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You probably know the story of Imelda Marcos and her, um, shoe problems. But she is hardly the only person to collect an overwhelming number of something that seems absurd to the rest of the world. Check out these 10 people and their strange collections.
1. We’ll start with Imelda herself, just as a refresher. When Ferdinand Marcos and Imelda hastily fled the Philippines and Malacañan Palace when Ferdinand’s regime was overthrown, they left behind nearly all of their possessions, which were quite numerous. Imelda was first thought to own more than 6,000 individual shoes, a number which was later downgraded to a mere 1,060 pairs. She also abandoned 65 parasols, 15 mink coats, 888 purses, 508 floor-length dresses and 71 pairs of sunglasses. This seems like a lot, I know, but I bet if you raid the closet of certain Hollywood dwellers you’ll find that this amount of greed pales in comparison. For instance…
2. Celine Dion admitted last year that shopping is one of her passions and said she owned somewhere between 2,000 and 3,000 pairs of shoes. If you split the difference and assume 2,500, she could change her shoes almost seven times a day every day for a year without repeating a pair.
3. Victoria Beckham has a thing for Birkin bags and has spent more than 100 grand on adding to her collection. When you consider that one bag can cost up to $16,000, I guess that isn’t really much of a collection.
4. Fellow Brit Queen Elizabeth I also had a fashion fetish – gloves. She owned more than 2,000 pairs. Liz the First employed a wardrobe mistress just to keep track of all of them.
5. If you’ve ever read Dr. Seuss’ The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins then it may not surprise you that Mr. Geisel was a collector of chapeaus. He owned several hundred, in fact, ranging from an Ecuadorian fireman’s hat to a replica of Admiral Nelson’s that he liked to wear during annual “Seuss Navy” banquets. He coupled that one with an official-looking uniform as so not to look silly, of course.
6. Ted may have found good company in Mamie Eisenhower, who had a substantial hat collection of her own. Being a thrifty lady, however, hers were of the $9.95 mail-order variety and she made no apologies for it.
7. Penelope Cruz has a rather strange collection: coat hangers. She owns more than 500 different types of the organizational tool and the word is that not one of them is metal. Joan Crawford would be so proud.
8. Marie Osmond sells dolls, of course, but she also collects them. The habit started when she was traveling around the world with The Osmonds – she liked to pick up a different doll in each place she stopped. She now has more than 700, which totally gives me the willies.
9. She and Demi Moore should talk. Demi owns so many dolls she has a separate house for them, and in 1996 she insured them with Lloyds of London for $1.5 million pounds.
10. Apparently Johnny Depp has a collection of various animal skeletons, insects and taxidermy. I’m neither surprised nor any less in love with him.
Do you have a weird collection? Share it in the comments! I’d like to tell you that I own thousands of pairs of shoes, but, sadly, I don’t have the money or the space. Maybe someday!
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they have way too much money
posted by bob on 4-20-2009 at 5:36 pm
I used to collect sand castles and candles. But not just any candles, not tea lights or anything, they had a design or character or were bought on vacation, etc… I never counted them and have since gotten rid of them because I didn’t have any storage space and I needed the money to move. And they just didn’t really being me joy anymore.
posted by Sarah in CA on 4-20-2009 at 6:24 pm
I used to collect toilet paper for many years. It started when I came across some toilet paper in a novelty store with Murphy’s Law and other similar laws printed on it. The collection grew from there – not just novelty toilet paper, but samples from hotels and other places I had visited. I kept the sheets in photo albums, and some people would send me rolls from places they had travelled to – my most treasured roll featured currency from around the world printed on it.
I never used any of it for it’s intended purpose, of course.
