Free Stuff by Gail Steketee

must be removed from their typical use. This feature was made abundantly clear to me in college when I visited a friend's dorm room and sat down next to a pile of Marvel Comics still in their wrappers. I pulled one out and started reading it, only to be physically assaulted when my friend's roommate arrived and saw what I was doing. They were, he informed me in no uncertain terms, not meant to be read! Another feature of collecting is that the objects are organized in some way. In one of our first studies, we visited a woman who described herself as a pack rat, but most of her home was spotless and not only uncluttered but almost empty. In her basement, however, she had every newspaper clipping about the British royal family from every major newspaper in the United States. Boxes of these clippings were stacked to the ceiling and arranged in rows by year and family member.
    The key features that define a collection seem to be that it involves more than one thing, the things have to be related somehow, and the things have to be acquired and organized in a certain way. That means the dozen pens and pencils in my desk drawer are not a collection because I simply dump them there whenever I find myself with another writing implement, and when I need to, I use them. But if I actively sought them out and acquired them, carefully organized them, and never or rarely used them (and didn't allow anyone else to use them either), they could be a collection. A collector, then, is anyone who has a collection.
    Collectors come in all types and ages. Researchers in the field say that nearly all children collect things, sometimes beginning as early as age three. Not coincidentally, it is at that time that children begin to understand possessive pronouns such as "mine" and "yours." Interestingly, children's use of the word "mine" seems to occur before their use of the word "yours," usually between the ages of two and two and a half. When "yours" first enters the vocabulary, it is often in an attempt to convince someone that they already have something and should not pursue "mine."
    In general, the knowledge that someone can own something reflects a sophisticated self-understanding. Children's first use of "mine" is frequently associated with physical aggression to get or retain a possession, but early use of possessive pronouns is also associated with more sharing behavior later on. Most children younger than two don't have a clear understanding of ownership. *
    Passionate collectors spend a great deal of time doing things related to their collections. Exactly what they do has been a subject of interest to scholars studying collecting. According to some scholars, collectors follow a series of steps in collecting. The first of these is setting a goal of what to collect. Once this decision has been made, planning for the acquisition begins. A byproduct of the planning process is fantasizing about the object. The fantasies increase the object's subjective value and give it a magical quality, and soon the value of the object outstrips and becomes disconnected from any functional utility it may have. Next comes the hunt, frequently the most pleasurable part of collecting. Many collectors shift from a self-focused state to what some have described as a "flow state," a mental state in which the person is so absorbed in the activity that he or she is unaware of his or her surroundings—commonly experienced by an athlete at the height of physical exertion or by someone immersed in a game or project.
    Watching a passionate collector at a flea market makes it clear that his or her state of consciousness is altered during "the hunt." The person has little appreciation for anything going on around him or her; only the pursuit matters. When the acquisition occurs, it is accompanied by a wave of euphoria and appreciation of the object's features, which become part of the "story" of the acquisition. Finally, the excited collector catalogs the object and adds