Why are we haunted by the stuff we don't buy?

[gentlesatirist]

This question hit me once again last month when - through a series of events - I didn't have enough time to go back and buy a couple of German-language DC Comics that I saw in a German airport.

Guarantee that I'll have the image of these comics in my head for the next 20 years or so. Probably evel will make a futile attempt to find them online.

Why are we like that? Is it a collector's gene or something like that? Even as a kid, I was haunted by the image of one of those 70s DC tabloids featuring Batman. The comic was in a few photos of a long-ago borthday party. I had lost it, but now own two copies. (In case one is sucked into a time warp back to the mid-70s, I guess.)

- FE
Wickliffe OH

[Shellhead]

When I was young and had very limited spending money, I obsessed over things I wanted to buy for months while I saved my money. When I finally bought whatever it was, I was always a little disappointed. Wanting was better than having.

When I got a little older, I relaxed about buying things. Generally, I could afford the little stuff (the latest issue of whatever) and I developed the patience to wait for the bigger stuff. I figured that I could always buy it later.

Several years ago, I began to realize that some of the things that I was willing to wait for weren't going to be available by the time I was ready to buy. Some things sell out quickly, some things go up in price as the demand goes up, and some cool things that I really wanted would never achieve popularity and success, and would be discontinued. Ebay helps, but not always. That is why I am sometimes haunted by the stuff I don't buy.

[gentlesatirist]

...I already own these comics in English! So unless they've got radically different internal content, all I'd be buying them for was the novelty of having them in German.

Part of it also is that on a similar trip 3 years ago, I picked up a couple of decent German comics albums, including one of the classic French cowboy comedy "Lucky Luke."

This time, I thought I could do the same, but ran out of time.


- FE

[MichikoS]

Why are we like that? Is it a collector's gene or something like that? Yup! It's a characteristic that I believe is endemic to certain professions, such as librarianship. The Human Genome Project and bioinformatics will prove it, someday. For now, check out this charming blog:

http://thecollectinggene.blogspot.com/

Michi
p.s. NOT to be confused with "serial hoarding," which is an illness rather than a quirk, IMO.

[Reptisaurus!]

This question hit me once again last month when - through a series of events - I didn't have enough time to go back and buy a couple of German-language DC Comics that I saw in a German airport.

Guarantee that I'll have the image of these comics in my head for the next 20 years or so. Probably evel will make a futile attempt to find them online.

Why are we like that? Is it a collector's gene or something like that? Even as a kid, I was haunted by the image of one of those 70s DC tabloids featuring Batman. The comic was in a few photos of a long-ago borthday party. I had lost it, but now own two copies. (In case one is sucked into a time warp back to the mid-70s, I guess.)

- FE
Wickliffe OH


Odd. Not only does this not happen to me, but it never would've, like, occurred to me that this would happen to other people.

Unless it's a case like, "Man! I should've stocked up on Giant Size X-men number 1s. I could retire right now!"

But I'm pretty short attention span. There's always a newer, shinier bauble for me to focus on.

[benday-dot]

I was always haunted by the house ads I once upon a time would see in the DC comics of the 70's. I was pretty much a Marvel guy back then, but those ads that I would occasionally come across in the odd DC comic I owned or flipped through, boldly announcing an upcoming issue of a new 60 cent/100 page Giant, whether it be a Superman, Flash, Batman or Legion comic, often had me dreaming. I had just just a bit of spending money as a kid back then, and was so involved in the Marvel world of Avengers, Spider-Man, Hulk and FF, that I guess I just decided to go on secretly imagining what treasures must lay within those enticing covers, which I always seemed to be seeing from out of the corner of eye.

Years later when I could finally afford to pick up many those old 100 page Giants it was as though I already knew well each and everyone of them by their covers.

I also had a similiar experience to gentlesatirist's Berlin trip.

When I was travelling around Italy I saw some issues of Fantastico Quatro. They were reprints of some of the George Perez run of the mid 70's. I recall the Frightful Four on the cover of one of them. I thought that was pretty cool and was toying with picking them up. But I was traveling lightly, and I already had them in English, so I let them go. It was not long after I left Italy that for whatever reason I started thinking about those Fantastico Quatro again and again. I was already living in the regret of leaving them behind with the markets Trieste.

[dupersuper]

Because we may never get the chance to get them again...missed opportunities suck.

[Kirk G]

When I was young and had very limited spending money, I obsessed over things I wanted to buy for months while I saved my money. When I finally bought whatever it was, I was always a little disappointed. Wanting was better than having.



Spock said almost this exact same thing back in the 16th episode of Star Trek back in 1967, "Amok Time". The line comes at the end of the marraige trial on Vulcan, when Spock gives TaPring to Stan...
"The girl is yours. But there may come a time when you discover that having something is not so pleasing as WANTING a thing. It is not logical, but I have found it is often the case."

Or words to that effect.

[gentlesatirist]

...I've been able to track down most of the (mostly) 70s-era comics and related stuff that I remember, there are still those few items that have eluded me.

Is this what they mean by the thrill of the hunt?


- FE

[Hintermann]

I do not understand this concept at all. I know exactly what I like and want and if I find a comic that I like, I'll buy it if I can afford the price. The only reason not to buy would be the cost, but even then I make a note of that issue and keep looking on e-bay etc. Over the years I have managed to buy quite a few like that.

[Roquefort Raider]

Why are we like that? Is it a collector's gene or something like that?

I think so; I think it's the feeling of missed opportunity that haunts us, more than the idea of not having what we passed by.

Case in point, I remember seeing, leafing through, and not buying Marvel-two-in-one annual #2 (the end of the original Warlock saga by Jim Starlin). That non-purchase haunted me for a long time, and I swear it haunts me still even though I did eventually buy that mag from another source, more than twenty-five years ago!

I know that it's the same book, and yet... in a sense it isn't. Perhaps because the one that got away retains with it all the mystery and wonderment of what might have been, instead of the certitude of what eventually was.

[Kirk G]

...I've been able to track down most of the (mostly) 70s-era comics and related stuff that I remember, there are still those few items that have eluded me.

Is this what they mean by the thrill of the hunt?


- FE

Naw....That's Amazing Spider-Man #34....:D
("The Thrill of the Hunt")

[Slam_Bradley]

I've got way too many things to be haunted by to be bugged by books I didn't buy.

[Kirk G]

I once saw a unique promotional double album in a used record shop in Kalamazoo in 1980. It was a combination interview with Bette Middler and songs from "The Divine Miss M's "Divine Madness". I didn't spring the $4 for it, and when I went back for it, it was gone.

I've never seen or heard of another copy again. I'll never forgive myself!