Chapter Collecting as Luxury Consumption: Effects on Individuals and Households

Introduction

In a recent short story about an American couple's collecting activity (Boyle, 1994), a partial inventory of their collected possessions includes Marsha's 212 antique oarlocks, 600 doilies, 120 potholders, and her Thimbles of the World set, Julian's 1000 astronomy books and his science fiction collection, and their joint collections of 309 bookends, 47 rocking chairs, and over 2000 plates, cups, and saucers. The recognition that their various collections might be a problem comes when Marsha's latest acquisition—a mahogany highboy with carved likenesses of Jefferson, Washington, and Adams as drawer pulls—literally will not fit in their overflowing suburban ...

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