Miles's blog

I wish I was a collector.  I see people on tv who have amazing collections of movie memorabilia, or comic books, or mcdonalds glasses and I think how cool it is for them to have assembled this group of objects all dedicated to a single topic.  Me, I never warmed up to anything enough to become a real collector, the kind who goes to trade shows and winds up on A&E.

There was a kid in my neighborhood when I was 12 who went around buying up everyone’s comic books for a dime.  We only paid 12 cents for them so we thought this was a really good deal.  He used his bar mitzvah money to buy a vintage 1940s Captain America for $20.  We thought he was stupid.  I understand that by the time he was 30 his collection was worth over $100,000.  A law school friend of mine started buying wine as soon as he turned 21.  When I went to visit him in 1997 he said his wine collection was insured for $100,000.

I saved a few things in my time, but nothing is worth much.  Mostly I collected books, which have become relics of another era, and really not worth very much.  Maybe in the distant future they will become rare and valuable.  I never thought about collecting first editions because they are so expensive, but if I had the money I would do that. (By the way, I did not win the Powerball, so no shark boat. Bummer.)  I respect people who have made a dedicated effort to become true connoisseurs of any topic.  Here are some of the collections I wish I had gotten in on:

·        Coca-cola merchandise.  Coke is my favorite drink, and they have put out some very nice merchandise through the years.  I usually visit the Coke store when I am in Las Vegas.  Apparently there are people who collect unopened Coke bottles.  Maybe they are aging them like fine wine and plan to sit around debating the merits of a 79 Classic versus a 95 Diet.

·        Some guy in Argentina has the largest collection of Beatles memorabilia.  Who doesn’t like the Beatles?  That would have been cool stuff to collect. (Can you believe John Lennon condoms?) 

·        Baseball memorabilia. I never got into collecting and now I wish I had. I remember in the 90s seeing game-worn Cubs jerseys for $100.  But by the time I realized that memorabilia collecting was lucrative it was too late.  I have hundreds of game programs but there is no market for those things. 

·        Movie posters.  The old ones were really artistic and each one brings back the memory of the movie.  I had a “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” poster once, but somewhere in all my moves it got lost or destroyed.  My brother has some signed movie posters from baseball movies like “Bull Durham” which is pretty cool.  The lobby posters are big and really bring me back. 

·        Completed Lego sets.  A guy in Arizona has over 1200 completed Lego sets.  I know where he goes when he is in New York—there is a Lego store at Rockefeller Center. 

·        Board games.  For a while I wanted to start collecting all the different Monopoly games, but there are so many I realized that would be really expensive.  Have you seen all of them?  Baseball teams have their own game; the Simpsons, international versions.  They have versions for Klingons, Scooby-Do, and I Love Lucy.  A San Francisco artists created a $2 million game with a gold board and dice.  An original round version made by the creator of Monopoly sold for $150,000 a year ago.  Collecting these would be fun.

Some collections are just strange though.  Here are a few I want nothing to do with.

·        Largest collection of sick bags. Yeah the ones from the airlines.  A guy in Holland has 6,000 of them.  Just thinking about this collection makes me want to use one.

·        Largest collection of crab memorabilia.  How can anyone want so many representations of something which is wet, slimy, and best served with cocktail sauce?  I feel somewhat the same about the largest collection of cow-related items.  I would like to collect perhaps the items related to the best use of cows, like McDonalds items.

·        Largest napkin collection.  Why?  Is she that sloppy an eater?

·        Largest business card collection.  Over 900,000. I doubt he is going to call all of them back.

·        Largest collection of brains.  They are displayed in slices.  Eeeew.

But like most of us, I have wasted my money on things like airplane tickets, baseball games, and college tuition.