Compelled to Collect

A midcentury ashtray collection
now surrounds our den's TV

My newest collection—of old ashtrays—has me reflecting.

Prized midcentury vase

Over the years, I have pursued vintage Halloween noisemakers, Christmas pixies, 1936-1969 Fiestaware pitchers and carafes, midcentury Italian ceramics, snow globes, 1939 and 1964 New York World’s Fair ephemera, Bakelite napkin rings, James Bond movie posters, vintage salt and pepper shakers, Staffordshire dogs, coffee mugs, teapots, late 19th-century British toothpaste jars, stamps and coins, Hardy Boys mysteries, art.

Victorian Era Toothpaste Jar

Not all of these collections got off the ground. Some died in their nascency, while others were lost to moves, downsizing, or waning interest.

Other collectors seem more focused than I. The only thing my dad ever collected was matchboxes. My uncle, a man of refined taste and boundless curiosity, began collecting Wedgwood Jasperware china in the 1950s, and now proudly displays his treasures behind glass. (He sold his more macho collection of guns some time ago.) The late New York editor Robert Gottlieb had a jaw-dropping assortment of plastic handbags that was enough to make anyone green with collector’s envy. 

In a world of too many things, with Marie Kondo urging us to purge, what is it that drives people to collect? In my case, this desire was instilled at a young age.

1939 World's Fair Ephemera

As a boy, my grandmother urged me to have a hobby and bankrolled my collections of stamps and coins. We would visit Shaker Coin and Stamp and decide upon the next acquisitions to add to my collector’s books.

But coins and stamps ultimately proved too on-the-nose for me. As I evolved, I gravitated toward the novel, the kitschy, the weird.

My favorite Bond movie,
and poster

The best collections reflect some kind of wish fulfillment, a vision of ourselves we can only access through the accouterments and ephemera of a place or time. Like James Bond. Or 1940s handbags.

Vinyl records are authentic and once again in vogue. I cannot see compact disc collections ever making a comeback. Collecting can also be a way to time-stamp a significant experience, emotion, or era in one’s life.

Fornasetti Plates

Collections do not have to be large to pack a punch. A few Fornasetti plates out of the hundreds available are enough to make a statement.

There was a time when you needed to put in actual effort to accumulate disparate objects and form a bona fide collection. The romanticized picture of a collector that comes to my mind is someone who scours flea markets, vintage shops, collectors’ conventions, and estate sales to build a collection bit by bit and over the years. Collecting items from one’s travels is both time-honored and honorable.

My father’s travels led him to various high and low restaurants, bars, and hotels to attain all those matchboxes. I am quite sure that my uncle never once got online to supplement his Wedgwood.

A favorite new ashtray

I confess to cheating by using the internet and even high-end boutiques to add to my pursuits. Even though I am a bit too young to have visited the 1939 World’s Fair, there is something lazy and inauthentic about relying on eBay for some of these finds.

Judgment aside, the urge to collect arises from a desire to order and make sense of things. That there is much pleasure to be had in things is something we collectors understand implicitly.

Installing the new ashtray collection 
with help from former Cleveland Museum of Art
Exhibit Designer Jeffrey