Collections I had as a kid

I stopped collecting them when I was about 14 years old, and restarted when I was about 28. I now focus on collecting only autographs and rookie cards of the best players.

I used to collect and trade these with my brother and uncle (who is only 3 years older than me). I no longer have them. They must have ended up in the garbage pail.

I enjoyed buying and learning new board games so much that I viewed it as something I was collecting. Some favorites were Spellfire cards, Fireball Island, HeroQuest, Crossbows & Catapults, LIFE, Dungeons & Dragons, and Risk.

I was really into baseball growing up. I collected random memorabilia from the minor league games I went to and clippings from magazines and newspapers. I still have programs from various baseball games I've been to (some autographed), the front page of the newspaper when Cal Ripken Jr. became baseball's new Iron Man, and various recovered foul balls, some with faded autographs of obscure players who never made it.

I used to collect odd rocks from all the places I've been. From red rocks from Colorado's Garden of the Gods to polished down shells from Florida beaches. Pebbles from Lake Michigan to bits of bright pink feldspar from New Jersey. My mom threw them all out because rocks belong outside, LOL.

My dad collected coins from his work travels as a construction engineer. He had a nice collection of coins from countries like Bahrain, Jordan, Aruba, India, and Greece. I took his collection and grew it with my own coins from countries like Taiwan, Japan, Iceland, Canada, and Denmark. I've since passed my collection to my oldest son to continue.

My mom had a nice stamp collection that I also continued as a kid. I'd collect cool looking stamps that we got in the mail and add them to the collection. I've also passed this collection on to my son, who likes to add to it from time to time.

It was the 80's and 90's, and everyone drank lots of soda. I got in the habit of collecting the tabs, then stringing them up on strings to make big gaudy necklaces.

As a nerdy kid, I read a lot and dreamed of one day having a personal library room. I began collecting books and lining them up on shelves. I never got to the point of a dedicated library room full of books, but I have a pretty impressive Kindle library now.

I kept a "cabinet of curiosities" as a kid. I'd add odd knickknacks whenever I came across something interesting. Some things I had: an empty can of Crystal Pepsi, some prehistoric fossils, old bones of a small animal I found in the forest, an illusion box, a preserved scorpion, Chinese health balls, a ticket stub from a Cranberries concert in 1995, a replica of a Roman coin, etc.