Did you collect anything as a child or even now? I collected baseball cards as a kid. How about you?

[debm55]

[Raastan]

1. Hundreds of different beer cans!

[debm55]

9. Thank you very much, Raastan. That is very unique.

[DURHAM D]

2. Betsy McCall paper dolls.

[debm55]

11. Thank you very much for sharing with us. DURHAM D

[biophile]

3. Breyer horses

My parents wouldn’t buy the real thing 😏😂

[debm55]

12. Thank you biophite. Thos Breyer horses were beautiful

[Mad_Dem_X]

4. I had scrapbooks of celebrity pictures

Now I just collect Barbie dolls.

[debm55]

13. Wonderful, Mad_Dem_X. Do you debox your Barbies?

[Mad_Dem_X]

20. Usually, yes.

I do have some that are still in their boxes. The problem is, I'm running out of room for them!

[Polybius]

5. Video games and comic books as a kid

Even now still, in addition to many other things, such as DVD/Blu-ray movies.

[Chasstev365]

6. Beer Cans and I have them displayed in my garage today

[surrealAmerican]

7. wacky packs

They were a seventies thing.

[ScoutHikerDad]

8. Old Straight Razors

I have been restoring and rescaling old straights for years. I also hone, strop and shave with them. I find it relaxing in kind of a zen way to have a Sunday shave with one of my homemade shaving brushes and a really luxurious fine shave soap.

In fact, the desire to start turning shaving brushes to match my fancy wood-handled straights during the pandemic led me all the way down the wood-turning rabbit hole, which cleared a path for me to retire from teaching to pursue it as a full-time business. Now I hoard wood, lol-so much wood! Here's a pic of a set in Walnut I made for a colleague for her husband as a wedding present:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/MbqhZDvTY6ZBKRkEA

[House of Roberts]

10. I collected coins, baseball cards and glass insulators.

I still have some of the insulators but I no longer collect them. They became too expensive to chase through flea markets and antique stores, and there's no longer any still out on poles for a long time now.

[wnylib]

14. A few things, like

Molusc shells from the Lake Erie shore. They look similar to clam shells.

Stray cats from anywhere and everywhere.

Pop beads from gum ball machines. Called pop beads because you could connect them together by "popping" a prong on one of them into a prong receiver of another one. They came in different colors so you could make up your own design for bracelets and necklaces.

Fossil rocks from the creek bed at my grandparents' farm. It was my older brothers who first showed them to me and explained what they were. I got fascinated with them.

Books. Our 5th grade teacher subscribed to a paperback book club for students. About 3 or 4 times a year, we got flyers that listed titles and gave short descriptions. I'd order 4 or 5 books each time to pay for out of my allowance (and borrow some money if necessary). Book prices ranged from 35 cents to a dollar. Average price for most books was 75 cents. Also requested books for birthday and Christmas.

ETA: I still collect books. Ex husband worked for a book store chain (now out of business) so we often got book discounts. Local library has book sales, too. And I order new ones online. The living room in my apt looks like a library. I've been sorting through them to donate to the library sales.

After a college geology course, I started collecting rocks.

[rsdsharp]

15. I still have my 1960s baseball cards.

Now I collect vintage (replica) baseball caps. I think they look cool, (even though they’re wool) and they protect my bald head from sunburn.

[some_of_us_are_sane]

16. May sound strange, but

1962 Topps "Civil War News" bubble gum card series. I believe my interest began there and culminated in MANY MANY trips to Gettyburg.

[dickthegrouch]

17. I've often wished I had

Without realizing, until recently, that I had in fact collected something.
Scores for all the music I've sung in concert.
I have visited many countries in the world and often wished I had purchased and kept something artisanal, or even just the baggage tags.
And I have memories of the fantastic cuisines in each of those countries. Unfortunately not tangible, but not erasable either.

[Grim Chieftain]

18. "Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy" Golden Books

Wow. That is a long trip down memory lane.

[True Dough]

19. At various times,

I collected chicken pox and swollen tonsils from strep throat and tonsilitis!

I couldn't give those away if I tried!