 

Answers? Amusing theories? Sub-literate put downs?

[dan flanders]

Sometimes they fondle it wipe the dust off, but most of the time they just look at it. (at least that's what I do!)[sub-literate putdown.]

[ray .]

You take them out, look at them, put them away, take them out

again, sell some, buy some more, look at those next to the

others, put them away, get them out, look at them in new

arrangements, adjusting the angle of each ever so slightly, walk

out of the room and look over your shoulder at them, put them

away, get them out again...

 

geez Kevin, haven't you ever collected anything?

[ben z]

I can't answer this question because I don't collect Leicas, but I do have another question. Collectors drop _serious_ money on rare coins and stamps which can't be used for anything other than display or hidden in vaults, yet I never hear people in the bank or at the post office spitting on the coin and stamp collectors the way people on this forum spit on Leica collectors. Why is that?

[jim_a]

Found this at http://www.msjudith.net/other/040599.htm

 

Interesting...

 

Some people collect for investment. Some collect for pleasure. Some folks do it to learn about history. And some people "save things" because it helps them to fill a gaping hole, calm fears, erase insecurity. For them, collecting provides order in their lives and a bulwark against the chaos and terror of an uncertain world. It serves as a protectant against the destruction of everything they've ever loved. Grandma's things made her feel safe. Though the world outside was a dangerous and continuallly changing place, she could still sit safely in her apartment at night, "putting together my things".

[Troll]

While it's exciting to an old teckie like me, this kind of stuff is, in fact, technologically obsolete, and is mostly of historical interest. Sure a M3 will still make great pictures, but so will an Argus C3. I keep my old "stuff," and enjoy fondling it, but I don't really use it very much (although on last week's trip I took my Leica CL). A "Model T" would get me to work but a Toyota Tundra will do it a lot easier and more comfortably (and without the hand-crank).<div></div>

[richard_ilomaki]

Kevin

 

My father was like "Mother" in the post above. When he passed away, he had a whole basement full or nails, washers, nuts & bolts, copper wire- tons and tons of it. It took 3, 3 Cu Yard bins to haul it all away to the dump.

 

Why?

 

In the 30s, he and his brothers had to work on road gangs for a dollar a month, living in camps. The only way the family could get cash was to collect scrap and sell it to the old "Junk Men" who came by the house (on horse drawn wagons, as I recal) when I was a kid, and get a few cents cash. The front porch was loaded up as well- couldn't walk a foot for the sinks, old TVs, tires etc.

 

This cointinued even tho' we had a house, cars etc etc. Made him feel secure if we ever needed the money. A neighbour collected every newspaper she got in 40 years.

 

I feel very sane with only about 30 cameras, all usable, clean AND used at least once a year many more often than that. I actualy have some prints to prove it.

[michael_kastner]

I like collecting Leica stuff to see what is "best". "Best" here of course means "best for me". Start off with my first 2/50 (the current one with the built-in hood). Only after buying its predecessor and fooling around with both could I really find out whether that built-in hood is in fact "bad" or not. Ditto their tab or not. Ditto my first 90, the 2/90AA. When I say too big and heavy that's <i>my</i> word on it because I later replaced it with the current 2.8/90. Only that way could I prove to myself that my 2/90AA <i>was</i> indeed too big and heavy. My 2.8/90 is not as big and heavy, but still somewhat so. Now I'm on the way to a decent Tele-Thin. My 2/40C is of course not all that necessary (since I have the 2/50 and 2/35A), but it <i>is</i> nice. I collect in order to experiment.

[sammer]

Richard, no offense, but I believe that you are confusing collecting with hoarding. Keeping every newspaper you ever received for 40 yrs serves no one and might be a sign of mental distress (although the scrap metal and such makes a bit more sense within the historical context that you mentioned).

 

I do think that you bring up an interesting point. I wonder how many people who see themselves as Leica collectors are actually hoarders. For that matter, can it be said that collecting itself is a watered down version of hoarding?

 

I have to admit that I have a mayo jar that I throw wheat pennies and bicentennial quarters into... does that make me a collector? I don't hunt these things down, but on the rare occaision that I get one in my change, I'll toss it in (if it isn't accidentally spent on coffee). Sorry for getting OT, but I just thought it was an interesting point.

[henry_ting2]

"I like stuff - especially well made stuff - just as much as the next red-blooded male, but this honestly puzzles me."

 

 

Kevin,

Perhaps collecting bunnies as what Hugh Hefner does is easier to understand :).

[jake_tauber]

Strangely perhaps for this forum,;>} I collect photographs. Mid 20th century to contemporary. Believe it or not, I look at them.

[richard_ilomaki]

Sam

 

I think that collecting is a "neurosis" where hoarding is a "psychosis". It is one thing to build sand castles, and yet another to move into one. ( Sorry Sigmund)

 

Cheers

[Troll]

Where does "accumulating" fit into this? Is it the same as "hording?" Although I do virtually all of my enlarging with a V-35, my Omega D2 (purchased new in 1953) sits beside it in case I ever need to enlarge a 4x5 negative. It's only been recently (with the advent of eBay) that used photo equipment (other than Leicas) were worth selling, even honest dealers didn't want them as tradeins.

