Collectors Categorized: How Each One Is Different

Recently I was in a Zoom conference regarding collecting sponsored by the Center for the History of Collecting in New York City. When asked what motivated collectors, one participant suggested it was an obsessive-compulsive personality. To me, this answer was anything but complete. We collectors are all different and relatively few of us are obsessive-compulsive.

The Facts

About 30-40% of the population collects. Only 1-2.5% of the population are obsessive-compulsive. Could everyone who is a collector, then, be obsessive-compulsive? I think not. What, then, distinguishes collectors in terms of personality? Well, most are normal people like you and me who enjoy collecting things. If we didn’t do this, we might seek out sports or ballet or another pastime. No one ever calls someone who is avid about ballet obsessive-compulsive. To me, labeling collectors in this unflattering manner suggests a lack of familiarity with collectors, much less collector groups.

Collector Categories

Collector: Under normal circumstances, an enjoyable pastime among other areas of interest such as family, children, sports, the visual arts, etc.

Passionate collector: A compelling desire to collect the object of one’s focus; often thinks about it and will lay aside other activities to pursue the object/objects. May allocate less time to other areas of life.

Obsessive Collector: Preoccupation with the objects/object of desire—difficulty dispelling it/them from one’s mind—and diminished interest in other areas of life.

Over the Top Collectors: Medical conditions may contribute.

• Hoarding: An inability or persistent difficulty discarding possessions or even found objects.
• Drug-Induced: Medications for treating Parkinson’s Disease, including amantadine, levodopa, pramipexole, pergolide, ropinirole, selegiline, and others, as well as surgical treatments such as pallidotomy and deep brain stimulation have all been linked to impulse control disorders in scientific studies.

In terms of prevalence for each of these types, collecting under normal circumstances by a person who exhibits a normal personality is the most widespread in my experience, encompassing roughly 90% of collectors, or possibly more. (I am currently conducting a study with Natalie Denburg of the University of Iowa to further tease out any subtypes of collector personalities.) Those who exhibit a passion for collecting are second in prevalence, and, lastly, an obsessive approach is third in frequency. Those with a medical condition are fewer still.

One of Elizabeth Kraft Taylor's miniatures.

Source: Courtesy: Thomas M. Mueller Photography

Why Do You Collect?

And, then, the salient question: Why is it that you collect and not your spouse or daughter or friend? Like most predispositions, it all boils down to genetics (nature), childhood experiences (nurture), and unique encounters growing up. For example, Elizabeth Kraft Taylor, author of Three Jews Walked into a Shopping Center, remembers exactly what led her to collect miniatures:
"Having lived in Chicago as a child, my favorite activity was going to the Art Institute of Chicago to spend time in the Thorne Miniature Rooms. Ballrooms, drawing rooms, personal libraries were my playground. I lived in those rooms, and as soon as I was able, I began my own collection of fantasy rooms.”

Today, Taylor has dispersed her personal miniature collection to a museum, as Narcissa Niblack Thorne, who constructed the Thorne miniature rooms, once did. Without Taylor's early exposure to these rooms, she might never have zeroed in on her collecting choice, miniatures. She was inspired, as we all are, either unconsciously or consciously, by an encounter, one that leads us down a path to a specific collecting niche.

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