Collecting is weird. It’s fun at the same time that it’s usually meaningless.
About a month or two ago, I hit a healthy wall with my antique catalog collecting. Of all things, I stumbled upon two taxidermy catalogs from the same company, published in the 1930s. One was priced super low, like $6, and the other was maybe $30. One was No. 3, and the other No. 5, I believe, and there’s something about the numbering on these types of catalogs that really gets in my head, where I start wondering what it would be like to complete the collection. But in the midst of my plotting and research, which carried on for some time, I had the epiphany: dude, you aren’t seriously thinking about collecting old taxidermy catalogs, are you?
And that’s when I woke up a little.
See, the value of collecting mining catalogs is that they can actually help me research the mining ruins I find on my little excursions up remote valleys. They serve a dual purpose: the fun of collecting, and historical research. That is Web of Goals done right. But things like taxidermy catalogs only satisfy the fun of collecting. And the problem with collecting is that once you have something, the fun wears off pretty quickly. So if you are only collecting for the fun, you’re kind of throwing your money out. Now, there’s nothing wrong with some harmless entertainment, but collecting has the detriment of taking up your space and increasing the cognitive load your possessions have on you. Ever seen a hoarder who wasn’t overwhelmed by how much stuff they had? That’s cognitive load. You don’t want that. Opt for less.
Sure, every old book I collect is a book I want to add the Internet Archive, but don’t mistake the desire to contribute with the desire to spend. I decided to forego the taxidermy catalogs and leave well enough alone.
Then another thing happened. I found more mining catalogs from the 1920s, which all have this wonderful uniform design. For a few hundred bucks, I could be pretty close to having half the catalogs from that decade. But the problem was…this would have been a second series I was collecting. And most of the ruins I find are a slightly older. Do I really want to start down this path of owning everything I can acquire?
I decided the answer is no. I have one catalog from that series, from 1921, and I’m fairly happy with that. They are kind of tempting, but I have to remember that collecting one series is enough, or at least it should be. I think it pays to have a little focus here or you just end up throwing hundreds of dollars out all over the place, filling your living space, and not getting much in return. I had the brief fantasy of buying one of those huge ornate Victorian bookcases (you know, the ones with the smokey glass with decorative lines?) and storing all my books in there, but I may as well buy my own house if I want to be that guy, and I’m not terribly interested in buying a house just to store a bunch of stuff.
At the end of the day, what’s actually useful for me to own is anything that helps me identify the ruins I find in the backcountry. I don’t necessarily need to collect old catalogs for that, as the research has often already been digested in various books. Some of those are antiques in their own right, printed in the 1960s or 1980s, but out of print now for decades. Sometimes, they aren’t cheap either. But they are probably going to have more bang for the buck.
If you want to collect something, I think you need to be cautious about it and stay focused.