Category: collecting

You want minimalism? Look elsewhere. I love my stuff. This category includes posts about bills and coins, books (including books in languages I can’t read), rocks and minerals, small little bowls, embroidered patches, and animal figurines. Plus whatever turns up on Carousell and catches my eye.

“I don’t always send snail mail…

…but when I do, I use as many old stamps as I can get my hands on.” —Mom

Here are stamps from 2002, 2004, 2006, and 2012. (Because honestly, who restocks their stationery drawer in odd-numbered years?)

Wait, hang on, that Elvis one is from 1993! We Wertses had that stamp several years before we had email!

It’s not worth anything, though; I checked. Apparently the 1993 Elvis stamp was really popular, so the US Postal service printed tons and tons of them. Which is probably (part of) why the Werts house still had some in 2016.*

The Wertses aren’t the only ones to affix ridiculous numbers of stamps to things, though. I think the Hobors still hold the record.

 

*Update: Mom says at least some of these stamps (including the Elvis one) came from me! Apparently I gave her a bunch of stamps when I left the US in 2008 and knew I would not be able to use them to mail things from Singapore.

The curse of the invariably heavy suitcases

Books and rocks are just about the heaviest things one could imagine bringing back from a vacation, and yet books and rocks are exactly what we brought back from our latest trip to the opposite side of the planet.

In fact, bringing back books and/or rocks from trips is fairly typical for us. What made this trip’s haul particularly absurd was that the books were about rocks.

Coins collected in Colorado

As is my habit, I brought back coins and bills from my trip.

I’m now only missing one out of 100 state quarters collected from circulation since 1999 (one for each state and for each of the two mints, the one in Philadelphia and the one in Denver). It was always harder for me to collect Denver coins when I lived in the Southeast and the Northeast, but unsurprisingly, in Denver there were a lot of Denver coins.

I made a bunch of squashed pennies in tourist machines in various places.

I traded with my mom’s friend who we were staying with to get money from Uruguay, Brazil, and several other countries.

Cheap used books from Colorado

I purposely did not go in any used bookstores while I was in the U.S. (though I admit I was tempted). Still, somehow I wound up returning from Denver to Singapore with these 21 used books. I bought them at two thrift stores where I went to buy pants. (Trousers? Whatever.)

These books cost me less than US$23.00 in total. (For the sake of comparison, note that the website of the most prominent bookstore in Singapore, Kinokuniya, lists new copies of the hardcover Four for the equivalent of about US$19.00.)

From a content standpoint, the book I’m most excited about is probably the psychology textbook. From a collecting standpoint, I’m most excited about Wolf Wing and the Percy Jackson books, because they match books I already own.

Two jade animals

In Singapore, there are many jade and other carved stone figurines available, especially of the 12 Chinese zodiac animals, because many people practice feng shui.

I seldom see stone elephants, though, certainly not in this form, with the trunk turned to the side.

The other animal is a mythical thingy with a lot of different names. The main Wikipedia entry is at Pixiu. It has wings and one horn, and it goes without saying it’s lucky or whatever.

There’s nothing in the picture for scale, but these things are tiny.

I bought them at Naga Arts and Antiques at Tanglin Shopping Centre.

Two Books by Peter Walsh

It’s All Too Much was written before the obnoxiously titled Does This Clutter Make My Butt Look Fat, and seemed a lot more useful.

Both books were written in a tone I found slightly annoying. It was a little too personal and informal. There were many pointed rhetorical questions. I guess I would have preferred a more analytical, objective style.

It’s All Too Much had some useful advice and did inspire me to clean out a few things. The other book convinced me that I should make the effort to buy groceries at the store that’s inconveniently on the other side of a steep flight of stairs and eat at home more often.

Continue reading Two Books by Peter Walsh