And then one day I just decided it was a weird collection and stowed it away, never to add to it again. Sometimes I still stop to appreciate a good ply or print though.
posted by dangermouse on 4-20-2009 at 6:59 pm
I collect lawn gnomes, yet I have no yard. They are sitting on shelves around my apartment. I have about 12 or so and I am always looking for more.
posted by Jamie M on 4-20-2009 at 8:42 pm
I collect stuffed monkeys. I never buy them myself, someone always buys them for me. Actually, recently the collection has extended to include any type of monkey knick knacks and such. I know have a monkey pillow, blanket, keychain, shirt, and several pens.
posted by Shayla on 4-20-2009 at 10:13 pm
I collect skeleton keys! My collection is far from extensive, but whenever I find a cool one, I am sure to buy it.
Also, old brass house numbers. But only 3’s.
posted by Kieran on 4-20-2009 at 10:27 pm
When I was eight years old I went on a trip to Greece and began a collection that I still keep up with 25 years later — I collect thimbles. Lots of people do, but I’d say I have somewhere in the neighborhood of 300 or more now. My sister started a similarly sized collection of spoons at the same time, and is still collecting. We get them whenever we travel, as well as some collectors pieces. I even have replica viking thimbles :)
Once a collector, always a collector, I collect tons of other items as well, including bookmarks (and books) and, once upon a time, carpet lint. That was a fun one :)
reCaptcha: headless Dr
posted by L on 4-21-2009 at 12:28 am
Okay, it’s not really wierd, but it is an obsession… I collect Cinderella, ostensibly for my daughter. She (I) have: a Cinderella piggy bank, comforter, pillow slip, several metal boxes, watering can, cups and plates, snowglobe, plastic castle, plush doll, wristwatch, toothbrush holder, body lotion, baby wipes holder, soapdish, tiny plastic baby doll, Polly Pocket version, Barbie version, Cinderella coach set (NIB!) four Cinderella costumes, cinderella purses, stickers, various figurines of varying sizes… Everytime I see something Cinderella or Disney princess, I have to buy it for my own little miniversion….
and I dressed her up, complete with makeup, to look like Cinderella at Halloween. And I took lots and lots of pictures… did I mention she’s a beautiful blue-eyed blonde?
posted by Marion on 4-21-2009 at 2:51 am
I have a collection I usually don’t like to talk about. In fact, I keep it at my grandparents house near Estacada, Oregon in my old bedroom and it takes up nearly the whole room: My Little Pony dolls. I have more than 1,500 My Little Ponies and none of their hair is messed or their decorations faded. I’m not one of the obsessive compulsive people that kept them in their cases or in MINT condition… I’ve played with every single one at LEAST 20 times. I don’t add to the collection anymore since I moved to Italy, but my last entry was in 2005 on my High School Graduation Day.
posted by Kate on 4-21-2009 at 6:23 am
Well, that’s the wife of my country’s most notorious dictator. Did you know that Imelda during Ferdinand Marcos’s regime once built lots and lots of buildings using almost all of the Philippines’s money in which almost all of them are structurely failed???
posted by Karl on 4-21-2009 at 8:40 am
I collect growlers (1/2 gallon bottles available at brewpubs). I have 80 to date but desperately need one from a brewpub starting with X. Anyone know of one?
posted by steve on 4-21-2009 at 8:42 am
NO WIRE HANGERS!!!!!!
posted by Kevin on 4-21-2009 at 8:45 am
My ex-husband collected game show games. Like board games, video games based on game shows, books about game shows, anything remotely relating to game shows. His hero is Bill Cullen, and he can tell you more about game shows than you ever want to know. An entire room in our very small apartment was dedicated to housing all this memorabilia. He was on a game show — Sale of the Century. He won a vacuum. He even went so far as to host a game show himself in Michigan, it’s called Quizbusters. He used to (don’t know if he still does)write the questions himself. I always thought his ‘obsession’ was endearing, and apparently there is a huge game-collecting community across the U.S. Who knew?
posted by Kim on 4-21-2009 at 8:54 am
I collect 3 things: vintage boy scout handbooks. Classic cameras a lenses, but they must be in working order because I do use them, and 1930s WPA serigraphs.
posted by Andy on 4-21-2009 at 9:04 am
Hubby and I collect swords and other weapons of that nature. We started our collection about 16 years ago and I’ve lost count of how many sharp pointy objects we have.
