VIEWPOINT

From page A4

which I definitely did not.

My toys were for playing with and my comics were for reading…

Oh, well.

I didn’t collect those things for their value. I collected toys to play with them and I collected comic books to read them because that’s what they were made for.

Did any kid back in 1938 buy a copy of Action Comics #1 and then stick it in a mylar plastic bag to keep in in mint condition?

Nope. They read it, read it again, let a friend borrow it, cut the coupon out of the back for the Spymaster 007 X-Ray glasses and probably used it to put a sandwich on or something. The idea that they might someday be of value never occurred to them, and while it might have occurred to me, since I had a friend who collected stamps and another who collected baseball cards (I am sure I put a bunch of future Hall of Fame players’ baseball cards in the spokes of my bicycle just to get that cool quasimotorcycle click-clickclick sound as I patrolled the neighborhood), I was not going to put collecting above enjoying.

The value of collecting is not the price tag on that rare holofoil first-issue cover. It’s the joy you get from the act of collecting itself.

These days, I’ve got a shelf, a desk and a cabinet loaded with stuff and I get more every Christmas, Easter, Father’s Day or whenever someone gets me a gift.

My daughter collects weird stuff, like hermit crab shells, cool earrings and stickers for her water bottle. My boys have collections of their own — Nintendo figurines, Pokemon cards, bobbleheads. My wife collects hardback editions of her favorite books and she has a pretty cute collection of snowmen that we put out at Christmas time.

It doesn’t have to be expensive or time-consuming. It’s just something to keep your mind interested and your time fulfilling.

Find something that interests you and start yourself a collection, too.