The
Drive to
Collect
PEOPLE ARE DRAWN TO BUILDING , EXPANDING , DISPLAYING AND DISCUSSING THEIR COLLECTIONS . HERE ’ S A GLIMPSE INTO WHAT MOTIVATES THEM .
| BY STEPHANIE THURROTT |
People love to collect , whether it ’ s baseball cards , Star Wars memorabilia or luxury watches . Psychology Today estimates that 33 % to 40 % of people in the United States collect something . What drives them to spend their time and money searching for the niche objects that have captured their interest ? Russell Belk , Ph . D ., is a marketing professor at the Schulich School of Business at York University in Toronto who researches collecting . He says people have many different motivations for starting and continuing their collections .
Sometimes , parents or grandparents give a child something that ignites their passion for collecting . That was the case for Byron Brown , a Sea Island member and resident of St . Simons Island , who credits his grandmother for instilling his love of coin collecting . “ For Christmas , when I was 6 years old , she sent me a U . S . one-cent piece . I still remember it from all those years ago . It was from 1853 and was the size of a half-dollar ,” he recalls . A year later , she sent him another coin for Christmas — a quarter from 1861 . He was hooked . “ Many boys collected coins in the ‘ 60s , but most people stopped doing it after a few years . I never stopped ,” he admits .
40 SEA ISLAND LIFE | FALL / WINTER 2022 / 23