[sammer]

Richard - well said. Bill - 'accumulating' seems PC for hoarding to me.

[Richard Williams]

One camera shop I know had (or has) a not-for-sale cabinet full of LTM gear at ground level, recently always obscured by a digital printing display. I think this definitely qualifies as a hoard, and possibly as some sort of crude metaphor for 'progress'.

[douglas k.]

"yet I never hear people in the bank or at the post office spitting on the coin and stamp collectors the way people on this forum spit on Leica collectors. Why is that?"

 

Because stamp collectors don't drive up the cost of mailing letters; in fact, they probably reduce (or slow down the increases) in postal rates. Stamp collectors buy up stamps and never affix them to letters, thus providing revenue with little associated cost to the Postal Service. Selling stamps to collectors is like printing money for the USPS.

 

Camera collectors, on the other hand, drive up the cost of cameras which would otherwise be used by shooters. How much they affect those prices is beyond me, but at the margin there is some effect, however slight.

[huw_finney]

I collect all sorts of things, mainly because they are from a past era where things where made to work and be fixable. I design electronics for a living, it is nice to go back to 'real' stuff. I take better (less worse (??) anyway) pictures with an old camera.

[kevin m.]

Interesting responses, even if none of them are sub-literate ;-)

 

Ray, I've never really collected anything. I have kept lots of stuff I should have just thrown out (this might be useful someday!) but I've never organized it very well.

 

I think all of us who grew up with Depression-era parents witnessed a bit of the hoarding instinct first-hand.

[william_vickers1]

At some point all those collected cameras will reenter the market. St. Peter will not allow you to carry a camera into Heaven. I doubt that the heirs of collectors will have much interest in keeping collections together and maintaining them.

[kevin m.]

Amen to that.

 

An idle fantasy of mine is that if I ever win the lottery, I'd love to go to the Pebble Beach car auction and buy something gonzo rare, like a Bugatti Royale, then do donuts in the parking lot with it until the tires melt off the rims.

[paul_neuthaler]

I buy a lot of stuff; use most of it briefly, then sell it for about the same as I paid -- sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less. I enjoy using different Leica equipment mostly. I have time and I can afford it. Sometimes I give stuff away to favorite friends.

 

Seems I always wind up keeping my SL kit(35 1:2.8; 50 1:2; 90 1:2; 400 6.8 & F3 HP kit(24 1:2.8; 50 1:1.4; 105 1:2.5; 200 1:4, though.

[frank_reidelbach]

"I collect to experiment" This sounds like me. At the moment I experiment whether a Canon 1.8/85 is possible to focus on a Bessa-R, because it looks so nice on it... At the moment I would say "yes"...

 

This is my 4th or 5th lens in the 80-100mm area, so I'm going to be a collector. My next thing is to check if the Canon is better, a Nikkor-P 2.5/105 or a Russian Jupiter 2/85 (all LTM) I think none of them would beat my 1.4/85 Zeiss lens which is obviously the best of them to focus (with a nice small black all metal Contax SLR), and to control out-of-focus-area/ boke. Also not a new lens... what makes a Sonnar compared to a Planar? buy an old 1.5/50 when everyone tell the 1.4/50 is the newer and better construction... for curiosity. Made night-shots with this old lens and was really impressed (not of perfection or sharpness, but atmosphere, which is not so common with newer lenses..)

 

Classic "collecting desease sign", buy a camera for a lens included with it.. (a Canon 7 for a small wideangle-lens, 2/35). And, the lens works fine! Not as sharp as a 1.7/35 Ultron.. but this is too big, new, ugly... when going out, I prefer the old one, even its lesser sharp... but anyhow makes nicer colors! ..so what to do with that big ugly Canon-7? (already a classy Canon-P is there).. For curiosity the answer is ONE lens, the fastest ever, which fits only to that camera... and see there, yes it makes pictures wide open at f/0.95... shooting at campfire with 1/250s with 200ASA film. Again, sharp enough, and great atmosphere, very distinguished from new or cheap bad lenses! Only 3 pictures were worth the money I spend...

 

Anyway, I'm not a "glass shelf" collector. First, I stil have none. Second, I don't collect very valuable stuff (no Leica), and I use it. Third, taking the camera with me on horseback and other things demanding mechanical quality, what this old equipment is expect to have.

 

Yes, sometimes I'm not glad with the quality of shots. But if I took them with newer stuff, where everyone would expect it makes it perfect, I would to the same amount see not perfect output, and be even more dissapointed. And I know how to shoot without AE control and stuff like that...

[bob soltis]

One photojournalist's comment on collecting Leicas ...

 

http://www.digitaljournalist.org/issue9810/colburn.htm

 

;)

[vic_.]

Did you read <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/044900371X/qid=1095819779/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/102-2104575-1934550?v=glance&s=books">The Orchid Thief</a>?

[george_sanderson]

Whoever dies with the most toys, wins....