HI All,
Mods-if there is better place for this put it there and let me know. Thanks.
Some random thoughts about collections:
Just because one collects does not mean that the collection contains anything important or high quality. Sometimes it's the collection itself, as a whole, that has meaning - at least to the collector. For example, from my hippie years I assembled a collection of rolling papers! That's right, things to roll joints in. Do you remember all the head shops then? Do you remember all the papers under the counter tops resting next to the hash pipes? I was amazed at the breadth of what was available. Anything from political statements (Spiro Agnew papers), to social statements (the dollar bill papers), to hippie lifestyles (Love papers), etc., etc. I collected them all. Scented papers, flavored papers, long papers, toilet paper papers) papers with filters printed on them and many others. Oh, and many were blue collar papers that were actually used, the world over, for rolling tobacco cigarettes (as Zig Zag's were used originally). The list is long and, in its own way, fascinating. Did you know that France is the capital of rolling paper manufacturing in the world, followed closely by Spain? I'll bet you didn't. Put that in your trivia bag!!
Well, even a hippie has to have a useful way to stay busy, right? And you thought that the hippies were a lost generation. How could you think that when we were so busy doing such socially useful things like this?
Over the course of time I had well over 400 different papers in the collection. It was getting hard to remember what I had so duplicates became a problem. So, I cataloged the collection. I developed a coded method of describing papers, the box, the color, and everything else that might distinguish one obscure paper from another. The code string was daunting. I did it this way so I could record the catalog in a small telephone book I could carry in my wallet. You might not realize this, I'm sure you don't, that many papers carried beautiful watermarks. These change periodically. What a shame, almost unforgivable, for a collector to miss a change!! The watermarks were part of the code string. I carried the catalog everywhere I went. You never can tell when you might find an outlier, right? Obscure, indeed, is the collectors mind.
I had friends traveling the world over sending me papers they would find. After a while I discouraged them from doing this. I already had the vast majority. One time a friend traveling in Mexico sent me a paper I did not have. Good!! I thought. As I did for all papers, I smoked one of them. Understand that an important part of the paper collecting protocol was the TASTE of the paper. You can't be expert without knowing this important fact. When he returned, I asked where he had found such a obscure paper. "Oh", he replied, "on the floor of a public bathroom"!! Instantly, I felt sick. But, I survived. Ugg.
I thought this collection would, in the future, be an important lens for historians into the the famous hippie revolution of the sixties much like the album covers of the time. I thought my paper collection was a great idea and I was sure others were doing the same thing all over the country. I was wrong. I have found exactly one other person with a significant collection and that was on the web. His collection is actually a bit better than mine. But we are definitely of melded minds. I was jealous.
No one part of this collection is important. Each piece is trivial. But the collection as a whole is where the value lies. Oh, to be sure there are classic, rare, papers here. But valuable to whom? Only to another collector and they are rare! Only as a collection is there meaning.
I have friends who were 60's freaks. I pull out the collection and they are totally fascinated. "Oh, I remember those Zodiac papers". Or "Oh, I loved those LOVE papers. We had them at Woodstock". And on and on for a whole afternoon of beloved (if not a bit hazy) memories.
I still have the collection. I also collected cigarette rolling machines.
Obscure, indeed, is the mind of the collector!!!!!
Sparky
Mods-if there is better place for this put it there and let me know. Thanks.
Some random thoughts about collections:
Just because one collects does not mean that the collection contains anything important or high quality. Sometimes it's the collection itself, as a whole, that has meaning - at least to the collector. For example, from my hippie years I assembled a collection of rolling papers! That's right, things to roll joints in. Do you remember all the head shops then? Do you remember all the papers under the counter tops resting next to the hash pipes? I was amazed at the breadth of what was available. Anything from political statements (Spiro Agnew papers), to social statements (the dollar bill papers), to hippie lifestyles (Love papers), etc., etc. I collected them all. Scented papers, flavored papers, long papers, toilet paper papers) papers with filters printed on them and many others. Oh, and many were blue collar papers that were actually used, the world over, for rolling tobacco cigarettes (as Zig Zag's were used originally). The list is long and, in its own way, fascinating. Did you know that France is the capital of rolling paper manufacturing in the world, followed closely by Spain? I'll bet you didn't. Put that in your trivia bag!!
Well, even a hippie has to have a useful way to stay busy, right? And you thought that the hippies were a lost generation. How could you think that when we were so busy doing such socially useful things like this?
Over the course of time I had well over 400 different papers in the collection. It was getting hard to remember what I had so duplicates became a problem. So, I cataloged the collection. I developed a coded method of describing papers, the box, the color, and everything else that might distinguish one obscure paper from another. The code string was daunting. I did it this way so I could record the catalog in a small telephone book I could carry in my wallet. You might not realize this, I'm sure you don't, that many papers carried beautiful watermarks. These change periodically. What a shame, almost unforgivable, for a collector to miss a change!! The watermarks were part of the code string. I carried the catalog everywhere I went. You never can tell when you might find an outlier, right? Obscure, indeed, is the collectors mind.
I had friends traveling the world over sending me papers they would find. After a while I discouraged them from doing this. I already had the vast majority. One time a friend traveling in Mexico sent me a paper I did not have. Good!! I thought. As I did for all papers, I smoked one of them. Understand that an important part of the paper collecting protocol was the TASTE of the paper. You can't be expert without knowing this important fact. When he returned, I asked where he had found such a obscure paper. "Oh", he replied, "on the floor of a public bathroom"!! Instantly, I felt sick. But, I survived. Ugg.
I thought this collection would, in the future, be an important lens for historians into the the famous hippie revolution of the sixties much like the album covers of the time. I thought my paper collection was a great idea and I was sure others were doing the same thing all over the country. I was wrong. I have found exactly one other person with a significant collection and that was on the web. His collection is actually a bit better than mine. But we are definitely of melded minds. I was jealous.
No one part of this collection is important. Each piece is trivial. But the collection as a whole is where the value lies. Oh, to be sure there are classic, rare, papers here. But valuable to whom? Only to another collector and they are rare! Only as a collection is there meaning.
I have friends who were 60's freaks. I pull out the collection and they are totally fascinated. "Oh, I remember those Zodiac papers". Or "Oh, I loved those LOVE papers. We had them at Woodstock". And on and on for a whole afternoon of beloved (if not a bit hazy) memories.
I still have the collection. I also collected cigarette rolling machines.
Obscure, indeed, is the mind of the collector!!!!!
Sparky
Last edited:
