I've slowly started collecting drums and drum parts.
Richard, I gotta say, I have found monitors to be rather durable and rarely seem to go bad anymore and that is very likely an incredible waste.
You must be lucky, or we're unlucky, we have an office here of 6 PC's and over the last 10 years, I'd say we've had 10 monitors go bad. They're lying in the storeroom, perhaps I should add them to the collection. That photo was at the local technical college, maybe 500 students, and a quick calc suggests over 200 monitors. Most of them looked like Lxxxxx brand (sorry Lxxxxx), and if they weren't bad, they will be now as it rained heavy last night.
I collect broken tools.?ÿ Actually, I buy a working tool of some sort, my kid breaks it or takes it apart and loses some critical part(s).?ÿ I don't throw them away in case I find the parts or in case I might be able to fix them at some point.?ÿ But then a time comes that I need a particular tool for a project, but it's among the tools my kid broke, don't have time to fix the tool before I need to complete the project, so I go buy another of the same tool.?ÿ I use that tool once to complete the project and then the next time I need it, it's missing, broken, or in pieces.?ÿ So I stomp around, rant and rave for a while, then go to the hardware store and replace the tool again, use it once, then.....
I collect old bottle and can openers. They are cheap, don't take up much space and nearly every garage or yard sale I go to I find at least one I don't have already.
And you can still use them.
In reading the foregoing posts, it occurred to me that a graph might be drawn in which the value of collectibles is plotted in relation to the space they occupy. So I drew one.
It would probably be possible to write an equation relating these variables, but it would be a challenging task. The subjective value of objects is influenced to a considerable extent by the collector's level of obsession. And there is probably a complex feedback relationship between the level of obsession, the amount of space available, and the quantity of objects already collected. The marital status of the collector will also have a strong effect.
Nevertheless I would like to call this subject to the attention of our colleagues in academia, in fields such as economics, anthropology, and psychology, not to mention the blurry interface between them. There is enough material here for at least one landmark Ph.D thesis and half a dozen derivative works. And thesis subjects don't grow on trees.
I have a cigar box that is for bottle and can openers. It all started with a CocaCola bottle opener my grandfather gave to me.
