Thread: Collecting vs. Accumulating

Originally Posted by celticcrusader

I get itchy feet when I get past more than 14 or 15 razors, I like to use them all and I have a non-collector personality, I'm a bit OCD and that includes my life and home, every few months I have a purge all paperwork files clothing anything deemed surplus to requirements goes out, my files are up to date everything I wear or own gets used my head works better and my life is better with fewer things.

This is a way to live and a philosophy of life from which we can all learn. I carried boxes of books with me for over 35 years as i moved from job to job and city to city. Gave most of them away a couple of years ago and haven’t missed any. The thought and act of paring down the collection was much more traumatic than living with the reduced amount of stuff.

I started down the same path with straight razors - trying to get as many as I could find at the beginning. We live in two locations and I keep 10 or 12 at each. The reality is that I have 4 or 5 at each location that I consistently use and the others I pull out to hone or polish when I’m looking for something to do. There are a few I want to rescale using home made wooden scales and some others I want to further clean up, but I have reduced the urge to find more and can actually visit eBay or the BST forum here and appreciate the pics with out the urge to bid or buy.

My razor collection has crept up to about 18 razors, and already I feel an urge to pry a few out of my possession. I suppose I can begin the agonizing process of determining which ones will get moved to the "impending departure" pile. This sure does seem like the most difficult step in the procedure.