IS YOUR COLLECTING HABIT IN YOUR DNA? WHILE IT’S NOT SETTLED SCIENCE, OUR AUTHOR THINKS IT JUST MIGHT BE.
By Joe Orlando
Approximately one year ago, I lost my mom after a five-year battle with cancer. It was the worst day of my life by a wide margin. From that second forward, I have felt everything from extreme sadness to overwhelming gratitude. Those who share the experience of losing someone close to them understand the roller coaster that the grieving process can be.
In addition to being the rock of my family and the guiding light throughout my life, my mom imprinted the collector gene on me. Not everyone will agree with the following, but I wholeheartedly believe that the impulse to collect is almost entirely genetic. I am a nature-over-nurture guy when it comes to the hobby, and I think many collectors feel the same way.
Part of being a collector is accepting the way we tick. Collectors get other collectors. We understand each other, and it is healthy to poke a little fun at ourselves from time to time. I do not profess to have any medical training, nor am I certified to make medical claims. That said, I do know myself, and I can recognize similar behavior in others. The collector gene is easy to spot once you know what it looks like.
Being a collector can bring together a variety of desires. We often exhibit an almost insatiable need to hunt, gather, organize and build. Collectors can be overly analytical at times. At other times, we can be emotional, bordering on irrational or obsessive, when it comes to our pursuits. Did we choose this endeavor, or did collecting choose us? Either way, it’s part of who we are. It’s not just a casual hobby that we took up to pass the time. It’s in our blood and part of our chemistry.
Once we start collecting, it can be nearly impossible to shut it down completely. Sure, we have all had times in our lives when we slowed down or even put collecting on pause for a period. But quit entirely? Forget about it. Most collectors I know have tried at one time or another, only to be pulled back into the world they enjoy escaping to. The hobby is where members of our tribe hang out, and it’s the only place we can quench our instinctual thirst.
Did we choose this endeavor, or did collecting choose us? Either way, it’s part of who we are.”
When I was growing up, athletics played a significant role. It was clear that both of my parents were into sports, but only one of them had the gene – my mother. My mom, however, didn’t collect sports items. She collected other things, such as figurines and plates. The gene reared its head at various non-hobby times as well. If a piece of furniture dared have a mark on it prior to purchase, it was quickly rejected. She had an eagle eye, so raising three rambunctious boys who made it their mission to destroy everything in their path must have tortured her inner collector, but she never let on.
As a teenager, I had a longtime dealer tell me that he’d rather pitch his sports inventory to a small group of wine collectors than a sold-out Yankee Stadium. That stance seems counterintuitive at first, and it was to me at the time, until I grew to understand it. You see, the wine collectors already have the gene. In his view, it is easier to convince a wine collector to become a collector of sports items than to get someone who doesn’t necessarily have the requisite wiring already to do the same, even if they love sports.
With each passing year, that dealer’s perspective has become more evident in my lifelong experience. Indeed, there is always a first time, that breakthrough moment when a person unlocks the collector that was always lurking within. That is why content about our hobby and exposure to it is so critical to the expansion of the industry. Collectors are born every day. The driving force might be largely innate, but it is the industry’s duty to reach and cultivate them. It’s like we are all Dexter and simply need to be pointed in the right direction and channel that energy on the right target. Wait, what?
All kidding aside, having self-awareness as a collector is liberating in many respects. I know what I am, and being comfortable in my own collecting skin is priceless. Yes, there are times when I wish I could overlook the dinged corner on a box of cereal at the grocery store, but I can’t. I also wish I could unsee the stray marks on our baseboards or walls at home, put there by the various small two-legged and four-legged creatures who roam the grounds, but the makers of Mr. Clean Magic Eraser love me for it, and so do their shareholders.
The author with his mother, who passed on her love of collecting to her son
My parents introduced me to collecting when I was very young, and it stuck with me my entire life. Amongst the many things my mom gave me and taught me about was unconditional love. My mom’s unwavering support for whatever I chose to pursue in life, from sports to sports collectibles, is permanently part of my foundation. I can’t quantify the value that comes from that kind of encouragement, but I hope to do the same for my two boys.
Whether they decide to collect or not as they get older, I will be supportive either way, but I believe it is their DNA, or it isn’t. When I witnessed my oldest son, now 7, start organizing and reorganizing his toy dinosaurs at the age of 2 to ensure he had a complete set of carnivores and herbivores, I had a sneaking suspicion that the collecting gene had been passed down another generation. At the moment, he’s more into Pikachu than Ohtani, but I need to let my son be himself.
Of course, the connection I had with my mom goes way beyond collecting. The gene, wiring, predisposition or whatever you want to call it, however, was ingrained in both of us. Someday, maybe part of my connection with my sons will be the collecting experience. No matter where life takes them, one thing is for sure. Collecting will be with me as long as I breathe.
Personally and professionally, my life wouldn’t have been the same without that first trip to the hobby shop as a child, which awakened the collector inside, and I wouldn’t change a thing.
Thanks, Mom.
JOE ORLANDO is Executive Vice President of Sports at Heritage Auctions. He can be reached at JoeO@HA.com or 214.409.1799.