To Be a Collector

Are you a collector? I know I am. I love being able to say that I have all of something. For instance, when I was in little league I bought my baseball cards after games. I forgot how much they cost or where I got the money, but I was pretty diligent. And of course I traded with my friends or ones I didn't already have. Problem was, once baseball season ended, I stopped buying cards. But next season I started up again- with the next season series and just like the year prior, once the season ended, my collection stopped. By diligently using the "checklist" card (of which I had like 3 or 4), I figured that I was missing about 30 cards per season. Oh well.

Back it up a bit to when Star Wars first came out. I got all the action figures- Luke, Leia, 3PO, Vader, ObiWan, Solo, R2. I had the XWing, Death Star, Landspeeder. I had a LOT of Star Wars stuff. But I never had a Tie Fighter or Hammerhead or a Millineum Falcon. How could I not have had the Millineum Falcon of all things!!!. Well since I was 8, I could chalk it all up to the fact that I wasn't paying for this stuff. I assume there were budgetary constraints in my family.

Now lets fast forward to my adulthood. We'll skip some boring stuff, but how about a simple collection that doesn't cost much money. Those new state quarters were a novel idea. What was it, 4 new ones per year? Either way, I bought myself a commemorative case and got the first years worth of mint quarters. Then the next year rolled around and one or two were the right ones but they were ones that happened to find their way to my pocket. Then next year I missed one alltogether. Then we moved and the case got warped. Then I needed to do some laundry and had no quarters. So much for that collection.

I have a baseball bat signed by the entire 1994 Montreal Expos team... except for Pedro Martinez and John Wettland and Moises Alou and Felipe Alou. We have the 1997 and 1999 Swarovski Christmas ornaments. Action Sports came out with a NASCAR series with 4 drivers in pit crew format. I have 2 of them. When our daughter was born, we said we'd buy the annual Christmas Barbie. We have one of them. Our daughter now has 14 of 15 minature care bears. Shall I continue?

Well I won't. You get the point. Is it me? Is collecting really that hard? Or is more the process than the result? Is it a sign of not being a finisher? I mean I had the best intentions on all of these collections. I'd like to think that there are more people like me, but you never know.