Page 44 - March 2022

Collecting vs. Hoarding

hat is collecting and why do we do it? There are lots of to part with anything, and their houses are like black holes sucking in
reasons, of course, but maybe collecting is in our genes. everything in sight into an intense gravitational pull from which there
WHumans aren’t the only beings that collect. Many animals is no escape.
like squirrels store food and nuts, but other animals collect non-edible
things apparently just because they like them. Magpies have a Adventures in Hoarding
reputation for collecting and hoarding shiny things and crows I was in a hoarder’s house years ago and as I passed by the dining
seemingly can collect just for the pure enjoyment of possession. One room I could see the tops of the dining room table, chairs, and
collecting animal the packrat is so known for collecting that their name sideboard just poking up through the piles of newspapers and
is synonymous with the activity. magazines. For some reason, hoarders really like old newspapers.
And yes, there are human packrats, too and there is a good chance When the house cleaners first saw that room they didn’t even know
that you either are one or know one. it was the dining room as the piles
were so high that they had literally
Some Examples enveloped and covered over the
Depending on what is collected, furniture and it was only after
collecting can be a good thing that can several hours of cleaning and
benefit the collector and give pleasure carting away the dross that the
to others, or it can be a runaway tops of the furniture finally
bad thing that ultimately destroys the appeared as the tide level slowly
collector in a maelstrom of debris like went down. And that was only
what happened when a New Hampshire one of the rooms in the house.
woman was crushed when the floor of a In some cases of out-of-
second-floor room in her house was control collecting, it might not
so crammed full of junk that the floor be possible to tell an extreme
collapsed and killed her. collector from a hoarder as most
The most famous of the hoarders people have a little clutter. Some
were probably the Collyer brothers in years ago, I went to a customers’
N.Y.C. who both died as a result of their house to buy some books. As
obsessive hoarding in 1947. As if the I discovered, his house was
Collyers did not have enough trash of absolutely packed with books
their own, Langley used to go out at night everywhere. The bookshelves
on raids and bring the neighbors’ trash were overflowing. There were
home. Homer, who was blind and house- stacks of books covering the
bound, starved to death after Langley was floors with only narrow path-
crushed by one of the booby traps he had ways, so walking around was
set in case someone broke in to steal the difficult, and using the stairs
estimated 140 tons of newspapers and junk was perilous because the steps were piled up, too. But
in the house. Langley was saving the newspapers for the time when these were books that had been chosen because they interested him, not
Homer got his sight back and wanted to catch up on the news. just accumulated piles of everything and anything. He knew
where everything was. And he was not pleased that his wife
Delineating Hoarding had called me without his knowledge.
Now just because you collect news-papers doesn’t mean that you are The question is was this guy a collector or a hoarder?
a hoarder if there is some purpose and discrimination to it – newspapers Even if the books were not rarities, they were not junk, either,
about a historic event like Lincoln’s assassination or World War II or and there was some method to his acquisition that would indicate
something else of note, while hoarders just want more and more stuff. he was a collector. But then the near absence of floor space sort of put
Of course, there are degrees to everything, as many people have a him in the hoarder category. Maybe you could say that it wasn’t that he
little bit of clutter, so what is the difference between collecting and had too many books, the problem was that his house was too small.
hoarding? Although it is probable that a non-collector would say that So, what is the difference between collecting and hoarding? I’m not
there is no difference! Hoarding is collecting gone mad. Collectors sure I know, but one thing for sure is that hoarding can sometimes kill
normally are disciplined in what it is that they collect while hoarders do you while collecting probably won’t! I would say that collectors have a
not discriminate at all. Hoarders go for quantity, not quality. With a purpose other than just accumulating stuff. You might say that in
hoarder, more is always better – often, their prize is just more rubbish extreme cases, with collectors there is a method to their madness while
that should have been thrown away years ago. Hoarders just can’t seem with hoarders there is a madness to their method.

James Dawson has owned and operated the Unicorn Bookshop in Trappe, MD since 1975, when he decided that it would be more fun to buy and sell old books and maps than to get
a “real” job. For a born collector like Jim, having a shop just might be another excuse to buy more books. He has about 30,000 second hand and rare books on the shelves, and just
about all subjects are represented. He can be contacted at P.O. Box 154; Trappe, MD 21673; 410-476-3838; unicornbookshopMD@gmail.com; www.unicornbookshop.com

42 Journal of Antiques and Collectibles