I also collect odd glass/metal/stone beads and anything having to do with Marvin the Martian.
posted by Noxi on 4-21-2009 at 9:38 am
i collect anything penguin. Stuffed toys, mugs, speakers, clips, books, towels, shirts, watches, jewelry etc…
posted by Hitomi on 4-21-2009 at 9:50 am
I am not being critical of collecting. But I just “don’t get it”. Why spend money and gather things that, at least to me, are useless? I can perhaps understand a truly unique or very rare item, such as John Lennons autograph, but I would only want one. Thimbles, stuffed monkeys, old board games? Weird.
posted by Peter G on 4-21-2009 at 10:25 am
I have a large collection of egg cups, ranging from basic plastic ones to bone china covered in gold, to blown glass. Of course, I never actually eat soft-boiled eggs.
posted by Steven on 4-21-2009 at 10:39 am
I collect beer bottle caps. I have thousands of caps from about 300 or so different varieties.
posted by neptune8 on 4-21-2009 at 10:48 am
Peter G- I think for a lot of folks the fun part of collecting isn’t in having the things themselves,but in the hunting for them. It’s the thrill of the chase, rather than the catch. Like I collect vinyl records. Though I love to listen to the records all the time (they’re so much warmer and more like the vintage artists intended than cd remasters), a big part of the joy is in hunting through flea market boxes and yard sales and ebay and such hunting for treasures I don’t have yet.
I think a bit of the fun in a lot of collections is the learning,too, becoming an “expert” in whatever the thing is you collect. Even if it’s something silly, you get to be sort of an authority on that thing.
And with some collections, there’s a social aspect to it. If you collect something else that others collect,too, you can often interact with those folks. It gives you an ice breaker. You automatically have at least one thing in common that you can have an interesting conversation with the other collectors about.
posted by Melissa on 4-21-2009 at 10:51 am
I collect books. Not rare or valuable ones–just books that bring me joy. I currently have over 7000.
posted by Lisa on 4-21-2009 at 10:52 am
When I was a kid I collected bottlecaps. I had a huge collection which I burried in the woods behind our house. I drew a treasure map (which I lost) and my parents moved when I was in college. Some civilization many millenia from now is probably going to dig it up and wonder if they were a form of currency.
posted by Chris on 4-21-2009 at 10:54 am
Steve – have you looked into the Australian beer XXXX?
posted by Becca on 4-21-2009 at 11:06 am
Had I the space, I know one collection I’d love to really get going. Antique/old bikes.
I have an old ‘74 Raliegh that I obtained through a twist of fate while moving. I adore the thing. It’s heavy and has no shocks, but the tires never get stolen (they’re bolted on), has awesome old fenders, never fails me, and a beautiful gentle paint job (solid green, with gold pinstripes) which I plan to bring in to get touched up after I’m no longer on a campus where it’s getting beat. I would love a dozen or more old bikes for me to use, they’re just so much more reliable then the newer bikes to me.
posted by IM on 4-21-2009 at 11:14 am
I collect five pointed stars. I have covered a wall in my living room and still don’t have enough room for my collection. What I have found is people love having an item that they can buy for you. My friends and family get a kick out of finding a unique star for my collection. It is great to see them all giddy and excited to give me a personal gift instead of a lousy gift card.
posted by Christina on 4-21-2009 at 11:36 am
i inadvertantly started a “Creature from the Black Lagoon” collection of items. i even found a rare-ish three-foot tall stuffed Creature. he’s become sort of a traveling gnome for me.
i agree, it is the thrill of the hunt. Creature stuff (authentic stuff) is hard to find and hard to get, so when i do find something it is like winning a little prize.
i also have a cactus collection and an ever-growing book collection.
posted by the creature on 4-21-2009 at 11:39 am
I have a collection of Roach Clips. (Over 100) Anyone at the Smithsonian interested?
posted by Phrank Loyed on 4-21-2009 at 11:43 am
Dangermouse ~ when I was a little girl I also collected toilet paper, and my family still makes fun of me for it.
