why collecting sucks I neither collect nor think highly of people who do. When you look beyond the insipid ego masturbation of having the largest or most unique collection of something, the hobby becomes a dead water eddy on the river of consumerism. The claim of preserving history is a cop-out: creation and destruction make history, not collection. Collectors only make history when they appear in Chuck Shepherd's News of the Weird or when they write books about themselves, like Malcolm Forbes did. If those who fail to study history are doomed to repeat it, those who collect history are doomed to be left out of it.
Let's examine the two types of collecting and the fatal flaws of each:

Collecting Usable Objects
The rarer of the two. Usable object collectors ignore the purpose of the items they collect, thus reducing their impact on society. A good example: the Cabbage Patch Doll. Many collectors bought them and never opened them, expecting the value to increase. Every child who did not receive one, and therefore has no memories of enjoying the doll, will be less inclined to become an adult collector and purchase one. When the collector removed the doll from its purpose, the doll became nothing but cloth and plastic and will remain so until some little girl or boy buys it at the thrift store.

Collecting Useless Objects
Most collections fall into this category. Often, the object had a purpose, was used for its purpose, and then fell into the hands of a collector who stashed it in a box in the attic. This is all harmless fun but really a waste of space. Once an object has made its impact on history (i.e., is consumed), we may destroy it without fear of losing that impact. Coca-Cola changes their bottle shapes every few years, but the shape of the bottle in 1957 is only important in the effect it had on the shape of the bottle today. Items such as baseball cards stand as the most heinous examples of this category: produced solely for collectors, they provide no useful purpose in society. Collecting can be a valid hobby: If you collect beer cans and then make furniture out of them, you have participated in the creative/destructive process. Collectors need to make the move to "use" instead of "save" in order to get more out of their hobby than cocktail lounge chatter.