Talk:Collecting

[Untitled]
Someone should add a music section with CD's, instruments etc.

Weller & McCoy
Weller and McCoy Pottery. Are these really sufficiently significant to be listed? They're not up there with Coca-Cola and Zippo are they? I'm all for including a wide range of collectibles but the article can hardly include every minor brand that a few people are interested in. I say remove these, and if individual china brands are listed then replace with some popular ones. Kevv.


 * Agree. There a very few brand names in the article for other colecting so why have these? All are small scale stuff and known are well known. Have to be careful about what is listed otherwise every collector will claim theirs should be here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Special:Contributions/ (talk)

Weller and McCoy are HUGE art pottery makers. Many books have been written on these manufacturers alone. If they don't warrant their own listings, then I suppose they could be grouped under "art pottery." Knapstein 21:03, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Collect.com
Collect.com is an online community where collectors can discuss and display their finds, keep tabs on their collection's value, connect with buyers and sellers, read about the latest hobby news, and more.

New news stories relevant to the collecting pastime are posted every weekday, and you don't need to be a subscriber to take advantage of all the information available. It is not dedicated to any single collecting genre—and it's FREE.

Collectors can "get together" in the forums and discuss their collecting areas of interest. They can also post items for sale or post their "wants." There are NO FEES charged for hooking up buyers and sellers.

Also, collectors can post messages and images in the forum and take advantage of F+W Publications' experts' opinions as to what their collectibles might be worth; a service that is provided free of charge.

Putting "forum" information in the "collecting" page on wikipedia is relevant to the subject because new collectors can speak with experienced collectors about the successes and failures they have had.

If you are not convinced, I am open to further discussion. Knapstein 21:47, 11 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Please read WP:EL. --Pak21 22:13, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I guess I'm looking for specifics: Specifically, is it because there is too much advertising on the site? I've clicked on allowed links in the E.L. section and they have advertising and charge fees for services (collectica.com, for example, has a free listing service, but they charge a commission if something sells).

Or is the problem because collect.com is sponsored by F+W Publications? Or that the link was added to the external links area? I added a link within the article a while ago, along with the benefits of using collecting forums, and the information was edited out. I believe our content is relevant to the "collecting" entry on Wikipedia, and that the readers could benefit from it.

Thank you for your patience with this wiki novice :) Knapstein


 * My personal opinion would be that most of the external links in this article should be deleted, so don't use them as examples. I'd suggest looking at some featured articles. As for adding links to your own site, that would be regarded as a conflict of interest and also discouraged. Cheers --Pak21 08:50, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Is this really a wiki-article?
It reads more like a children's how-to guide on how to start off a really neat collection. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.82.217.112 (talk) 21:46, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree. As it stands, this is a guide by collectors for collectors on how to collect, not a dispassionate article about the social phenomenon of collecting. The German Wikipedia has a good article which could be helpful for reworking this one. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.190.34.152 (talk) 18:46, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

This article should also go into depth, as to how collection is tied in psychologically to our emotions. —Preceding unsigned comment added by ShushKebab (talk • contribs) 04:14, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

No one cares about collecting except collectors. So they are the strongest editors. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.109.252.28 (talk) 21:50, 31 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I agree with one of the above statements made years ago - for whatever reason I expected some info on why so many people become "collectors" of one thing or another. Even if you don't collect something obsessively, it seems a whole lot of people really like gathering similar objects. But why, when the objects don't necessarily help them from a practical standpoint? Just musing. 98.65.247.224 (talk) 11:31, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm going to remove tons of WikiHow-like unsourced contents, and will try to put something from German Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not WikiHow.-- Fauban  14:10, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

The section on psychological aspects is full of bad grammar. Someone with a better command of English should redo it. 98.207.166.2 (talk) 18:31, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

telecards.islands.co.il
Islands Phonecards Database (http://telecards.islands.co.il) is the leading site in phone card collections (see ratings in Alexa). Why was its link removed? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.166.221.223 (talk) 08:39, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
 * This link, as with the majority of links on this article, do not add to the article itself. I have removed most of the links under WP:EL.  Please don't add them back. -- malo (tlk) (cntrbtns) 17:12, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

On WP:EL check no.3 of what should be linked: So, basically, you kept a link to a site that has not been updated since 2002 and removed all the others? How does that seem logical to you? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.1.158.208 (talk) 00:45, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Sites that contain neutral and accurate material that cannot be integrated into the Wikipedia article due to copyright issues, amount of detail (such as professional athlete statistics, movie or television credits, interview transcripts, or online textbooks) or other reasons.

