User blog:Rpadillav/Collector or hoarder?

I've been collecting things since I had memory. First it was keychains, then it was soda cans and so on. But for one reason or another, I got bored of most of my collections. I didn't found nourishment out of them. I was just being a hoarder, accumulating but not enjoying my stuff.

Suddenly, someone broke into my house and stole my computer. My father said he had no money at the moment to buy a new one (those were the times when a new computer costed three thousand dollars, at least in Peru, where the imports were highly taxed), so I was like crazy with nothing to do. My dad, gave me a bag he had of old envelopes that he had saved from letters and postcards dated as far al the 40's and 50's. The envelopes actually were all torn to pieces, but my dad had preserved the serction where the stamps go.

So I started the cumbersome task of separating the stamps from the paper and thus my stamp collection began. Then and there I realized that this wouldn't be hoarding like my previous collections. I had a lot to learn from stamps; the history of space exploring, the names of countries from before WWI and WWII, some of them no longer in existance. I even learned to read Cirilic, with all the Russian stamps regarding Cosmonauts and WWII. This collection inspired me to investigate and learn. I was being nourished for the first time and for the first time I learned what real collecting meant.

After my first son was born, I started buying Hot Wheels, because I remembered the great times I had with those my self, but he was too small, so I decided to buy them and save them until he had the proper age. Little I knew that I would start to find the same nourishment in researching the history of many of the cars I had in the collection.

Suddenly, the collection was mine and not my son's. I started buying 2 of each, so that I would grow my collection and my kid would have his own, but he never grew interested so much in them as he did with computers and (gladly) books.

Today I have three kids. The eldest of 13 and the "Evil Twins" of 9, who do like the cars, but not for collecting but for smashing them and crashing them. For they I buy a spare car of their liking (mostly the weird and cartoonish) and in turn they respect my collection and learn from it. Once in a while I clean every car and they ask lots of questions about the models.

Some weeks ago I discovered this site, and started learning not just the story behind the cars, but the story behind the HW models. About the original 16, about the many variants of wheels and "tampos", etc. And I realized the site was still growing and that I had some models for which there were no photos (sometimes not even info). My other non-collecting hobby is photography, so this site has given me the chance to give my collecting a whole new dimension and a whole new purpose.

Collecting is not just hoarding, Is enjoying every detail and every story that comes along with every piece and enjoying everything you do with it.

Rpadillav 16:03, November 22, 2011 (UTC)