What weird things do you collect

[bogfrog]

^

Seriously what is it about porcelian pigs and cows that makes them worth collecting?!

Pigs are especially common.

Grandma always collected porcelian cats. It used to piss me off as a kid, because they were the only things she had that were remotely like toys yet i was never allowed to play with them.

I collect small jugs which are suitable for gently watering cacti seedlings.

I suppose having 5 bean bags counts as a collection too.

[Amazonian]

Seriously what is it about porcelian pigs and cows that makes them worth collecting?!

Pigs are especially common.

I don't collect something just because its uncommon, its not like i am buying it (or finding it) as an investment . If you decide to collect something rare...like...lets say purple spotted ceramic squid, i don't think your collection would grow fast if at all lol.

Ornamental pigs aren't common around here, unless they have a slit in their back and a stopper in the tummy. Cows are pretty common though.

About 20 years ago i was into collecting frog paraphernalia. There wasn't a great deal around at the time. At gift giving time i was aways always given anything frogy... even years after the frog fetish was gone... and then you have to display some hideous ornament that you were given (at least for a little while).

What is super common in the shops at the moment is butterflies, owls, and Paris themed items. Every where you go, you see these things.

Another thing i was collecting is colored nip glasses, especially if they were etched. These days i don't do much 'nipping' so they are just another dust collector. I was thinking i could drill holes in them and make sun catchers out of them,lol. Theres something about colored glass i like. I am thinking of collecting the bits of weather washed glass that turns up on the beach, and make sun catchers out of those too.

[AndyAmine.]

The most counter productive collection I have is my packaging collection.
If the item had any value then I will keep the box or the packaging.
My garage is FULL of empty boxes, 'just in case' I need to return/sell/transport the item or can use the box for something else.
If its shinny or fancy and it contained something exxy, it goes into the garage

Same goes for any tools or reclaimed stuff that could be used/sold in future like wiring, motors, fans.
I have a pile of 8gb HDD's and old 486 boards someplace. haha.

In case you're wondering, no, I almost never actualy use any of it.

[Amazonian]

Lol^, I keep empty boxes too. I have many many empty boxes that Lego sets came in. ( I still have the lego, its in containers or on shelves(collecting dust)). Pain to store, but I like the boxes

I think I keep all these things as I must be a dust collector,,, more crap = more surface area for dust to collect on.. Yay..dust (not),lol.

[Amazonian]

I actually keep packaging stuff too from boxes...like the clear thick plastic my kids would get toys boxed in, and those plastic coated bits of wire that were used to tie the toy down in the box, and if a box was big enough, I would cut out large squares of cardboard to use later for craft , and sometimes if the packaging has a flat bit of styrofoam in it, I will keep that too. It all comes in handy.....eventually

Do I have a problem?

Edited March 25, 2013 by Amazonian

[whitewind]

My landlady is a collector, so tends to be her family. Fortunately the things she collects are often used for art purposes so it is quite interesting finding boxes of shells, or wooden door knobs, or lengths of bamboo. Most of it isn't in good shape but it's great fun for a 2 year old. Pieces of broken ceramics, palm fronds, music posters, mugs, ornamental toys, paintings, much of it just stacked in a hidden corner. I think they are excited but bemused by my collection of plants which is all nicely laid out in a circle around the courtyard. No questions are asked, they just think I am a nutty collector of things like them

[whitewind]

I think it's interesting thinking about this stuff, what happens to it when we're gone? I mean, so much packaging.. the amount that goes into food is quite frightening, we have an overflowing bin every week! Most of it's food packaging waste, stuff that needs to be gone because it's ugly, useless and smells. But what about 8gig hard drives? What happens to them? Computer boxes, motherboards, cabling, monitors, some of it is recyclable I guess but some of it is quite toxic and used up a lot of resources to create, now it's useless - just a few years later.

We are a ticking time bomb on this planet, it's not just CO2 waste it's so much more!

I had this dream of a sustainable technology only built of renewable resources that had no impact on the environment. We could head underground, and have all the technology there, while only coming onto the surface for recreation. Underground there is difficulty creating space for waste - no oceans to dump it, so cae would have to be taken not to pollute. Nature could continue without being toxified, allowing us to use her resources but without destruction. It's a dream, I'm sure we could do it on the surface if we wished, but we don't seem that fussed, and the changes are too slow for us to really notice in time - although in natural terms the changes are incredibly fast.

That's my bit for the day.

[AndyAmine.]

Coincidentally I watched a doco on this subject recently.

Unfortunately a large proportion of it goes to 3rd world countries for 'recycling' via one route or another and the worst part of it is that a large amount of it arrives there from so called 'green' groups and its not unusual to see stacks of computers from somewhere like The Royal Alfred Hospital, or Sydney Grammar in a Liberian tip being pulled apart and set on fire by hoards of pre-teens trying to earn money for a feed.

Imagine a scene of young boys sitting around a fire. Not trading sports cards or planing their next soccer match but smashing apart processors coated with mercury and other heavy metals with bare hands/faces while breathing in plumes of acrid PCB filled smoke as they burn the plastic coated parts down to reclaim copper, silver and gold.
Then leaning down to wash it all off with the filthy water they are standing in, a slurry of razor sharp scrap mixed with heavy metals and other toxins. and all with no shoes, of course.

Its fucking heart breaking to see.

[TrailBlazer]

I seen that doco AndyAmine, Some sickening and scary shit hey.

How was the black smoke clouds that covered the town with fk knows how many toxic substances all floating around for all to breath.

So sad!

[whitewind]

That's a rough old story AndyAmine. Even recycling has it' downsides it seems. It's a bit sad that green groups are doing this; I thought they had a bit more of a social conscience than this; there must be reasons why the recycling can't be done at the point of disposal - I assume it has something to do with cost and local legislation making dealing with the toxic materials extremely difficult. So we offshore both our manufacturing and recycling to other environments because we have legislation protecting our own workers and environment, and that is expensive..

