Hoarders/ fanboys/ clutter - the phenomenon of having your own personal 'museum'

[23 Daves]

God, I've had a hellish weekend.

I'm in the process of putting a load of things into storage at the moment before I go travelling, and I'm offloading it all on to my poor parents who frankly don't know what's hit them.  They literally do not have enough space for a lot of this stuff, so I'm stood in my bedroom staring at CDs, videos, old music magazines, books, etc, and trying to decide what must go to either the Record and Tape Exchange or the dustbin.

And I'm thinking... is this what I have to suffer for having a slightly over-enthusiastic interest in a lot of things?  And how do you lot all get on (I worry about Neil and TJ, their house moves must involve lorries rather than vans)?  

it does seem to be a peculiarly modern phenomenon.  We've always had 'collectors' in one form or another, but in the past their collections were often modest affairs, mere hobbies to tickle the fancy.  Often they were also the preserve of the wealthy who had great libraries, not the mere proles.  As prices have come down, however, and works have become more in the reach of the average person, and 'popular culture' has been deemed worthy of analysis, so we've felt the need to own everything.  It does beg a few questions.  Is wanting to own every CD made by an artist, even the trite ones,  unnecessarily greedy and (as my girlfriend thinks) the behaviour of a raging capitalist, or something else entirely?  Does anyone really need to own everything anyone has ever done?  Would our lives be as complete without?

The flipside to this coin is, of course, that as more people strive to own more of an artist's work, the more future generations can learn about them.  People like Neil and TJ are, for instance, keeping the most obscure elements of Morris' work alive where even he probably wouldn't bother (speaking as someone who knows a lot of writers and musicians, i can honestly tell you that they have very selective memories and often don't keep a very good record or take very good care of their work).  Still, though, it's hard to tell myself stuff like that when I can hardly move in my parent's spare room for THINGS.  And I can't fucking find my NHS Card or my main birth certificate, which you'd think I'd have taken greater care of.

[gazzyk1ns]

Daves the super-fat bearded bloke* at the record and tape exchange will give you shit all for your stuff, and you know it. Don't sell it to him, you'll only regret it. It seems "necessary" or "the best solution" at the time but I bet you a pint or 6 that your view is clouded by the relative 'desperation' of the situation. I don't mean to be patronising, I've done similar things. Just cram them all into a big suitcase or whatever and stick it in your parents' loft. You'll be glad you did...

*I'm not just playing up to the stereotype or calling all collectors fat/bearded - visit Ipswich Record and Tape exchange and see where I get the idea from...

[Darrell]

I have completely run out of space for things. I haven't a fucking clue what to do.

[MB]

I flogged all my music/games/books etc to the London music & video exchanges years ago, & while being a shit deal for cash, it's not bad if you take their exchange vouchers (you get twice the cash offer). You can get all sorts from the Notting Hill stores (clothes, furniture, electronics...), but dunno about doing it out of London.

[bill hicks]

I realised the other day that I too have completely lost my birth certificate. And now you mention it I haven't seen my NHS Card for a few years either.

Yet I can still tell you where my copy of FHM with Gillian Anderson looking saucy in it is, and even though it isn't labelled and is just a blank disc I can locate my Shellac rare tracks cd in a few seconds.

I'm still unemployed, overdrawn at the bank and yet surrounded by about 5,000 cds most of which I can't even stand. And yet I couldn't even concieve of selling them on. I own TWO Gomez albums, and I fucking hate them.

I can't prove I exist, but I can play Whipping fucking Picadilly whenever I want. Pinball is right, we should head for the hills now.

[Ambient Sheep]

I can sympathise Dave, believe me.  This is why it's taking me months on end to move house myself.  Because I'm moving into my girlfriend's house I've had the luxury of doing it over time and that's been bad enough, God knows how I would ever have done a classic "do-it-one-day" move.

As it is we've bought and installed a large garden shed for some of it, I'm renting a quarter-of-a-container's worth of storage for some more (including nearly 20 years of NMEs, MMs, Sounds and various other magazines), and to be frank I'll need more than that by the time I'm done, which should be "real soon now".  My CD collection is in boxes in her, um, box-room and so I'm going crazy through lack of decent music, and the main guest-bedroom is full of crates and crates of books.  And let's not mention the videos...

