Are Collectors Born Or Made?

By: Sandy Lechtick

 

Do collectors have a gene that somehow went haywire – erratic genetic spoilage that causes deviant, bizarre behavior?  Are collectors born with a screwy XY chromosome that creates that intolerable personality disorder that befuddles, amuses, aggravates and irritates non-collectors?  

 

Do collectors simply have a genetic predisposition to hoarding objects, accumulating baubles and for some inexplicable reason holding on to irrelevant, impractical non-useable, worn out, un-needed trinkets that safely fall into the category: “stuff’, or more likely, “garbage”?  

 

Do collectors simply have a screw loose and in desperate need of a cover?  Collectors search for the next great addition to their collection.  Non-collectors scratch their heads. Collectors wonder what they can add.  Non-collectors wonder what they can throw out.  

 

Certainly, those bit by the “bug” are misunderstood.  In the bestselling “Men are from Mars, women are from Venus” Dr. John Gray wrote of how the two sexes view the world in different terms –in all aspects of relationships, communication and values.  The world of collectors and non-collectors are similar Mars Venus universes.  

 

I have often wondered, could there be a special gene that multiplies a desire to gather, categorize, show case and accumulate special objects?  Is this but a mere manifestation of genetic wiring of survival from cavemen- hunting and gathering? Simply put, are collectors born or made?  Is there a collector’s gene?  

 

As I was researching this book, I pondered this question.  Every collector I have met, I asked many questions, but always probe “Are collectors born or made? “