Changing collecting interests, how has your collecting interest changed over the years?

[Sarge]

I got a K98k, from an uncle who brought it back, to hunt deer with when I was about 16. That got me interested in WW 2 German firearms.
In looking and asking around for guns I kept finding all sorts of medals, insignia, uniform items usv. End result was I bought everything I could afford - as a farm kid with a very limited income.
Then I joined the Navy and had a steady income and thus "lots" of $$ to spend and the collection grew accordingly.
Over the years I gradually began to limit the non firearms stuff to primarily medals/badges, Lw und W-SS, But I still buy what ever grabs my attention.
Since the WW 2 stuff is getting a lot harder to find and often very expensive I added Viet Nam War stuff to the list.
I began picking that up in about 1965 and when I personally visited the land of the pop-up shoot back targets I began to add lots of stuff to the collection.
There is NO end to all this collecting BS!
Sarge

[MAP]

I started "collecting" when my grand father gave me his brass items (buttons, rank insignia, and medals) he took of his Canadian Leftenant uniform from WW2. I was about 12 at the time and still have them all. My dad had an old British Mk.II helmet and a Canadian MKIII that I used to roam around the country side wearing. All four of my grand parents served in the Canadian forces during WW2 and I owe a lot of my interest to them.

I started collecting anything with a swastika when I was in high school. I spent a lot of my Burger King minimum wage money on German medals.

I've just recently picked the hobby back up and will be focusing on Wehrmacht medals, awards, caps, cloth insignias, flags, K98ks, ammo, leather straps, pouches, gas masks, mess tins and uniforms. My goal is to assemble a complete a EM/NCO Wehrmacht battle ready tunic with all the fixins.

I'd like to get an SS runes collar tab and a few other SS items for a small display as well.

Helmets are also on my list. I have three all ready and it's only been a week, LOL! Looking for a Heer M35 next.

Lol Tyler

I like how you define "focus" so narrowly.....

Not busting on you as I am the same..but I just had to laugh...

[Mark K]

The problem I find is that when you specialize, it takes so much longer for
pieces to crop up, that the wait is sometimes boring and tiresome, and
you can quickly lose interest. Eventually you have to broaden your
scope so that you're hunting down more items more often
- the 'fix' comes on much faster.

It's incurable, that's for sure.........

Well said Steve and I could not agree more I have as well always had a fascination with militaria from all over the globe and at times have tried to focus on one particular field of collecting.
My true passion of course will always be the Canadian Mk II having a few in my collection but as you stated there are long dry spells at times when there were no helmets of interest this forced me to hunt for my fix in other fields and then I branched out to all Canadian WW II issued and or worn helmets but soon found that this branch of collecting as well dried up .
And soon found myself collecting helmets from Great Britain and the rest of the commonwealth .
I have as well always had an interest with composite helmets and tin lids from the rest of the world so find myself filling the void with some of the harder to source helmets when I can find them whilst waiting on the next Canadian and or Commonwealth helmet of intrest to pop up.

Regards Mark

[James C]

9 years ago i had no militaria collection apart from a few pieces ,my interests were and to some extent still are in the restoration of vintage bmx's , after some longing i bought my first military helmet ,a lufty m35 and the rest is ,well, historySTA70094.jpgSTA70095.jpgSTA70222.jpg002_zpsd81b2262.jpg003_zpsf47c9ce9.jpg

[LeonardoL]

Im right now selling all my stuff, and buying random medals and helmets of local ads and fairs and reselling them. When i gather enough money, hello DAK!

[Chopperman]

I think some of us are just born with the "collecting gene"

I have always collected something, from about age 9 or so it has gone from
rocks to coins to stamps to marbles or all sorts of junk. I try to specialize now. Mainly on Iron
crosses and when my budget allows I will add a new knife to the collection. I work in the
racing industry and to help get my "fix" I also collect small scale diecast cars from the race
teams that I have had to deal with. It's a cheap and easy collection. for instance--last week
I picked up a #71 Joey Saldana sprint car. It cost me $7. I just have to remind myself to
only buy those cars that I have actually had some association with other wise my house would
be over run with toy cars.

I say it's the collecting gene, my wife says it's a sickness.

[sandgroper]

I started collecting a bit of everything that I could afford but I've sold off a lot of my gear now so I can concentrate on a couple of areas, nsdap badges and other political pieces, battle of Berlin items and anything Reich Chancellery or fuhrerbunker related and Australian army WW2. I have a very small ss collection which I will keep but am unlikely to add anything further to it, in fact I have sold off a few bits and pieces from it to purchase items in the other three areas of interest to me.

Collecting has been quite slow for me for some time now due to the fact that I have three other great expenses in my life, a wife, daughter and a landrover, all three of which are extremely expensive to maintain!

[MAP]

.... the restoration of vintage bmx's.....

STA70222.jpg

dang..,,now I'm officially old...these weren't even around when it was a kid...

btw..awesome mannequin

Michael

[James C]

thanks for putting a smile on my face michael my last restoration was proudly given to my daughter as her ride i also made her wear an old school bonce protector ,here is me back in the day circa 1986 and you might notice a similarity in the headgear my war room has evolved slightly since these pics 005_zpsd5641575.jpg019_zpsb5db70c3.jpgSTA702252.jpg

[MAP]

Nice!!!!

Btw...I think the term "early model" BMX is preferred over "vintage" lol.