Owning a collection is a hobby enjoyed by countless people, whether its Coke memorabilia, beanie babies or antique perfume bottles. There’s something magical about creating your own private museum of things that you love. While not for everyone, as minimalists can attest to, for those who love their collections its a fun and rewarding hobby.
But at what point does collecting become hoarding? We’ve all seen photos and videos of people who obsessively keep everything they own, as well as going out on adventures to scavenge even more stuff for their hoard.
These extreme examples are indicative of a mental illness, as serious hoarders attach an unhealthy obsession with their stuff, some to the point that they refuse to throw out anything. There’s no rationale for keeping grocery ads from 1998 or a VCR that hasn’t worked since the 80’s.
But in the middle you have the line between collectors and hoarders. That’s where I stand.
These are some of my 2600 duplicates.
I have a very sizable video game collection, and I feel the need to add as many games to my collection as possible. That being said, most of my collection is well organized on shelves and sorted in various ways. On the other hand, I tend to stockpile consoles and accessories in the event that I want to get into modding, need parts or simply want a backup for my primary machine.
But that doesn’t explain how I acquired 8 Playstations or 6 Atari 2600s at once. The three NES consoles in the intro image are my backup NES systems. I literally have 13 copies of Super Mario Bros/Duck Hunt. There’s no excuse for having that many duplicates. To be fair, many of these were games and systems I picked up at garage sales for a few bucks or were even just given to me my friends. How could I say no to free video game stuff? In addition, I have totes full of controllers, cords and oddball accessories that span over a dozen systems. Without the room to properly store and catalog these items, they’ve been relegated to living inside totes in my basement, hopefully finding a permanent home someday.
I recently came across about 100 Playstation 2 game cases and manuals in a dumpster (an office dumpster, so they were among discarded papers, not covered in leftover meatloaf). Even though there were no games, I couldn’t let those cases and manuals go out into the landfill. These are items that will never be produced again, so I just had to save them. But this has brought even more clutter into my already cluttered home.
I just had to rescue these guys from the landfill.
The desire to collect and obsession to hoard is a fine line that I have to tread so that I’m able to grow and maintain my nicely organized collection without buying stuff just to have it. I plan to downsize the clutter, but I find myself making excuses. Several of my duplicate consoles are missing a power cord or video cable, making them difficult to easily sell. Some need a minor repair that I swear I’ll get around to eventually.
So this is the struggle that I face as a collector with hoarding tendencies. I’ve been getting better, as my available storage space has shrunk drastically thanks to the mountains of baby clothes and toys that have entered our home since we started our family a few years ago.
The key to balancing the love of collecting with the tendency to hoard is knowing where that dark road can eventually lead you, so keeping this in mind helps to shape what you choose to bring into your home and the items you can live without.
