Living in a box

This morning I came across an article regarding the Pope, who has decided that seven deadly sins aren’t really enough. In moving the Church with modern times and thinking, he’s added a few more to the list. Now missing from that list, from an ardent collector’s perspective, is removing a collectable from its packaging. Opening the box: bad. NRFB – Never Removed From Box: good.

To remove, or not to remove – it’s not so much a question as temptation. For many serious collectors, the value of a collectable plunges the instant you peel back that little holographic sticker on the box’s lid. It’s so tempting, to take that collectable out of its cellophane and twist-tie prison, to let it feel fresh air and be held by a real person. In some ways, it’s like buying a new car.

Your heart’s in your mouth as you pen to paper that shiny new auto. It has just four kilometres on the clock – the obligatory once-or-twice-around-the-block by the quality control person at the factory). There aren’t any dings on the paintwork, the wheel rims are unaltercated by curbs, the tyres are oh-so-black. That heady new car smell emanates from the inside when you open the door. The firm, untorn upholstery grips you as you reciprocate with the steering wheel. Bob the car salesman hands you the key to your $33,000 purchase, shuts the door (it latches with a reassuring, solid thud), and you draw a deep breath. You turn the key and the engine roars into life, snapping at the rev counter to keep up. Oh, yeah. You ease your new baby across the footpath, out onto New Proud Owner Street. CLANG!

That’s the sound of SEOW. In that fraction of a second when the two front tyres touch the road, SEOW occurs. It stands for Spontaneous Evaporation Of Worth. Your $33,000 car just lost $7,000 in value. Just like that. You see, if you put the car into reverse and drive it back onto the lot with a doubt in your heart, everything changes. Bob the car salesman, who minutes earlier complimented your snappy tie or how your dress really brings out the highlights in your hair, is now telling you that the car is no longer new, but used. They’re not worth as much as new cars, he explains with the patience of a saint. The car’s certain je ne sais quoi has disparu. However as a favour to you (his friend), he generously offers to buy the car back for $26,000, despite the ‘lesser condition’ it’s now in.

You didn’t do anything to cause the Evaporation, like bumper-kiss a pole, or spill your morning coffee over the passenger seat. Nope. But you did commit a cardinal sin. In driving that brand new car off the lot, you did the equivalent of removing a collectable from its box. Shame on you. Like the genie from the bottle, you released value from the purchase.

OK, but who actually buys a new car and doesn’t drive it? And every year at Christmas time, children around the world get millions of presents, things that may in time become collectables. On this day, they tear into these presents with the fervour of media smelling a scandal. Off comes the wrapping paper. Who cares that it’s expensive, shiny, and your favourite colour? That Mum put a co-ordinated rosette on top? No one. Onto the next layer. The box! Hurrah! Rip goes the top. Toss the instruction sheet next to the crumpled up wrapping paper where it won’t get lost. Remove the cellophane! The twist-ties! Curse the polystrene chips flying around like snowflakes, and anything else that gets in the way. Finally – the present! Ah….. satisfaction.

In a few hours when Mum and Dad clear up, the packaging disappears and in a way, so has some of the history associated with it. Some of the language and phrases of the time printed on the box, how the item was packaged, it’s all part of the item’s history. This adds immensely to an item’s worth in later years. Some toys and other collectibles from as far back as the fifties or sixties have retained their virgin status, but are extremely rare. Like the new car – imagine suggesting to a child on Christmas Day that they shouldn’t remove the toy from its packaging, because it’ll be worth a lot more in thirty years’ time. How well would that be received? And more worrying – what kind of a parent would give such a gift and then instruct them NOT to open it ever – they could look but not touch?

Yet some collectors swear by NFRB as the pristine pinnacle of collecting. It just doesn’t get any better.

Keeping a toy in NRFB status rather than SFBLO (Set Free By Loving Owner) can actually be detrimental though. Dolls are probably the best documented case of when packaging and archiving turn bad. The materials used to box them aren’t acid free and aren’t usually designed to last for decades. They can damage dolls and their costumes, as can other factors like mould, rubber bands, or other devices used to entomb the figurine. One final note from an NFRB collector of Fate / Saber – tinged with a little sadness – is that her prized collection of figurines simply looks like shelves of boxes in a toy store – “they never get to come out and play”.

Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. NFRB or SEOW… which are you?

[ www.kollecta.com/Collector/Barney ]

A paradoxical box of Pandoras

People and their collecting habits are a fascinating window to the human psyche, a real paradoxical box of Pandoras. On the one hand, there are people who collect to highlight their individuality. On the other, serious collectors can exhibit almost fanatical camaraderie with those who also appreciate what they treasure. A collector can be a fastidious record keeper, who thrives on the finer art of cataloguing and maintaining collections, or simply a gatherer, tumbleweeding things that appeal to them.

Then there are those with quiet obsessions, the ones you discover when you visit their house to find a common theme throughout – say, a frog doormat, frog chinaware, frog ornaments, and so on. And, no matter how obscure the collectable item, anyone with the passion, time, and the Internet can become a master of their arena, a sage, a king even.

The act of collecting has to be the greatest human pastime there is. It doesn’t discriminate by age, gender, ethnicity or religion. Language barriers can often be overcome, and money isn’t always an obstacle – think sea shell or bottle cap collections. Thanks to the Internet and global shipping, even geography is less of an obstacle to collecting than in years gone by. In fact, the biggest challenge to the most popular and lasting of human pastimes, serious or casual, is where to draw the line at what they do and don’t want to collect.

Why is collecting so popular? Simple. It’s fun, it’s rewarding, it’s real. Online activities like Second Life and MySpace that compete for potential collectors’ time are quirky and novel, but the element of reality to them is questionable at best.

Collectables, however, are indisputably real. Think of an MP3 file. It’s a frigid block of cold, hard bits of data. It usually comes with no artwork. Easily copied or reproduced. Now think of a vinyl record, with warmth and history, complete with dog-eared sleeve, pops, hiss, and the previous owner’s name scrawled across the label. You can listen to ‘Standing at the crossroads’ by Elmore James on an iPod, true, but it doesn’t really have a sense of nostalgia or a story attached to it. Actually holding the ‘Blues after hours’ LP in your hands, being able to see the cover, and smell it… that’s real.

Collecting used to be about stamps, coins, and music, give or take a teapot or two. No longer. When mass-production and consumerism soared post-fifties and especially through the eighties, the collecting landscape changed too. Many items produced as promotional gimmicks were not expected nor designed to be kept for any serious length of time. However, the opposite has happened. Some have survived to tell the tale, and now the attics are being cleared and the dust blown off the boxes. They’re getting, tongue in cheek, a ‘Second Life’.

Early toys from MacDonalds restaurants, for example, have become highly collectable. Iconic toys from the 70s and 80s are making a comeback as entertainment themes are re-visited and livened up by Hollywood and its entourage. Think Transformers, still riding their wave of popularity after last year’s movie. Think Smurfs, due for a trilogy of movies to celebrate their 50th anniversary this year. Batman, Superman, Spiderman, The Fantastic Four have all had make-overs and the original material – toys, posters, comics – are now more sought after than ever. Old is back, it’s collectable, and it’s big.

The baby-boomers are now seeking out these items, with the Internet in one pocket and disposable income in the other. Some become addicted and strive to get ‘everything in the set’, others seek out one or two particular items, often things from earlier memories. Maybe it’s the first record you ever owned, or the dashboard ornament in your first car, and so on. Toys in particular will always be hugely popular among collectors, for these are the very first possessions we come across as human beings, and the memories attached to them stay with us for the rest of our lives.

There is serious money in some of the newer forms of collecting. A Strawberry Shortcake ‘Peach Blush’ set recently sold for $2000, and rare Transformer toys and PEZ containers regularly exceed $1000 at auction. Not bad for plastic robots and candy dispensers. Some of the more traditional and rarer collectables like comics still command astronomical prices – the debut issue of Batman will set you back a quarter of a million dollars. The unconventional collectables often have hefty price tags too. Recently a lock of John Lennon’s hair sold for $47,000, and a pink cocktail dress worn by Audrey Hepburn in ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’ fetched $200,000.

Despite these prices, collecting remains fundamental to the human psyche and within reach of everyone. It always will, because there will always be something to collect. My four year old loves to collect leaves. A while ago when I asked him how many leaves he had yet to collect to complete his collection, he thought about it for a few moments before replying:

“When I’ve got one from every tree.”

