"What do you collect?"

A common enough question is to ask a collector "what do you collect"?  The question appears on many association and society membership forms. Reasonable enough.  However, as a new collector, I have yet honed in on exactly what I want to focus my time, energy, and monies acquiring, arranging, and sharing.  But, I want to be able to answer that question somewhat when (or if) folks ask. 

For me, the question has dual sides. I am starting to collect personally, but I am also collecting professionally. 

As I mentioned in previous posts, in 2020, we began a new special collection here at my library that focuses on distilling, fermenting, and brewing. Our primary focus is Tennessee, but we also plan on incorporating selected works from across the world.  In order to help support a more comprehensive and unique view of the distilling, fermenting, and brewing topic, we started to collect philatelic materials. It started with revenue stamps and expanded to include postage stamps and covers, as well as postcards. At this point, I am open to all philatelic and postal-related materials with an alcohol theme or subject.  These topics could include depictions of the finished product, ingredients, maps of production areas, and techniques. We also want to collect depictions of the social and political aspects of alcohol including Prohibition, alcoholism, and driving under the influence. 

My personal collecting is a bit different and is still undergoing refinement. I know I cannot collect everything. Right now I am in the "oohhhh shiny" phase. Every stamp is incredibly interesting and opens up new avenues for exploration.  But, I think I have whittled my initial interests down.  All categories are worldwide. I do prefer worldwide stamps to US. 

"Non-traditional stamps".  I really like the stamps that are a bit different in terms of materials, shapes, or images.  For example,  I just had to have the two Austrian COVID stamps - the toilet paper one and the mask.  My enjoyment of these stamps will cross over a bit with the work collection in that I hope to obtain a copy of the Portuguese cork stamp. 

Library or museum-related stamps and postcards.  I really love libraries and have done so since I was a small child. Yes, I was the kid who cataloged her books in elementary school. (NB: while I have cataloged as a professional librarian, I am not a cataloger. Acquisitions and collection development is more my thing!) 

Ships (stamps only).  Particularly ones from 18th and 19th centuries.  

Architecture (stamps and postcards).  I love to see interesting buildings - modern and old from around the world. 

About me.  I want to start an album that is "all about me".  The first section will contain a representative stamp from each year of my life.  I am focusing uniquely on US stamps for this part. Additional parts will be focused on major milestones and interests. I'll probably have an "education" section with stamps pertaining to the years I graduated from high school, college, and graduate school. As well as stamps indicating activities, interests, and people from those times in my life. Another area would focus on my family, and I may want to include areas centered around my work and the various cities/states that I called home. This will have to have homemade, custom-designed pages. This sounds a bit "scrapbooky."  But, my collection, my rules, right?  

But how to distill this into a quick "elevator-type" length?  No one will want to sit through 10 minutes of explanation.  Perhaps it comes down to "I collect things that I fancy. I collect worldwide."