I'm not the one you want to do book reviews, so I'll spare you from that, but I did want to take a minute to share a couple of paragraphs from early in the book that really stood out, as I couldn't help but notice the parallels to another hobby that's so near and dear to many of the folks that stop by here, and was mildly curious to know if anyone else noticed the similarities too?
So I've got about a page and a half here, and for your reading convenience they've been broken down into bite-sized paragraphs. And as far context goes, this section picks up just after the first World War has broken out:
Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.
Wow, cool! Definitely sounds familiar. Good thing I am not in the speculating business!
ReplyDeleteThat's not a business that I'd like to be in either!
DeleteIn a lot of areas of collecting, understanding of what was rare and what wasn't was quite limited before the internet. In many areas of antiques that wasn't just true during WWII but through the 1990s.
ReplyDeleteI think that you might be selling collectors of yore a little short there, Bo. Most collectibles were incredibly well researched before the internet, and certainly pre-television, as collectors had a lot more time to devote to their collections, and still had access to lot of information, a lot of which was lost during the war (because of either destruction, or not being written down by those who knew it). And there's still an incredible wealth of information out there in old trade journals, books, and newspapers; that just hasn't been transferred to the internet yet, and given the direction that society seems to be heading, I suspect never will. As far as rarity in the internet age goes, it's not necessarily because things have become less rare because of the internet, as much as it is that many things have fallen out of fashion, i.e. no one collects them anymore, so there are just more of them out there now, mostly on the internet.
Deleteoh the stupid speculation and comfort our hobbies bring. fun read! hard to miss the similarities.
ReplyDeleteThanks for reading it, Julie!
DeleteI've also noticed the parallels between the stamp and card collecting hobbies. The stamp hobby is older and has gone through several such boom/bust phases so I think its a useful hobby for baseball collectors to learn a bit about the history of.
ReplyDeleteAgreed, especially since boom/bust phases are likely to occur much faster, and with much less warning, in our modern hyper-speed world, than they used to.
DeleteI know almost nothing about stamp collecting but I'm already seeing similarities to a hobby I do know a little about there...
ReplyDeleteI have a book on my to-read shelf that partly deals with the painfully brief tulip-collecting fad in England during the 1700s, which quite literally sounded like a form of madness from what I know about it (though I guess all collecting does after a while!). Collecting in general simply fascinates me.
I was hoping that few people might.
DeleteI've seen at least one book out there about the tulip craze, and have been meaning to find out if there are anymore, as I wouldn't mind learning more about that particular moment in time myself.
Nice post! I like how it can be a lesson for amateurs/newbies to not believe the hype. I'm sure longtime coin collectores and other memorabilia collectors have seen the same thing. Even other things are not immune (Furbies, Cabbage Patch Dolls, even designer dogs).
ReplyDeleteDesigner dogs... ha! And yeah, buying into the hype is almost never a good thing, in less of course you have a lot of disposable income that you don't mind throwing away.
DeleteFun post and interesting read and comparing
ReplyDeleteI don't know if it was fun or not, but I'd like to think that it was at least a little different.
DeleteAt first... I was comparing it to card collecting in the 90's. But by the time I got to the end, I could see where you were going with it.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad to hear that someone else was able to see it as well :)
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