[ www.kollecta.com/Collector/Barney ]

Mark and Microphonies

Collecting is different things to different people. Am I a collector, gatherer, hoarder, accumulator, or none of the above? Hmm. Some people collect to make a profit, some to simply ‘get the whole set’, others to step back in time. Yes. The act of thinking, searching, finding, evaluating, remembering a specific object… that is also a form of collecting. Let me give you a personal example.

The first record I ever bought was ‘Microphonies‘ by Cabaret Voltaire. Microphonies was released in 1984 on glorious cheap vinyl, through the Virgin Records label. Many hailed the album as ‘groundbreaking in its field’ which could mean absolutely anything you wanted it to. I still rate it in my Top 10 Albums of All Time though. It had two tracks released as singles (‘Sensoria’ and ‘James Brown’), both on 7″ and 12″. Both had great B-sides (‘Cut the damn camera’ and ‘Bad Self Part 2’) making the records double A-sides, really. The video for the 12″ version of ‘Sensoria’ appeared on a Cabs’ VHS release (Betamax had already been floored like HD-DVD this month), mixed in with another track from the album, ‘Do right’.

I could go on and on but that’s part of my point. I know a lot about Cabaret Voltaire’s recordings. So do a lot of people. But what makes it all special, is my copy. The ‘me’ in ‘my copy’. When I bought it. How much I paid for it. Why I bought it. How it introduced me to new sounds, and new people. And what was happening in my life when I bought it.

Early in the week that I bought the LP my friend Mark, a forklift driver at the produce market where I worked, played a tape of Cabaret Voltaire to me in his car. Most of it was pre-1981 Cabs, and to be honest, most of it was (still is) a tough pill to swallow, even after a few drinks. Not many Philharmonic Orchestras that I know of include ‘Nag nag nag’ or ‘Photophobia’ in their set lists. The two tracks at the end of Mark’s tape changed that. They were from their 1983 album, ‘The Crackdown’ and were much more… palatable. I remember Mark’s words very clearly: “You get yourself some Cabaret Voltaire, put on the early experimental tracks, the chicks will cringe. Put on the recent stuff after that, they’ll be all over you. Works a charm.” I laughed to myself.

And then went to get me some of this ‘Cabaret Voltaire’.

My copy of ‘Microphonies’ came from a second hand record store. The hand-scrawled price on the sticker was five dollars. The bottom left corner of the sleeve had a coffee cup stain on it. I argued successfully to the disinterested store owner that it should be reduced to four dollars. The store, the record and its sleeve, even the gum-popping goth behind the counter – all of it had a warm, musty smell to it. Very ‘High Fidelity‘.

It was a special day. Outside, it was hosing rain as well as inside the store, over in the dark corner marked ‘Alternative and Other’. They had a bucket to catch the ping-ping-pings as they dropped from the ceiling, and a plastic sheet to protect Neil Diamond and Glen Campbell in the neighbouring ‘Easy Listening’ section. I went back to work (after taking the opportunity to also pick up a copy of OMD’s ‘Architecture and Morality’ – three dollars – essential listening) to show my Mark my new purchase.

When I arrived, I could see Mark was having woman trouble. He was in his car, grovelling to his soon to be ex-girlfriend. She was screaming at him to take his ‘Cabarette Vulgars’, his ‘Monica’ who that morning called their flat three times asking for him, and shove them all somewhere dark and odious.

So there you are. Cabaret Voltaire didn’t sell millions of records, maybe thousands, but even so my little story is probably unique. I bet you have stories like it too, although yours probably won’t feature Mark, a clapped out Nissan with a cassette deck in dire need of a head clean, and the mysterious Monica who by all accounts had ‘slept with all of Hamilton’. You might have a special book, or toy, or stamp, or… whatever. What makes it special is you. Aww.

And that’s what Kollecta is all about. Yes, you can be a full-on Cabaret Voltaire nut who knows that New Zealand was the only country where ‘Drinking Gasoline’ was released as a single record played at 33rpm, rather than 2 x 45rpm records. Cool. Or you might be the kind of person who just has the one Cabs’ record and the memory attached to it, and you want to relive and share that memory. Cool too. Kollecta is also for you – welcome.

