Collections

I collect stuff. As I formulated this post in my head, I realized that I collect a lot of stuff. It gives me great pleasure to find it, attain it, organize it, catalog it, and display it. Then I get satisfaction just looking at it over and over again. I imagine a psychologist would have a heyday with this obsession of mine.

Currently, my attention is on my collection of Madame Alexander dolls which began when I was a young girl. My parents gave me an exquisite 21" Queen Elizabeth doll and then an 8" Little Women Meg doll, both which I still have in nearly mint condition. Since then I've added over 40 dolls, mostly from the International and Storyland lines.

I can remember in the early 80's when it was rumored that Madame was at death's door, and that perhaps there would be no more dolls. Whenever a local store advertised the sale of dolls, people were waiting at the door well before opening time. Among them were my friend, Beth, and I, both very pregnant, joining in the "feeding frenzy" of collectors as soon as the doors opened. Were we crazy or what? and the dolls weren't even of the highest standards for which the company was known before and since then.

The dolls manufactured today wear beautifully designed clothes, even if there aren't the delicate intricacies of the 60's and 70's. It was during the 80's (and my pregnant frenzies) that I feel the clothing was sub-par. No matter. I had to have those little dolls all the same. Even now, I hope my birthday and Christmas boxes contain at least one Madame Alexander doll.

In my quest to complete the collections of my desire, EBay has become my very best friend. It enabled me to find all my Lenox porcelain Pencil Snowmen at below retail price. I only lack one, so far: Winter's Salute, and I look forward to seeing what they'll design next for the series.

When my Pfaltzgraff dinner pattern was discontinued, I was distressed. Thanks once again to EBay, I've found more pieces than ever. I now proudly possess 12 place settings of Garden Party as well as numerous serving and accessory pieces. The Pfaltzgraff Company caters to people like me who simply must have extra pieces and doo-dahs to go with my setting. Their mommas didn't raise no dummies.

I also collect things like fonts, computer sounds, and desktop themes. Since I do a lot of desktop publishing, I like to have many choices. Then there's genealogy information on my and my husband's families. And I have a photo album for every year since we were married. (That's a LOT of photo albums! Ours are well-documented lives!)

There is my music collection. For awhile it was beach music. If I do say so myself, thanks to Napster, my friend, Alice, and WalMart.com, I believe I now have one of the most complete sets of Beach Music found in the Southeast - 9 CDs of no-repeat Beach music for your shagging pleasure. (for you international readers, "shagging" is a type of DANCE done in the South.) If I hadn't acquired a few of the songs before the big crackdown on P2P file sharing, I could make a lot of money should I choose to sell my CDs. Only I couldn't spend much of it in jail.

Before the invention of the CD, I collected music on cassette tapes - one each for my favorite songs of every year from 1976. Of course now, I burn my favorite songs to CDs, and I've stopped limiting my playlist to certain years.

Then there's my collection of Disney DVDs. I claim to be collecting them for my future grandchildren. Fact is, I prefer Disney animated stories to most anything else at the movies (except maybe Harry Potter). Now that some of the titles are retired, EBay has once again proved invaluable.

I have a collection of Lenox porcelain Garden Birds that I started years ago. I suppose one could say that I still collect birds, only now I collect them in photographs that I take in my backyard. (See previous posts).

Chrismas provides endless opportunities for me to expand my collecting mania to my friends and family. We began giving our children an ornament each Christmas as soon as they were born. Our daughter has the entire collection of Hallmark Victorian Houses of which she's very proud. I can remember our son opening his Christmas ornament when he was younger and saying, "Oh, it's just another old ornament." He'll be proud of his collection, though, one day. We have even begun collections of ornaments for our nieces and nephew.

Hey - Jay Leno collects automobiles; John Travolta collects airplanes; Imelda collected shoes; Elizabeth Taylor collected jewelry. At least my collections are a little less extravagant (although I could definitely enjoy collecting jewelry!)

Am I obsessed? maybe. Compulsive? possibly. Having fun? most definitely!

and if you have a Madame Alexander doll you might want to sell . . . .