Collectors Corner.

I suppose that many of us have been collectors at some points in our lives. Like many of my age and sex I was a collector of Dinky Toys when young, but also like many of my age and sex got rid of them and have been staggered in recent years to find that what I threw away is now worth serious money. I then moved on to stamp collecting for a while,, at one time having an interesting collection of stamps from countries and city states such as Danzig, thast no longer exist. In my mid and late teens I had a sizeable collection of 1950s and 60s Science Fiction mags such as Astounding Science Fiction and Galaxy and, of course, was a serious record collector for a time. My collecting habits of recent times, well the mid seventies on, has been collecting what would be termed, political ephemera, leaflets and flyers handed out at rallies, demonstrations and on the streets. Oddly, the one major event that I have little record of is the one being remembered now - the miners strike, but I have material from most of the other major events of the past few decades as well as a lot more obscure stuff.

Others collect even more specialist items. A neighbour of mine in Scotland had a vast collection of china pigs, others collect such things as thimbles and fountain pens and some have even been known to collect such things as different types of barbed wire. Collecting is usually, except when it becomes obsessional, a harmless and sometimes financially rewarding pastime where you can build up a varied and sometimes lifelong group of friends who share the same interests.

Whether that group of people who seem to find endlessly collecting members of the opposite sex should be encouraged is another matter entirely.