By: Paulo Cabral

July 25, 2025

Collections can be justified by the aesthetic, emotional, and even material value of objects. In some situations, however, collecting behavior can represent a pathological symptom.

Things have become increasingly desirable and easily acquired. Collecting is the urge to build a permanent and complete system against the destructive power of time. It is the ultimate task for someone to survive deep nostalgia, the feeling of being lost in their own non-infinity.

In general, collecting becomes part of the collector’s life, as it takes a leading role in their decision-making. What’s more, the act of collecting essentially stems from the need to tell stories, although there are no structured narrative forms for this. When one collects, one composes a story that moves with the times. All over the world, there are people who collect the most varied things and see these objects as true lost treasures, doing anything to acquire the next item in the collection.

There are no limits to the objects that can be collected. Comic books, toys, DVDs, video games, watches, stamps, books, coins, soda bottle caps, cigarette packs. While sentimental value has no limits, monetary value fluctuates like any market and is subject to ups and downs, depending on current trends. Many collectors have turned their passions into sources of income and business. And this isn’t just the case for classic antique dealers who sell works of art, jewelry, and even classic furniture: there are stores for countless tastes.

It truly is a market with broad possibilities. And it can be explained through an economic concept called the Utility Function. Within economics, what is known as the Utility Function is the attribution of value to something, and in practice, this varies from person to person.

This concept shows that, considering people who have the same amount of money, their consumption will likely vary across different brands because preferences may differ. Combining the concepts of collecting and utility function, we can see that a collector is an individual whose utility function attributes greater value to specific items, generally outside their usual means of use.

After all, why would someone choose to spend money on things they won’t use?

Why is it necessary to own them, and not just know they exist? Although he doesn’t collect objects, German historian Philipp Blom has theories to explain this mania: the habit of hoarding trinkets has historical, philosophical, and psychological justifications. All of them treat collecting as more than just a teenage pastime: it has to do with a sense of belonging, competition, fears, failures, unfulfilled desires, and the desire to isolate oneself in a world and be able to control it.

It is now known that collectors existed in ancient Rome and even in Egypt (Pharaoh Tutankhamun had a collection of fine ceramics). But collecting only left the hands of kings when the medieval worldview weakened in the 16th century. After realizing that they could pursue eternity in this world, not in heaven, man began to pay more attention to himself and began to accumulate things (or riches, depending on your point of view…).

Collecting is different from hoarding!

It’s important to make a clear distinction between collecting and accumulating—between the collector and the hoarder. The latter is seen as someone who understands collecting merely as a financial investment and accumulation of possessions. What drives the collector, however, is most often the obsession with possession and the emotional adventure with the work itself, which is, in every respect, as intense as an investment in “human” passions. Undoubtedly, the daily passion for private property is often stronger than all others.

The fact is that, in some situations, the individual collects excessively, indiscriminately, and has great difficulty parting with excess items. In these cases, it’s more common to collect objects that are easily obtainable and, after acquisition, to discard them. Interest in the objects resurfaces when someone else threatens to end the collection.

Several neuropsychiatric illnesses can be associated with pathological hoarding behavior, such as obsessive-compulsive disorder, autism, schizophrenia, Tourette syndrome, and various types of dementia. Recent studies have shown that lesions or changes in the functioning of frontal regions of the brain, especially the right side, are associated with pathological hoarding behavior.

It’s as if this brain region acts as a brake on the archaic instinct to hoard for the sake of hoarding, which originates in other brain regions, such as the limbic system, one of the conductors of our behavior. Children may not yet have this well-developed brake, because if it were up to them, they would have every toy model available on the market. Consumerism may not be the best term for it.

At one extreme, we can imagine the common, “healthy” hoarder, who owns the entire works of their favorite author and has already read many of the books they’ve purchased. At the other extreme, there’s the individual who begins to hoard kilos and kilos of useless objects at home that should be in a junkyard. Between the two extremes are those who read or consult only a measly fraction of the books they buy, women who have a room in their house dedicated to their collection of hundreds of shoes… So, pay attention to the signs!

Yes, you should collect what makes you feel good!

Collecting is nothing more than people who enjoy keeping, selecting, cataloging, displaying, buying, and organizing various types of objects. This is based on each person’s personal interests, and it’s impossible to pinpoint the characteristics of collectors, as their preferences and approach to each collection change. However, they have one thing in common: the relentless search for new items that help complete their precious collection.

Some love to display and show off their cherished possessions to friends, others keep them under lock and key and won’t let anyone near them. This hobby, which can sometimes become very expensive, is practiced either sectorally, where everything on a single subject is collected, or more broadly, encompassing items from a specific era or decade, for example. In the second case, it becomes much more difficult to complete a collection, as the items are practically endless.

Collectors can also organize themselves into associations or clubs, where they meet like-minded individuals and can then expand their arsenal by exchanging, selling, and buying new objects. More often than not, these individuals possess far more love, resources, and knowledge about what they collect than museums and the dedicated spaces where they store them.

The truth is, collectors help keep history alive, showing new generations how things used to be. To help us understand how a collector works, let’s hear the stories of three fellow countrymen who dedicate themselves daily to preserving their collections.