I wonder what the true cost of my dirt cheap netbook really is/should be according to Australian standards, were it manufactured and recycled here?

[AndyAmine.]

There is also the Coltan boom feeding the factories building all these electronics.
Coltan is like the electronic worlds version of the blood diamond trade in Africa.

Hmm, looks like I have derailed the thread a bit, sorry about that

[Sallubrious]

Yeah it makes you wonder what happened to all the biocomputers that showed so much promise back in the 80's and 90's, we could just compost that crap when we'd had had our way with it and it had lost it's sexy "new" appeal.

I had a bit of a fetish for discarded electronic crap about 15 years ago, crap like old broken TV's and hifi equipment.

I used to get them for free and then fix them and sell them to make a few bucks. Then when flat screen TV's and digital hifi came in the arse dropped out of it and I was left with a house full of shit that no-one wanted. Almost half the TV's I fixed only needed a 20 cent resistor to get them fully functional again and I'd sell them for up to 200 bucks.

I still get a shiver up my spine whenever I reminesce about the times I've inserted a logic probe in the vicinity of a LOPT transfomer with more than 10 beers under my belt, theres nothing like a brush with death to make you appreciate how precious life is

[Mr. Bowser]

my g/f collects all my bottle caps... even she isn't sure what will become of them... probably another upcycle project

[Amazonian]

You can do so much with bottle caps. ...You can nail them to a stick and make an instrument...OR...if they are the plastic ones, you could glue them to your car.

[botanika]

Guitars - Have about 30 at the moment.

[AndyAmine.]

Ohh, can we see some of your guitars Botanika?

I’m looking at buying an acoustic some time this year to focus more on finger style as my 2012 MIA strat Std doesn’t lend its self to it all that much.

This thread got my collecting senses tingling and I thought I'd set up a couple of display cabinets.

Like some kind of twisted coincidence my renter was moving out the same day and knocked over my box of miniature science gear that I wanted to display, like a miniature 50ml sep funnel and other similar sized pieces. I lost my chops at the guy, followed him into his room and saw he had smashed a panel on my only curio cabinet I have left taking his mattress out.

Didn’t even offer to have it fixed, he assumed I hadn’t noticed and wasn’t going to mention it but I gave him an ear full on the way out.

Fucking prick...

That’s the thing about collections, in someone else’s eyes it may seem like bugger all but to the owner it means the world.

Now I have to find a glassblower to fix a couple of pieces.

[Alice]

I'd also like to see some of your guitar collection Botanika. I've recently started playing again. Do you dabble in luthiery?

Edited April 7, 2013 by Alice

[SkyWalker]

I have a mass box of all the collectibles from chip packets, cheetos, star wars pokemon digimon odbodz dragon ball z space jam pocohantas, everything from about 1990 onwards that was in chips, and some of the things that weren't, i still collect little things like that here and there, have some full footy card collections and i always have to finish a collection, another one is lego and mechano, no one ever gets rid of that stuff

[botanika]

I'd also like to see some of your guitar collection Botanika. I've recently started playing again. Do you dabble in luthiery?

Not a luthier but I have put together guitars and painted a few. Haven't got photos of everything...but here's a taste

A couple of recent Warmoth builds

I like strats

Jarrell black sparkle

Ibanez jazz

Gibson R7

Gibson ’61 Reissue

Washburn N4

Pointy and flowery

Real men play tele’s

ESP

Van Halen style guitars (some home made)

Vintage Japanese guitars

The rabble

[Amazonian]

WOW ^ .

You can play, right Botanica? ,lol.

[botanika]

WOW ^ .

You can play, right Botanica? ,lol.

[Alice]

Awesome Botanika, thanks! You have some very nice guitars

I love the strats in the first pic, flame maple? How did you do the sunburst on the top body? Is it sprayed on or rubbed on like Wudtone?

(I haven't made or assembled any yet but have been looking at a bunch of kits since I started playing again recently. I'm keen to get my creative juices flowing again, you could say it's my current obsession )

Thanks heaps for posting those pics!

Edited April 8, 2013 by Alice

[botanika]

Awesome Botanika, thanks! You have some very nice guitars

I love the strats in the first pic, flame maple? How did you do the sunburst on the top body? Is it sprayed on or rubbed on like Wudtone?

(I haven't made or assembled any yet but have been looking at a bunch of kits since I started playing again recently. I'm keen to get my creative juices flowing again, you could say it's my current obsession )

Thanks heaps for posting those pics!

Oh I just ordered the bodies from Warmoth in the USA - they have a showcase gallery with bodies already made so I bought the purple burst and washed black quilted top from there along with a neck or two. The washed black has a 70's neck on it and I installed an arcade killswitch. The purple burst is awesome going from maple flame to a deep quilt. Both have chambered mahogany bodies with a maple cap so they're light but resonant. I don't have the skills to make guitars entirely...I just put bits together and solder in the pickups. I've painted the VH guitars though but that's pretty easy - spray cans and tape! Cheers

Edited April 8, 2013 by botanika

[Alice]

That purple burst is gorgeous. And the Warmoth website is great, just checking out all their stuff now.

Hmm, I should show your pictures to my wife, maybe that will help to convince her that my three guitars are not nearly enough

[botanika]

That purple burst is gorgeous. And the Warmoth website is great, just checking out all their stuff now.

Hmm, I should show your pictures to my wife, maybe that will help to convince her that my three guitars are not nearly enough

Just remind her of her shoe collection...

and white lie about the price of guitars and amps - they probably white lie about the cost of their shoes and products hehe