We can't afford to buy the sort of large-scale shelving we need to put the CDs and books on until I've sold my house, which I can't sell until I've cleared it...you get the picture.  Ironically the only thing in its final resting place is my vinyl, because I already had the specialist shelving that was holding it and I brought that down earlier on.  However for various reasons the turntable's still back at the old place!

So...I can sympathise...but I can't help.  Breaks my heart though to think you might be chucking away some stuff though, please don't...at least if it goes to the Record & Tape Exchange or Oxfam or whoever somebody else gets to have it rather than it ending up as landfill.  If it's stuff like old MMs and NMEs they seem to be going for £1 a time on E-Bay, maybe more for a large collection.

Thank God that next time we move (which it looks like we'll have to, just to get some more space), we'll have the money to have it done properly.  I hope.

[Ambient Sheep]

I realised the other day that I too have completely lost my birth certificate. And now you mention it I haven't seen my NHS Card for a few years either.

Heh, I had to drive back to my birthplace to get a duplicate birth certificate when I needed to renew my passport.  I paid for four duplicates in the hope that I'd be able to find at least one next time I needed one.  NHS Card?  Haven't seen that in about 10 years.

Yet I can still tell you where my copy of FHM with Gillian Anderson looking saucy in it is,

Heh, that was worth £25 at one point about a year after they printed it.  Don't know if it still is.  Yes, I have a copy too <blush>, one of the few copies of FHM I have, because of Gillian.  Was very startled to hear later how rare it was.

I'm still unemployed, overdrawn at the bank and yet surrounded by about 5,000 cds most of which I can't even stand.

Christ, I thought *I* was bad!!  I have about 1000 bits of 12" vinyl (~250 7") and about 1000 CDs, and that's at age 39.  And you're what, 23 if I remember right?

1000 books as well and about 1000 videos, it seems to be a constant.  Only about 25 DVDs though, and 3 of them came free with the player.  Cassettes?  Oh, yeah, a few of them too...shit...

And yet I couldn't even concieve of selling them on.

No, I know what you mean.

Pinball is right, we should head for the hills now.

But...but...what about my *stuff* man, I can't leave it behind...

[terminallyrelaxed]

I am going through a ver similar process, but I must say I'm finding the whole thing cathartic. Having moved to Highbury a year ago as it was the nearest in we could afford a one bedroom, we're sick of the tube journey and more sick of the chavs, so are going to move back into a studio in West London Yah.
Every time I move it seems I bin 50% of what I own, but this is because I never organise anything, and usually have literally bin-bags full of key rings, receipts and bank statements. Luckily my girlfriend makes me go through stuff every now and then these days, but we're now faced with the fact that everything we own is now useful, making discarding things all the harder.
I know what you mean about collecting stuff, yesterday I spent between 6pm and midnight going through my entire CD collection, software included. I bought a 96-Cd wallet, as I have decided CD cases are unnecessary, and now have approx 140 empty CD cases stacked on the living room floor ready to go to work (Cds come o spindles now, so we never have anything to put them in). Thing is, many of them I only listened to once after getting them, or are on my iTunes now. Likewise books. I've now only got my favourite Sci Fi large paperback and hardback books, and even some of them will have to go, as I very rarely read anything twice now, even over he span of years. Pots and pans that are servicaeable but rarely get used, plates, linen you name it, its a blitz at TR's house, but I'm really enjoying it.
Anyway you're talking about collecting things specifiaclly are'nt you, not just getting rid of stuff. I remember the day I finally got rid of over 200 tapes, and even then I've kept a few back, but they'll have to go. I just collect stff and once I've got it, get very little use out of it, so fuck it. If I keep going at this rate, I'll have a suitcase and a laptop, and nothing else,  in 3 years or so!

[fanny splendid]

A couple of big moves, to university, and then abroad, helped get rid of a lot of stuff which I had accumulated, as I don't have the kind of parents that I can really leave stuff with. It's usually the magazines which go first. I used to rip out the bits I wanted saving, and now I just scan everything into the computer, and burn it to a CD.

