Collectibles

A couple of days ago my writer friend, Vivienne Tuffnell, posted a link to a blog called Cazadora.  Vivienne is a stunningly good writer, and her books are lovely and poignant and atmospheric, and you should all add her to your TBR list immediately.  (Seriously.  She's that good.)

Viv and I share a great many interests, and what she posts is unfailingly interesting, so I checked out the link.  The blog is owned by the writer Elsie Morales, and this particular entry is entitled "Why Do We Collect Things?"  It's a fascinating question, because collecting stuff -- everything from action figures to coins to mantelpiece tchotchkes -- is, on the face of it, the most pointless occupation imaginable.

When I was a teenager, I collected postage stamps.  I was pretty serious about it.  The ones that fascinated me the most were the old stamps, some of them from countries that no longer exist.

A 1900 overprint stamp from the Orange Free State, now part of the Republic of South Africa [Image is in the Public Domain]

I learned a great deal of history and geography from stamp collecting.  More, it must be said, than I did in most of my history classes.  There was something so tangible about it.  I could see the progression in the 1920s of stamps in Germany going from one Mark to ten to hundreds to millions to billions, as hyperinflation made the Weimar Republic's currency essentially worthless -- one of the factors that contributed to the rise of Hitler and the eventual horror of World War II.  Stamps from the Soviet Union in the 1950s and 1960s were a mute testimony to the nationalism and militarism of the Stalin and Khrushchev years, with their colorful designs celebrating Soviet advances in space science, engineering, and agriculture (and, of course, conveniently overlooking the awful authoritarianism that was propelling it all).  During the same period, colonies in Africa became free nations, many of them changing their names (in the case of what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo, several times), and all of that was recorded in the stamps those countries issued.

Of course, for me, the point wasn't learning history and geography; that just came as an added benefit.  My fascination was the curious designs, and (sometimes) different languages and scripts -- even the strange words the stamp books used to describe the colors they were printed in, such as carmine and bistre and vermilion and lake and ultramarine.  The biggest draw, though, was the thought that these had been handled by people back then actually to send a letter.  I have a piece of paper that someone had affixed to an envelope in Bulgaria in 1911 to mail -- what?  A payment to a bill collector?  A newsy letter to a family member?  An official piece of correspondence to a business?  A secret romantic note to a lover?

Could have been any of the above.  The possibilities are endless.

In fact, that's connected to why I finally gave up collecting.  In the 1980s, a lot of countries realized that philately was a booming and potentially lucrative hobby, and started issuing thousands of "stamps for collectors" -- glorified stickers, honestly -- that were never intended to be used as postage.  Many, in fact, were "pre-cancelled" to prevent anyone from using them to mail stuff.  The market was flooded with pretty designs of flowers and famous people and cute animals, and the whole reality of what postage stamps are kind of evaporated.

So did my interest.

Man, capitalism sucks, sometimes.

I still have my collection, though -- the dozens of binders I have with stamps going back to the mid-1800s.  And I still find it all fascinating, even if I don't actively collect anymore.

In any case, Morales has a very cool take on where this impulse comes from.  (I really encourage you all to read her blog post -- linked above -- and also subscribe to her Substack, because it's awesome.)  She writes:

[T]he things we keep and arrange become part of our environment, identity, and how we communicate with the world, both as individuals and as societies.  Collecting is a deeply meaning-making activity: it weaves memories and longing into the everyday spaces we inhabit...  In a nutshell: Even the most mundane object (an old concert ticket, a pencil eraser) matters if it tells a story or sparks a memory.

I think this is spot-on, and it also gets at the heart of why we shouldn't be embarrassed about our fascination with strange stuff.  How often have you heard people follow up a comment like, "I collect Matchbox Cars" with something like "... I know it's pretty silly."  Well, of course it's silly.  But who cares?  That's the whole point.  The only relevant question is "Does it make you happy?"

If so, then you should happily indulge in it.  This world is already filled with enough narrow, hyper-serious ultra-practicality.  Why shouldn't we engage in pointless activities that bring us joy?  And why should we worry if someone else enjoys a different set of pointless activities?

Here's to pointlessness, my friends.  I swear, the world would be a far, far better place if more people spent their time doing stuff like trainspotting or geocaching or painting miniatures or building model train setups or making their home paneling out of old yardsticks.

Embrace your hobbies, and most importantly, don't apologize for them.  They're part of what makes us unique.  Hobbies give us a respite from the stresses of the world, and help us to find like-minded individuals.  Basically: do what makes you happy, and don't worry if others don't understand.

So maybe I should break out my stamp collection and take a look at it.  It's been at least five years since I've done so much as taking the binders off the shelf.  Maybe I should even get back into filling in some of the gaps.  It'd be a better use of my time than obsessing over the damn news, anyhow.

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