Fandom fascinates me. Even after blogging for over a decade, even after reading and writing about fandom for many, many years, it still intrigues me. I feel like I have learned a lot but I still feel like I don’t know everything. Heck, I’m not sure that I understand myself when it comes to the fan part of my identity. Once upon a time, I wanted to talk about my fandom all the time. Now, I am content with just having it be integrated into my life much like me being a political activist or having a cat. It just is a part of me, part of who I am. In fact, it is such a part of me that my office is all about my Duran Duran fandom. I forget that, sometimes, when new people come into my house and see the office for the first time. If you have not seen my office before, let me share some photos.
If you look at my office, you will see that I have a little bit of everything, including vinyl records, books, magazines, tour books, pins, posters, etc. Over my fandom tenure (Don’t you like that?! I phrased it like a job, a career. Ha!), I opted to get a little bit of every type of memorabilia I could think of. I got a couple of t-shirts while I bought a poster or two. I accepted pins while I sought out a tour book or two. I didn’t have a focus. Of course, other fans focused in on one type of product. Durandy, for instance, as I’m sure you all know went for the posters. He collected as many as he possibly could and took care to organize and later share them with the Duranie world. I also remember being around other fans at conventions or meetups who really worked to get pins that they did not have, tour books or t-shirts that were on their lists of “must-haves”.
So, I have a number of questions in thinking about this. Should I have focused on just one type of memorabilia? Is there a benefit to that? Why does a fan narrow to one type of merchandise while others are like me? Does that say something about our personalities? About our fandom? Now, don’t get me where. I don’t think that one type of fan is better or bigger than the other. That’s not what I am asking. I’m trying to understand fandom and fans.
I would love to hear from all of you. If you collect memorabilia for Duran Duran or any other fandom, are you like me and collect a little bit of everything? Or do you concentrate your collection on one type of merchandise? How did you decide to all or just one type? If you are a collector of one type of item, why that one? Did you always focus on that one thing or did that happen over time? Do you think it is easier to focus on one thing or would it be easier to broaden your collection to all products? Basically, what are the advantages and disadvantages of being the type of collector you are?
Please help me to better understand fandom by sharing your collecting habits!
-A
I think it depends. I collect items from Grease and the Wizard of Oz and notice it’s mostly books and dolls (and of course the movies and soundtracks). For a couple of TV shows I strictly have books. In general, my collections are books, movies/music and items like posters, not into things like figurines that others are in. With DD, I have a bit more because I also have the trading cards and still clippings in a scrapbook from magazines (but have considered getting rid of those or downscaling since I don’t really look at them much). I recently got the Funko Pops and might get more of those in general.
You bring up another point that I had not thought of. Does collecting depend on what type of fandom you are in? Thanks for sharing! -A
I love collecting. My biggest collection is my INXS collection. I didn’t concentrate on 1 thing. Anything INXS I wanted and sought it out. I still do. It’s an impressive collection. I’m now part of a INXS collectors page on Facebook and there are collections even bigger than mine. I was 12 when I started collecting Duran Duran records, books, posters. But they were becoming superstars and there was sooooo much memorabilia being sold. I could not afford it and so I decided to keep my main collecting focus INXS. My Duran Duran collection is “cute” But until I win the lottery I will only get the extra special releases like the colored vinyls as they are released. My 2 favorite prices in my collection are my signed by all 5, Rio promo poster and the Paper Gods box set.
First off, I love your office! It’s clean, organized, and just drool inspiring. The wall decor is great too. On that note, I don’t think there’s any wrong way to collect. As long as you can afford it, and it brings happiness when perused, go for it. I can’t afford to get everything I’d like to have, so I’ve decided to focus on t-shirts, any music I can find that I don’t have, and concert programs. Of course if I stumbled across something at a garage sale, well, yeah. What I’d love to collect is concert bootlegs, either audio or dvd’s, I know they exist but haven’t yet found any for myself. But your collection sounds wonderful.
Thanks for the lovely comments on my office. I do love it so! -A