I still have a load of stuff I want to get rid off, but you never know when you might need 500 'smartie' lids, eh?

Oh yeah, what's an NHS card?

[Ambient Sheep]

Oh yeah, what's an NHS card?

Assuming this isn't sarcastic, it's a bit of white cardboard about 4 inches by 2 inches with your National Insurance number on it and some waffle.  I don't remember how I got it, maybe in the post on my 18th birthday?

Presumably at some point you've had to tell past employers your NI number...where did you get it from in the first place?  (I have to confess that these days I just look at my payslip and hope I copied it down right all those years ago.)

[gazzyk1ns]

I think my parents have an NHS card for me, which was issued at birth. I remember doing a "family tree" project aaages ago and them digging it out for me.

[Purple Tentacle]

Funny this thread should come up, when I moved to West London yah I emptied almost every possession I had into my Dad's attic, bless, and now, every time he visits, I make him bring back the crap I've decided I needed.

This weekend, for instance, he bought up 20 unlabelled  VHS tapes of varying vintage, a briefcase of Spectrum games and an Atari ST (that I only owned from the age of 18 because I just wanted to collect one. Fiver though, bargain.) , to clutter up my small flat. That I share.

However a cursary look at the VHSes has given me a fucking treasure trove of stuff, including a good few Alexei Sayles, a couple of Big Nights Out and hope that elusive Viz documentary I've been looking for.



Ms_Tentacle, when we moved here, threw out 10 years worth of her Kerrangs without telling me, and then insisted that I threw out all my Empires.

And got really shitty when I refused, point blank, saying "Well I didn't ask you to throw all your fucking mags away! They take up, what 1 square foot of space?"


Pointless post really.

[pretty dead boy]

i've got my number on a national insurance card, so it might be that, not accusing anyone of being old, more recently they've changed to giving them out instead of nhs cards.

see, if you don't post much and then you post about something boring, quite factually, then you're probably judged on it.  anyone reading probably thinks i'm a card enthusiast, and not even that comprehensive a card enthusiast as i'm only familiar with the ones made in the last few years, directly relevant to me.

[gazzyk1ns]

I got an NHS card at birth, I got my NI card when I was 16 (school gave it to me, weirdly)

[JesusAndYourBush]

I've got so many videotapes and audiotapes of stuff I've recorded I've had to throw some in the trash just to make room for newer stuff.  It's a shame there's nowhere you can sell stuff like that, ebay for example would remove it.
Anyone know of a sort-of pikey ebay where you can sell old vhs tapes and audiocassettes?

[Marcus Or Relius]

My parent's attic is crammed with both my stuff and my dad's. The females of the family and my younger brother aren't hoarders, but my dad is and I take after him. Having worked with computers since the 1970s my dad's stuff consists of hundreds of old circuit boards, training manuals, old monitors, more circuits boards...whilst rooting around in there a few years ago I found a huge box packed full of issues of Acorn User, the old magazine for the BBC Micro, as well as a book of Basic code listings to allow you to write your own games. Bought back many memories of childhood.

My hoarded stuff in my parent's attic is more simple - 300+ paperbacks, a telescope, some old video tapes and CDs and eight-years of pocket-money and Christmas and birthday presents worth of Games Workshop stuff. I must have kept them and Citadel minatures afloat during the late 80s and early 90s.

[Ambient Sheep]

Yeah, I seem to have got my cards confused.  My NI card is the white one I was talking about that I got at 16 or 18 or something.

My NHS card I wasn't even aware of until a few years ago, my mother dug it out for me, it was amazing, a real relic of the 60s still full of noble ideals of public service and stuff.  Sadly I had to hand it in somewhere for some reason (I can't remember why, or whether they gave me a new one or what), but I think I photocopied it before I did so...still didn't make up for that feel and *smell* of 1960s official brown cardboard though.

Hey, Marcus, I'm a bit like your Dad...still got loads of old Speccy and Sinclair magazines (they're in the aforementioned container along with the music mags), and I have PCWs going back to 1980, including the very first issue in 1978 that I bought as a back issue sometime in the early 80s.  Most of them are still at my parents.  Fascinating to dig out the November 1982 issue though and read the review of the first ever IBM PC!  64K of RAM and a cassette deck...

