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What's the difference between "collecting" and 'hoarding"?

Spellbinder said:
I love this hobby. But the "collecting" of dozens of items eludes me.


What's your opinion?
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1.) Keeping stuff around because it's fun and/or interesting is collecting.

2.) Keeping stuff around because it's valuable is investing.

3.) Keeping stuff around thinking it's worth something or valuable when in fact it's really just junk is hoarding.
 
Since I happen to work in mental health, this one's easy.

Collecting implies self control & doesn't cause financial or interpersonal problems.

Actual hoarding-- person is aware that what they're doing might be causing hardship or getting out of hand, but they simply can't help themselves. If they see a stray cat for example-- they're going to adopt kitty even if no more space at home or money to feed the animal.

fwiw

--Bruce
 
that puts me in the borderline "straight-jacket required" category then...:D thank god i'm allergic to cats..
 
I love to compare gear and have shootouts....I also consider restoring speakers that would otherwise end up thrown out a hobby....

I've sometimes wondered if all of this gear from the time machine was available at one location where I could A/B it....and I knew EXACTLY what gear sounded best to me, would I still come home w/ projects and stragglers, and I think I would. Part of the fun to me is the discovery, comparing gear that is surprisingly good to overhyped gear.
 
I think my "collecting" has to do with anthropomorphising gear to some degree. I see a once-respected piece of gear at the Salvation Army amidst the crap, and I feel sorry for it...want to rescue it. I know that speakers with rotted foam are often tossed at SA, and the ghost of those Genesis Physics speakers that I didn't buy for $8 (because I didn't like the vinyl cabs) still haunt me. With each visit they were in worse condition; first the grilles disappeared, then holes poked in the woofers, and then finally gone. If only I had acted sooner, they wouldn't cry out to me from the landfill.

That's normal, right?
 
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Collecing is, as Robert Crumb says about record collecting, purposeful, creates a connoisseurship. Hoarding is accumulating, picking up stuff casually.
 
One of the best answers to this question can be summed up in a 2001 documentary film entitled "Vinyl". It's put together by Canadian filmmaker Alan Zweig. I've mentioned this in a few other posts. All Ak'ers need to watch this film.
 
Semantics. It's collecting if you're doing it. It's hoarding if someone else is. Especially if they're hoarding all the good stuff.
 
A collector will go after certain items, he may have a whole range of one manufactures turntables all different models.

A hoarder gets hold of any gear he can, he may have 50 cheap turntables and not one high end one, it's quantity he is after.

And there is the HiFi buff who's goal is to achieve the best sound possible, he may start off with a cheap turntable and buys and sells till he gets a high end one.
 
Meet a real life audio border in Utah! He has his house full of audio stuff. Only has 1-2 feet of room to walk around. He lists his stuff on Craigslist, but asks very high prices for mediocre equipment . He's got some good vintage equipment but also has a mix of total trash. He even tried to sell some white van speakers as "audiophile". He had something I wanted so I dropped by 2 weeks ago. I needed the drivers for an old rbh speaker. He wanted 100 for them, but they where broken and needed serious repair. I still wanted them offered him 80 bucks (all the cash I had) he refused to lower the price. He has had the broken speakers for 7-8 years, thinks its ok to play them without foam surrounds. He offers to sell me just the broken drivers for 80 bucks and claims he can just throw in any old woofer he has around and it would be an upgrade. Good luck jack! That's why it's so easy to design speakers? He also had no idea about speakers, stereos, or any basic technical knowledge of audio that any collector would know after 20 years. Like what is a dust cap!!! He had no idea! Anyway I left with a migraine and dropped by Utah Audio and picked up a pair of paradigm se1s.

My definition of a hoarder. Collects without discrimination or purpose. This guy has no purpose in his hobby. He does not use these speakers, nor does he appreciate the good vs bad stuff. The bad part is had a buyer for a set of speakers that he will now likely never have another buyer for in years, but cannot cut a 20 dollar discount for already highly overpriced BROKEN speakers. Has a house full of stuff but no idea of even the basics. He asks me what the popping sound one his so called rare audiophile rbh towers, is called overdriving the woofer and you may want to drop the price of those from
900 bucks to 100 now that the woofer is damaged. By he asks me if he can put epoxy glue on the yellow part(he means the spyder) to stiffen it up, I calmly responded NO!!!


Btw all you slc utahers caution with this dude he claims to have top notch stuff but I wouldn't never buy from him. He's a hack and has no idea how to repair. With how little he knew all of his stuff was now suspect of being over drived or repaired in some wacky way.
 
My GF calls me hoarder sometimes when I don't want to throw away extra speaker wires, ethernet cables, TV cables,, speaker magnets, adapters, old cars magazines etc...
I tell her that I may use those sometimes and she says,"You have not used them for 5 years".
Anywho, last weekend, 5 boxes of what she calls junk and what I call parts went to trash. :(
 
My dog may thing I'm a hoarder. This is the look he gave me as I was winterizing projects last week.


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Steve
 

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I crossed the line last month when I bought something I didn't even want only because I could not find what I was actually looking for. Mea culpa. Having faced down this stupidity, I intend to make amends and not repeat this crass moral error again. So funny to discover that stupidity is never far away, even after all these years.
 
Your hoarding if you buy equipment you never use or never will use. Its ok to if you at least rotate a piece in and out every few months though.
 
the ego standard ...

ccheath said:
If you have one less piece of gear than me, you're a collector. If you have one more piece of gear than me, you're a hoarder.
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Then, what are you? :D
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That would make him the sane one ... the other two are still the ones with the problems ... one is too slow, the other too fast ... I'm just right ... ;)

In both cases, collector or hoarder there are degrees where you can have out of control obsession where it no longer becomes a hobby or strategy but becomes an addiction or mental illness.
 
Funny thing about the dog Westy - mine will always sniff a new receiver when I'm unpacking.

She gets to smell Marantz, California, Chatsworth. :D
 
I believe there is clear and real medical distinction between the two. Collecting in and of itself is perfectly healthy. Hoarding is a real and identifiable mental illness. Having watched more than a dozen episodes of the Hoarders: Buried Alive program, I've become pretty well versed. Understand also there are varying degrees and stages of hoarding. On the low end of the scale you might be holding down a job and otherwise living a normal life, but alienating family members due to the lack of space in one room. Maybe it's because on your way home you can't help but buy something at the thrift store sneaking it past your significant other. The extreme might be a maze of narrow walkways throughout your entire home surrounded by stacks of stuff that reach the ceiling all around you. No access to the stove, fridge, bathrooms, or beds. Weeks away from having your house condemned because hundreds of rats and stray animals have infiltrated your walls with feces whom have been feeding on the remnants of the six year old Funyons and 35 year old Manilow LPs under your couch turned bed.

I'd be careful to call anyone a hoarder having not seen the way they live and certainly not just because I'm aware they have a large number of a certain something. As some have mentioned, hoarding is primarily centered around the question as to "why" people bring things into their homes. Often at the heart of the answer to 'why" is a hopeless attempt to fill a void created by the loss of a family member or some other tragic event that has triggered this compulsive behavior. I'd be willing to bet that many of us could never get the equipment we now have when it was new for some reason or another. Often, there is some sense of nostalgia tied to our purchase or acquisition. There may also be some sort of loss or void that is attempting to be filled as well by adding something new. That's something you have to ask yourself if you're uncertain where you fall.

Personally I know I'm safe. I don't own any Manilow LPs and the Funyons are three years old at best.:D
 
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