I collect Pez dispensers, vintage Muppet stuff, smiling food and statues of saints.
And I love the Creature from the Black Lagoon – I have a figurine of him guarding the toothbrushes in my mermaid-themed bathroom. :)
posted by vegebrarian on 4-21-2009 at 12:04 pm
I collect black velvet paintings of snoopy and have just over 90 now. It started as a lark, finding one in an antique shop around the corner from my house. I was a big Snoopy fan growing up so it was a cool find. A little Ebaying revealed that Snoopy was the third most popular ‘actual’ character committed to velvet after Elvis and Jesus. At this point I see paintings less and less on Ebay, so maybe I have most of them already, but I’m always looking for more.
posted by adam on 4-21-2009 at 12:09 pm
I have 2 collections, electric guitars, and plastic snowglobes (of the airport giftshop variety)
posted by doug on 4-21-2009 at 12:09 pm
There is a fine line between “hobby” and “mental illness…I collect Hawaiian (Beach, Surf,Camp) shirts….(sigh)…
posted by Chris on 4-21-2009 at 12:28 pm
I collect raccoons. Not live ones, figurines, ornaments and stuff with raccoons on them. It started when I was a kid. My brother gave me a stuffed raccoon and my mother thougth it was cute and started buying me things that were raccoony.
We’d look for raccoons where ever we went. There was this series of porcelain figurines called the Ringtale Raccoons by Hummel that she bought me and for years Hallmark put out a new Raccoon ornament every year. I got one every Chanukah.
The last one I got was one that someone got me from Provincetown MA, which has an abnormally large,um, male anatomy extremity.
The brother that started me on this collects frogs.
posted by Hannah on 4-21-2009 at 12:42 pm
Pluto – Mickey’s dog, not the planet…
When I was 10, I was mugged by Pluto at Disneyland. Yes, actually knocked out for a short period. Understandably, I was prepared to spend the rest of my life in serious hate with the character.
After college, a good friend (who knew the story) gave me a wind-up chattering Pluto as a joke for my birthday. I kept it on my desk at work. Well, people saw it, jumped to the conclusion that I was a fan, and suddenly every time someone visited a Disney park they brought me back some kind of Pluto souvenir. I now have hundreds. All foisted upon me.
Fortunately, the bitterness has faded over time and I now enjoy having a large unintentional collection of my favorite Disney character. I still don’t buy them for myself though.
posted by doggydad on 4-21-2009 at 1:04 pm
As a kid, I collected die-cast pencil sharpeners. I had about 30 of them, I believe.
I also have quite a lot of buffalo stuff (sheets, pictures, stuffed animals, carvings, etc), but that is just because I hate buffalo and my family thinks it is funny.
posted by kp on 4-21-2009 at 1:23 pm
I have a hefty shoe collection, but it of course can’t rival those of the rich and insane.
My strange collection is coasters…I don’t know why but I have to buy them whenever I travel. It seems odd to have more coasters than glasses – oh well!
posted by Stephanie on 4-21-2009 at 2:07 pm
I collect 8 track tapes. I’m a sucker for physical media. 8-tracks were the first truly viable car portable media. The bad memories that most people have of 8-track tapes stems from their use in hot automobiles. To achieve the endless loop of the 8-track and to allow for automatic changing of the tracks, a metal sensing foil tape is used. The glue on this tape degrades in high temps thus providing for tape catastrophes in car decks. If properly maintained they sound great. Friends are amazed when I tell them they are listening to an 8 track.
