ABSTRACT
Approximately 30 per cent of British adults currently engage in collecting, and since the 1970s their collections have increasingly comprised mass-produced objects (Pearce 1998: 176). Collecting is clearly a significant aspect of contemporary consumer culture and for this reason it is worthy of study. Much of the consumer research literature focuses on the importance of collecting for the individual actor, the collector (see Belk 1982, 1995; Belk et al. 1988 and 1991; Belk and Wallendorf 1997; Guerzoni and Troilo 1998). Some authors acknowledge that voluntary organizations such as collectors’ clubs ‘serve to reinforce the social and psychological significance of collecting’, although the impact that these organizations and their activities have on the collected objects themselves is left unexplored (e.g. Belk et al. 1991: 187). A number of studies have used ethnographic research methods to investigate the activities that take place within collectors’ clubs. Good examples within sociology include Fine’s (1987) study of mushroom collecting and Olmsted’s (1988) on gun collecting, and within museum studies, Martin’s (1999) analysis of popular collecting 1 via the British Beer-mat Collectors’ Society, the United Kingdom Spoon Collectors’ Club and the Leicestershire Collectors’ Club. Taken together, these studies contribute to our understanding of the social practices involved in creating a sense of community among particular groups of collectors. However, like Belk et al. (1991) they too leave unexplored the processes in which natural things such as mushrooms and mundane artefacts such as beer-mats, spoons and guns are conceived of and sustained as collectable objects.
