So we have talked about our love for collecting model cars, legos, license plates and even model cars from movies but this is one of my more odd obsessions, err I mean collections

When I got my very first car at 15 (1987 Honda Civic CR-X HF) I went out and bought a Haynes Workshop Manual for it, and while Haynes manuals really do not have much information in them, ok they do but most anyone that has a basic knowledge of car mechanics could figure everything in them out without a manual, except maybe the torque specs. I did notice that the artwork on the cover was exqusite. I loved the cutaway drawings of the cars and was saddened in the late 90's when Haynes switched to computer altered photos instead of the drawings. So for every car I got I bought a Haynes manual (and most of the time a Chilton and Factory Service Manual as well) and that is how this collection started.

Here is the most recent picture I have of my Haynes manuals (I traded most of my Chilton's and FSMs away to get more Haynes.) I have gotten about 150 more manuals since I took this photo much to the dismay of my wife



Oddly enough Haynes manuals in the UK (where Haynes originated) are much nicer (hard Cover) than the soft back manuals that the US and Australia got

Nice collection, a bit odd indeed, but it does not take so much space

Cool collection you have here, tonkatracker

I like those Haynes manual due to ease/clarity of servicing these cars. I even remember reading the first part of the manual showing UK and North America vehicles. I also remember reading the UK and USA word translation as spanner instead of wrench. I have previously read SAAB 99 Haynes service manual when I had my first car. It is also a good place to do research for variation of the vehicles out there too

Wow. That's not a theme I ever thought of. In UK, lots of these get donated to charity shops, so easy to find fairly cheaply, particularly for cars over 10 years old. If you wanted to get some it could be worth contacting Oxfam Books to see what they might be able to offer - http://www.oxfam.org.uk/shop/books - for despatch to US.

Is the collection of Converse All Stars on the left yours as well?

Sorry, but this is absolutely not odd You don't have any idea, what odd things people are collecting! To collect and complete book-series, is something totally usual.

I was a collector all my life, but I was able to reduce and specify them. You can call it "collection" only, when there's a structure in it. With a wild cluttering you are only a hoarder (The German word is borrowed/selfmade from English: "Messie"), but not a collector.

When I was a small boy, I collected post-stamps, but not really intensive. Then WIKING-cars along the 80ies, but when I got my first real car, I stopped that (plus the fact, that WIKING-cars became to expensive). License plates I've also collected since I was a grammar school-boy, also other car-stuff, literature - and car parts. As hubcaps, I've found on the street or parts, neighbours gave me, who had worked on the cars in the backyard.
Ah yes, and crown corks. But for those I never had spent money. I just kept and picked up those, which are around me.

Later on I reduced my collecting accurately. No WIKING-cars any more. Those, I already had, stayed in their showcases, but none new any more. Plates only originals from disappeared West German counties, and the car-stuff I've strictly reduced on K 70-related things.

Everything, which doesn't belong to the systematics, I gave away or I've sold, since 2001 via eBay.

@Antoine: when you are doing eBay, then you will see, what for stuff people are collecting. I had known crazy collectors long before, but in the last 12 years with eBay, I've made many more strange and funny experiences
Especially due the fact, that I've offered everything via eBay, not only collectibles. From tiny things as crown corks -once even an old, used plastic bag (from BÜSSING-spare-parts)- up to complete cars (my wife' Astra G, my dad's Passat Variant 35i, mother-in-law's 1996 Escort Turnier and a wreck of a 1937 DKW F7, everything went out via eBay.
When my grandmothers and my wife's grandfather died, I've put the most usable household-stuff at eBay. Sure, it was a plenty of work, for months, but it made fun. It's nice to see, how other people became happy with your old stuff.

And carefully made eBaying is educational, too. When you look and search, what an item you have, and if there are collectors for that, you pimp your education-level

But that's really not unusual. On classic car- and spare parts-markets, you find masses of them, often formerly complete collections. From Haynes, also from the French "Revue Technique Automobile", the German "Jetzt helfe ich mir selbst" and the blue manuals from the Swiss publisher Bucheli. Plus uncountable masses of all kind of automotive magazines, original instruction manuals and so on.

In fact old manuals and magazines belong to the most collected automobilia-items.

At one time I used to collect Haynes and similar manuals too. I think the limit of rarity I reached was getting one for the Yugo 45.

Indeed it is not so odd. Though that usually people collect books on a subject, rather than all subjects of a book collection

About odd collections, I discovered through ebay a few years ago that there were people collecting the internet trial CDs that were popular in the end of the 90s (like those given by AOL, but from all other ISPs, less common than AOL). The kind of stuff that most of us throw away, so after some times it becomes rare, then collectible

Oh, yeah antp. Indeed I do have a strange collection of AOL CDs from the late 1990's and 2000's. I try to find which version and image files from these trial CDs. You can even find free plug-in program such as Real Player, Java and etc.

