Do you collect anything as a hobby?

[DebJ]

21. Hubby collects armies; I collect books and dead people.

Hubby loves military history. About 30 years ago he got into military gaming, first paper games,
then the actual miniatures. Our entire basement is filled with drawers of miniature armies.
The very large majority of them he never even looks at, and there must be at least 20 armies
he never finished putting together. Each little soldier has to be glued together, arms, legs, heads,
weapons, etc., and then they are SUPPOSED to be painted. Most of his are not painted. I told
him he never gets around to painting because he is actually attracted to this hobby for the
glue-sniffing, LOL. Although he does only very limited detail painting, he does spray paint them
with a base coat...spray paint sniffing LOL. He has Muslim armies, Roman armies, Greek armies,
Monguls, Brits, you name it, in the historical lines. Then there are the numerous fantasy armies
I couldn't begin to name. Well over 100,000 figures.

To play with these armies, he creates my favorite part of his hobby: battlefields and miniature
cities. He is very creative and has done some amazing stuff. The battlefields range from historical
recreations from Napolean, and ancient British history and the Crusades, to sci-fi type other planet
type of creations. I stole part of the latter for my grandson last Christmas, giving him a miniature
moon platform for the astronaut figures we gave him for Christmas after he expressed interest
in going to the moon one day (he is three years old).

It is a very bizarre hobby, especially for a pacifist. I've been to a few of the annual conventions,
and the geekiness factor is extreme. My first thought was that I wondered how any of these
(almost solely) men ever get married and reproduce....then instantly laughed since I had married
one myself.

One time he told me heaven for him would be spending eternity doing this hobby. To me,
that would be absolute hell. I can barely see what some of the figures are. I think they
run 5mm to 25mm (I can see the 25s okay).

I have about 400 history books, 98% US history. I've only read about 60% of them so I've
slowed down my purchases. I also collect dead people............via family ancestry, that is,
which I've been doing for about 10 years. My favorite part is acquiring photographs of ancestors
from distant relatives that I find online. One of my favorite pictures I acquired this way was
of my great-great grandparents who lived from 1832-1893; they are in a top hat and furs.
I acquired that picture after sharing online a picture of their son, my great grand Uncle Benjamin
Dunham, in an acrobat's outfit. Turns out Benjamin travelled the world with Ziegfeld, of Ziegfeld's
Follies (the follies came later on), and was world famous, and is on a poster in the National Archives.
One woman acrobat who travelled with them and performed with them was the first person ever to
do a triple summersault from a trapeze. When I shared my family's pics of Benjamin, another poster
online shared their different set of pictures. Great fun. In Benjamin's heyday in the late 1800s-early 1900s
trapeze artists were a bit of a rage, and rather scandalous in their tight skimpy clothing.

Most of the pics I have are only headstones though ( I have over 4000 photos for 7338 people), and
my husband finds that to be hysterically funny, that I collect headstone photos. Hey, I majored in
history(as did he) and headstones are documentation! I also got photos (of their faces ) from distant relatives of
two other interesting great-great grandparents. I have stories that made the front page of the Washington
Post in the early 1900s....an attempted murder of one grand uncle by another...they made up later even
though one of them lived for decades with a bullet in his back. People who were government leaders,
and mostly, tales of the 'common man'.... their trials and tribulations make ours seem like nothing...
like my great-grandmothers who married extremely young (try 12 for one of them), several of whom
died after giving birth to baby #14 or #16, with many dying as babes in arms. I like to put their stories
into the historical perspective of the time. Many are in DC, so I'm interested in the history of DC. Some
are in Jamestown, some in Plymouth. All of this documented. As a history major, I need proof before
I add a relative.

Comparing our two 'collections', mine is electronic, so it doesn't take up much room, except for the few
birth and death certificates I have ordered so far (which I also scan). My hobby produces something that
all of my family, close and extended, shares and enjoys... I write stories about the lives of these people and
share them. When I join the ranks of family ancestry, and become one of those who have passed on, there
won't be much to clean up after me, as it is electronic. All can share and use it, but it takes up no space.
And for the most part, it has only cost me $30 a month for limitless hours of fun exploring and developing
the story of my family, with occasionally the purchase of a birth/death/marriage certificate or a historical
book about particular areas where my family was either significant or widespread. I have also 'collected'
new friends via living relatives I never knew existed until I researched. On the other hand, hubby's hobby is extremely
expensive (because he has OCD with it), and will be an absolute nightmare to dispose of, unless sold in
lump form at a greatly discounted price just to dispose of it. So, if you want to do other collections, there
are some considerations.