Sadly all the stuff I left in my parents loft (as opposed to a spare bedroom) got eaten by squirrels several years ago.  Or so my parents *claim*...

[fanny splendid]

Oh yeah, what's an NHS card?

Assuming this isn't sarcastic, it's a bit of white cardboard about 4 inches by 2 inches with your National Insurance number on it and some waffle.  I don't remember how I got it, maybe in the post on my 18th birthday?

No, genuine question, I have a National Insurance card, but from what people were saying, an NHS card sounds different. And further down, Gazzyk1ns seems to have both. Should I be worried that I don't have one? I have been to hospital a few times when I was at university, (let's paint a picture, let's build my own canvas frame, let's saw up my hand, let's do it monthly), but I have never been asked for a card.

[hencole]

I've no idea what an NHS card is either. I've heard it mentioned before, but as yet don't know anyone who has one. Are you sure its not just an N.I. card?

[Uncle_Z]

In addition to NI card I have what I suppose you could call an NHS card.  It is just details of the GP I was registered with as a young 'un.  I think you're supposed to need it to register with a new GP but as long as you can tell them who you used to be registered with it does not seem to matter (indeed mine only exists as a relic which turned up when I was trying to find my birth cert.  Funny ol' world innit).

As far as collecting goes, my approach has been forever tainted since my parents are such maniacs - books, pottery, glassware, furniture, fucking fucking horsebrasses they'll grab hold of anything.  Some of it rubbed off on my brother, who had a spell of collecting postcards and now gets the occasional "collectable" if he spots a bargain.  

With the exception of my computer room / office I have deliciously minimalist tastes.  There is spare space on my CD, DVD and video racks (yes the CD's are alphabetised, but out of practicality rather than anal tendencies), a solitary crate of vinyl lives in a cupboard with two crates of tapes.

This said I have to consciously resist the urge to fetishise stuff.  eg. I have a decent stock of single malts.  They are for drinking, not for looking at or gathering dust (anyone caught trying to add mixers will feel my wrath).  I have found myself wanting to keep the empty bottles.  Fucksake.

[Neil]

Well I am indeed a collector, I've always hated to throw anything out.  However when it comes to comedy and bootleg collecting, I'm really too lazy to get into the proper swapping, plus it costs too much.  I tend to just get all my stuff off the net really, I've got absolutely stupid amounts of CD's sitting all around me in this room.  When I got on the net about 6/7 years ago it was just to listen to American talk radio, and I used to tape the shows back then, I was a wild radio taper in the old days actually, used to interfere with clubbind, dates, whatever.  I just have this inbuilt instinct that I will need stuff again, and particularly with comedy and the like, I will definitely need to hear that again in the future.  Anyway, when I got on the net I spent a fortune on calls but it was worth it to hear people like Stern and Neil Rogers.  After a while a friend told me about this number you could dial where you got connected to the net on offpeak hours (6pm to 8am) for 3.5p FOR THE WHOLE DURATION!!  Cause it was some sly NTL cable to cable call, that's all you were charged, amazing!

I duly started downloading and burning off the entire internet, as far as I was concerned this dodgy line could be closed at any time and so I had to take full advantage of it for as long as possible.  This is a habit I've not shaken, I still have to have the puter on constantly downloading, regardless of whether I'm here or not.  I do this now because I love it, but I also have this nagging fear that they will be able to clamp down on all this file-sharing in some way.  The vast majority of what I download is really stuff that's not commercially available anyway, music boots or radio comedy etc.

Don't think I've ever actually thrown a magazine out, and I was a hectic reader when I was growing up, always buying something to read.  

Anyway, the important thing to me is that I enjoy my collection, it's too easy to just let it sit there gathering dust...when you download as much as I do it's physically impossible to listen to or watch it all there and then, so I do have a huge amount of stuff that's still to be worked through, but I always get there in the end!