You can also find certain version of Internet Explorer from these free MSN subscription CDs (I know that the European dislike those browser build-in in the Windows operating system ).

Yes indeed, I have around 60 pairs of Converse as well

one of the favorites in my collection because of the rarity here in the US:

That’s an impressive collection! It looks like all those books and manuals might be getting the better of your bookshelf. That’s a lot of weight.

Not that bad. It's just a regular basic bookshelf, as the BILLY from IKEA. They have to hold that, especially when they aren't not wider than here (it looks like the usual 80cm).
But paper is heavy, so a library's weight cn cause other problems. For the house for example. Too many full bookshelfs can be problematical, if they are in a lightweight house. No kidding.
And really ugly became books and magazines, when you have to carry them, for example, when you are moving. My tipp: use several small boxes, not the bigger moving-boxes. When they are full with paper, you cannot carry them.

If you have to move that stuff, look in the liquor stores or supermarkets. Ideal are boxes from sprits, for bigger stuff, as oversized magazines from the 60ies and 70ies, the boxes from champagner and sparkling wine. When they are full, you can carry them better.
But anyways: you are really groggy, when you have carried two dozens of cardboard boxes with books inside, than two bookshelfs or one refrigerator.

Well, eBay has caused, that the prices for such stuff were collapsed in the last 10 years. Some idiots on spare parts markets ask ridicoulous prices, but in fact the collector's prices for repair manuals, instruction manuals and sales brochures for cars are much lower than in the pre-internet-times.
This one is totally overpriced http://www.ebay.de/itm/Reparaturanleitung-VW-K-70-L-S-LS-K70-Jetzt-helfe-ich-mir-selbst-/380590815328?pt=Sach_Fachbücher&hash=item589cfaf860
As the issue for the Fiat 500 it shall be the rarest manual of the whole series. In the 90ies they have cost around 40 to 50 D-Mark (ca.20-30 €) and were really hard to get, while the issues for the NSU Prinz and Audi 60 were to find everywhere.
Nowadays the realistic price for it is around 10-15€, depending on the condition. I've also catched some for 5 to 7€.

The hardest price-collaps was for that: http://www.ebay.de/itm/7-RAINER-GUNZLER-ZDF-Auto-Tester-der-60er-Jahre-testet-den-Volkswagen-VW-K-70-/190802845178?pt=Bücher_Unterhaltung_Music_CDs&hash=item2c6cbc5dfa (extremely overpriced here). In the 90ies it cost minimum 30 D-Mark (15 €) but nowadays you cannot sell it at eBay for even 2 or 3€.

Of course, very unique special goodies can get incredibvle prices at eBay, but that common, serially produced stuff as this kind of literature is definitely cheaper nowadays.
But there are still moron of sellers on spare parts markets, who still haven't realised that

P.S. Shall I look for the Haynes-Yugo-edition? Soon will be the http://www.siha.de/tce.php and I plan to go to other markets, too, so there will be then chance to get it.

Or other stuff. Just let me know.

I still have mine. I should probably see what other ones I have to see if there are any that tonka wants.

(it is funny that any discussion with Ingo goes off-topic )


It remembers me when at work we had to throw away lots of old archives: piles of papers taken out of binders.
So rather heavy compared to the volume occupied.
We had a student who was removing pages from binders and making "packages" of these with rope. Then he put all these on the parking lot near the exit of the building, where I could bring my car.
We filled the car to go throw that paper in the recycle center nearby.
We could not "fill" the car that much: piles of 30cm of paper on the whole length of cargo area of my car (1m30 when rear seats are folded) was already so heavy that the car was a low rider
We had to make six travels.

If you think about odd collections, make it easy: EVERYTHING is collectible.

The guy with the biggest collection of sea-/air-/travelling-sickness-bags sits in Alaska. He got one item from me. A sickness-bag from the Danish railways from 1987. My sister brought it home from a school-exchange (unused of course). I kept it for 20 years and then I thought, if mybe someone would like it. So it was.

Be alert and check, what you have in your clutter, or what you have inherited from grandma. Think about http://news.yahoo.com/1-000-old-chinese-bowl-sells-over-2-233804822.html
This had happen before. At the -really good- flea market in my first hometown Hannover someone had bought a little drawing for 3 D-Mark (1,50€). It was an original Picasso.

No. Not here. Look at the thread-title. It's about collections.