Other than firearms, I collect electric guitars, vinyl record albums and 45s, watches, and cigars. I also have shitloads of compact discs and DVDs/Blu Rays

To quote Egon Spangler “I collect spores, molds and fungus.”

I have gun and watch collection. Wife have her hand bag collection. The two of us have a “joint collection”. STARBUCKS coffee mugs. For each country and city we visited, we purchase a souvenir coffe mug. I write down the dates we visited at the bottom of the cups. They are all displayed in our kitchen.

(Dusting off this old thread)

Hot Wheels and die-cast cars in general. Been doing HW cars so since 1968, with about a 12 year hiatus from high school into my late 20s. Wife first thought I was childish when we were first married, but now decades on thinks it's kinda cute...if in a senile sort of way...<shrug>

I've found myself collecting Hard Rock Cafe magnetic bottle openers whenever I'm in a city with an HRC.

Most all are shaped like a guitar save one; while in London in 2010, they were selling a bottle opener shaped like an oversized guitar pick. Cost was about £7.

A couple years ago I was visiting the HRC in San Diego looking to see if new San Diego design was released. During the course of looking, I mentioned the guitar pick to [very, VERY nice looking] young lady at the counter. Sure said she'd never heard of a pick version and looked it up on a company computer.

Her eyes got real big and mentioned other employees (she was on an HRC employees' internal site I think) would be willing to pay more than $100. Said it was one of the more expensive she's seen.

I probably have 30 different openers now with only one NOT purchased by me, that one was purchased by my son, a couple weeks ago, in Orlando.

Bad thread for me, haha. I collect game consoles from Atari 2600 up. Starbucks coffee mugs for a while. Shot glasses from all over the world. Mitsubishi GTO/3000GT stuff and parts. Old coins and bills.

Besides guns, Silver Eagles, Peace dollars, Walking Liberty half dollars, and a few Star US bills.

I agree with Q on old coins and holding history in your hand. I’ve had some of the Continental coins as well, but someone always comes along and wants them more than me....

Silver Age Comics (mostly Marvel)
Hummel’s
Anri’s
German wood carvings

I have a very modest collection of classic film cameras, but they're mostly working cameras, not museum showpieces. I'm currently looking for a nice Nikon F2 or F3 or Fm3a.

My wife collects magnets and souvenir rolled pennies from the places we visit, along with seashells and sand from the beaches we go to.

I have been carving 'little guys' for the past few months. Most are copies of things posted on youtube but a few are originals. Most are 1"x1"x3" and take a few hours to carve and paint.



We also have a wall at home that we have collected masks from foreign countries as we travel. We have about 15 of them.

quote:

Originally posted by LS1 GTO:
I've found myself collecting Hard Rock Cafe magnetic bottle openers whenever I'm in a city with an HRC.

Most all are shaped like a guitar save one; while in London in 2010, they were selling a bottle opener shaped like an oversized guitar pick. Cost was about £7.

A couple years ago I was visiting the HRC in San Diego looking to see if new San Diego design was released. During the course of looking, I mentioned the guitar pick to [very, VERY nice looking] young lady at the counter. Sure said she'd never heard of a pick version and looked it up on a company computer.

Her eyes got real big and mentioned other employees (she was on an HRC employees' internal site I think) would be willing to pay more than $100. Said it was one of the more expensive she's seen.

I probably have 30 different openers now with only one NOT purchased by me, that one was purchased by my son, a couple weeks ago, in Orlando.

My collection is a variant......I have made many trips to Vegas, and frequently stayed at the Hard Rock Casino/Hotel. I started collecting anything specific to the Hard Rock Casino, as they would issue chips for annual holidays, big concert events they would put on, etc. I was able to get one of the actual blackjack table felt skins when it was changed out from one of the casino maintenance mechanics. It's the "Blue Martini Girls" pattern. I displayed my collection of the felt, commemorative chips, cards, shot glasses, marketing pieces, even wristbands for pool and concert access, all from my trips there. I always referred to it as my happy place.

It's different that HR cafe stuff, which doesn't really interest me, but I have pins including pins for staff only, limited edition chips of $5 and $25 denominations, just about anything that was casino branded. Moved from a house years ago and it all got boxed up, but I still have it all, and it brought back lots of memories when the Morton's closed the casino/hotel and sold the property to Virgin. Interested in seeing the new place, but have to say, I had some of the wildest times of my life on that little piece of Las Vegas, nothing will compare.

quote:

Originally posted by beltfed21:
Besides guns, Silver Eagles, Peace dollars, Walking Liberty half dollars, and a few Star US bills.

I agree with Q on old coins and holding history in your hand. I’ve had some of the Continental coins as well, but someone always comes along and wants them more than me....

Found my very first star note last month! It was a $100 bill, in really nice shape, but rather common in population. Funny thing is, I was explaining star notes to the bank tellers and they have a cash dispensing vault (no real cash drawer anymore) and seriously, out popped a $100 star note. Incredible timing, lol. Sadly, I'm not sure of the value of holding a common star note though, especially if it is a $100!

quote:

You probably are already aware, but vintage HW cars are selling on ebay for much more than they cost back in the day. Some of them are actually selling for hundreds of dollars.

More like thousands. Of course these examples were extremely rare variations even back in their days. However THE most expensive of the bunch is the prototype shown in the pic below. It was not actually available for sale but was a free sample giveaway at a toy trade show held in L.A. (I think) back in 1969. Most show visitors and retailing buyers who got these handouts from Mattel wound up throwing them away, so relatively few survive today. A pristine example of that giveaway rear surfboard VW Beach Bomb in the pic below will go for at least $150,000 based on most recent estimates.



And yeah, I HAVE paid rather dearly for a couple of Hot Wheels cars over the years thanks to eBay, all because Mom threw a few of them out when I was away at college.

Weird to roll through a thread and not realize it’s an oldie and see a post by Jim Allen.