About

The Collector

The tagline on my/this site’s Twitter account says it all:

a collector for as long as I can remember

My first collection was seashells and I was in preschool when I collected my first shell – a beautiful tiger eye cowrie that was bigger than the palm of my hands.

I grew up in the middle of nowhere and not anywhere even remotely close to a beach and so things like the beach, the ocean, and marine life were almost fantasy-only if it weren’t for a store named Pier 1 Imports. Thanks to Pier 1 Imports and their collection of seashells for sale at the time, fantasy became reality and I began my seashell collection in earnest.

Fast forward 20 something years and in addition to my seashell collection, I now have collections of a lot of other things.

From the more general-interest items like seashells, stationery this-and-thats, stamps, tins, and old coins to the more niche-specific like first edition hardback books, bold-looking sterling silver jewelry pieces, 1st Generation Transformers figures, Final Fantasy VII and VIII-themed merchandise, and Mewtwo-themed Pokemon merchandise, I can honestly say that I have a little bit of everything from different areas of interest.

When it comes to my collecting habits, I’m casual and I’m hardcore and I’m also everything in-between and it all depends on what the items in question are and what part of my collection they will go into.

I’ll be upfront; I’m not and never have been a ‘kid gloves’ or ‘glass display case’ sort of person. In fact, I have purposely shied away from collecting things that require me to use undue care in handling because I am a collector who very firmly believes that (most) items collected should be items loved and, if the item is a usable and useful thing, used. USED WITH CARE, I might add, but yes, USED.

This isn’t to say that I don’t have collections of things that were/are simply made for nothing but looking nice because I do. (Hello to my peacock-hued collection of dragons carved out of stone!)

This also isn’t to say that I haven’t handled some parts of my collection with kid gloves because I have. (Again, hello to my peacock-hued dragons!)

This also isn’t saying that just-for-looks items are things that can’t be loved because I know they can be very well-loved. (A third and final hello to my peacock-hued dragons!)

But if you’re looking for someone who exclusively collects things like Swarovski figures and handles them with white kid gloves and locks them up in a glass display case never to be handled ever again except when cleaning is mandatory, then I’m probably the wrong person to be looking at.

On the other hand, if you’re looking for someone who collects because they love to collect, have, and hold and loves the items that they collect and simply handles all of their collectibles with respect and care, then we might have a match.

With that said…

Mint-In-Box, Mint, Near-Mint, Display-Only, In-Package, Loose-But-Complete, Gently Played With, Loved-And-Cared-For (plushies, I’m looking at you!)…

My collectibles are all in one of those aforementioned conditions or the other and I will say right now that I will always be happy to take as many pictures as necessary to establish an item’s condition especially if there is the possibility that it will go to a new home.

I enjoy talking about my collections and answering questions and providing more pictures when and if I have the time so if you’re interested, feel free to drop a line!

The Collection

Since the Collection page details the specifics of my collection, here is a general rundown of what I have collected, still collect, or have stopped collecting.

Rundown list being propagated…

The Website

CollectiCopia is a new foray into an old world – a modern attempt to share with others a hobby that has so far lasted me a lifetime.

Speaking of modern attempts, I think it’s time for people to update their web browsers to something more secure, user-friendly, and web standards-compliant than IE6 if they haven’t done so already.

Where the majority of this site CAN be viewed in IE6 (because UNlearning how to add IE6 CSS bug-fixes is actually surprisingly difficult to do) with minimal trouble, support for IE6 ends there.

That said, this website is powered by WordPress and primped and prettied with a custom-designed, three column, fully flexible theme whose coding is near-to-fully compatible with all major modern web browsers and custom stylesheets for portable browsing devices are coming soon.