If you didn’t know or had noticed yet, from the day you were born, you were a collector. Whether it is by self or by proxy, the world around you, including the consumer world is geared towards collecting and “collections”.
You cannot escape it. Whether your innocently drinking your calming cup of Tetley Tea and munching on your perfectly browned Hovis slice of toast heavily layered in thick Lurpak butter or if your carrying out your mundane chore of filling the car up at the local petrol station, you are actively encouraged to collect. Loyalty Points, drinking glasses, loyalty stickers for coffee, or toast racks, egg cups and butter dishes. These are but a few examples of the items we are encouraged to collect. Any and every company worth its salt is continuously and heavily promoting their brand cleverly, through collections of merchandise.
This practice is not new and sales advertising and promotion can be found as far back as the Ancient Egyptians through papyrus sales messages and wall posters. We are all victims of it and we actually love it. You know you do. Whether its be because you like getting something for free or its because you have a genuine love for the brand and their merchandise.
As humans, we have a natural tendency to gather, order and collect. It’s not only logical to collect, but it’s a mark of our efficiency in ordering the world around us. We can’t help ourselves, many of us do it inadvertently and most of us do it voluntarily. We just love it.
Most interesting is that fact the collecting habits of humans goes back to prehistoric man collecting objects such as rocks for early tools.
The natural drive of humans of collect, collate various kinds of items has allowed humans to preserve history and understand the past and sometimes better the future. Charles Darwin was a huge collector as were many scientists and aristocrats of the time and
The earliest "collectable" collectables where early the cigarette cards given with packets of cigarettes and tobacco around the early twentieth century. These consisted of a series of images of actors and actresses of the time or sports personalities amongst other subject matters.
I collect therefore I am.
