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As long as people have existed, they have collected things. Years ago, they would only gathered food and other necessities needed for survival. Now, people collect whatever items seem to give them pleasure or joy like sewing machines or train horns or what items they believe will earn them a profit in the future like expensive works of art. Being a collector of something is a little hobby to some or an all encompassing career to others. There are all different types and levels of collectors. in rare cases collectors become obsessed with collecting and this becomes an illness of a hoarder.

There are many ways to be a collector and some people begin when they are just small children. If you ask any man in his 40′s or 50′s if he collected baseball cards as a young boy, a big percentage will probably say yes. Many times kids get involved in a phase or something that is trendy or popular at the moment and this turns into collecting. Another example of kids collecting trendy things or toys are the beanie babies or the Pokemon and Yu-gi-oh trading cards. These were the items for children to have at one point and a lot of children became collectors of them until the faze faded away.

Because so many kids become interested in having a little collection of something at a certain point, this creates an activity for others to do as adults. For the majority of those kids, their collections fade away as they get older but for others, collecting becomes something they have to become a part of. People usually collect items that they are interested in, whether it is sports memorabilia of their hometown team or works of art by a particular artist.

What bagan as a hobby for many people, can also turn into a lucrative career too. The people that are very into collecting things, do everything they can to learn about that particular collectible. This can be a valuable resource for companies that handle collectibles by hiring a person that is so knowledgeable about a particular item. This can result on being hired by a big auction company like Sotheby’s or by beginning their own business buying and selling certain collectibles or antiques, for example.

For some people, collecting and gathering items become a mental illness called hoarding. People that hoard have to constatnly collect things whether it is by shopping or even sorting through others trash. It may be clothes or it can even be food but the main problem of a hoarder is that they never get rid of anything and have an emotional attachment to all of the things that they bring into their home. Eventually the residence is filled from floor to ceiling with stuff that becomes a health hazard. A mental health professional is the only person who can help a hoarder to regain a normal life again where they are not filling an emotional void in their life with stuff.

Filed under: Hobbies on March 12th, 2010