I Love Collecting Cool Stuff

I collect antique books. Not the pristine kind, more the well used, usually written in kind. Mainly because I prefer a book with a visible history, as well as potentially clues to the previous owner's life.
One of my favourites is a set of leather Shakespeare books that I got in a charity shop, that belonged to a Lillian J Merry, which according to the message inside the cover, got the books as a Christmas present from her friends (also named) in 1895.
I like to look the people I find in books like that on Ancestry.com, and it turns out that Lillian Merry was born in 1865, and was a botanist, amongst other things.
It's these little things, as well as the way that marks like handwriting or fingerprints are so distinctive that make me collect these things. I love the sense of immediacy they give me, as if their time and mine are running parallel to each other, just a step away.

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hellsinfidel · M

I collect arrow heads and I also think about how the head got here, was it a wasted shot, was the man killed because he missed, or did he eat thanks to this head. Arrow heads are beautiful pieces of art in my bumpkin eyes. I can learn a little about the person that knapped the stone. I see in some stones where the person searched for some time to find a rock which held a pattern he connected with. Then that same person takes the time to get every detail, using a great deal of patience and even more skill. Some leave me wondering, how can something so delicate, so fragile, so beautiful kill. So many details. I don't see anything primitive, I see the work of an artist.

Gauntlets28 · 26-30, M

That's fantastic! There's not a lot of that sort of thing where I am, but it sounds fascinating. Have you ever tried flintknapping yourself? You might start to understand them even more if you do.