Since I was a very little girl, I’ve always enjoyed collecting things. I started with books, craft supplies, and stuffed animals, but it soon blossomed into a more expansive and extensive collection. By the time I’d turned 10, I’d already begun going to thrift shops, antique stores, and yard and garage sales to see what treasure I could find among others’ cast-offs. By the time I was in middle school, I was already buying velvet cocktail dresses and 1950s prom dresses from the Salvation Army for $5 apiece. I’d started collecting 1940s perfume bottles, powder compacts, and high heels at hospital thrift shops and the local St. Vincent de Paul outlet by then, too.

None of my friends were into this hobby. But I understood the appeal of it when I saw the things my Aunt Betty found on her weekly garage sale rounds. She was so skilled at finding cast-off treasures to shower the rest of the family with at holidays that the family took to calling her Garage Sale Santa. If you needed something, all you had to do was tell Betty, and she’d find one for you at a garage sale for 50 cents in no time at all.

Though some chic young things were already buying cool old clothes in the 1970s (the Pointer Sisters’ gorgeous 1940s vintage ensembles come to mind), I never heard talk about collecting “vintage” pieces until decades later when the term grew popular. When I was a kid, old clothes were old clothes, and my mom rolled her eyes at my penchant for bringing home a Chinese silk brocade jacket made before I was born, or asking her to turn the beaded satin handmade dress I’d bought into a Halloween costume for me. Why on earth, she asked me, did I want to wear old junk when I could have something new?

Discovering, researching, and learning about histories of objects made before my time has always brought me joy. So much beauty is lost every day when people damage or destroy things they no longer see any point to. I love keeping those things out of the waste stream, cleaning and polishing and mending them, and giving them a new life.

Enjoying more things has always meant more opportunity for discovery and fun, it seemed to me. That more-is-more maximalist streak continued as I got older and began collecting stamps, coins, and records, and later dishes, glassware, and artworks. Along the way I’ve found and dragged home all sorts of odd and interesting old objects, from Edison lightbulbs to antique sewing machines to 75-year-old booklets full of banana recipes. Often they have little to no inherent value to anyone else. But I still treasure them. Other times I’ve found rare and special objects that collectors actually do prize. They were sold or even given away by people who thought they had a garage full of junk. Junk! Can you imagine?

But when does a charming collecting hobby become a hoarding habit? When is it a noble desire to save overlooked handmade beauty from oblivion? And when is it evidence of unbecomingly covetous materialism?

I recently wrote an article about why people collect, what it means, and how their collections affect their lives for At Home with Style, the free online interior design magazine I’ve edited and published for the past few years. I thought it might be interesting to readers beyond my design website’s usual audience, so I’m sharing a link to the article with you here. I hope you enjoy it.

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A few of my favorite vintage and antique porcelain pieces gathered over the years | Photo by Laura Grey