Liquor bottles shaped like guns, skulls, etc., that is probably not even big enough to call a collection, New Era hats and recently Nike's. Early 90's baseball and hockey cards that are now worth tens of dollars!

No. It was actually in my wallet which was transferred from wallet to wallet over the years. I never purposely intended to preserve it.

What's interesting to me is that it is in such great condition pretty much by chance. And I've moved around quite a lot.

If it was just sitting in a book in a box somewhere I wouldn't find it interesting at all.

Your smug assumption is incorrect.

I don't remember. I was 14 at the time so that was probably all the money I had on me.

Medieval antiquities. Here's the sword case.



Swords go from the earliest around 8th century to the newest of mid 15th century.


From the display case: about half of my spurs (14th-16th C) on one shelf and domestic/religious items on the shelf below.

holy schnikes gman, how does one acquire such things, how do you authenticate, etc

would love a detailed TR

also

damn thats pretty sweet.

What's the opposite of collecting? I think my microwave is the only thing I've owned longer than a year.

Hard to say no to running shoes (as you could probably tell from the picture) but 11 is definitely too big. But thank you for offering!

To add a little value to the thread, I just increased my soccer jersey collection when my wife got me another one for fathers day. It's an "authentic" one which means I can actually wear it compared to the replicas that fit way too loose.

Your dog?

I got started when I was living in England in the 90s, buying from a little shop in Cambridge that purchased metal detectorist finds. Then moved on to the internets and auction houses. Authentication is the biggest problem, especially with things I buy via photos. I have a few items (not on display) that I am 90% sure are Victorian-era reproductions, not originals. I also have lots of items that are authentic, but not what the seller thought they were.

This is mostly an issue with internet sellers, but I even have a 17th century breastplate that a well-known auction-house misidentified as 14th century. I got it cheap because all the museums could tell that it wasn't right and then did some research to figure out what it actually was.

Yeah, that can be an issue. I only have one item that I know to be looted from an archeological site, and I would not have bought it if I'd known the signs at the time. In most countries, if its value is low enough and it doesn't have major cultural or religious significance, the landowner and/or finder can sell it. What falls under that rubric varies by jurisdiction. England's is spelled out in the Treasure Act, for example.

nice, always been meaning to get involved in that area but am terrified of authenticating and obviously not rolled to buy anything worth paying to get appraised/etc

last time i was in nepal there was a shop that sold all these qing vases for suspiciously low prices and i was very tempted to back the truck up simply because if they were fake then they would have very likely been republic era forgeries which in their own right would have been worth more than what i was paying for them - my only fear was that they were modern forgeries in the republic era forgery style

was also really tempted by some stuff in egypt but had zero confidence it was authentic

i do have a habit of wandering out around old sites but not in the sites themselves and collecting a few pottery shards because they'll be literally everywhere - unsure how i feel about it moralistically to be honest but confirm it's not a site under protection or anything even though i'm clearly raiding the perimeter that just is not in the scope - any site i went to in north africa you could find tons of pottery on the ground up to a good half mile away from the location

We were told that everything sold to tourists was fake. And if we actually managed to buy some kind of authentic artifact, we would end up in jail if we were caught trying to take it out of the country. Looks like Egypt is still upset with Europeans taking all their fancy stuff a hundred years ago.

As the name might indicate I have been both a dealer and collector of rare books and manuscripts. I am now just building the collection and will become a book dealer again when I retire.

That's awesome. No wonder you like to drink rum.

I have a couple of signed Stephen King books. A 1st edition 11/22/63 that I got when he came to Dallas for a conversation appearance promoting the book. Also, one of the Subterranean Press limited editions of The Shining. The advent of the Kindle has killed my collecting of regular books.

I keep a $1 chip from every casino I go to. They all just sit in a jar in a closet. Will probably never do anything with them but what the hell, they only cost $1.

Oh yeah! I've got a first edition, Anthony Bourdain, Kitchen Confidential.

Unfortunately no cover, and not signed. But still pretty cool.

The signed part doesn’t matter much, but having the dust jacket is a must.

I just sold a book with dust jacket for $1,500. Without it goes for about $150.

Stephen King is interesting because he used to date a lot of his signatures and he is one of the only authors where the date of the signature matters. A copy of “The Shining” dated 1977 is worth a lot more than one dated in the 2000s.

Yep. That's why I'll just always keep it on my shelf. It's worth more to me than the dollars.

I had a 1st Edition Shining back in the early 90's and had no idea what I really had and that it would be worth something someday. It wasn't signed, but was in perfect condition, dust jacket and all...until I fell asleep reading it and pretty much ripped the dust jacket in half.

lol, I absolutely loathe dust jackets and almost immediately throw them away.

i suppose you could say i collect golf hats specific to golf courses. i'd estimate 35 or so hats from 25 or so different courses. nowhere close to a hat from every course i've played, just the ones i've found to be memorable in some way. i've worn most of them dozens of times, some i have multiple versions of because i wear them all the time.
could also say a similar thing about golf towels (probably have 20 or so) and yardage books (probably 40 or so).
also have shoe boxes full of dated scorecards from rounds i've played but that's more a hoarding thing than a collecting thing.

Does it matter if it's fake if you enjoy having it around? I've got some Chinese knock off Lego as I'm not paying 3x original price for sets that are no longer in production. Doesn't bother me that they're fake as you can't tell from viewing distance.

i understand this point of view but for these specific items, their only value to me, is in the history of the items itself

i drive past a canal in upstate new york and don't think much of it, i see a canal that's over a thousand years old in north africa or asia and i could spend all day just walking the banks and soaking in what may have happened there

so if I have even the slightest doubts that it's a modern forgery (old forgeries I'd be down with - ie like many of the great artists of the renaissance, Michaelangelo began his career forging art to look like it was Greek and Roman antiquities and yeah I'd absolutely love to own a fake Roman statue created by some Florentine artisan)

with those the plan was cheat some local bishop or feudal lord, but if i think it could have been made recently with the intention to cheat me then i lose all interest

this is also why i'm sketched out by anything metal as they can't be carbon dated and thus are incredibly commonly and there are tons of factories producing just these coins and hence why you can by "ancient greek" coins on ebay for like $1 because the supply of fakes is so vast

p.s, i have absolutely no doubt over the authenticity of anything in garicks collection - he's one of the few nits that are difficult to bluff

Oh, I've definitely bought some things that ended up being inauthentic. They were usually actually found in the ground, they just weren't what they were described as. I have a chain mail mitten from France, for example, that I'm 100% sure is not medieval and about 80% sure is from WWI, though they don't exactly match the French machine-gunners anti-heat chain mail mitten examples I've been able to find online.

I generally avoid anything that's popular/expensive enough to be counterfeited. Surprisingly, for the beat-up excavated items, they generally sell for less than it would cost to make them and fake the age. If I find things in perfect condition, I get suspicious.

As I mentioned above, I do have several items that I think were Victorian-era reproductions, mostly based on the details of construction technique, and I don't display those. It wouldn't shock me if I missed one or two others that are old, but not as old as I thought. I would be pretty shocked to find that anything that made it into my display case were a modern forgery, though.

I guess I collect beer. Have more than I'm sure I'll ever actually drink, although I don't buy it with the intention of never drinking it. Have maybe 250 bottles in my basement which is a decent size, but smaller than several friends. Mostly 750ml/22oz bottles.