[Sherringford Hovis]

This said I have to consciously resist the urge to fetishise stuff.  eg. I have a decent stock of single malts.  They are for drinking, not for looking at or gathering dust (anyone caught trying to add mixers will feel my wrath).  I have found myself wanting to keep the empty bottles.  Fucksake.

I feel your pain - I feel the same way about my empty ale bottles from small breweries that come in a delightfully bewildering variety of shapes and sizes. I've made do with floating some of the nicer labels off and sticking them in an album, but it just ain't the same.

I'm about to Ogg 3/4 of my CD collection onto a ratty old PC with a huuuge hard drive - even if I only get £2 each for my CDs, it's gonna pay the mortgage off for about a year and a half.

Last year me and Mrs Hovis moved from a big place with high ceilings and miles of shelving into a tiny, tiny cottage and had to dispose of more than half of everything we owned - furniture, collectobilia, clothes, crockery: the lot. It actually made us physically sick at the time, trying to decide what had to go. (I had tour T-sghirsts unworn from bands I didn't like, movie posters from films I've never seen, and The Mrs's collection of textbooks about discredited medical practices like phrenology were the hardest to part with, but go they did.)
Once over the initial shock, we found our lives SO much easier. Why? If you have stuff you care about, you worry about it. If you get rid of lots of your stuff, you worry less. It's that simple. I donated much of my fiction books to local hospitals, and the non-fiction stuff to the library - just because you can't sell something doesn't mean you can't find someone that wants/needs your old crap. Plus, if you get rid of your OLD crap, you'll make plenty of room for NEW crap

Lack of space has cured me of my addiction - if you've got more stuff at your parents' house than you can pick up unassisted in one go with just your two hands - go sort it out and get rid of some. Wasn't the pain of childbirth enough to have inflicted on your poor mother?
After a lifetime of collecting every flavour of crap, from Spear Of Destiny 7"s, through plastic Weetabix men from the 70s/early 80s to interestingly shaped pebbles, the way I see it now is: if you're hoarding rare or interesting stuff, and it doesn't give you pleasure on at least a monthly basis - get rid of it and let it give someone else pleasure.

[fanny splendid]

Plus, if you get rid of your OLD crap, you'll make plenty of room for NEW crap

Heh, that's it. I've got very good at doing that.

[Clarky Cat]

On a related topic, does anyone have any experience of archiving
VHS to DVD ? Has anyone done much of this using either consumer DVD
recorders or via a PC and DVD writer ? If so what do you reckon the
quality is like ? Is it equivalent to VHS or is it noticably worse ?

[bill hicks]

I realised the other day that I too have completely lost my birth certificate. And now you mention it I haven't seen my NHS Card for a few years either.

Heh, I had to drive back to my birthplace to get a duplicate birth certificate when I needed to renew my passport.  I paid for four duplicates in the hope that I'd be able to find at least one next time I needed one.  NHS Card?  Haven't seen that in about 10 years.

Yet I can still tell you where my copy of FHM with Gillian Anderson looking saucy in it is,

Heh, that was worth £25 at one point about a year after they printed it.  Don't know if it still is.  Yes, I have a copy too <blush>, one of the few copies of FHM I have, because of Gillian.  Was very startled to hear later how rare it was.

I'm still unemployed, overdrawn at the bank and yet surrounded by about 5,000 cds most of which I can't even stand.

Christ, I thought *I* was bad!!  I have about 1000 bits of 12" vinyl (~250 7") and about 1000 CDs, and that's at age 39.  And you're what, 23 if I remember right?

1000 books as well and about 1000 videos, it seems to be a constant.  Only about 25 DVDs though, and 3 of them came free with the player.  Cassettes?  Oh, yeah, a few of them too...shit...

And yet I couldn't even concieve of selling them on.

No, I know what you mean.

Pinball is right, we should head for the hills now.

But...but...what about my *stuff* man, I can't leave it behind...

Hehe. About 5000 cds, 250 lps, 300 vhs, 400 dvds, 2000 books, and god knows how many magazines. I have complete runs of Kerrang, Rocksound, Terrorizer, Wire, Edge, Guitar Buyer, Empire, Sight and Sound.... all going back about 8 years. I was thinking of chucking them to be honest since the net has meant I don't need them. The whole point was because I would occasionally flick through an old NME and read reviews and features on bands I ignored when I was 15, but now love.