Add it, got it, want it, rate it, value it, recommend it, share it, live it. Kollecta it.

And Mark – if you’re reading this – I left my Simple Minds compilation in your car……..

[ www.kollecta.com/Collector/Barney ]

Collecting Chemicals

Last week we dealt with collecting insects, which were simple to collect in light of this week’s potential collection: the chemical elements.

Sure, there are hundreds of thousands of insects, so you’d need a big house and a lot of patience to build your collection, but at least you can see everything you’re collecting. Insects aren’t invisible like gases, won’t explode violently if you get them near water or air (the alkali metals), and don’t radio-fry you if you get too close to them.

Finding, classifying, and collecting elements has been a popular pasttime of mankind for millennia. Like Maggie the Kollecta Magpie, Homo sapiens has always had an eye for shiny things including gold and silver. As a Roman, relaxing while deciding where next to invade, your legionnaires could be putting a grand shine on your beaten copper breastplate or their tin kettle. Back in those days, a collection of elements was pretty simple. It was basically metals – the aforementioned, plus iron, lead and the strangest and most deadly of them all, liquid mercury.

In the 13th century, arsenic was unearthed and in the 17th some poor soul, no doubt working by candlelight into the wee small hours, discovered phosphorus. He was no match for Martin Klaproth, however, who pulled off a hat-trick of elements around 1789 – zirconium, strontium, and uranium, the latter named after the recently-found furtherest planet in the Solar System – Uranus. This feat of three in a row was next repeated in 1898 by Sir William Ramsay who raised the bar somewhat – his elements were all invisible gases! And no Emperor’s clothes here, thank you very much. These were very real. One of his discoveries was most illuminating, one useful in flashing, and the third was the base of the only known substance that could down the Man of Steel (answers at the bottom of this post).

In between all of that one-up-manship (“Mine’s a liquid, how’s that!”, “Mine has double the atomic mass of yours!”, “Mine glows in the dark!” – The Curies), various suckers for punishment tried to catalogue and order the increasing collection of elements, many killing themselves through igniting, watering, heating and tasting. Nothing like a little Rubidium Roulette to make chemistry a little less boron (ouch).

Lavoisier had the first stab in 1789, but his market strategy was poor and like Beta video tape, never really saw the light of day. A chap named Alexandre-Emile Béguyer de Chancourtois proposed an impressive sounding ‘telluric helix’, and while that alone would sound great in any sci-fi flick (c.f.’flux capacitor’), his name was simply too much of a mouthful to say. Like the promised-so-much laser disc, the theory was doomed from the start.

A man called Mendeleev piped up, suggesting that similar elements should be grouped together because they responded to similar things in similar ways. And, based on his back-of-the-napkin scrawlings, there were gaps between known elements… and he hypothesised that these were elements that were yet to be discovered. Give that man a Nobel (gas). The Periodic Table was born.

The world of science erupted when the Periodic Table Show came to town. T’was a cheeky cabaret featuring 60 scantily clad ladies of dubious repute (one for each element shown in the Table). Them harlots did all form pairs and octets as they twirled around the tables like valence shells, teasing and cajoling those loose, free electrons in a most inappropriate manner! Oh, what a night! Seriously, Mendeleev’s idea was great – it was here, it was now, it was happening, it made sense. And the right people pushed it in the right places. Like VHS, kind of. Since then, the collection of elements has grown rapidly – to around 160, give or take a half-life. They’re very popular too, don’t you know. To this day, most households would contain around a third of all known elements, if you know where to look.

Neon, tungsten, lead, nickel in your lights. Americanium in those smoke detectors, copper in your pipes, calcium in your milk. Mercury in Grandma’s old thermometer, polonium in the spark plugs of Grandad’s old truck. Don’t even start me on cigarettes. Titanium and other metals are fashionable in jewellery and bicycle spokes, and lithium features in rechargeable batteries, anti-depressants, and as a classic track on Nirvana’s ‘Nevermind’.

So there you are, a most popular collection.

Every home should have one.

[ www.kollecta.com/Collector/Barney ]

(answers: neon, xenon, krypton)