One interesting 8-Track fact is that Columbia House continued to produce 8-tracks for mail order up until about 1988. So you can get U2 Joshua Tree, Michael Jackson Bad and other 80s standards on 8-track. So wrong their right!
posted by Bruce Peckham on 4-21-2009 at 2:27 pm
I collect lots for stuff that i make into art. burnt incense sticks, concert tickets, sand from every beach trip I have taken since I was 8, also anything and everything that has zombies on it I even have a zombie tattoo. I had to collect a bunch of pennys to use as the backround for an abe lincoln collage i did a few years ago.
This is a weird one but i collect other peoples shopping lists. Whenever I go the grocery store I always have to look through all the carts to see if anybody left one behind. I have about 50 now and since I frequent the same stores I noticed one person always leaves there shopping list behind I sometimes wonder how they eat so much mustard because its always on the list!
posted by Tawnya on 4-21-2009 at 3:30 pm
I collect old cameras and clocks. I have about 125 so far. Also I have about 200 prs of shoes.
posted by Olivia on 4-21-2009 at 4:02 pm
Coozy coolers, beer coozies….whatever you want to call them. My wife actually got me started, but now we get them whenever we travel. Probably have 100 or so. You’d be surprised at some of the out-of-the-way places in this world where you can still find coozies with some type of local reference. They make great conversation pieces at at parties.
And magnets from travels. But that’s my thing. And that’s pretty ordinary. But it does makes the fridge look really cool.
posted by SteveO on 4-21-2009 at 5:35 pm
My husband is quite the collector. He collects classic video games and video game systems. At one point he had over 250 different systems. But he also has a comic book collection of only #1 issues- I think now it’s up to over 1000 issues. Then there’s the hockey card collection, where there’s so many boxes and binders I would never be able to know. He’s lucky I’m a patient woman…
posted by Jen on 4-21-2009 at 5:46 pm
I used to collect fantasy figures, snow globes, and carousel horses. And small pewter fantasy figurines that I then hand painted.
I used to have hundreds of books but lost room for them and my dad donated many of them without asking because they were in boxes in his garage… Still haven’t got over that.
Also have a moderate collection of records. (Beatles, Stones, Fleetwood Mac, etc.) Even have a several really old antique Classical records that we acquired by chance.
We have put about half a dozen of the covers in LP frames up on the walls in our living room.
A weird collection is one of my Aunt’s she collects shot glasses from all over. What’s strange about this is she’s a Mormon and doesn’t drink!
posted by Nerak on 4-21-2009 at 5:53 pm
i’m with peter g. on this one… that’s great if collecting gives you joy of some sort, but i don’t get it. there is something creepy about collections to me. i guess art isn’t. but then someone could argue that their mcdonald’s toys are art, so what do i know. i wouldn’t mind having a few thousand pairs of shoes though :)
posted by tiffany on 4-21-2009 at 6:06 pm
I collect any and all Hello Kitty! I didn’t like it unitl I was in 2nd grade and in later on I went on a kick for it. Now my car is Hello Kitty and basically any object in my room is Hello Kitty! sadly my roomate says I can’t have Hello Kitty bed sheets next year : (
posted by Rachel* on 4-21-2009 at 11:41 pm
It is interesting seeing all the different types of collections. The toliet paper one sounds interesting. I don’t think I have seen printed patterns on toliet paper.
I am boring and just collect postcards.
posted by Gina on 4-22-2009 at 10:22 am
I collect colored glass – vases, bottles, glasses, especially in blue – it started when I received a gift of wine glasses with blue stems and soon after found a blue-glassed look corkscrew and collection history started. I can find antique glass at flea markets, but have to curtail my urges due to lack of space.
posted by Chiq on 4-22-2009 at 10:33 am
My family has a collection of rocks. Whenever we go on vacation, we find a rock to bring home. The family that we bought our house from did the same thing, and our driveway and patio are lined with rocks found on family vacations. Anywhere from the basketball sized river rock we found in Missouri (it’s perfectly round, and dad had to carry it nearly a mile back to the car) to the fistful of volcanic pebbles mom brought back from hawaii. One place we visited even had signs posted that anyone caught “stealing” rocks from the public beach would be ticketed. Naturally, we all had to take a rock.