Still keeping my NME with Godspeed on the cover and my Total Film's with the Filmshop 101 articles in them. Used them for my short film and they beat any expensive film school in the world.

In fact maybe it's time for some Fight Club style cleansing....just get rid of everything and start again....

(Oh and I'm 24 now)

[king mob]

On a related topic, does anyone have any experience of archiving
VHS to DVD ? Has anyone done much of this using either consumer DVD
recorders or via a PC and DVD writer ? If so what do you reckon the
quality is like ? Is it equivalent to VHS or is it noticably worse ?

On the subject of replacing VHS with DVD its proving to be a pain as i have loads of VHS copies of films i'm never going to touch.Thankfully theres a market in Bristol that will still buy & trade VHS so it means i can clear some clutter out.
I tend to clear stuff out about once a year but even so i still have far too much stuff clogging my garage up to the extent its now hard to get into the bloody thing.

[23 Daves]

Well, I've made some fairly critical decisions since last night - a ton of magazines have gone, and a ton of promo CDs which date from my years as a freelance music journo/ student journalist.  To be honest, I've been very careful not to throw out anything that I suspect is likely to be worth any money - the CDs and vinyl that have disappeared are all dodgy club twelve inches that never took off (and I'm praying nobody samples in the interim), and singles by indie no-hopers such as Rosa Mota and Bandit Queen.  Nobody would buy this sort of nonsense off e-bay, they wouldn't even think to look for it.  Indeed, until yesterday I'd forgotten these bands even existed.  If either of those acts have some bizarre Pulp-esque resurrection I'll obviously be kicking myself, but let's just assume the odds are stacked against that happening.  

Once that was done, I noticed that more shelf space emerged.  It did indeed seem as if crap promos and old NMEs (which were slightly rotted anyway) were my main problem, and whilst I love to keep old music magazines it has to be said I very seldom ever pick them up again. A few years ago I had a cuttings spree on old mags, just cutting out the articles that were about people I'm interested in and leaving the other stuff.  That helped a bit too.  

To be honest, though, one of the main things that prompted the original post was just that the posessions were becoming a burden rather than a joy, especially for someone who moves around so much.  Why the fuck have I got a copy of Space's "Tin Planet"?  It's got about two good tracks on it.  Do I really absolutely have to have the Austin Powers films on VHS?  Am I ever likely to watch them again?

It's been a painful process, but I'm almost on top of myself now.  Though my mother is freaking out like anything, raving "What the hell do you expect me to do with all this?  I only live in a bungalow, you know!". Even at this stage.

[Ambient Sheep]

To be honest, though, one of the main things that prompted the original post was just that the posessions were becoming a burden rather than a joy...

Yes, I know what you mean, and have been wondering this myself.  Should I reevaluate my priorities or something?

Although the original plan was to liberate the 20 years of MM/NME/Sounds from what was going to be temporary storage, I'm thinking that I might well leave them in there permanently, or at least for a couple of years down the line until g/f and I may have moved into a bigger house than this one.

[weirdbeard]

I've got a mass of mid-90's computer games magazines just lying about.  I'm thinking about getting rid of them.  I'm hesitant about doing it though, cos I'm bound to have a reason for looking though them as soon as i've got rid of them.  Is it best to rip them all up and do a mass scanning job and make a load of PDF's or should I just chuck them on eBay and make a few quid (I doubt I'd get a lot for them)?

[lazyhour]

the CDs and vinyl that have disappeared are all dodgy club twelve inches that never took off ... and singles by indie no-hopers such as Rosa Mota and Bandit Queen.  Nobody would buy this sort of nonsense off e-bay, they wouldn't even think to look for it.  Indeed, until yesterday I'd forgotten these bands even existed.  

Ha!  Two days ago I threw in the bin a single by Bandit Queen.  It must be that time of the year, as I've also been going through all my CDs and stuff.  It's both traumatic and satisfying to actually put CDs in the bin, I must say.

But then no-one's likely to want the first 3 singles by Northern Uproar, are they?