Have you always been a collector?

I only started collecting coins recently when I was in my 30s, but I've always been a collector. Before coins I used to collect postage stamps. I had been collecting those since I was 16, and before that I used to spend all my pocket money collecting trading cards. I had mostly movie cards (Batman, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, etc) but I also had a collection of garbage gang cards. I collected those as soon as I started getting pocket money at about the age of 7. Now I kinda wish I had settled on coins from the beginning and saved myself a whole lot of wasted money and years.

How about the rest of you, have you always been collectors or is it a recent passion?

Always has been sort of there as a child I got them from my granda, then I got into it for a few years at about 11 ish I stopped collecting but every now and then I would look at them. They went in the loft at about 13 and remaind there until I was 20 when I saw them and out of nostalgia got them out, since then I've had a great run and spent too much money but have a great collection that I'm happy with and should be able to collect for the rest of my days !

yup from rocks to beer tops now its coins wine and cigars

Always been a collector here too.  When I was young I collect sports cards (even though I didn't really get into sports!), comic books and hotwheels.  I'm in the same frame of mind.  When I started collecting those is when they started mass producing everything.  I've got a few thousand cards still and I can't even really give them away.  Nobody wants them!  Just recently sold most of my hotwheels for less than half of what I paid for them.
Now I stick to coins and books.

I have always been a collector too, although collecting coins is  relatively recent ( last 4 years), in the past I have collected VW Beetle models , stamps, model guitars. When I was young I collected beer mats and I had a really large collection , sadly my step-dad glued them all to bedroom wall one weekend whilst I was away camping , I was distraught!!!  I currently collect Winston Churchill related items, which I will probably try to swap/sell to increase my coin collection.   Voila

Well I'm sixteen, but thank to a Slovenian 20 cents (the one with the horses) I started collecting. Don't know why, but some coins can come in handy at school or work. People nowadays pay with French francs here, because I've seen many in the drawers at work. Before that Lego was my hobby, but more to play with it than collecting.

I've always been a collector!  From books, 16mm films, unusual Hot Wheels, Schleich animals, music, DVDs, Blu-Rays, model trains, View Master reels, and to coins.  Wow...

I never realized how much I DO collect...

Nice to see I'm not the only one who has a string of different collecting areas. I only collect coins now but I used to collect Fossils, Rocks, Football stickers, Plastic Dinosaurs, Tazos, Pogs, Brittains figures and even Starwars figures.

I had a bunch of GI Joes and Legos as a kid, but I wouldn't say I collected them. I still have my Legos, but not the Joes. Though I did have a small dragon and decorative knife collection for a while.

Really walder coins - I think I have some still in the box; when I find do you want. Star Wars figures
pogs like these

 just got 30 or so them to you want  yours daryl

Lego was my entire life. That stuff is so cool

but yes I went from rocks to cards to coins to Lego to stamps to books to junk to coins (with some overlap)

does anyone want those pogs, please

Quote: ALLRED1950Really walder coins - I think I have some still in the box; when I find do you want. Star Wars figures pogs like these

 just got 30 or so them to you want  yours daryl

Thanks for the offer, but I am just sticking to coins these days, as space is at a premium.

I know, don't know what to do with them

I started at about 8 or 9 with common stuff, stopped, then started back up when I moved back to the UK.

I hadn't given it much thought...then I read some of your comments and almost in a wave: I remembered. I had a rock and gem collection. I used to read about them and catalogue them.
I also had a stamp collection, which I still have, and later inherited my granddad's collection too. A lot of first day covers. I also used to collect sweet wrappers.
I was very emotional a few months ago when I discovered some Cadbury's wrappers that I had hidden underneath some sponge of a box to hold some commemorative £2 coins: which were a gift (the coins) from my grandparents. That is where my life as a coin collector started, lying dormant, until my friend who was moving house gave me his granddads collection and that was when I stumbled across Numista!

What I collect then: music cassette tapes, lego, marbles, voltron, prepaid cards, motorcycle models
What I collect now: some stamps, military watches, cigarette lighters, perfume sample bottles, 1:43 model cars

What don't I collect mainly coins but have everything. I am trying to find homes for a lot of them.

Quote: neilithicI had been collecting those since I was 16, and before that I used to spend all my pocket money collecting trading cards.

Just a guess... buffalo nickel, indian head, wheat cent, silver dime, barber quarter...

Ha, ha I forgot my marbles!

Quote: ZuluRaptorSpaceJust a guess... buffalo nickel, indian head, wheat cent, silver dime, barber quarter...

I'm from New Zealand so I didn't even know what those were until I started collecting coins.

Quote: ALLRED1950does anyone want those pogs, please

As you are kindly adding those stamps from the other topic to the coins you are sending, then (if you have no posted yet) you can include these as well ! And anything else you wish to have a clearout of, postage costs permitting. Thanks Daryl  

I used to collect books, I'd go to the annual 24 hour booksale in our town where all books were 50c and just fill bags of them, a few years later when we had to move house I decided that it wasn't worth moving the 20 banana boxes I had filled.  So I donated most of them to the next booksale.  Now I only keep one bookshelf of them and once I've read them I set them aside to be replaced at the next year's sale.

I've collected coins, stamps and bills since 4. I mostly just collect coins now, a bit of bills but close to no stamps except for Canadian and Chinese.

Quote: neilithicI used to collect books, I'd go to the annual 24 hour booksale in our town where all books were 50c and just fill bags of them, a few years later when we had to move house I decided that it wasn't worth moving the 20 banana boxes I had filled.  So I donated most of them to the next booksale.  Now I only keep one bookshelf of them and once I've read them I set them aside to be replaced at the next year's sale.

Have you never been tempted to have your own personal libary?

Short answer: No.

Long answer: For some reason, when I was a kid, my mother gave me coins from her holidays (I was never allowed to go with her, maybe it was me she was taking a holiday from...). These stayed in a jar for many years, and later I added some coins myself to it as well. Then one day I decided to find out what actually was in that jar - and here I am.

@ Walder

I certainly have been tempted, but I don't think my wife would enjoy me buying a few more bookshelves.  We've got little enough room in our 2 and a half bedroom house for 1 set of shelves

Quote: neilithic@ Walder

I certainly have been tempted, but I don't think my wife would enjoy me buying a few more bookshelves.  We've got little enough room in our 2 and a half bedroom house for 1 set of shelves

If you put the shelves on exterior walls you can tell your wife it's cost effective insulation saving you money.  

Or I can make my two boys sleep in the garage and use their bedroom  

Boys like camping , put them in the garden then you can have the garage too!!!

Quote: marc scott clarkeBoys like camping , put them in the garden then you can have the garage too!!!

Exactly - if they are past 3 years old it's about time they learnt to be more independant. If you don't kick them out the nest they only linger.  

So true and the climate in NZ is quite agreeable

Quote: marc scott clarkeSo true and the climate in NZ is quite agreeable

True but hear those pesky Orcs can be a bit of a bother!  

That would involve buying a tent though, Nah the garage is good enough for them.  By the time I fill the sun room and their bedroom they'll be old enough to leave home, then I can start work filling the garage.

 In my younger days it was building race cars and racing them, family got started and family camping  
 turned to rocks and minerals, then in middle age came astronomy and star watches, and now in
 retirement I have gone back to an indoor sport coin collecting.Yes I have always been involved in
 some type of hobby, or collecting.
                               

Interesting topic.
Since early childhood I've always had the desire to collect "one of each". Starting out with the usual things like baseball cards. I then tried collecting "one of each" of the things I would constantly find on the ground on my route to and from school. Like different brands of bottle caps, odd keys and even different types of rocks. I was probably the only kid ever in elementary school reading up that heavily on geology and rock formations .

Oh yes and then of course were all the Pennies I would find. My first coin album was a piece of cardboard that I would tape my pennies to and wrote the date of each one underneath it. Trying to find the missing dates became an obsession, and I quickly forgot about all the other things I collected. Collecting coins was fascinating and challenging. Soon I had the entire family bringing me finds from their pocket change. I started saving up my allowances to buy coin books, magazines and real coin folders to store my finds in.

I later tried collecting stamps and paper money but it never stuck quite the way coins have.      

It's reassuring to know I wasn't the only one who was always fascinated by collecting things. I can see it in my younger son who's only 5, he has a little collection of things he finds on the road, buttons, hair ties, bottle tops etc.

Quote: neilithicIt's reassuring to know I wasn't the only one who was always fascinated by collecting things. I can see it in my younger son who's only 5, he has a little collection of things he finds on the road, buttons, hair ties, bottle tops etc.

Aah yes and all the buttons, thanks for reminding me, and come to think of it now also;
comic books, hot wheels cars, model cars and planes, matchbooks... and probably a bunch more over the last 4 decades.

Sounds like your boy has caught the same fever.    

I was a stamp collector from my boyhood and and still am collecting. Coins and notes I started recently only about a year back. I was however putting away odd coins I get as change/odd notes when I travel overseas trips in a box was never put in album and indexed. Now it is a full hobby along with stamps.