Edits of November 2013
I've made some substantial changes to the article, particularly to the introduction and psychology sections. It still needs a lot of work, but I think I've got it to the point where further improvements can be made incrementally.

Most of the issues noted in the alert box can probably be removed now, e.g. the article no longer includes how-to content. That's not my doing — the credit goes to previous editors — but the time is ripe for a look-over by an experienced editor.

121.45.35.184 (talk) 14:51, 14 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Have removed the out-of-date alert templates myself, as I don't see any scope for controversy about this. 121.45.35.184 (talk) 13:42, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

I removed most of the categories for this article. While collections are relevant to the history of museums, biology and earth science, the inverse is more tenuous as relevance to those topics is hardly a defining characteristic of collections. Also, as it stands, the article has little to say about those areas, with one sentence linking collections to the history of museums and none whatsoever linking them to fields of science. If other editors disagree, they may, of course, reinsert the categories, but I'd suggest that one should at least wait until after relevant sections of the article have been added/expanded. Other categories I removed are even more tenuous: Forteana, historical scientific instruments and western art.

As an aside, I'm baffled at how WikiProject Psychology rated this article as B-class back in January, when this was the current version. At the time, the psychology section was essentially an auto-translate from the German Wikipedia serving as a stub, a long way from the B-class standard of "no major grammatical errors". I hope that my efforts over the last few days have raised the quality of the article to the point where its B-class status may actually be deserved. There's more work to be done but I think I'm ready to move on.

121.45.35.184 (talk) 03:00, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Delineation between "Collecting" and "Collectable" articles
Needed: more careful consideration of what information really belongs here and what information would be more appropriately moved to Collectable. The delineation between the two articles currently seems arbitrary. Consider especially the factors affecting collectability section, which is concerned more with collectible objects than with collecting as an activity. Is this article really the right place for that information? 118.210.145.2 (talk) 00:47, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

Notes on the history of this article
It can be interesting to browse the history of this article, and editors may find it enlightening to see how the current version, with all its faults, came to be. Early versions (e.g. this one from March 2006) consisted of a brief introduction followed by a list of collectable items (since moved to list of collectables). The intro was trimmed beyond the point of excess in April 2007, and a large amount of non-encyclopedic how-to information was added in June 2007. This inappropriate content was gradually whittled down over the following months and years, but editors were reluctant to remove anything that may contain salvageable information, and fragments remain even in the current version. Because much of the article originated as disparate fragments thrown together by circumstance, even though it is now far better than it was, a good editor will still find plenty of things to improve. 118.211.112.27 (talk) 06:53, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

Suggestions for further improving this article
This article has come a very long way, and I've had a hand in that under various dynamic ISP addresses. Now I'd like to make a few suggestions for improving it further. You can help.

There should be a section entitled "Societal impact" or similar, for describing ways in which the collecting hobby benefits, enriches or otherwise impacts upon the wider society. For example, sometimes collectors become experts and go on to make new discoveries, sometimes collecting leads to items being preserved that would otherwise have been lost, sometimes collectors donate to or found museums (e.g. Hans Sloane), sometimes collectors become known as public educators (e.g. Tim Rowett), and so forth.

The list of notable collectors should gradually be incorporated into the rest of the article as prose, either in footnotes (following the example of my 4th edit of 12 November 2017) or in the main text. I believe individual collectors should be used primarily to exemplify specific claims made in the article (including in the societal impact section proposed above). I don't think notable people should be included simply because they happen to be collectors on the side, unless some point is thereby illustrated.

The notable collectors list includes several people whose suitability for inclusion is questionable. This is partly because, in the past, this article has been used as a dumping ground for orphaned collector biographies, but as the quality of the article improves this cannot be sustained. Editors should review the list and consider removing those who are insufficiently notable or illuminating. If unsure, discuss here. (I've removed a few but the responsibility is best shared. I've also added some.)

There should be more information on types of resources available to collectors, but it must be kept at a concise, abstract level suitable for an encyclopedia and not permitted to bloat into how-to information as it has in the past.

121.45.72.211 (talk) 12:26, 12 November 2017 (UTC)

Selling antique
How do you sell antiques and find the right place to look for buyers of antiques 45.36.106.163 (talk) 13:36, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Incorrect preview image when hovering over "Premium"
When hovering over "Premium" (under Terms) in the box to the right, the preview image shown is a graphic photo of surgery being performed. This image is not used anywhere in the linked article.

I am not experienced with editing on Wikipedia, so I'm not sure if the problem lies with this article or with the Premium article. Making a note of it here so someone more capable can hopefully resolve it. 2406:3400:21D:5110:A1E2:B3D1:1191:1889 (talk) 13:51, 29 March 2023 (UTC)