posted by Maggie on 4-22-2009 at 10:59 am
My husband collects wind chimes and cribbage boards. We have tons of wind chimes both inside and out, although we try to keep the outside ones to a minimum–don’t want to drive the neighbors nuts on a windy day. I love the summertime because we open the windows and they all start going. We can tell which one’s are ringing by the sound and we place them over the heating and A/C ducts to make them ring. Of course, we haven’t bought any for a long time, because we get them as gifts from friends and family. Problem is we’re running out of room to put them up–and they get really dusty. We also collect cribbabe boards. We have one made from deer antlers and one made from a cypress tree slice–really cool. One that my husband made from a walnut tree he cut down, one that was part of a coffee table and a few just plain boards.
posted by BG on 4-23-2009 at 10:34 am
When I was a kid, I collected heart shaped rocks and dolls. I also collected foreign currency for a while because my grandmother thought it would be a good hobby for me, but i thought it was boring.
I don’t really collect anything (mainly because I live in a 400 sq ft apartment) But I really like vintage toys, the creepier, the better. I have a small collection on my bookshelf, and I use them in paintings a lot. Some of my dolls I collected as a child have moved to my creepy toy collection. I think if I ever move I might officially start collecting creepy toys. I’d really like to get one of those old wind up monkeys that bangs the cymbols!
My father collects anything from the Toy Story movies. He has all the burger king/mcdonald toys from both movies and he used to dress up like Woody for Halloween. My mother collects sand from beaches and puts in it little bottles in thier kitchen.
I don’t think I could ever be one of those people that spent thousands of dollars for something in their collection, but I do love finding an old little toy or doll that has a lot of personality at yard sales. it’s like finding a mini treasure.
posted by Katy on 5-1-2009 at 10:02 am
Celebrated celebrity collector, Andy Warhol, collected stuff, lots of stuff. The highlight of the archives collection of the Andy Warhol Museum is his Time Capsules. This serial work, spanning a thirty-year period from the early 1960s to the late 1980s, consists of 610 standard sized cardboard boxes, which Warhol, beginning in 1974, filled, sealed and sent to storage. Warhol used these boxes to manage the bewildering quantity of material that routinely passed through his life.
Photographs, newspapers and magazines, fan letters, business and personal correspondence, art work, source images for art-work, books, exhibition catalogues, and telephone messages, along with objects and countless examples of ephemera, such as announcements for poetry readings and dinner invitations, were placed on an almost daily basis into a box kept conveniently next to his desk
posted by Anthony Cerminaro on 5-1-2009 at 10:38 am
I have a couple hundred bouncy balls.
I keep them in large glass jars.
Most still bounce.
And you might be surprised at the variety in size and shape.
posted by Corrine on 5-1-2009 at 10:42 am
I collect spores, molds, and funguses. :)
posted by effess on 5-1-2009 at 12:41 pm
I used to collect rocks. Any that i found that were unusual looking, different colors, textures. Also, rocks from different vacations I took as a child. That was a great collection.
posted by kai on 5-1-2009 at 3:32 pm
I collect dust. I keep it on most of the surfaces in my apartment. Sometimes I consolidate it all in a duster, but then I let it build up again. :-)
Recaptcha is quahog 1964. I suppose that’s a reminder that people also collect shells.
posted by Ann on 5-2-2009 at 11:01 am
Now I know why I can never find egg-cups in gift shop. All you guys snarfed them up…
posted by Dale on 5-3-2009 at 8:29 pm
You MISSPELLED THE WORD ” MALACANANG “. IT’S SPELLED WITH A G! I USED UPPER CASE SO THAT I CAN GRAB YOU ATTENTION. :D
posted by Mikki on 5-7-2009 at 1:49 am